>>Soccer is very important in England according to the local news. A soccer game was played on Sunday and the Church of England gave permission to all its churches to reschedule mass to not interfere with the game. Everything has its priorities.
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>>The news said that soccer had also overshadowed the celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Queen Elizabeth. And I thought baseball was important! :)
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>Baseball's importance is way overstated. It is only played reasonably well in what? 4 countries?
>World Cup OTOH is an event where 'world' means what it is supposed to mean (unlike baseball).
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>Soccer is a way of life for most of the world and your comment on those news just shows it.
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>See: http://www.feldstein.net/soccer.asp <g>

Alex;

That was a great joke! A true fan!

I played soccer when I was a teenager. I love to hear it called football, fotball, etc.

On July 4th, 1977, the New York Cosmos played the Los Angeles Aztecs. Georgie Best was an Aztec at that time (an Irish player I know well and a good one – three goals in 90 seconds on one occasion which I saw when he was with the San Jose Earthquakes). The Cosmos were blessed with my favorite player – Pele! Franz Beckenbauer (captain of West German World Cup champions in 1974) had just been hired by the Cosmos and sat on the bench the entire game.

My German brother in law invited me to the game at the Olympic Coliseum with about a dozen of his German buddies. They wanted to see Beckenbauer play. Pele did so many great things and the Los Angeles crowd (including myself) would applaud him. The Germans I was with said, “These Americans have to learn how to be Soccer fans! You never applaud the opposition”! Never applaud Pele? You have to be crazy!

I have a great photo I took (400mm lens ASA 400) of Pele and Georgie Best both about six feet off the ground horizontally with the soccer ball between them and their feet pointed towards each other. That ball got “killed”! What a game! The Cosmos (Pele) won and most of the crowd was happy – except the Germans I was with.

I still appreciate good players and applaud anyone who does anything well. I guess I am not a good “fan”. :)

Tom