Apparently the FIFA World Cup tournament starts today. It’s the 20th one. Ever. Isn’t that neat? Of course it isn’t. The fact that it’s Filipino Independence Day is neat. This is fucking soccer and we live America/’Merica/Murricuh/The Great Satan/Panem. Yes, some of you live elsewhere, but you should feel the same about this because it’s how I feel.

Bully for the Philippines!

And yet, every time this shindig has rolled around, there is always some feeble but annoying hue and cry for Americans to finally, at long last, give a shit about soccer. And every time, that one person you know who has been pretending ever so goddamn hard to give said shit for however many years insists that this is really going to be it. This will be, at long last, the FIFI World Cup that our country will actually give a flying fuck about. Yeah, good luck with that, schmuck.

Morons.

Our country has a storied history of not giving two turds about a sport that’s basically grass-hockey but even more boring because you can tie and nobody is wearing razor-sharp knives on the bottoms of their shoes. The World Cup has never truly mattered here, and these are 84 years worth of why:

The American History of the FEEFIEFOFUM World Cup

1930 – When told that the first tournament was to be held in the country of Uruguay, most Americans thought they were being called homosexual, which was punishable by the death penalty until repealed by our first lesbian president, Eleanor Roosevelt, in 1937.

Pictured with her long-term lover, Gertrude Stein.

1934 – Interest dropped off rapidly before the final game due to the difficulty Americans have, to this day, in spelling “Czechoslovakia.”

1938 – We didn’t even have a team that year. Who the fuck were we supposed to root for, the Swiss? To hell with that.

1950 – Yeah, right, like we want to follow soccer so soon after kicking ass in WWII. That’s like getting a  grumpy handjob the day after your first orgy.

“Come on fellas, let’s win this war so we can get back to watching a bunch of guys name Phillipe kick a ball around for three hours for zero points!” – Nobody.

1954 – The nation is far too enraptured by the marriage of Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio. Because we’re fucking stupid about those kinds of things.

1958 – What, with the Pat Boone Chevy Showroom well into its second stunning season? As if!

1962 – USA straight-up failed to qualify. Fuck you, soccer.

1966 – The last World Cup to be broadcast in black and white. Right, like we want to watch that when we had Batman in color. Fuck that.

“Baffling boredom, Batman! What are those frantic men in tiny shorts doing?”
“I believe it’s called soccer. And it can only mean one thing…The Joker!”
“Wait…what?”

1970 – The first year the refs began issuing red and yellow cards. People assumed that this was a system much like a stoplight and, without a green card to signal the players being allowed to move, everyone would just stand around making the sport slightly more boring than usual.

1974 – Oh I’m sorry Europe, were you doing something important? Because we have Richard Fucking Nixon to deal with over here. Jerks.

1978 – The comic strip Garfield debuted during the tournament. And boy, does that cat love lasagna! As much as we don’t care about soccer!

…and soccer.

1982 – Just a buttload of cocaine.

1986 – I had just been born. America held its breath for my greatness. Enjoy your stupid trophy or whatever, Argentina.

Hey Argentina: knock knock. Who’s there? Not the Falkland Island anymore! BURN!

1990 – We actually qualified this year. Nobody cared. Also, it was painfully boring tournament even by soccer standards.

1994 – A groundbreaking year due to the use of a sponsored scoreboard and game clock in US broadcasts. We immediately took these innovations and put them to use with sporting events people actually want to see on TV, like competitive eating.

True athleticism.

1998 – It was a beautiful day outside.

2002 – The post-apocalyptic American continent, still reeling from the Y2K disaster, was swept with plagues of locusts and zombies. Marauders roamed the countryside and the rule of the gun was all that stood between survivors and the dead. Apparently Turkey won, so we didn’t miss much.

2006 – This year set the record for number of red and yellow cards beings dealt. Calm the fuck down, Europeans, Africans, and South Americans. It’s just soccer.

2010 – The US team lost to Ghana in the first round. Assholes.

LOOOOOOSERS!

Which brings us up to the present day, when I still don’t care. And neither should you. Do we even have a team playing this year? Can you name a single player on it? How badly do you want people to believe you actually enjoy watching the sport? Do you own one of those stupid fucking team scarves so you can wear it in a bar full of other posers? Don’t worry, these are all rhetorical questions (from the Latin words rhet meaning “shut your goddamn mouth,” and orical meaning “if I actually wanted an answer I’d shove my arm up your ass, move your jaw with my hand, and make a muppet out of you”). Just remember this: you don’t have to care about the FEMA World Cup, because you live in a free country. And you shouldn’t care, because that free country is Los Estados Unidos.

Bald eagles making sweet, sweet love. Awwww yeah.

Also, aren’t there some hockey games going on that I “should” give a shit about? Cripes, don’t get me started on that sport. Way to ruin fistfighting on ice, Canada.

That’s the stuff.