http://msn.foxsports.com/soccer/story/5766404
This article really sums it up for me with its opening paragraph: The World Cup is a long, monotonous slog in which the fleeting moments of athletic brilliance are far outweighed by the arbitrary decision-making of referees and the dreadful tie-breaking compromise of penalty kicks.
Exactly. Exactly. Soccer is an incredibly awful sport on so many levels, but I think the most objective proof of this is the heavy reliance it places on referee's calls, and on shootouts.
Whether it's “fun to play” or “fun to watch” or “a good demonstration of athleticism” that's all pretty subjective stuff. Hell, I played soccer growing up, and it's a lot of fun to play. Ultimately the problem is that it doesn't survive the transition from game to sport. When you're just trying to have fun, when one side is obviously better, it's fine. But when the stakes are high, when the competition is fierce, it breaks down. The scores are often so low that one called penalty in the box is all it takes to change the outcome (and that ignores how often prominent players miss games due to cards). Then there's the penalty shootouts. No other major sport resorts to something so gimmicky and contrived (and does it so frequently) to resolve the outcome of the game.
There's a simple reason why Americans aren't good at soccer. We're not so poor that we can't find far better sports to play.