Our Sport Kicks Your Sport's Ass

People keep sending this story for comment, so even though others have done so, likely with much more eloquence than us.

But here goes. Steven Wells, a Brit writer, makes a case that Americans are, in fact, much worse hooligans than their European soccer counterparts. In it, he says the American media overstates British soccer violence and ignores their own, then grabs a pen, a notebook and heads to Philadelphia to prove it. He doesn't find much, except an incident from 20 years ago in a book he clearly didn't read all the way through, and an apparent American box office success for the Elijah Wood film Green Street Hooligans, a film that made $345,821 in the three months since its release in America. (The supposed flop Aeon Flux made that much in its first 12 hours last weekend.)

Wells makes a strange argument: Americans think all European soccer fans are hooligans, always hankering to bash a pint glass over someone's head. In response, American scratched his heads for a moment, furrowed its brow and said, "Hey, what's soccer? Oh, and what's Europe? Why, sure, we'll take a refill on our Mountain Dew. You only live once, you know, so you might as well live it extreme."

Blinkered America Is Already Among The Thugs