A Different Kind of Final

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About 12 hours from now, Sabine Lisicki and Marion Bartoli will meet in the Wimbledon women's singles final.

I'm sure this isn't what most observers expected when this tournament began two weeks ago.

Lisicki defeated the defending champion, Serena Williams, in the fourth round. That's been typical for the women's singles this year. Bartoli is seeded 15th, Lisicki is 23rd. Only one of the top 14 seeds — Agnieszka Radwanska — got to the semifinals.

Bartoli will be making her second appearance in the championship (she lost in 2007); Lisicki is in her first–ever Wimbledon singles final. Obviously, no matter who wins, it will be her first title at Wimbledon, and that is something that Wimbledon watchers have rarely been able to say. By the time the field has been narrowed down to the last two, most of the time at least one has won the Grand Slam event before.

It has been rarer still for Wimbledon watchers to see a final in which both contestants were seeking their first Grand Slam title, but that is precisely what those in attendance tomorrow will see.

"Neither Bartoli nor Lisicki is a household name," writes Liz Clarke in the Washington Post — and, in the age of Maria Sharapova and the Williams sisters, who can argue with that?

The 28–year–old Bartoli seems to be savoring this shot at redemption. "I do just everything a bit better than what I was doing six years ago," Bartoli said this week.

Paul Birch of BBC Sports writes that the final will be a "fascinating encounter between the big–serving Lisicki, 23, and Bartoli, who boasts one of the best returns in tennis."

Birch reports that Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert pick Lisicki to win. Their selections are based primarily on the aspects of the individual games — Navratilova said, "I always go for the person who has the biggest game to win and she has a bigger game."

Evert was more restrained in her praise, but she said, "If Sabine Lisicki plays the same way she has been playing and serves like she has been serving ... then I think she definitely has a slight edge."

I agree with their assessments of the performances in the tournament, but my pick is based on how they have played against each other in the past. I know Bartoli was seeded higher in this tournament, but the fact remains that Lisicki beat a higher–seeded foe in the semifinals (Radwanska) than did Bartoli.

The two haven't faced each other often, but the head–to–head advantage belongs to Lisicki, who is 3–1 against Bartoli.

It should be interesting, and I'm looking forward to watching it tomorrow morning. I feel like I did when I was a child, and my mother made a big production of watching the Wimbledon finals. We would settle in to watch the women's and men's finals and eat strawberries and cream — or what I am sure was my mother's version of it (and may have borne no resemblance to what they actually eat).

I have no strawberries and cream to eat tomorrow — but I think I have a strawberry Pop–Tart somewhere ...

Eli's Coming

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When I was a boy, Three Dog Night was one of the most popular bands around, and one of its earliest hits was a tune called "Eli's Coming."

That song wasn't related in any way to football, but, nevertheless, the title sprang to mind as I watched, for the second time in the last five years, Eli Manning lead his New York Giants to a come–from–behind victory over Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

On Saturday, I observed that it was the fifth anniversary of Eli's brother's one and only Super Bowl triumph — and I also noted that, with another win over the Patriots, Eli would notch his second title "and, in the process, probably secur[e] his spot in the NFL's Hall of Fame."

That's how it tends to be with multiple Super Bowl–winning quarterbacks, I wrote, and, in the aftermath of Sunday's game, I see I'm not alone.

Don Banks of Sports Illustrated wrote of the "pretty select club" Eli joined with his victory.

"Quarterbacks with multiple Super Bowl wins have a cache all their own in NFL history," Banks wrote, "and we best start wrapping our minds around the reality that Peyton Manning's little brother is in the fraternity, and the Colts' long–time great isn't. That last shall be first stuff really does come to pass sometimes."

Banks reeled off the names of the multiple winners and observed that nearly all of them are enshrined in the Hall of Fame. That certainly improves the odds that Eli will wind up in Canton as well.

Lord knows he wouldn't get in on the strength of his regular–season numbers. For that matter, his numbers on Sunday were good but not great. He completed 30 of 40 passes for just under 300 yards and one touchdown.

Good enough to get the job done, but not eye popping.

Of course, unlike his older brother, Eli's life is hardly at a crossroads. He's a hot property, having won not only his second Super Bowl but his second Super Bowl MVP award as well. And that makes up for a lot of things.

Success is fleeting in the NFL — just ask the last three quarterbacks who won the Super Bowl — and someone else may well be on the mountaintop in the space of another year.

But today it is Eli who stands astride that mountaintop, surveying the NFL's terrain below and basking in the praise that comes his way for his achievements.

That praise is certainly deserved, but I can't help thinking of how slender the gap between winning and losing a Super Bowl can be. After Manning's Giants opened the game with an impressive and workmanlike — but ultimately futile — possession, they had to punt and succeeded in pinning the Patriots deep in their own territory.

On the first play from scrimmage, Brady threw a pass that went 45 or 50 yards in the air easily — but the officials ruled that no eligible receivers were in the vicinity of the pass, which is the definition of intentional grounding, and threw a flag.

Ordinarily, the penalty for intentional grounding is loss of both yardage and down. Since Brady was in the end zone when he threw the pass, it resulted in a safety and a 2–0 Giants lead.

It has been my experience that some people believe that, for intentional grounding to have occurred, a quarterback must be in the grasp of a defender — and clearly in danger of being tackled for a loss — and throws the ball away to avoid the lost yardage and/or to preserve time on the clock.

But it is not essential for the quarterback to be under duress. It is only necessary for no eligible receiver to be in the vicinity of the pass — whether that pass is short or long.

An old friend (a colleague from my sports desk days) observed on Facebook that it was "the longest intentional grounding play I've ever seen," and I had to agree.

It also seemed to me that, given the fact that Brady's pass covered about half the length of the football field, it was unreasonable for anyone to expect him to be precise about his target — or whether the receiver would stay in the vicinity of the pass in the time it took for the ball to reach its destination.

But that is how the rule is written — currently. I think it would be wise to revisit that rule during the offseason.

Anyway, the game proceeded with the usual scoring — touchdowns and field goals — until late in the game, when the Patriots led, 17–15, and the Giants scored what proved to be the winning touchdown. They went for two on the conversion and came up short, making the final score 21–17.

Now, imagine if the Patriots had not been penalized for intentional grounding but failed to put together a scoring drive on their first possession and wound up punting.

And everything else unfolded as it did (which you really can't assume because everything that happened after the penalty was predicated, to some degree, on the fact that it did, in fact, happen).

That would have made the score 17–13 when the Giants began their game–winning drive.

As it was, the Giants were under no pressure to score a touchdown. All that was needed to take the lead was a field goal, and perhaps that made a difference in the way they played in those final minutes.

But, in the alternate scenario, a touchdown would have been necessary. Under the additional pressure, would the Giants have crumbled? Would they have called different plays? Would the Patriots have followed a different strategy on defense? We'll never know.

If we assume, however, that the Giants would have scored the touchdown, as, of course, they did, it would have made the score 19–17, and my guess is the Giants would have settled for one point on the conversion instead of going for two.

Extra–point kicks are almost always successful, and this one would have given the Giants a 20–17 lead — nearly the actual final score but with a crucial difference. That one–point variation could have made all the difference for New England.

The Patriots' strategy would have been to get within field goal range and try to force the game into overtime, not to get into the end zone, and their play calling would have reflected that.

But the game turned out the way it did — and that first–quarter safety made it possible for the Giants to gamble on a two–point conversion. Whether it was successful or not, they knew the Patriots would have to score a touchdown, they didn't have much time and they were almost out of timeouts.

Eli Manning certainly contributed to the victory, but so did everyone on the team — and, indirectly, Brady did, too. I'm not sure if he deserved to be named MVP.

But he got his second title, and that may be what matters most. Eli is in his prime and could still win another title or two before time catches up to him as it has his brother. He might not, though. You never know.

Eli's coming? He's here. But he might not be back.

Time will tell.

Breakfast at Wimbledon

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For me, it was like old times.

When I was a child, I remember that my mother always made a production of the women's singles final at Wimbledon. She would get up early on the designated Saturday, prepare bowls of fresh strawberries and cream, the traditional Wimbledon snack, and we would watch the final on TV together.

I guess my earliest such memory is of watching Billie Jean King win it all. I'm not sure which year that was — she won it six times.

Sometimes my younger brother would join us, but mostly it was just my mother and me.

Anyway, yesterday morning I got up early to watch Maria Sharapova take on Petra Kvitova. As I say, it was like old times — except no strawberries and cream. And no Mom.

It differed in another way, too. The person I was pulling for did not win.

I was rooting for Sharapova. I've been a fan of hers since she won Wimbledon seven years ago. Since that day, she struggled to get back to the final, eventually overcoming injuries and inconsistent play; I have found her persistence admirable, even inspiring, a metaphor for our times.

The world needs inspiring people today — and I thought folks could find inspiration in Sharapova's gritty push to re–claim the Wimbledon crown.

But — almost in spite of myself — I found Kvitova's dogged determination inspiring, too.

Even though she had been seeded eighth, Kvitova proved that she is a force with which the others must contend. She is only 21. They can expect her to be around for awhile.

In many ways, Kvitova is, as Mark Hodgkinson of The Telegraph writes, the anti–Maria. A lot of folks are put off by her much–publicized shrieking on the court. They just can't warm up to it.

I think one of the things that drew people to Sharapova when she won Wimbledon in 2004 was her youth and apparent innocence. There was talk at the time of how she would shriek on court, but lots of folks seemed to overlook it.

Perhaps they were willing to do so because she was so young, and people were inclined to think it was simply a youthful anomaly — something she would outgrow.

She was young, all right (17), but she might not have been as innocent as many folks may have wanted to believe. As at least one sports journalist observed recently, when Sharapova was something of a prodigy at the age of 13, she was asked if she would rather get multi–million–dollar endorsements or a Wimbledon championship.

She replied that she would prefer to win Wimbledon — because, if she did that, the rest would follow.

That suggests not the dreamy ambition that is typical of the young — but the cold, calculated conclusion of a much more mature person.

Kvitova comes to the spotlight older and, presumably, more mature than Sharapova was when she won Wimbledon, but their accomplishments were similar. Both upset established (and favored) foes.

Now, we will see if it takes longer for Kvitova to return to the championship than it took Sharapova — or whether, for that matter, Kvitova will ever raise that plate in triumph again.

A Singular Sensation

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I have to admit, I really would have liked to see Maria Sharapova square off with Victoria Azarenka for the women's singles title at Wimbledon tomorrow.

A few months ago, I watched those two face each other in a spirited match for the Sony Ericsson Open title — and I'm sure a rematch in a Grand Slam final would have been even more entertaining.

Sharapova held up her end of the deal — but, as Oliver Brown writes in The Telegraph, her opponent played poorly.

That doesn't take anything away from Sharapova's performance — which was, I will admit, somewhat lackluster. She did what she had to do against Sabine Lisicki, and she'll be playing in tomorrow's final.

Mission accomplished ... so far.

Her opponent will be Petra Kvitova, the eighth seed who needed three sets to dispose of Azarenka. The 21–year–old southpaw will be making her first appearance in a Grand Slam final.

It's getting hard to remember when one could say that about Sharapova. It's been seven years since, as a 17–year–old, she defeated Serena Williams in straight sets in the Wimbledon final. She's kind of old news.

As Greg Couch writes for The Sporting News, the "casual sports fan" couldn't be blamed for looking at the other three names besides Sharapova's in Wimbledon's women's semifinals and say, "Who?"

Even Azarenka, who has enjoyed some success but is still looking for her first berth in a Grand Slam singles final, remains a virtual unknown in the sport.

But I watched her beat Sharapova three months ago, and I'm convinced the 21–year–old has a bright future in front of her.

It would have been fun, as I say, to watch the two of them go at it in tomorrow's final — especially considering that (a) Azarenka, like Sharapova, has a reputation for making loud grunting noises on the court and (b) Wimbledon has been trying to crack down on that sort of thing.

It would have been, as the Sydney Morning Herald speculated a few days ago, "[a] deafening Wimbledon final."

I know practically nothing about Kvitova. Does she make loud grunting noises, too — loud enough to match the so–called "queen of scream," Sharapova?

Or is she more quiet, like the legendary Martina Navratilova, who was very reserved en route to 18 career Grand Slam singles titles and doesn't think the grunting in today's game is necessary?

That would be a real contrast in styles, wouldn't it?

Today's players, Navratilova says, "are making sounds like they are lifting 300 pounds, and it's not the case. The ball is not that heavy."

Well, I guess that is a matter of perspective. It might feel like 300 pounds for either of these ladies — after all, Sharapova wants to prove she isn't over the hill and Kvitova wants to prove she belongs in the Wimbledon final. The weight of expectations for both must be enormous.

You can watch the final on NBC starting at 8 a.m. (Central) tomorrow.

Dallas Is Title Town Again

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The NBA season is over — and, for a football fan like me, that is good news. It means we are that much closer to autumn.

I don't know if the NFL will resolve its issues and proceed as planned with the 2011 season. I am primarily a college football fan, anyway, so I know that my Saturdays, at least, will be unaffected.

As long as I can remember, football has been king in Texas. I didn't grow up here, but my parents did, and my father has always been a football fan. As nearly as I can tell, football hasn't been replaced at the top of the list of the public's affections — but you could probably get some arguments on that around here today.

Last night, the Dallas Mavericks won their first–ever NBA title.

There are all sorts of ironies in that, I guess.

When I was growing up, there was only one professional sports team in Dallas — the Dallas Cowboys. And they were known, for many years, for not being able to "win the big one." They finally did win it all, of course, but not until after other teams arrived and began carving out their niches in the local sports market.

The Mavericks came into existence in 1980. Of the major sports franchises in the Dallas–Fort Worth Metroplex, its tenure here has been the shortest — except for the Dallas Stars, a hockey team that moved here from Minnesota.

And yet, until last night, that hockey team had brought the only championship to Dallas in the last 15 years.

The Cowboys have enjoyed a lot of success when they have played in Super Bowls — but they haven't played in one since 1996.

It has been pretty dry around here ever since — except for the Stars' Stanley Cup a dozen years ago.

There were a couple of false alarms. The Mavericks lost the NBA title to Miami five years ago, and last fall the Texas Rangers went to their first–ever World Series — but lost to San Francisco.

But Dallas sports fans have been patient — even when the Super Bowl came to town and the Cowboys didn't come close to playing in it — and their patience has been rewarded with an NBA title.

Now, to a football fan, that's almost like a consolation prize — but there are many basketball fans in this area and they gathered all over the city — but especially, I suppose, the American Airline Center, where the Mavericks play their home games — to watch the game and then celebrate the outcome.

Team owner Mark Cuban says he will pay for the traditional championship celebration parade. The details for that haven't been announced yet, but I imagine I will watch the parade from the same spot I watched the NBA Finals.

And count the days that are left until football season.

Will Third Time Be the Charm for Big D?

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It's been a long time since a professional sports championship came to Dallas.

Ironically, that championship was won in hockey.

This is a city that, for decades, was accustomed to being a legitimate factor in championship conversations. More than that, it is part of a state that has long been accustomed to being a factor in such discussions.

Usually, it has been in the context of football — but it has been nearly 15 years since the Cowboys played in a Super Bowl.

For that matter, Dallas as a city has been away from the national sports radar through most of the still nascent 21st century.

Sports supremacy has been tantalizingly close in recent months, though.

The Texas Rangers have been playing baseball around here for 40 years, and they brought a World Series to these parts for the first time last October. They didn't win it, but they brought it here, and they gave local fans a taste of what it is like to host the Fall Classic.

Most sports fans around here might not have noticed, however, if the Dallas Cowboys had lived up to their preseason hype. When the season began, local fans knew that the Super Bowl would be played in the Cowboys' new stadium, and many believed the Cowboys were practically a lock to become the first team from the host city to actually play in a Super Bowl.

But the Cowboys stumbled out of the gate and never came close to competing for a playoff spot. The Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl as the NFC's representative.

Now, it is the Mavericks' turn — that's Dallas' NBA franchise — to try to do what the others could not.

They dispatched the Oklahoma City Thunder, four games to one, in the Western Conference finals, and they await the winner of the Chicago–Miami series.

No one knows how long the Mavericks will have to wait on that one.

Miami can finish off Chicago with a single win. Chicago needs three straight wins to turn back Miami.

If the series goes seven games, Dallas will have a week to prepare for its next foe. If the Miami–Chicago series is completed tonight or Saturday, the championship series will start on Monday.

Folks around here don't seem to care when the dance begins. All that matters is that the dance can't be held without them.

And my guess is that a line is going to start forming for tickets soon, if it hasn't already. They go on sale Saturday morning. The latest weather forecast calls for daily highs in the 90s, but I have no doubt that people will be camping out for the next couple of nights.

There is clearly a sense in this city that destiny is beckoning.

But the thing is, people around here always feel that way when the local team is playing for a title. They felt that way when the Stars won the Stanley Cup in 1999 — even though most of the Stars' "fans" that year probably were more appropriately bandwagon jumpers.

They felt that way when the Rangers faced the San Francisco Giants in the World Series last year. (Much was made locally of the "long–suffering fans" who had waited 40 years for a world championship, but I recall little being said of the long–suffering Giants fans, who had been waiting almost 20 years longer for a world title.)

That probably isn't uniquely Texan. The fans of every team in every sport believe they are entitled to a championship — until, at some point, their teams are eliminated and they must face the truth that most fans must accept at some point.

The fans around here aren't ready to accept that truth. Nor is it necessary for them to do so.

Oh, sure, there are some naysayers. Some say the Mavericks won't be able to handle the Miami Heat, their most likely foe.

And that may be true.

But that doesn't really matter right now.

The Renewal of a Passionate Rivalry

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Tomorrow afternoon, the Chicago Bears and the Green Bay Packers will face each other in Chicago with the NFC championship on the line.

Now, there are many rivalries in the NFL. None are as old as the Bears and the Packers, who have been playing each other twice a year for the last 90 years. Given their history, you might think they had faced each other in the playoffs several times, but this will be only the second time they have met in the postseason.

To remember that other playoff game, you would have to be old enough to remember Pearl Harbor.

I was talking with my father on Thursday, and I observed that it was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, in which Kennedy uttered his famous line, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

We talked a little about famous presidential speeches, and Dad mentioned that he remembered listening to FDR's "day of infamy" speech the day after the attack on Pearl Harbor. That speech was given the Monday before Green Bay and Chicago last met in the postseason.

In those days, as I wrote last month, NFL championships were played between the teams who won their respective divisions (or conferences, as they were called for a time).

Usually, there were no other playoffs — unless there was a tie atop one or both of the divisions. Then there would be a playoff game between the teams who tied for a division title (even if one of the teams had swept the regular–season series between the two), and the winner would advance to the championship game.

That was how Green Bay and Chicago, always members of the same conference/division, wound up playing each other following the conclusion of the 1941 season. Both teams went 10–1, splitting their regular–season series, so they met on Dec. 14, 1941 at Chicago's Wrigley Field to break the tie.

At the time, there was no such thing as a "wild card" in the playoffs. That was a concept that wasn't really introduced until nearly 30 years later.

Even so, wild cards have been a part of the postseason in pro football for the last 40 years — ever since the merger of the AFL and NFL. In some years, the playoff structure has allowed two wild card teams in each conference.

Both Green Bay and Chicago have been in the playoffs as divisional champions and wild cards. But in all those years, this is only the second time that both teams have qualified for the playoffs in the same season.

That other time was nine years ago, when the New England Patriots upset the St. Louis Rams in the Super Bowl. Both the Packers and Bears lost in the divisional round of the playoffs. If both had won, they would have faced each other for the NFC title — 60 years after their last playoff meeting.

But that did not happen.

Even though the teams have not played each other for a championship before, the rivalry is as heated as any you'll find in the NFL. The mere mention of the Packers and the Bears to a true pro football fan ought to conjure up images of Vince Lombardi and George Halas prowling the sidelines, Dick Butkus sacking Bart Starr before the NFL was even keeping track of that particular statistic, Ray Nitschke tackling Gale Sayers, games played in the mud and the snow and the bitter cold.

This isn't your father's football. This is your grandfather's football, played the way it used to be played. Leather helmets, I heard someone say this week, will be optional.

I remember hearing a story from one day in the 1960s when the Bears and Packers faced each other. Halas came to the Packers' locker room door prior to kickoff and was stopped by security. He protested that he had to see Lombardi. It was urgent.

The message was relayed to Lombardi, who came to the door to see what Halas needed to talk to him about.

Halas said, "Vince, I just want to tell you that you'd better have your boys ready to play. Because we're going to kick your ass!"

And Halas turned around and walked back to his locker room.

I don't know what, if anything, was on the line that day — other than pride and bragging rights. In the Bears–Packers rivalry, that's usually enough.

When they started calling the division in which the Packers and Bears compete the "Black and Blue Division," they really knew what they were talking about. It's a rivalry that has always been capable of stirring fierce passions.

Oddly, though, the newspapers in the two cities seem to have been falling all over themselves to be respectful of each other. Even when they're teasing.

Frankly, I'm a little disappointed. I expected more, I guess.

• Mark Konkol of the Chicago Sun–Times tells readers that the Bears' quarterback's father is a "cheesehead" — which is, of course, the nickname that is often used for Packer fans.
  
  "Don't worry," he tells his readers. "It's not what you think." And it isn't.


• Cheryl Jackson reports in the Sun–Times that Chicago watering holes anticipate the kind of business they normally don't enjoy at this time of year.
  
  And it's hard to argue with that. With daytime highs expected to be in the teens and Chicago's legendary fickle, swirling winds on hand as always, you need something to get people to brave the elements — assuming they don't have tickets to the game.


• Rex Huppke and Gerry Smith, using some clever wordplay in the Chicago Tribune, manage to capture some of the animosity — but none of what Hunter Thompson might have called the fear and loathing — that exists between Chicago and Green Bay.
  
  "Chicagoans stand united," write Huppke and Smith, "Packtose intolerant, loathers of cheese in all its forms, sneering as often as possible in the direction of those green and gold neighbors to the north."
  
  It is truly, as they observe, a rivalry like no other. Actually, it's a way of life.
  
  
• Maybe the most critical thing I have seen from journalists in either town in the last week has come from Pete Dougherty of the Green Bay Press–Gazette, who asserts that the pressure to win now is on the Bears because of their age.
  
  But that's simply a statement of fact. "[L]ooking to the future," he writes, "Chicago Bears General Manager Jerry Angelo needs to draft unusually well starting this year to remain a title contender."
  
  The Packers, on the other hand, are locked and loaded for the next several years, Dougherty says, and I think he is right.

But ...

C'mon, guys! This is football! This is Green Bay–Chicago!

Where's the contempt?

Still Like Watching Paint Dry

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About 20 years ago, I was at my parents' home, and my father and I were watching a World Cup soccer match.

Neither of us are soccer fans, but on this particular afternoon, there was (literally) nothing else on. So we watched the game. It was scoreless through regulation, then they went through whatever tedious procedure soccer had in place at that time for overtime.

Eventually, someone won. And I had reached a conclusion.

I had long believed that all someone who was suffering from insomnia needed to do was stretch out on a couch and watch a video tape of a golf tournament — and that person would be out like a light.

No expensive doctor visits. No prescription sleep aids. No special diets or superstitious rituals. Just a few pastoral minutes of watching golfers and listening to announcers who always speak in tones so hushed it is as if they are standing right behind the golfer.

But that afternoon convinced me. If I ever had trouble sleeping, all I had to do was watch a recording of a soccer match. Preferably that soccer match.

It was more effective than a tape of a golf tournament. No kidding. I caught myself starting to doze off a couple of times. And I wasn't having trouble with insomnia, either.

It was like eating several slices of turkey on Thanksgiving Day — without feeling stuffed, just drowsy.

Anyway, fast forward 20 years — to yesterday, when the scene was replayed in South Africa as Spain and the Netherlands played in the World Cup final.

I watched the match — the first soccer game I have watched in two decades — and it was still about as exciting — for me — as watching paint dry.

Now, let me say this.

I know the World Cup is a big deal in most places in this world. And soccer has an apparently devoted following right here in Dallas, Texas, where "football" usually means the Dallas Cowboys or the Texas Longhorns.

Around here, "football" usually means helmets and shoulder pads and knee pads, not shorts. Rules infractions are indicated by yellow flags, not yellow cards.

And a buzzing noise likely means the football players (or a group of bystanders, like band members or cheerleaders) have disturbed some bees or wasps. I have no idea what that weird buzzing noise at soccer games is about.

Even so, I often see children — both boys and girls — kicking soccer balls in empty fields. And I figure there must be some upside to a sport that keeps children active outside instead of remaining sedentary inside playing video games.

But I still don't think the sport will catch on in America.

Don't get me wrong. I have always appreciated good defense in any sport — mainly, I suppose, because I was brought up to believe that defense really does win championships.

Now, I have seen periods in the histories of just about every major sport in which the powers that be made some kind of change — in the rules, in the equipment, whatever — to encourage a little more offense, a little more scoring.

What I saw yesterday suggests to me that soccer has been needing some kind of adjustment for a long, long time. Something that will put a little offense back into the game. It was scoreless at the end of regulation yesterday. Spain wound up winning in overtime, 1–0.

I'm happy for the fans in Spain because I know they have been waiting for this for a long time. And I'm sorry for the fans in the Netherlands because I know they're disappointed. I can relate to both.

And it appears that the tournament was a huge success for the host nation. But scoring seems a bit sparse in soccer, considering that each half is 45 minutes long.

I think most Americans are like me — they appreciate good defense, but they need some offense. A 0–0 score at the end of regulation is only dramatic when it is not expected, not when it is routine.

That's why I just don't think that soccer has a chance with mainstream sports fans in the United States.

Because it's still about as exciting as watching paint dry.