Let's send Jon Stewart to the World Cup

Sportswriters. Blech. We hate the way they hate our beloved sport. They don't understand the rules, they snigger into their sleeves over its importance in the world, they think it's a peewee game played by limp-wristed, commie lovers. "You know what's wrong with soccer?" the sports editor whose desk was, unfortunately for me, right across from mine. "Not enough stats. All you have is goals made and goals attempted. And then what? No wonder those crazy fans in Europe riot, they don't have enough stats to preoccupy them."

Well, I wanted to fire back, there's also cards and corners, just to name a few of the multitude of other minutia that I could calculate. (A quick plug, for all your statistics needs, visit Climbing the Ladder, where you can get all sorts of statisical goodness in one easy stop.) But instead I turned to the one other soccer fan in the room and asked her what the hell was wrong with all those other sports that they need stats to make them interesting? They weren't really listening to me anyway, as they were sitting there speculating on when this year David Beckham will be gracing an MLS team with his overrated self, and confidently pontificating that MLS's salvation would be to move all its teams to minor markets.

They're pretty representative of sportswriters in the mainstream, excluding the few fine souls who are out there really covering soccer, who know it and love it and want to pet it and squeeze it and call it George. But with the World Cup just mere weeks away from gracing the consciousness of the US sportsfan, I'm shuddering to think of what the coverage will be like. Three minutes of commentary on the games, followed up by 10 minutes of ranting about why everyone hates soccer? Or talking heads discussing how great the US is, since according to FIFA we're fourth in the world?

We need a guy in our corner, someone who knows the game, the lingo, knows the ins and outs.


And then it hit me: Jon Stewart. I was watching The Daily Show last night, and for one reason or another -- I can't even recall why -- they showed a clip of soccer hooligans rioting. In referring to the clip, Stewart said the proper words, "fans on the pitch." Because he's a fan, he's been a player. He played in college, and he's been keeping up. He not only understands what it's like to be a soccer fan in the US, he articulated it in the best quote in the world.

Soccer is crystal meth. It's very addictive, but really messes up your teeth. I guess I've never viewed soccer as some sort of controlled substance. To me, it's probably more like Nutella. The rest of the world clearly loves it and puts it on almost everything, but here in America we're like, "I don't know, man, it tastes like almonds."

C'mon, if Dennis Miller can do Monday Night Football, can't Jon Stewart do the World Cup? Let's send Jon Stewart to Germany to do ESPN coverage over the World Cup.