“There is a point of view among some soccer fans that the sport is unassailably other. I assume that since I used the word ‘soccer’ in the first sentence, those fans are gone now, and I can talk to the rest of you. Because here’s the thing: The idea that the ineffable foreignness of soccer is best left to continents like Europe and South America — because all us Yanks will do is take away its beauty, what with our ‘stats’ and ‘analysis’ — is no more than a steaming pile of merde. All those things that go on around the game don’t make it fundamentally different from other sports. It’s an athletic competition, and as such, it has certain things in common with every other type of athletic competition.” Grantland (Video)