I've been watching most of the games because my little brother is a huge fan of the World Cup - and a Brasil fanatic at that. I think football is a fun and entertaining sport, but I really hate the way I'm seeing it played and officiated.
First of all, why is it that every single player that falls down has to pretend his leg is broken or something? I've seen more Oscar-winning performances in the last week that at the last Academy Awards. Do the refs really call fouls depending on how bad the player on the ground rolls and moans? Seriously, taking dives like that just seems pathetic and cowardly in the eyes of this American and many more like me. In fact, I was watching the Stanley Cup finals last night, and a guy got a penalty just for taking a dive. What a difference a rule like that would make in the World Cup....
Secondly, what was up with the officiating in that USA-Italy game? The red card on Italy was completely justified - a deliberate elbow to the face that drew blood. But come on, two red cards against the US for slide tackles? Please. Stuff like that has been going on this entire World Cup and is a yellow card at absolute worst. The red card against Pope you could make a case for it's justability since it was a second yellow card, but the first one was just a cheap way to level the playing field. They really did their best to give that game to the Italians, but the US found a way to keep it tied.
If FIFA really wants the United States to become more interested in soccer, and you know they do because of all the money and exposure they would receive, they're going to have to do a lot better than that. There's no way a ref like that should ever be officiating a World Cup match. As Marcella Balboa said at the end of the match, this should be the last game that ref ever does.
Now tell me, does anything I've said even make sense to anyone outside the US? Or are you still baffled why we don't like soccer?