There have been similar problems in Spain.

In a recent friendly in Madrid, England's black players were subjected to monkey noises throughout.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/internationals/4018421.stm.

Although we used to have this happen in England only 20 years ago, it shows how quickly attitudes can change that it was unbelievably shocking to British viewers.

Howard Cosell said the same thing about a wide receiver for the Redskins

It'll be interesting to see how television covers the world championships next year.

With the present style of televising that favors a wide-angle view of the soccer pitch, broadcasts are just too boring.

The game has become so fast, and defenders so good, that you get almost tennis-like whiplash from swiveling your head left to right, right to left.

The attacking team very quickly moves the ball upfield. They're able to do this despite the defending teams's best efforts to stall them. Because the top midfielders can be hit with a bullet-quick ball in mid-sprint, give it just one unerring touch with an outstretched foot, and send the ball on its way to a winger racing upfield.

It's an amazing skill that very few players used to have even at the top world level. Unfortunately, it takes a trained eye or slow-motion replays to appreciate it.

Of course, as soon as the attackers near the penalty box, the ball gets stuck in molasses, as the defenders collapse around the attacker. Double- and triple-teaming, and then materializing almost instantly elsewhere when they're needed to help out -- today's defenders are so good, there is no comparison to even twenty years ago.

One solution would be to show a lot more close-ups, where you can see the fancy footwork, the one-on-one situations where players turn on a dime and their shadow, anticipating everything, turns with them.

But really, today's elite soccer is for a small group of connoisseurs who can understand tactical finesse and who appreciate the subtleties of teams probing, feinting, regrouping, exploiting the minutest of weaknesses.

Soccer was more fun to watch when the elite players were slower and made more mistakes.

Eugene:

" a small group of connoisseurs" - erm, plus a few billion people worldwide.

Anyway, if you count yourself as a connoisseur, you'll enjoy this:

Ronaldinho versus Zidane

Football can never be quite as good a television event as North American Football, but it is getting better and better.

The very thing that made North Amercan Football boring to watch on television in the old days, the frequent stoppages of action, allows time for replays and stop-action shots from all different angles. Thus the television viewer gets a chance to appreciate the fine points of the game which otherwise would be hidden from almost all.

This is much harder to achieve in Football because of the continuous action and the simultaneous development of plays in different parts of the field of play. Harder, but not impossible.

We all must agree that replay and stop-action are making good Football a much more enjoyable television sport. The fact that millions of Americans have played or are playing the game as children is helping the process.

Brit: Careful. Orrin's liable to ban you from the site for stunts like that. (and....secretly....I thank you for the link)

The "zip line" camera rigs they're using to video NFL games would be an interesting experiment but I'm afraid the vastly different vertical nature of soccer would make it impossible not to have the rigging interfere with the game.

My favorite Italian football chant -- something along the lines of "Mt. Vesuvius do your thing" -- was used by fans of the traditional northern powerhouses -- Juve, Inter and AC Milan -- in the 80s when Napoli had Maradona and were able to win a couple of championships.

That was a great video Brit thanks :-))

Ronaldinho put on a clinic against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu two weeks ago. It was a thing of beauty. My allegiances are with Real -- after all they were Franco's team -- but you can't help but applaud the show he put on.

I'm a Barca man myself, Jim - but only because I've been to the Nou Camp.

They could make another one of those Ronaldinho videos just from that game alone - for a Barca player to earn a standing ovation in the Bernabau is surely unheard of.