Not even Adu can rescue soccer

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By Joshua D. Scroggin

When I was 14, I could barely dribble a basketball with my strong hand, let alone play professionally—but at least I wasn’t buying into the sham they call world-class soccer.

Two weeks ago, 14-year-old soccer phenom Freddy Adu played his first game for D.C. United of Major League Soccer, and to no surprise, he didn’t Adu anything.

He came into the second half of United’s 2-1 blowout of last year’s MLS champion—the San Jose something-or-other—and touched the ball a time or two. He certainly didn’t score or even come close.

Dude, he’s only 14. What did you expect? He’s out there playing with grown men in their 20s and 30s.

And honestly, only somewhere around 1.27 percent of soccer players ever get to score anyway.

But ninth-graders aren’t usually major factors in professional sports, and Adu’s feat is unheard of in any sport this side of Michelle Wie (and outside of gymnastics).

But Adu is what soccer people are hoping will bring in the millions of those Americans who are ignorant to the greatness of soccer and make them instant fans.

It sounds like a good idea—bring in the most-hyped high-schooler the “sport” has ever seen and worship him like the messiah.

Michael Jordan turned basketball into a culture. Wayne Gretzky made the mainstream notice hockey. And Tiger Woods blah, blah, blah for golf.

Except in the case of the people v. soccer and Adu, the public seems to have forgotten one mildly important factor.

Soccer sucks.

Include me as one of those who forgot. I watched Adu’s nationally televised debut—even though hatred for soccer runs deeper in my soul than the roots of a giant sequoia. I was fooled by the hype.

But instead of polaroiding me into soccer’s No. 1 fan, the game just reminded me why I hate it in the first place.

World-class soccer players are the dirtiest, unsportsman-like cheaters in all of professional “sports.”

At every chance they got to push each other, pull each other, hit or kick each other, they took it.

Pelvic thrusts from behind caused so many turnovers, I thought I was watching a dirty south rap video.

And the referees very rarely called a foul. One red card in the game came when a player accidentally slapped another one in the face.

The offender was trying to sprint away from the defender, and during the defender’s attempt to catch up, the offender’s natural running motion brought an open-palm spank into the defender’s cheek.

Seemingly straight out of the cartoons, it truly was a case of someone’s face hitting someone else’s fist. But the slapper got the hook—even though he probably had more than a few blue bruises on his butt cheeks.

I was so disgusted by the dirty play, the lack of scoring and the horrendous officiating that when the clock finally stopped, I was ready to party like I did back in 1999.

But when the clock stopped, the game did not.

Instead, another clock started that said extra time, and the announcer said there were four more minutes.

But when the extra-time clock reached four minutes, the game didn’t stop then either. It took another three seconds for this atrocity to get off my television. Three seconds too much.

What kind of a sport doesn’t stop when the clock stops?

The most popular sport in the world, that’s what kind.

Adu will eventually score, and he might eventually become the best soccer player in history. But as long as there are Americans with enough hands to dribble a basketball, no one will care.