COLUMN: Let em score...

While I much rather watch a basketball or football game, whenever the United States soccer team is playing in a World Cup, I pay attention.

I don't know much about soccer, don't like it enough to call it football, but do love cheering on my country and anything where the best in the world are doing it is usually pretty exciting. I guess I probably wouldn't watch cricket, but I at least know that in soccer you want put it in a goal. I seriously have no idea what is going on with cricket.

While I certainly wasn't surprised the United States womens team opened up last week's World Cup with a win over Thailand, it was kind of jaw dropping to see them score 13 goals in the shutout victory.

Rather than see happy posts about it on social media or during television coverage, it instead was about how the United States was way too aggressive after taking the big lead, ran up the score on a helpless team, and celebrated too much when they scored. This just made me shake my head. The national team shouldn't have to apologize for anything. There are mismatches in all of sports whether it be five-year-old t-ball or high school football. It is not the fault of the United States player that Thailand could not stop them. I'm sure they weren't trying to disrespect the other team so why be mad at them for executing.

It is the job of this team to go out and play their absolute best and this is the perfect time to do it. If that means scoring 50 goals, so what. This is the World Cup, if Thailand wants a participation trophy maybe they shouldn't be in the tournament to begin with.

If it was high school football and the score was 50-0, it would be a little bit unnerving to see a team have its starters in the fourth quarter while trying to run up the score, but this wasn't the case. This was the world championships. You want to be playing your best. You want your team to click. If you take your foot off the gas pedal, who knows what will happen. Maybe it will be a little bit harder to start the car next time. Not every soccer game is going to end 1-0. The game goes for all sports.

And as for cheering too much when they scored, I'm pretty sure every time I've watched soccer when someone scores the cheering is like someone just one the lottery. Shirts are getting taken off, people are running around like crazy, so I'm not sure how that all changed against Thailand. It is seriously bananas when someone scores in soccer. If it was a football game there would be so many flags that it may take a half hour for the referee to explain what just happened.

This is the problem with social media. Everyone questions everything 24/7 and it really gets old. Rather than cheering on a great performance, it had to be overanalyzed. It's a sad state of affairs but par the course for today's society.

And while sports have their moments, it is even worse with politics. When a politician does something stupid it certainly needs to be discussed, but when they do something good and the other party has to tear it apart, that is a bit much. It's fine to question what leaders are doing, but sometimes I think larger news organizations both left and right will try to nitpick things that don't need nitpicking.

If a leader makes a wonderful speech, why can't it just be a wonderful speech. It doesn't always have to be picked to shreds.

I'm sure the United States deep will make a deep run in the tournament and hopefully will come away with the championship. They once again looked great against a much better opponent in Chile on Sunday. It wasn't close although there was not 12 goals. On their way to deep run, If it means spanking a few teams to get your chemistry in order, so be it. It's the world championships, not five-year olds playing flag football.