Anne Coulter is an idiot who makes lots of money saying outrageous things. To suggest that a particular sport is contributing to the "moral decline" of the country is ridiculous. Even if one were to accept that, a much better claim could be made for football, which has been shown to cause lasting disabilities to the people who play it. The fact that soccer is gaining in popularity in part because of the increase in immigrants from the countries that play it is true, but most people would think that a good thing. She may have a point that fewer people whose great-grandparents were born in this country like the game, But that would exclude most of the population. How many people have eight great-grandparents who are native born? (Ironically, a large number of the people who do are African Americans. She's right. They tend to like basketball.)

It comes down to a matter of taste. The main reason soccer has not caught on in this country to the extent it has in the rest of the world is that other sports became established first. Add to that the fact that it has often been popular in other countries because it is cheap and easy to play. You do not need lots of equipment or uniforms, the rules are pretty simple, and kids can play it for endless hours. In this country, that role was filled by basketball, but even in that sport, it is just about impossible to play without a regulation hoop and ball.

Personally, the reason I am an every-four-year fan is that the game has not caught on in this country yet, and I did not grow up cheering for one team or another, and I am not interested enough to follow a league in a foreign country. But I find the tournament fascinating and the games enjoyable. Like any other sport, you can enjoy it more when you figure out what is going on. I skip over the posts here suggesting strategies and line-ups. Frankly, I do not know enough to understand them. But the games have been great and very exciting. It is really fun sitting in a big crowd of people and cheering together on every play. As for the lack of scoring, that again is a matter of taste. I am a big baseball fan. I love the game, its history, its rhythms, its strategy. It is fun to watch a game with lots of scoring, but the most exciting game I ever saw was the seventh game of the 1991 World Series, which ended 1-0 after ten innings.