I will not and cannot post all of the shouts, snarks and diatribes relating to this soccer stuff. But I did like this middle-ground note:
Of course, every sports fan who loves a particular sport will often use hyperbole in comparing the that sport to life. The big difference is that baseball, football, basketball and hockey fans don’t generally go around insisting that everyone else should love their favorite sport, and are Philistines if they don’t. But that is what soccer fans do all the time.
By the way, my favorite antidote story to comparing sports to life involves the former coach of the Buffalo Bills (now their general manager), Marv Levy. I heard him say that after four straight super bowl appearances, the team was struggling during the fifth year, and he got many calls and letters from fans instructing him to inspire a greater effort from his team by emphasizing that “football is war!!!” Coach Levy said he was skeptical of this approach, until he checked his history books (he is a history buff), and sure enough, he says that he found that when the allied troops hit the beaches of Normandy, they were yelling “This is football!!” At that point, he became my all time favorite coach.