Like many North Americans, I only tuned into the World Cup in the last half of the final game.

I found it fairly dull. Better than cricket and baseball — but dull. The rules badly need revised. It is unfair to the skilled players to so often decide the outcome by penalty shots or a shoot out.

My main memory of the final is the shocking Zinedane Zidane head-butting of Italian Marco Materazzi. Inexcusable. Any 10-year-old knows not to get provoked by trash talk.

Still, my crowd was mostly cheering for Italy.

Comment:

I agree soccer spends too much time spent between exciting plays, and defending is made too easy. The offside rules are particularly stifling. Basketball is as good as a finesse team sport gets and something that both hockey and soccer can learn from–hockey started to incorporate rules that encourage finesse last season with good results. NA games like football and baseball are unique in that unlike other team sports, individuals have the opportunity to shine built into the rules of the play. You can imagine hockey and soccer teams winning games without great play from stars, but the same cannot be said for baseball and football where quarterbacks and pitchers, sluggers and running backs can and should rule a game altogether.

Rocco, former sports reporter for some podunk rural BC backwater town