World Cup Intro for Americans

This week on "Wait Wait -- Don't Tell Me!", the NPR news quiz, host Peter Sagal and soccer expert and radio host Steven Cohen discuss soccer and the World Cup. Sagal's introduction:

Those Americans who are watching sports late at night, say, and they can't find any baseball or football or basketball or golf or NASCAR or lacrosse, wrestling, bowling, scrabble, curling, knitting, might find finally themselves settling on this very odd game where people chase this ball around in a field with no equipment at all. It's called "soccer". It seems very popular in other parts of the world. Well, it's got some sort of big tournament coming up. So to explain this exotic game to us Americans, we put in a call to Steven Cohen, soccer expert and real life British person.

Cohen immediately jumps in with a correction:

Cohen: Actually in most parts of the world it's actually called "football". Sagal: Well that's wrong though.

They go on to discuss (among other things):

• Popularity of soccer in the US
• Impatience and ADD of US sports fans
• Scoreless draws in soccer vs. pitcher's duels in baseball
• US sports that take 2-3 times longer than actual game time
• What to look for in the World Cup teams
• What would happen if the US were to win it all

Listen in Windows Media or Real Audio. Go to the rundown of this week's show click on the "Not My Job: Steven Cohen" link.

Tags: soccer, world cup, football