Soccer / Football Needs Luis Suarez

America, the richest country in the world, the trendsetter for all important things, could care less about soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls it in an effort to snazz up the boring sport. And boring it is, people scurrying around a large plot of grass, kicking a ball and butting it with their heads. Did they forget they have hands, and arms that were given to them that they may grasp and grip and wrangle. We defy anyone to securely hold a medium size ball shape without using their hands. The game is okay for the kids, and girls, really what’s the harm in letting them cavort a bit, and no one feels too bad about losing a game where the score rarely gets above a point or two. The game is also appropriate for the third world poor, who can often only barely afford to own one ball in the whole province and sometimes get by booting the inflated rumen of a dead goat, why take that simple pleasure away from them? Sure, it’s a cute sport, what with the back flips and the quaint little red cards and stuff but it will never really catch hold here in the states until it shows more pizzaz.

And that’s why Luis Suarez is just what the lackluster sport needs. Think of what Tyson did for boxing, or the impact of the Purple People eaters on American football, Tonya Harding on figure skating, Gordie Howe on hockey. What soccer needs is more gristle, and biting and scratching, think the MMA had a meteoric rise in popularity because they served exquisite tea in fine china on little lace doilies? Not on your broken leg. They bite and kick and twist and gouge and wrest and poke and punch to their hearts content, or until the bleeding victor is carried from the cage on the shoulders of tattooed fellow gladiators.

Let Suarez back in the game. Let him gnaw and maul and trip and torque, tear, abrade, avulse, incise, masticate and munch on opponents until they return the favor and join the fray. Enough of the mamby pamby nature of the game, let some people out on the field who really want to win and will go to any lengths to do so, lying, cheating, stealing, maiming, ridiculing  and no holds barred. It’s the American way. Maybe then soccer will be a sport worth watching.

Now if we could just get those mundane curlers to hurl the stone with a will we might have something.