除了奥运会之外，最受关注的体育盛事非足球世界杯莫属。但在美国，即使是世界杯这样级别的足球比赛，对大部分人来说也都是无关痛痒。世界第一运动为什么对热爱运动的美国人毫无吸引力呢？

　　
　　Why Americans Don’t Like Soccer

　　
　　Despite decades of efforts to promote soccer to American youth and sports fans, soccer remains the neglected stepchild of the American sports scene. Indeed, even when the American men’s team was competing in the World Cup, the response from the nation at large was a great big yawn.
　　So why don’t Americans like soccer? There appear to be two basic explanations. The first is that the“marketplace”for sports in this country is already filled with the big four: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, leaving no room for soccer to grow in popularity. As a soccer journalist wrote:“America filled its own sports space with three games (plus the Canadian import of ice hockey) thus‘crowding out’soccer’s chances of becoming part of America’s sports culture.”
　　However, I’m not convinced. Marketplaces are dynamic. If soccer were a worthy object of the American sports fan’s interest, then it would enjoy greater popularity. But it doesn’t, which brings me to the second common explanation for its lack of popularity: soccer is boring.
　　Soccer players pass the ball backward (回传) too much. Americans are used to going forward in sports, to attack the basket or go for the end zone (美式足球中的得分区). In soccer, it’s a pass backward here, another pass backward there, then another, and so on.“Boring!”Americans say.
　　In addition, sometimes the ultimate (最终的) purpose of soccer seems to be engaging in lots of efforts to accomplish ... absolutely nothing. As a blogger complained during the 2006 World Cup:“The first round isn’t over yet, and there have already been five 0-0 draws, five matches in which nobody scored.”That’s deeply unsatisfying to Americans.
　　My theory is that Americans have neither the belief system (信仰体系) nor the temperament (秉性) for such a fruitless sport as soccer. Americans do not labor for the sake of laboring; and we like our sports teams to score. Scoring is a tangible accomplishment that can be identified, compared, and, above all else, increased. This is the American way.
　　

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