As a long suffering Seattle Seahawk fan, I was glad, on moving to Mazatlan, to find a new sport to waste hours watching.Soccer, like jalapeños and putting lime in a perfectly good beer, is definitely an acquired taste, but I´m getting the hang of it. In football, the players come storming onto the field, dressed for battle, with helmets and lightweight mobile armor that Lancelot and Achilles would have envied. In soccer (“futbol”), they come trotting out in shorts and stockings, looking like they´re ready for a summer picnic. In football, the idea is to kill the man with the ball, and anyone else who might get in the way. In futbol, a penalty is called for pushing, grabbing or even breathing heavily on an opponent so as to cause him to fall down and receive an owie. In football, the refs throw the yellow flag for unnecessary roughness only when an autopsy is called for. In futbol, they flash the yellow card if a player raises his voice. A football play is usually a few seconds of bone crunching mayhem, followed by a commercial break. Futbol is forty five minutes of non-stop action with no ads until half-time. The teams make up for this by renting out their jerseys to breweries and other sponsors. The last two minutes of a football game can last an eternity, whereas in futbol, two minutes is two minutes. Most football players are college educated gorillas who can bench press Buicks. Futbol players tend to be scrawny little guys who look like belong riding a bob-tailed nag. Not that futbolistas are wimps. As soccer

Moms know and appreciate, running up and down the field like a wild hare for ninety minutes will exhaust even a sugar crazed eleven year old. Football players actually spend most of the game sipping Gatorade and nursing their concussions. A futbolista never rests until he leaves the game, and then he is done for the day. In futbol, it is not necessary that you attend a major university for four years in order to understand the rules. Football, on the other hand, is like trench warfare for future lawyers, with more infractions, penalties and appeals than the Napoleonic criminal code. Futbol is basically a poor man´s polo, everybody running around in frantic circles until the ball winds up in the net and a goal is celebrated, usually by lifting up one´s shirt to show the crowd if it´s an innie or an outtie. In football, the rugged gladiators celebrate a score by dancing around and patting each other on the only place not covered with protective plating. In futbol, use of the hands is strictly forbidden, while in football, possession means firmly clutching the ball (are you listening, Dave Krieg?) Why they call it football is a bit of a mystery, since the only one allowed to put his foot to the pigskin is the team slacker, the kicker. In futbol, the team slacker is the goaltender, who spends 98% of the game scrathcing himself and cursing his teammates, as though he were a baseball player. Sure, futbol has its shortcomings, but it does provide the basic recquirement of televised sports: to provide an opportunity for aging boys to drink beer, yell at an unhearing TV screen, and shirk household chores.