Dear soccer fans,

Hello. I hope this column finds you well, and that you are enjoying your World Cup so far. From the outset, please let me state that while I’m not a soccer fan myself, I’m going to do my level best to see to it this isn’t just another soccer-bashing article.

Because — honestly — I want you to enjoy the World Cup. It’s only every four years so even a FIFA illiterate like me can suck it up once an Olympiad or so and let you have your fun. Besides, by this point, what more can be said by soccer-hating American sports columnists that hasn’t been said a thousand times before?

They say that if you put enough monkeys at enough computers, eventually they’d type all of Shakespeare’s works. But it would take one monkey about an hour-and-a-half to write your typical “Soccer’s dull and there isn’t enough scoring” piece. The “I Hate Soccer” column has become to sportswriters what airline food jokes, drunk driving bits and “The Professor could build a nuclear reactor out of coconuts, why couldn’t he fix the damn boat and get them off the island?” routines are to comics. Proof positive of a hack at work.

And to be perfectly honest, those are the only reasons I’m not soccer bashing here. Because this is a sacrifice for me. Something I do in the interest of promoting peace and understanding. To me, not using the occasion of the World Cup to make fun of your sport is like someone saying, “He’s got good ball control” and Michael Scott not saying, “That’s what she said.”

Or to make a different “The Office” analogy, it’s like Jim Halpert laying off Dwight Shrute. Because Dwight is the personification of international soccer: smug, prissy, humorless, self-serious and utterly incapable of making fun of itself.

And for that, I blame you. The soccer fan.

Maybe I’ve been working comedy clubs and writing wiseassy columns too long, but I like the fact that there are fewer and fewer sacred cows left in this world. The president, religion, sex, race … are all fair game now. And that’s a good thing. That’s progress.

But try poking fun of the World Cup, and soccer fans will treat it like blasphemy. Say you think there’s way too much inaction for your liking and they’ll declare holy war. Repeat the excellent point Bob Ryan once made in The Boston Globe … that the Cup itself should have an asterisk on it that says “The nation bearing this trophy acknowledges they won it is because the United States’ best athletes are off playing other sports” — and soccer fans will act like you published a cartoon bearing the likeness of the Prophet Renaldo. And if so, it’d be wise to keep your head on a swivel.

I just don’t know of any other sport’s fan base that takes itself so supremely seriously. And I watch golf, fer cryin’ out loud. I mean, sure, golf can get pretty full of itself. Sitting through Jim Nantz’ opening monologue on Masters Sunday about the dogwoods and azaleas in bloom and the echoes of the ghosts of legends past wafting through the pines of Amen Corner without throwing up, should be used as a fraternity hazing ritual.
And believe me, I’ve had more than my share of non-golf fans ask me how I can sit through hours of Phil Mickelson walking in circles staring at putts. I get that. Just like I get that a Major League Baseball game is three hours of guys standing around scratching their nuts. Or that an NFL game is 15 minutes of actual game play crammed into 3½ hours and the rest is all promos for “How I Met Your Mother.” I just happen to love them. The difference between me and the soccer zealots I know is that if they don’t love my sports as well, I don’t accuse them of a hate crime.

For example, take ESPN’s coverage. The Worldwide Leader is an empire that was built on the snarky, winking, smart-alecky sports report. From Dan Patrick to Craig Kilborn to Chris Berman to Stuart Scott, they’ve spent decades doing pioneering work in the field of quip-filled sarcasm to poke fun at all sports. But whom do they send to cover the Cup? Bob Ley. The reverent, uberserious journalist who’s a fireside and a sweater with elbow patches away from hosting a show on PBS and whose hushed tone of soccer worship makes Nantz sound like Tommy Heinsohn.

It’s actually funny to watch ESPN try to cover this most non-ESPNish of events. Because while they might not have invented the highlight package, they did to it what Henry Ford did to the internal combustion engine: they’ve mass-produced it. The WWL has turned following sports into an endless series of dunks, touchdown bombs, home runs and Web Gems. And now they’re covering a sport that by its nature is meant to be watched in its entirety and doesn’t produce more than a handful of red star moments a game. Unless you want to hear Stu yelling “… and the Ghana middie kicks it backwards 40 yards to his own goalkeep and they regroup, y’all. Can I get a ‘Boo-yah’?!”

Anyway, back to you, soccer fan. It would go a long way with the rest of us if your sport was fair game for mockery like the rest of them. If you weren’t so bloody sensitive about it. If you could stop acting like the Knights of the Templar trying to protect the Holy Grail from Indiana Jones.

For instance, you can quit calling me a Xenophobe. I’m not sure exactly what a “xeno” is, but unless it’s my wife’s mother or a scary clown, I promise you I’m not afraid of it. If you’re saying I hate soccer because I’m an ugly American, maybe that’s a fair point. I had a couple of friends tell me last week I’d appreciate soccer more if I’d traveled overseas more. And they could be right. The only countries I’ve ever been to are the ones mentioned in the Beach Boys “Kokomo.” Unless you count Canada, and even the most patriotic Canadian doesn’t consider the place between my hotel in Montreal and the nudie bars on St. Catherine’s St. to be part of Canada. And none of those places are exactly hotbeds of futbol.

And I have to admit, that all the internationalism of the World Cup does have a certain appeal for me. I respect what you say that most of the civilized world is riveted to the games. (And I won’t add that 100 percent of the uncivilized world is too; soccer is king in the countries who want to destroy us and who put the Westminster Dog Show on the Food Network.) I suppose I like it any time the countries of the world get together for some reason other than annihilating one another is a good thing. And I do get caught up in all the pomp and circumstances around the tournament. The worldwide appeal of the thing. The international flavor of it. I even love the Vuvuzelas, though I have to confess that it’s partly because the people of South Africa enjoy them so much and partly because the constant Vuvuzela noise is driving all the Lord Fussypants from Europe out of their skulls. It’s all part of the appeal to me.

So like you, I am following the World Cup. Sort of. It’s a fun summer diversion. A reality show. Like “Hell’s Kitchen” but with more angry Brits. All I’m asking is that you lighten up on us non-fans and let us have as much fun mocking you and the World Cup as you have following it.

Oh, and also, don’t expect me to actually sit through any of the games, thanks. I’m sorry, but soccer really is kind of boring to watch.

Sincerely,
Jerry Thornton.