I was sitting at a restaurant today and someone asked me "do you like soccer?" I said "No."
Here's my problem with soccer and the world cup.
I'll describe how soccer works, and you tell me if I'm right.
Soccer consists of a team of a bunch of guys, but the total number doesn't matter. All that matters is one guy who stands alone and kicks the ball towards a goal. One guy from the other team of guys stands in that goal and tries to stop it. If the goal tender doesn't stop the ball, the first team wins the soccer game.
If you knew soccer and heard me describe it that way, you'd say "that's not soccer!"
But that's the exact method that decides which team is the best soccer team in the world. Not ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME OF SOCCER. Spain is the "World Champion Soccer Team" and they got that award by playing some other type of "kick the ball in the net" game than soccer.
How the hell do you call that a sport? The Spanish team plays for ties and penalty kicks. They scored only eight goals for the entire tournament. Nullification of the actual playing of the soccer is their strategy. So the best team in the world doesn't "play soccer," they try to keep the other team from being able to play.
Congrats to the World Champs of Penalty Kicks. To the rest of the world, practice your penalty kicks and flopping and whatever else it is besides actually playing soccer that is "the world cup."