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I have to say that a lot of my emotion drained out of this World Cup once Spain capitulated against France. It’s not that I don’t care—you should know better than that—but rather that I’m just ambivalent about the teams that remain.

I guess I’m still pulling for Germany to win it—I am Hergenrader after all—and I wouldn’t be displeased to see England, Portugal or Argentina lift the trophy either as long as they continue to play a game that’s easy on the eyes. England needs to improve in order for me to like them.

On the other side of the bracket I could really care less. Can Italy, Ukraine, or France even make a game of it against Brazil? Doubtful, but I’ll be rooting against Italy and France just because I don’t like the way they’ve played. The Italians are the new Argentina—diving, whining, and playing defensively before winning in the 90th minute on a dodgy penalty—and this Argentina is the new Brazil—flashy, daring, and attacking with almost zero play-acting. Me, rooting for Argentina? Never thought I’d see the day.

I played pickup soccer for the second time this summer and saw a drastic improvement over my debut. This largely has to do with the fact that the players were not nearly as good and the field was much smoother and smaller, but there was much shaking and baking going on and more than a few pinpoint passes zipped at 100 mph to the feet of unsuspecting teammates. I felt pretty good the performance, thank you very much.

I will say this: I enjoy pickup soccer more than any other physical activity. It doesn’t matter whether I’m the best or the worst on the field, I just dig playing soccer. But the one thing that gets under my skin and dampens the fun is playing with a Big Mouth, and Big Mouths are very hard to avoid.

Big Mouth is almost always American. Big Mouth takes pickup way too seriously and insists on keeping score. Big Mouth feels that he’s the field marshall and needs to provide direction and (more often) pointed criticism at his teammates. Big Mouth does things like underhits passes and then berates his teammates for not coming to the ball. Big Mouth dribbles into traffic and blames his teammates for not giving him options. Big Mouth doesn’t run onto a pass and yells at his team to stop playing long ball. In short, Big Mouth is a dick. Furthermore, Big Mouth’s talk always far exceeds his skill.

Happily, only about 10% of the pickup population are Big Mouths. Most of the guys understand that we’re out there to have some fun, get some excercise, and maybe pull off a move or two to brag about to our significant others and exaggerate on our blogs. When I play, I limit myself to two words: “nice” and “sorry.” Really, that’s all that needs to be said.

So yesterday the Big Mouth was on the other team and there was a half-Big Mouth on ours, both dispensing utter shite for advice. Not only was it obnoxious it was also wrong. But despite that I still had loads of fun. Trying to turn it into a more frequent occurance.