What is this All Stars Game of which you speak? Here in Europe, such things we do not hear of.

Billy Beane and the San Jose EarthquA’s went to Europe this summer to study soccer at its highest level, but I fear the Messiah of Sabermetrics is entering the sport too late to exploit its inefficiencies. This year’s World Cup was decidedly boring, riddled with far too much cautious defensive play, and a complete paucity of risk-taking offenses.

Methinks someone over here read Moneyball, and sucked all the risk-taking out of the sport. Whatever the soccer equivalents of bunts, steals and hit-and-runs are, they are gone. When everyone basically plays with eight defenders in front of the goalie–well, how interesting can a 2-on-8 fast break be? Moneyball may lead to the most efficient way to maximize your odds of winning a game, but efficiency never gets called “The Beautiful Game”.

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Of course, judging by how Billy Beane’s Base Ball Team is currently playing, efficiency may not be the best word to describe it. Unless, of course, you define efficiency as “sucking as much as possible, while still remaining in first place.”

I’m too far away to understand how this highly flawed team has reached the All-Star break tied for first, but I shall soon be studying the problem up close and personal.

But before I can do that, I have a few more twists and turns to take on my strange current itinerary. Back in a few days…