I like you Strider, you remind me of DaddyX. It's good to see you have a pulse. You have a slight issue with ageism, but other than that you are O.K. Hell, the post says Hi and Rave, so we are raving(as in raving lunatics). Unless you have played pro sports, you have no idea of what it's like. I played college hockey for a very short time and got a small taste of what it is like. We played a exhibition game against the University of Toronto Blues and they beat us 21-1. I scored the only goal in the game(we spent most of the game on our asses). The only reason I got the goal was because someone in the bleachers blew a whistle and the other team thought it was the referee(I could skate like the wind but I was only 145 pounds at the time). I just put the puck in net when the goalie moved. Needless to say, my career was very short lived. I played all the sports in high school and the two most dangerous are hockey and football by far(the serious injury stats don't lie). Concussions, paralysis, death are all a possibility.
F.Y.I. Pro hockey is the only major pro sport where you do not get kicked out of the game for fighting.
Here are a few soccer links:
http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/ranki ... nking.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World ... statisticsOnly seven teams have ever won the world cup of soccer and Mexico, Canada and United States are not there along with the hundreds of other countries in the world that play soccer.
Brazil is the best, followed closely by Italy and the Germany(my team-I have Germanic background).