Last night, Deadspin soccer writer Billy Haisley was drooling over a goal that Japan’s Mizuho Sakaguchi scored in the Women’s World Cup.  He posted the following video and said “this is just, wow.”

Eh…  It was okay.  I mean, the strike was kind of cool I guess.  But Sakaguchi was still wide open at the top of the box with plenty of time to tee up a shot.  It definitely doesn’t scream out “this is just, wow.”  If that’s the best the Women’s World Cup has to offer, consider me unimpressed.

I really don’t understand why Billy and his Deadpsin colleagues are trying so hard to make this tournament a big deal.  I get the whole ‘taking pride in your country’ aspect of it.  That’s legit.  However, if you want to support soccer in your country, you should have a tiny bit of love for your nation’s domestic league.  And this leads me to the crux of my confusion.  Deadspin wants to build up this tournament as some great sporting spectacle we should all be in awe of.  They say it’s great soccer.  Yet, at the same time, they (and Billy especially) say the MLS sucks.

One of their favorite tags is a series of posts where they ridicule the quality of play in the MLS and go to whatever lengths they can to tarnish the reputation of the league.  Now, if that Japan goal above is really the best the WWC has to offer, and Deadspin claims the MLS is lot worse to watch, then MLS highlights must really blow…  To confirm this, I went ahead and googled last week’s MLS Goal of the Week.  I’m really glad I did, because this is the gem that came up…

Holy shit.  That was actually pretty fucking awesome!  This dude shoots from the same spot as the Japanese woman, but he’s closely guarded, and strikes with twice as much power from a volley.  Damn…

I guess that settles it.  Billy Haisley either has a fetish that makes him think Japanese women’s soccer players are way better than they actually are, or he doesn’t know what good soccer is.  Or maybe there’s a third possibility?  Maybe he is just really entertained by poor quality soccer.  If so, he must’ve loved these lowlights from the game last night…