Let me just spit this out: At age 64, I enjoy watching soccer more than I enjoy watching NFL football.
This heresy has been stuck in my throat for awhile, like a shard of hard candy, but last Sunday’s World Cup finals Heimliched it right out of me.
It was not only the thrilling drama of the Wold Cup finals in Qatar pitting the defending champions, France, against the sentimental favorites from Argentina led by Lionel Messi; but the contrast between the “beautiful game” and the plodding, commercial-filled, borderline-boring NFL games that followed on TV last Sunday afternoon.
Granted, some are calling the 2022 World Cup finals the most exciting championship game in history, so it’s probably not fair to compare it to run-of-the-mill, midseason NFL games. But still …
I’ve been feeling this aesthetic shift coming on for a while. Some of my middle-age friends think I’m crazy. After all, I’m a lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan with a photo of middle linebacker Jack Lambert hanging in my dining room.