Haters Gonna Hate: 11 Reasons Why I'm Glad the World Cup Is Over

Yesterday, Germany capped Argentina 1-0, and with that the 2014 World Cup concluded with a low score that couldn't possibly be more appropriate. The final/only goal came in extra time and though I'll admit it was a great play, it also took 113 minutes to finally happen. When you have to wait that long for something exciting, you're either watching soccer or bought a ticket to The Amazing Spider Man 2. Either way, the ending hardly seems like a fair payoff.

I definitely got my fill while it lasted, though. After a long break from years of soccer dormancy I was blasted with coverage from the Internet, to print, to TV. It wasn't quite Super Bowl-level, but it still stretched out over an agonizing 31 days. That sheer quantity eventually forced unwanted intrusion into my life, even though I often tried to avoid it.

Still there's one good argument that seemingly crushes all others: Who cares? If it bothers you so much, change the channel. That's totally fair. But, that being said, someone like me falls through the cracks as I have to have at least a baseline idea of what's going on for this site. Consequently, I have to follow (to an extent) and ended up watching a good chunk of this month-long event as a result. Eventually, I did turn it off and staring at that blank TV screen was about twice as thrilling as anything I saw during the tournament. I'll be the first person to admit that there are things wrong with the sports I like. But nothing can compare to soccer. Not even close. Here's 11 Reasons Why I'm Glad the World Cup is Over.

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I'm one of those people who understands that fairweather fans pay the bills. When the few teams I actually root for do well, and become inundated with an uncommitted fanbase, I accept it because those patrons now flooding the stadium will give them the funding and exposure for some big free agents, recruits, etc. It's a fair trade-off.

That being said, there's not much to respect of them on an individual basis. They just follow a crowd and do what's popular because that's all they know how to do in life. We all have friends who cheer the good times without riding out the bad ones, and it's phony as phuck, but you don't say anything because you'd prefer to keep your friends. The World Cup is that on a nationwide scale. The entire nation gets decked out to go to massive public viewing parties and follow the lead of the guy who most looks like Uncle Sam. Ask them to rattle off some players and when you hear "Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard and...Landon Donovan" boom! the point is made.

There seems to be a constant tug-of-war in the brains of soccer fans, and anybody not deemed worthy to talk about the sport is the rope in the middle. Some fans complain that soccer doesn't get enough coverage then, when you fill that void, they get mad that you have the stones to infringe upon their game. I don't know about other people on this site, but I'm like a dog that doesn't know what you want from him. Sit. Stay. Don't write about soccer you ignorant American asshole.

I can't make sense of any of that.

In fairness, I don't know if these people are from other countries. It's kind of hard to tell when you're just entering a fake name. But they lecture like they are, and that works for the sake of this slide.

One thing it seems like soccer fans lecture non-fans about is that they don't "get it." I watched several contests. Guys ran back and forth, kicked a ball, and occasionally got kicked in the right shin causing them to fall down and grab their left shoulder. Once in a while the ball went in, the announcer went absolutely ape shit, and then a ref mistakenly whistled it offsides even though it was only one in four calls he had to make all game. It's a very minimalist concept. Nothing's going over my head.

And as for those Portugal-U.S. comments, feel free to come back around.

Since there's not much offense in the game, ties are commonplace. Normal game? Tie, 0-0. Each team gets a lucky bounce? Tie, 1-1. Each team has an offensive explosion? Tie, 1-1. A lot of soccer fans seem to embrace ties. I've even see people call them "thrillers." But when the knockout stage comes around all a sudden soccer fans embrace wins and losses. It's at that point that the rest of the world comes to the obvious realization that outcomes with decisions are superior when you set aside time from your day to watch other people compete.

At that point shootouts are welcomed, and even though those appear initially exciting, you quickly realize how awful they are as well. Let's get this straight, I watch for 90 minutes (plus whatever amount of time they don't tell me about), followed by 30 minutes of extra time, with little-to-no-scoring, and then all a sudden it's a goooooaaaalllll-fest where the losing team will be the one who's goalie guessed incorrectly?

Again, feel free to chip in with what I'm missing here.

You can literally watch a 15-second highlight of soccer, and not miss anything of importance. When ESPN does show clips there's an abundance of missed passes, goals that really weren't that close, and moments where people cheer but you can't figure out why. Basically, it's not a game built for condensed footage.

Still, this is one point I can compromise on because when the other option is endless speculation over an NFL (or NBA) season that's still months away, all of a sudden soccer coverage doesn't seem so bad.

It's not tactical, it's fucking stupid. It's embarrassing for the sport. Every time somebody doing their best to get into this *looks at self* sees five minutes of "action" (a couple close scores, a few nifty moves, etc.) a guy "dives" grabs the wrong part of his body, cries like an eight-year-old, and you sit there in front of the TV like "Oh, right. This is why I hate this bullshit." There is no worse ambassador for the game.

It just baffles me that the sport is so broken, they just stare at these guys and 15 seconds later they run around, not only with no injury, but also no shame. Nobody even cares anymore. Refs don't complain. Fans don't complain. Announcers hardly acknowledge it. Two minutes later the same player tries the same thing.

Unfortunately, I can't really show you any examples from the World Cup because FIFA basically wiped them off the Internet. So instead I chose a Neymar flop against Mexico during last year's FIFA Confederations Cup because he--well--broke his vertebrae in the most gruesome actual injury of the WC against Colombia.

Take it as your "Don't Cry Wolf" lesson of the day, but at least an X-ray verified he wasn't faking that one.

After this one you're reading, of course.

The biggest column that made waves over the duration of the World Cup came from Ann Coulter (at least here in the U.S.). Her first column is here, and her follow-up here. The first one is a joke, the second one an easy gimme column, because it is fucking hard to come up with ideas all the time.

That being said, she did what she does, which is link everything to partisan politics in an effort to keep playing a character, and cash the easiest checks known to man. When 90 percent of the readers appear to be people trying to get themselves worked up, you have perfected your art. Her same-thing-for-the-last-decade column sparked stupid response, after stupid response from people looking to whoop the ass of a straw man and (intentionally?) disregard the fact that she was kidding in the process.

I never thought I'd find myself defending Ann Coulter (or, talking about politics) but at least she's putting her name on it. That's more than can be said for people saying things twice as bad because it's the Internet and they're incognito. Again, she's taking a public angle and not hiding behind a message board pseudonym, a Twitter handle, or some other untraceable means. Watching people gang up on others anonymously via the Internet somehow manages to be even more obnoxious than the trolliest of pundits.

And at least now we'll get a (small) break from the totally pointless overlap of politics and sports.

That brings us to people getting outraged over nothing. For whatever reason that I'm too lazy to strike-up a half-assed theory on, soccer fans go off easily and travel in clusters. Ya got strength in numbers, it's the most popular sport on the planet. But one way or another when a guy gets the "soccer hater" snowball rolling, it becomes an Internet avalanche.

Above is a somewhat polite comment (never been called Mr. Evans, before) even though it's backhanded as hell. Of course it's over something totally inconsequential. If you can't use "fish in a barrel" to describe a penalty kick, then that idiom needs to be retired because A.) It's not literal. And B.) There's no need for a 'B.'

If it helps I also hate free throws, extra points and think the field goal post is too wide for deep attempts. And though any of those can decide a game, they're never the only scores of a contest (besides the occasional 12-9 kick-fest). The day a regulation NBA game ends 1-0 and is decided on a single free throw, I'll give Ronaldo fat Ronaldo one chance to kick a soccer ball at my nuts from point blank.

No doubt, you're not going to find a better deal than that.

One thing that I've noticed from my soccer friend fans is that they try to convince you that what you're watching is "beautiful." As if you can be persuaded to like a sport through debate.

There, above, you have pretty much everything that sums up the stupidity of the actual game. A 0-0 tie over an hour-and-a-half in. Extra time (why even have a clock?). A wide open miss (so few opportunities, and they still miss the easy ones making me think strategy is overrated). All that was missing was a bad offsides call to erase the only tally of the game.

That was in the most exciting match of the year (from the standpoint of an American) and it still sucked more than a Dyson, Jenna Jameson, and the new Transformers combined. That being said, if I somehow had infinite power and could press a button to wipe soccer from the earth, would I do it? ...No. I wouldn't totally eliminate it from existence.

And that's probably the best compliment I'll ever allow myself to give soccer.