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How can you take seriously a sport where the officials run around in their shorts? Authority figures should never expose their knees. Some official waves the ultimate seal of official outrage at you, the Red Card, and you can win the day everytime by saying something like "Cute knees you got there, Wolfgang. Shapely calves too."

And these players fall down, whine and cry a whole lot. Sort of like Florida Democrats.

Soccer needs to change in order to be palatable to American tastes. For starters, they should wear sports bras. Secondly, they need to have a televised draft. Soccer needs somebody like Mel Kiper so we'll know who the good ones are. And a penalty box. More sports ought to have penalty boxes where a team must play shorthanded because somebody acted like a jerk. And there needs to be a steroid controversy. You gotta have one these days to be a truly legit sport.

And soccer needs more rioting in the stands. That's what the people pay their good money to see - a real spirited donnybrook to interrupt the tedium happening down on the pitch. Ticket takers should pass out quart bottles of MD20 to every soccer fan over 15 who enters. That should get a few of the hooligans started early. That's the one thing international fans ought to be exporting to Americans and, judging from Cleveland Brown fans, they are making inroads.

I am so tired of hearing all the anti-soccer rhetoric that has been poured out these last few weeks. The cold, hard reality is that an American team worked their butts off and did really well in a truly global competition, winning (at least some) respect from it's peers, and all the fans back home in America can do is snicker and yawn. It's shameful and embarrassing.

First, let's clear up some false rumors and accusations, shall we? First, soccer is for girls. Wrong. Actually, baseball is for girls; it is based on an English school-girl's P.E. activity called "rounders".

Second, soccer is boring and nobody scores. I would love to see baseball or football players even try to keep up the pace of any soccer match for at least one of the two 45 minutes halves. And scoring? Please, baseball games have just as low scores as soccer, and football cheats by giving a one touchdown six points.

Oh, and regarding the comment, "Americans prefer sports that require an opposable thumb". Yes, well, Americans also enjoy NASCAR, where drivers are saved the difficulty of ever making a right turn. Please, you want a pathetic sport, stock car racing is number one in my book.

So, in closing, please give the boys a parade, or some sort of recognition when they come back to America. They really, truly, deserve it.

I would be there, but I now live in England, where soccer, er, "football" is called "The Beautiful Game", which is exactly what it is.