The passion, the spectacle, the boredom ...

Call it soccer, call it football, call it futbol, call it dreadfully dull - whatever its name, the time for its biggest showcase is upon us. The World Cup starts next Friday in Germany, and as the remainder of the world shuts down for three weeks, Americans give a collective yawn despite the fact that we'll be fielding our best team ever in the tournament. No amount of Gatorade advertising or Nike hype will ever overcome our national apathy toward the game.

I've never seen the beauty in the game that so many around the world seem to see. In fact, I rather resent the game. For instance, my old high school added soccer a few years ago, at which point it became almost impossible for them to field a whole cross-country team (both are fall sports). As someone who gave cross-country a go for a couple of years with a little success (before obtaining my driver's license and losing all of my ambition to run), I feel a little bit stung by this development. Even though I wish my school well in all of its athletic endeavors, it pains me to think that at most, it can manage to get only four runners on its cross-country squad, while the soccer bandwagon is filling up rather nicely there. I imagine that soccer is probably construed as sexy, while distance running is a rather lonesome undertaking. Which would you rather do if you were a high-schooler:

* hammer out miles by yourself on the back roads near your home, where it's just you, a road and a clock, or

* run around on a field with a bunch of other kids kicking a ball?

I know that personally, I would prefer the former, but we live in a social society, where hermits and loners are derided as such, and there's nothing inherently sociable about distance running.

Oh well. All that being said, I'll still root for the Americans to stun the world - there's still, I'm sure, an element that believes that in spite of its lofty ranking, the Americans will always be the Gonzaga of the world soccer community, posting meaningless wins against both strong and weak competition, but folding when the chips are down and expectations are high on the sport's biggest stage. That said, I'd love for the Americans to give the rest of the world the finger and despoil that highest holiest of world sporting trophies by claiming it for their own come July 9.

But I won't get up at 3 in the morning to watch it happen. I don't care that much.

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Speaking of sports that Americans don't care about, amongst the cavalcade of racing that happened over Memorial Day weekend, the Monaco Grand Prix also took place.

Formula 1's already-shaky image in America took a devastating hit last year when the 14 Michelin-shod cars pulled out of the U.S. Grand Prix at Indianapolis, leaving only six cars to run. It was a debacle in every sense of the word, and there was doubt as to whether the F1 circus would come back, either to Indianapolis or the United States.

Those fears were alleviated somewhat, as Indianapolis is on the F1 schedule again this year. Folks who are planning to make the drive to Indy or spend a couple of hours watching the race, though, no doubt rolled their eyes at the events in Monaco last weekend.

Formula 1's qualifying process differs from that found in most stateside racing series, in that "knockout" qualifying was instituted this year. The gist of it is that the qualifying session is broken up into three mini-sessions of roughtly 10-20 minutes apiece, in which all of the cars can be on the course at once, turning in qualifying runs in the first session, and the six slowest times are relegated to the last six spots on the grid and take no further part in qualifying.

The remaining cars in the field have their times wiped out and advance to the second session, in which they all register new times, and the six slowest in that session take the next six spots on the grid. The fastest cars left advance to the final session, and they race for the first eight positions in the field. The qualifying format was put in place in a response to the last two years of what we know as single-lap qualifying, in which the cars put in one flying lap after a warm-up lap, one at a time, not unlike what you'd find in NASCAR. F1 pundits termed the old format "boring."

Since all of the cars eligible for a session can be on the track at once, it can lead to a Mickey Mouse scenario like what took place in Monaco last weekend, and is another shining example of why Formula 1 won't ever be taken seriously in America.

In the final qualifying session, to determine the pole position and the other seven spots at the front of the grid, seven-time world champion and all-around horse's ass Michael Schumacher had posted the fastest qualifying time; however, the Renault of reigning world champion Fernando Alonso had been the quickest car all weekend, and was still a prohibitive favorite for the pole. With less than two minutes left in the session, Schumacher took his car around a tight corner ... and parked it. This action denied Alonso and others the opportunity to complete flying laps (I accidentally typed "flyin glaps" there - hee!), as they were unable to rocket off that tight corner because of Schumacher's car being inconveniently parked there.

You know, the guy is a seven-time world champion - supposedly the best driver in the world - yet has often resorted to bush-league stunts like this in his career. In the deciding race for the 1994 World Championship, he punted Damon Hill off the road in Adelaide and went on to win the championship. In 1997, it almost happened again - in the last race of the season, he deliberately tried to push champion-to-be Jacques Villeneuve off the track, but ended up wrecking himself and his championship hopes for the season.

Schumacher is an undeniable talent, there's no doubt - but his legacy will forever be overshadowed by deeds such as those two racing incidents and the qualifying "mishap" in Monaco. And I think it's very much Schumacher's fault that Formula 1 hasn't taken hold in America - Americans have no desire to back a racing series whose main face is that of a robotic German whose behavior often borders on ruthless and unsportsmanlike.