First off, I must congratulate Italy for winning the World Cup. Now on to the head butt heard round the world. I am not a soccer expert, but I heard enough commentary and saw enough soccer the past few weeks to know that France’s Zidane is one of the best soccer players in the world. That being said, his head butt today resulting in a red card has to pass Roger Clemens throwing a bat at Mike Piazza in the World Series as the best random act of violence in a championship game. The bat throwing was not in a game seven which the world cup final is akin to. Furthermore, Zidane did it in overtime and was only provoked by someone trash talking towards him. Which leads me to the question what language do soccer players from different countries trash talk in? English? Italian? French? Spanish? Inquiring minds want to know.         

            Now on to the shitty shoot out concept. All the analogies have been made already, but I will repeat a few again: it is like deciding the World Series with a home run derby, the NBA finals with a free throw or dunk contest, the Super bowl with a field goal contest, or the Stanley Cup with a shoot out. At least the NHL has the good sense to relegate the shoot out to the meaningless regular season and does not use it when the games actual matter. You have a soccer game for 120 minutes and resolve it with a skills competition… it is just silly. I don’t care if it takes 10 overtimes, all the players passed out on the field writhing in pain like they are on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day, and the game ending with the only the goalies still standing and running back and forth across the field trying to score on each other; to win the fucking World Cup you should have to score a goal during actual play.