Most American men watched the lads in the World Cup and had the same three-pronged reaction to the lads participating in "The Bachelorette'': For everyone involved, it goes on too damn long.
- These fellows are about to plummet from planet-wide stardom to back-to-Podunk obscurity.
- At least everybody gets to score ... once. But it was an education, right? To wit (To Whitt?) ... The Top 10 Things We Learned From The World Cup:
1. The vuvuzela makes for charming audio on the television. But we would no more want to sit in a stadium between a pair of vuvuzela blowers than we would like to sit in a press box between Human Vuvuzelas Stephen A. Smith and Skip Bayless. (Been there, done that.)
2. When other countries' anthems were being played, we Ugly Americans tried our best by singing along ... by repeating the name of the country in sing-song. "Oh, Netherlands, Ne-THER-land, Yeah, NE-ther-LAAAAANDS!''
3. Landon Donovan is the greatest-ever U.S. soccer player. It's wonderful that he's accomplished that feat while sharing an athletic resemblance to our own Richie Whitt: short, slow and balding is no way to go through life, sons ... unless you are either a world-class soccer player or an alternative-weekly sportswriter.
4. Speaking of ink-stained wretches: Sports Illustrated's Peter King is one of America's greatest football writers ... and one of Africa's worst football writers.
5. With all due respect to the announcers' athleticism of soccer players ("If Zachreid Johanssening played in the NFL, he'd be a wide receiver type'') ... Hey, if Zachreid Johanssening played in the NFL, he'd be a placekicker or a punter. If ALL the guys in the World Cup played in the NFL, they'd ALL be placekickers or punters.
6. A human being can get nudged in the ankle and - because in soccer, apparently, the ankle-bone-is-connected-to-the-testicle-bone-and-the-testicle-bone-is-connected-to-the-face-bone - that human being can sling himself to the ground while holding his testicles and his face. Then he can get stretchered-off the pitch ... and then he can return seconds later, fully healed.
Was he ever really hurt? These guys sustain all their injuries when they sling themselves to the ground, we think. And their injuries are grass stains.
7. Americans think all sports can only survive if they become Americanized. My fellow Americans: That sport has thrived forever without us. ... without our care and without our participation. Suddenly, we're decent-enough at it to get to the knockout round - and we think they should change the rules for us? Bigger goals! No more offsides! Let 'em hit each other!
A billion non-Americans CAN be wrong. But they don't care if we think so.
8. Tying England? In the end, our tie was like kissing your sister - and because it was England, a tie is like kissing your sister and discovering that her breath tastes like Shepherd's Pie, bangers and fags.
9. Trivia question: Who won? (Hasn't the final result already slipped many minds?)
10. This idea that the U.S. should be 100 times better than Abbanzadia because our population (and prospective pool of soccer players) is 300 million and Abbanzadia's population (and pool) is three million would be more sound if our pool wasn't polluted with football, baseball, basketball and whatnot.
Our American children play soccer for butterfly-chasing exercise ... and then move on to more serious pursuits, like trying to get on "American Idol,'' dominating at "Farmville'' and teenage pregnancy.
Catch the Fish on DallasBasketball.com and follow him on Twitter at FishSports
