1286 A Nil

Once again, the World Cup has come and gone, at least for the USA. It’s interesting to note that for a brief while, while we had a team in contention, there was some interest this year. Maybe Major League Soccer in the US helped.
Or all those soccer moms are finally having an effect.
Still, soccer is a much more defensive game than most Americans are used to. And that’s not good. Long periods of activity without any tangible result remind the average American of the drudgery of his or her workplace. Who needs to follow a sport that reeks of that?
Back and forth, back and forth, “red cards” and “midfields” and “advancing on goal” blah blah blah. Who needs it? Just rush to the end of the field with eleven men and force your way across.
And how about the way our sports broadcasters adapted to the lingo? They changed the word zero because of the World Cup. Like tennis folks favor “love,” so soccer folks love to use the word “nil” when referring to zero. Games are “one/nil” or possibly “two/nil.”
It may be because using the word nil makes it sound like more than zero. Zero sounds as if the team did nothing. But no, instead of laying a big fat goose egg, they were actually scoring nil points as they fiercely held their opponent to one.
But really, if the American sportscasters wanted to be consistent, they’d have to call the game what everyone else in the world calls it, football.
Of course they can’t, that word is taken in the American vocabulary. By a democratic game where everyone marches down the field, and each time the make a goal, they score not one point, but a whole six-pack.
America, ya gotta love it.