Q: "DO YOU HAVE WORLD CUP FEVER?"

A: "No, but I had gonorrhea once."

That has been the response from most Americans when it comes to the FIFA World Cup tournement. There has been many thoughts in the land of punditry as to why the USA is lukewarm on soccer's Super Bowl and on soccer in general. Here is my two-cents.

1- It is a low scoring, very defensive, game. Let's face it, a soccer match looks like an epileptic track meet with no finish line. You'd figure that with a goal that big more goals would be scored, but with the offside rule of soccer (where the offensive player cannot pass the defensive player until the ball is between the goal and the defense) it is next to impossible for any scoring to be generated. Hockey solved that problem by elminating their two-line pass rule to allow the puck to get out of the defensive zone quickly, making more scoring oppurtunities. Soccer needs to do something similar to bring about more goals.

2- Everytime there is minimal contact between players, someone is displaying skills they learned from the William Shatner school of over-acting. Now, I have seen players get injured badly in soccer matches, but most players put on a show to draw a foul. Which brings up...

3- Fouls don't mean squat. Fouls (unless overly bad) only mean a change in possesion. The only time it gets interesting is when the foul occurs near enough to a goal so that maybe - if the stars and planets align just right - a goal might be scored. In basketball a foul means a chance at a couple more buckets. In football it means a loss of yardage. In hockey is means you'll be down a man for two minutes. In baseball it means a fan get a souvenir or a player gets ejected. In soccer...eh...who cares?

4- There is no means for advertisers to exploit consumers through entertaining vehicles known as commericals. Because each half in soccer goes non-stop for forty-five minutes there is no room for commericals. The popularity of soccer in other countries could be attested to the fact that 99.99% of these countries have state-run media outlets, and these outlets don't have to turn a profit. All major American pro-sports have a way to interject commericals so broadcasters can make money. Plus, if you go to commerical, you might miss that ever important GGGOOOOOOOAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL! GOOOOOOOAAAAAAAALLLLLL! In NASCAR if you miss the crash, don't worry. A better one is on the way. Sure you got instant replay, but you can catch the soccer goal on the hightlight reel on ESPN at 7pm Eastern (6pm Central), and get to see the latest, greatest commerical with the hot babe or funny talking animals in it.

And finally, 5- It's more fun to play than watch. I played soccer in school and in the military. It is a demanding sports that requires speed, endurance, and dexterity. It's a good workout. It's why parents get their kids involved, especially the hyperactive one. They get to run around for an hour and a half, which calms them down for twenty minutes (enough for the ride home). To watch soccer on TV, it's like watching a geriatric tennis match in slow motion. The ball goes back and forth, back and forth across the screen without a stop, unless God performs a mircale and the ball finds its way by accident into the net.

Will soccer every become popular in the USA? Only if we continue to refuse to guard the borders.