Sleep Aid
Posted June 11, 2006, 10:05 AM ET

The world is throwing a party, and everybody is invited. It doesn't matter what your background, your place of origin or your financial standing.

It is called the World Cup. It is the single biggest sporting event on the planet. Soccer fans wait in anticipation every four years to watch the spectacle that supposedly brings the world together.

I'm more intrigued by the fans that love the sport than the game itself. I'm not a big soccer fan, but I do appreciate their skills and athletic ability. I'm like every American sports fan...what's the big deal about the World Cup?

Since I was working on Friday when the World Cup competition began, I decided to check out the action on Saturday. The first two matches involved England against Paraguay, followed up by the much anticipated Sweden-Trinidad & Tobago clash.

Everybody knows how passionate the English are about their soccer, so you knew it would be entertaining to watch an entire country cringe on every bad break when England played Paraguay. Plus, you gotta love Paraguay when they are an underdog, right?

I'm not making this up...England scored, if you want to call it that, when the captain of Paraguay (Carlos Gamara) headed in a goal for England. Despite the screw-up, England lead 1-nil. The mishap took place only three minutes into the match. Paraguay had plenty of time to offset the cheap gift to England.

The next 87-minutes of action produced zero goals. Surely, one of the guys from Paraguay could kick it in the goal again for England....or maybe England could return the favor?

That's it; first game of the weekend is in the books....England 1, Paraguay 0. This game is so brutal, that England won without scoring a goal. As it turns out, we were watching history since it is the first time that a 1-0 World Cup game was decided on an own-goal. I was honored to see it live...now that is the type of excitement that can only be produced by the World Cup.

That was just an appetizer, the second match of the afternoon is the high-flying scoring machine from Sweden against Trinidad & Tobago. I was hoping to finally see some some legitimate goals and there's nothing quite as exhilirating on a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the States than watching the Sweden-T&T match. After all, it is the World Cup.

Let me give you a quick summary of the scoring in the second match of the afternoon:

Sweden 0, Trinidad & Tobago 0

90 minutes of play, and nothing.....absolutely nothing. Sweden was heavily favored and even had the advantage of playing with more guys than T&T due to a red card call...and they still couldn't figure out a way to score.

So after wasting, and do I want to emphasize "wasting" my afternoon watching the beautiful game of soccer played by the best players in the world....I was able to check out 180+ minutes of action that produced 1 goal....and it was a mistake.

I'm sorry....I just don't get it.

I know there is a ton of passion worldwide, and I do acknowledge the skill level of the players...I mean, where else in sports do you see teams winning without scoring...To my knowledge, even the WNBA teams score more often than these guys, and they actually find a way to make a shot in the correct goal. The World Cup makes the WNBA look like the Super Bowl.

I will continue to follow Team USA as we conquer the world in soccer, but if I happen to fall asleep during the next month of "action", wake me up when something happens. But if it turns out that one of these brilliant players happens to kick it into the wrong goal again, don't bother getting me out of my deep sleep...I've already seen that trick before.

Better yet, let me know when Brazil plays....I love it when they are on the tube. Not for the soccer, but for the South American babes in the stands....Now that is a sport that us red-blooded American sports fans can support.