[marcusbooster]

Going off-topic, but what the hell. I grew up memorizing stats on the backs of baseball cards and playing sports video games, so I agree that knowing the numbers is as much a part of my understanding of the game as the actual rules.

What I enjoy about the English football writers I read, is they'll link sport with culture, history, and politics. An upcoming match preview can feel like a history lesson for an entire region. That's something you rarely find over here (though Hunter S. Thompson used to do a sports column for ESPN that covered all kinds of ground). I'd say most Americans get their sports news through highlight shows, but there's always been the tradition of "checking the box score" in the paper.

When soccer does hit mainstream news here, like during the World Cup, most of the conversations seem to be around "how can we fix the game?", ie. goal-line technology, etc. Maybe as a culture we like things that are more concrete, which leads to something like the current NFL, new rules every year so it takes 5 minutes for the officials to sort out a play.