OK, I admit that I was one of the millions who watched the FIFA World Cup final yesterday between Spain and the Netherlands. Spain won the match 1-0 in extra time.

More people watch the World Cup final than watch the Super Bowl. Soccer, also called “futball” in most places (that don’t have a USA zip code), is the most-watched sport in the world.

I am not a big soccer fan, but I have watched several World Cup matches this year even after the USA was eliminated. I enjoy the close matches – the extra periods and the shootouts. I also like the fact that there are not any commercials when they are playing. The sport has not been Americanized that far just yet.

It seemed to me that yesterday’s final was a pretty physical match with lots of “Yellow Cards.” A yellow card is a caution to a player. There aren’t any penalty yards marked off for a yellow card, although if the infraction is major, a player can get a “Red Card” which means you are done and your team loses a player.

Some commentators who know more about the sport than I said it was a poorly played match. I have no idea. 

The players also seemed to be copying the play of NBA basketball players or maybe NFL wide receivers– complaining every time they were touched or bumped by an opponent and crying in extreme pain and grabbing their leg when they were knocked down. Not many of the soccer players have the “flop” perfected just yet. I suggest they watch a few more NBA games to perfect this.

ESPN did a pretty good job in televising the World Cup. They needed something positive to make us forget about the LeBron James soap opera last week.

Although I know some of the rules in FIFA World Cup soccer, most of the announcers were a little weak on explaining the rules of the game so everyone could understand what was happening. The announcers seemed to think that everyone watches and knows soccer here in the USA. That’s far from the case.

The way matches are timed is another thing that is weird – with time added for “stoppages” at the end of the period. Why not just stop the clock when someone is injured and start it when play resumes? Maybe that would be too much Americanization of the sport?

Most people learned about vuvuzelas during the World Cup – you know the horns that are blown by the fans during the matches. They sound cool. The sound is relaxing – so much that they helped me doze just a little when the game was a little slow. Maybe I should buy a CD with vuvuzela music to help me go to sleep?

The USA is catching up to the world in soccer little by little, but not quite as much as the world has caught up the USA in basketball. Maybe one of these days we’ll make it to the World Cup finals. Maybe. That would tick off the rest of the world. When they do (if I am still living), I would buy a vuvuzela to celebrate.

But in my home American football still rules. At the end of this month, NFL training camps start. Are you ready for some football????