Prior to the start of the World Cup last month, I'd never heard of Zinedine Zidane, who's apparently been the world's greatest footballer of the past decade. To say I was a casual observer of the tournament would be an understatement, akin to someone watching the WBC without ever hearing of Barry Bonds (who didn't play) or Olympic basketball without ever hearing of Shaquille O'Neal (who didn't play in 2004; notice a pattern?).

But I really, really enjoyed the World Cup.

Here's what I loved:

• The Passion. Look, the obvious selling point of this whole thing is that the rest of the world cares so much. Mind you, I don't give a shit if I'm the only one who's never watched 24 or American Idol, but sports fans are my people, and 1.6 billion of them can't be wrong. If I knew half of Washington Heights lived and died on each round of televised dominoes, I might actually watch that, too. But probably not.

• The Skill. Never again will I listen to someone call soccer a pussy sport and not roll my eyes. The physical aspects (speed, power, consistency) were so evident that to not appreciate them would be plain ignorant, but the real magic was the creativity. An offense could move the ball down the field 100 different ways, and I probably saw all 100, including any combination of sprints, lobs, headers, taps, cross-field passes, etc. I often hear basketball fans lament that NBA games are boring, that players don't work hard enough. Not to sound like Roger Murdock, but that's bullshit. Turn off the sound and focus in on one player. See how much ground he covers in a few strides, how he chases a shooter around screens, blocks out a 6-10 mammoth or fronts an elusive small forward. Those guys work their asses off, to the point where the average Joe would be puking at midcourt five minutes in. Believe me on this, NBA players get 1/10th the respect they deserve for the defensive work they do, and a huge (albeit, mostly unrecognized) reason for the drop in scoring over the years is that the athleticism on the defensive end has developed just as dramatically as it has on the offensive end. This relates to soccer in two ways: you must watch just as closely to fully appreciate what they're doing athletically, and you must credit the defense for being as world-class at what they do as the offense.

• Afternoon Sports! I've got as flexible a schedule as one could hope for, and I loved having these games to tune to at 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. ET. You know what's better than saddling up to the bar for a burger, beers and early happy hour prices with tourists and fellow people of leisure? Nothing. Four years ago, the World Cup was played in Japan/Korea, and there's no such thing as a 6 a.m. happy hour. Not unless you're John Daly. This was much better.

• Zidane's Headbutt: If only Michael Irvin was around, we'd have heard him say, "Marco Materazzi got ... JACKED UP!" I watched the final in a packed Brother Jimmy's on the Upper West Side, and this was an "Oooowwwwhhh" moment. I don't even know how to spell it, but you know those kinds of reactions when everyone in the bar is agape, and you don't immediately know whether to condemn Zidane for hurting his team or congratulate him for having the nads to try to break the guy's sternum (video). I'm rating this as the equivalent of Alex Rodriguez coming up to the plate and smashing Jason Varitek over the head with his bat. Man, would I love to see that.

• The U.S. Took Their Lumps Like Men: I don't know how the rest of the world viewed Brian McBride's stoic reaction when he was bloodied by a cheap Italian elbow to the face, but that moment, to me, defined the Americans' defiance to a lot of the pussified theatrics that's apparently part of the game. As I mentioned previously, Ghana fouled us twice as many times (32-16) as we did them, yet we were much more unlikely to be writhing on the turf after an infraction. Cool stuff.

• World Cup Hotties: The 'Net hosts so many photo galleries of slutted-up fans and models dressed in their nation's colors that it became a joke like three days into this thing. A beautiful, orgasmic joke. I think I saw everything but a chick shooting a mini-penalty shot out of her crotch. And even that might be in my e-mail right now. These hi-res galleries of World Cup models in bodypaint ensure that I'll keep the 2006 tournament close at hand.

Here's what kinda blew:

• They Still All Play the Same (To Me): Clearly, I'm no socceroo. And I should really watch more games with those who are. Because I saw Italy play maybe four games and still couldn't tell you how they differ from the several other teams I saw play multiple times. I know they love that ass spray and all, but I couldn't tell you what their strong points are, how they try to take advantage of that or how teams try to attack them.

• The U.S. Sucked Total Ass: Remember how we got blasted by the Czechs, who lost to Ghana, who lost to Brazil, who lost to France, who lost to Italy? Remember how we put four shots on goal in three games, scoring only once on our own merit? Remember how some people told us we had a chance to make noise at this party? Well, I want to kill them.

Here's what was just plain interesting:

• For Me, Soccer Still Happens, Doesn't Develop: I know that endurance and fouls change the way the game in played, but damn if I can tell. I've often made the analogy that if a friend recorded a soccer game for me, spliced it up into five-minutes segments and mixed everything around, I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Such is not the case in American football, where drama ebbs and flows with each change of down and distance, with each creep toward (or away) from the goal line. Same with baseball, where there is a building turbulence with each baserunner. Soccer has dramatic moments, for sure. They happen. But damn if I can tell why they didn't happen two minutes earlier, or predict whether it'll happen two minutes later.

World Cup Links:

• A Billion Reasons (and More) to Be Wary of TV Viewing Figures — FIFA's reported figures include "anyone who saw any bit of the match at all, for any length of time, at any time, on television, including on news items afterwards, if only for a few seconds." If you use that model, at least 8 trillion people watched the Paris Hilton sex video. Seriously, is there anyone who hasn't seen at least a screen grab of that?