With all due respect (a sure sign you’re about to be disrespected) to our international readers specifically and soccer fans in general across the globe: Your sport is bass-acward stupid as shit. Respectfully.

I know, I know: The World Cup final is Sunday and packed with personal drama, national pride and fans that make Packer diehards look like they’re holding a jolly royal tea.

Your sport still blows. Lemme count the ways:

• Four-year wait. What’s up with one event every four years? The World Cup, the Olympics, The UEFA European (futbol) Championship, Rugby World Cup, all have a 1,400-day wait list for athletic revenge, redemption, repetition, etc. That may have been practical when gathering the world’s top competitors was a Herculean feat. Those days passed with him.
• Deaths. Soccer has to be the deadliest sport known to humankind. You’ve got Qatar’s legion of construction dead, the soccer matches that inevitably end in riot or stampede, doping — and that doesn’t calculate the concussive injuries to players who would no more consider a helmet than a pocket protector.
• 1-nil games. Defensive masterpieces are great. We love no-hitters. But defense is dull when it’s off a diamond. How many Super Bowls would you watch if the score were routinely 7-0, or 14-7?
• NO HANDS! This is the sports most egregious foul on humanity. What dumbass came up with this brilliance? ‘Yeah, tossing this ball around is fun, but what if you couldn’t use the most delicately articulated instrument in the universe? You know, the thing that literally separates us from every species on Earth? I’m also tinkering with backward 50-yard dashes and piano concerts played only with big toes.’

And the tears and the flopping! Jesus, I babysat a kid who did less griping, and he was an asshole. At least he had the excuse of being six. What’s yours?

Even your clocks don’t work. Vague extra time! A game ends when a referee lets you know the match is over! Fuck that: Shot clocks define nerve.

This sounds too harsh. My apologies. I guess I’m just jonesing for the Tigers or Celtics or Red Wings.

You know, teams in real sports.

Good luck to your bunions!