Soccer. Yeah, Soccer.

I love the Olympics. I really do. Who am I kidding? I love almost all sporting events. But here's what I don't love about the Olympics: all of that brotherhood crap. I hate soft focus profiles. I hate that it's supposed to be about something other than winning. Which to me, as a sports fan, is kind of insulting. What makes the Olympics great is the best athletes in the world competing on the biggest stage. It's about winning.

During the Olympics, my favorite events tend to be the "smaller" events. Becuase the networks just throw, say, team handball on at 1:20 AM with an announcing duo consisting of some novice too nervous to blow this gig to have some annoying schtick and one former player or coach to explain the game. And it's great. Because for that one and half hours or whatever, there's nothing bigger than the team handball game between Ukraine and Austria. It's great.

Which brings me to my love of international soccer. Sure, there's a little bit of that sportsmanship and bringing the world together crap for the advertisers, but mainly it's just about the game. Even better, some of the teams (countries) absolutely hate each other. Seriously, ask an Englishman sometime about their nation's proud soccer history against Spain.

Don't forget to duck. And then bring up Argentina.

Or enjoy the Swiss and the Turks getting into a fight after their game today. that's right, Euro 2008 has managed to get the SWISS riled up.



So I've been watching lots of Euro 2008. And it is a lot of fun. If nothing else, it's great to watch teams struggle against their own identity to lose in almost the same way every time.

Then again, every so often, a team like Greece wins the thing. And no one sees it coming. Or the Netherlands comes in and beats the ever-livin' snot out of Italy. And you start to believe maybe this is the time they finally will put it all together.

Or maybe it's just Lucy setting up the football for Charlie Brown one more time.