La Coupe du Monde. Le beau jeu.

La Copa del Mondo. El Deporte Rey.

La Coppa del Mondo. Il gioco più bello.

The World Cup. The Beautiful Game.

No matter the language, that's what they call it.

I like soccer for kids. I coached it. I spent years watching my two daughters play soccer at highly competitive levels. I saw one set a conference record for points scored. I saw another make a penalty kick to beat the unbeaten powerhouse. It was lots of fun.

But that delightful little game bears almost no resemblance to the ugly scar that is soccer and those who love it beyond all reason around the world.

I am growing oh, so weary of the holier than thou attitude of millions of soccer fans who think their sport is some kind of sanctified and beatified holy exercise that we in the United States are missing out on while the rest of the world genuflects.

Here's what soccer really is.

For 90 minutes very fit athletes run up and down a field. Then they run up and down the field some more. Then they do it again ... and again ... and again. If a miracle occurs somebody actually tries to get the ball in the goal. If both The Big Bang and a miracle occur, the ball actually goes into the goal and the scoring celebration is something akin to Mick Jagger running around on speed. Players flop with more frequency and drama than the Pacers' Reggie Miller taking a charging foul. They beg the referee with an anguish that would make Oliver Twist blush.

Soccer, on the world stage, is an exhaustive example of jingoistic devotion that is an outlet for hooligans to drink, riot, maim and kill. They call it patriotic, but it's the same kind of patriotism that gave rise to Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Jingoism!

Understand something very clearly, and all of you who wrote to question my patriotism, pay close attention. I understand healthy patriotism. I fought for this country. I've seen bullets fly. I've traveled all over the world and lived overseas. I don't have to take a back seat to anyone when it comes to being patriotic.

I think people should love their country. And I love the idea of different countries competing against each other, which is why I'm such a fan of the Olympics. During the games, both winter and summer, there is a healthy patriotism, supportive of your own athletes, and respectful of the other athletes and their fans. Look at the international outpouring of support for the luger who was killed during the last Olympics. Look at the worldwide condemnation of the murder of Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists. What happens in soccer is totally different.

The gangs and thugs who destroy the reputation of soccer take cover under the umbrella of patriotism but that kind of patriotism is only destructive. People get killed at soccer games as angry fans riot. Not every fan, of course. Not even most fans. But certainly enough fans so that a riot at a soccer game is no longer a surprise.

The gangs that masquerade as fans are racists and Nazi sympathizers or left-wing zealots with political and angry agenda. Soccer brawls are not always spontaneous. There is ample evidence that some are the result of battle plans drawn up by generals with blank space between their ears.

Imagine if you will that the United States team beats England in their opening game of the World Cup. In this country there will be joy. In England there will be riots, suicides, murders and headlines that proclaim the death of the British Empire.

Hundreds of people have been killed and injured in soccer riots where more blood has been spilled than your average year of bull fights. The blood of the bull is one thing. In soccer thousands of fans want to spill their own blood or the blood of the opposing fans. I don't know if you can blame soccer for the riots, but it is certainly significant that behavior like that doesn't happen in any other sport.

Football fans, watching what is arguably the most violent sport of all, don't kill each other. They don't riot. You don't see riots in basketball, rugby, baseball, cricket or bocce ball. People treat these sports as, well, sports.

I recently read an article about Brazil and soccer. The article said that during a World Cup game the entire country, just under two hundred million people, will come to a complete stop. No mass. Factories stop making things so workers can go home and watch the game. There are no cars on the street. Home robberies and break-ins are virtually nonexistent. Every television in the country is turned to the same channel.

The writer said that if Brazil won they would party in the streets with drink, song and women. If the Brazilians lost, there was a danger of a spike in suicides and there would be severe political ramifications for the party of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

If I were able, I would grab every soccer fan in the world by the scruff of the neck and shout, at the top of my lungs right into his face: "IT'S NOT A RELIGIOUS RITE. IT'S JUST A GAME!"