By the time it winds up Sunday, Euro 2004 will have brought forth everything soccer has to offer.
That is to say luminous playmaking, glorious goals, tawdry tackles, stupendous stops, outrageous fakery.
And, as always in these highly publicized football internationals, that curious bird known as the large-mouthed soccer knocker.
His habitat is universal, his call unmistakable. Head back, beak to the sky, his cry has not changed in 50 years.
"I hate soccer," he trills.
We've all heard him. He's as dumb as the dodo is extinct.
He doesn't even know his own emotions. What he feels is not hatred. It's fear.
That which we don't understand we often fear and soccer falls into that realm. Why else would some people become so vehement in making their views known?
If you don't like something, the solution is simple. Ignore it.
I recall a former colleague never missing a chance to rip the game, once going so far as to say, "You can't even call it a sport." I was embarrassed for him and wonder about the response of the billions watching Euro 2004 to his claim that playing a game in short pants is sissy. Possibly they'd explain boxing, rugby and hockey uniforms to him.
None of this is to say the game doesn't merit a good kick in the assets now and then. Nothing is more off-putting than the spectre of an athlete switching professions in an instant to take up acting.
Bad acting, at that. One that depicts a player falling to the turf in mortal agony at the mere touch of another player, grimacing as he holds some portion of his anatomy.
We've seen it all tournament and after the revulsion of so unmanly a ploy, thoughts swing to the magic liquid.
That's the stuff swabbed to the aggrieved area by what possibly is an equally magical sponge by a trainer or two who have come bearing a stretcher when a coffin is clearly called for. But presto, in an instant the downed man goes from death's door to a breathtaking sprint.
I'd give anything for the North American rights to that miracle liquid and sponge. It could be the answer to the NHL's financial woes. You could ice 10-man teams.
But other than that and a few other tweaks, soccer doesn't require wholesale changes for the North American palate. Several leagues this side of the Atlantic (and Pacific, since this is a world game) have sought to increase scoring.
They've awarded additional points for goals, reworked the offside rule and tried to increase the size of the net. It's as senseless as trying to cut down scoring in basketball.
It is what it is, played by millions, watched by billions and dissed by thousands. It's a safe bet it will never reach major-league status in the only part of the world that has four other major-league professional sports.
Maybe that's not its purpose. Maybe soccer exists hereabouts for reasons more important than professionalism. Maybe its prime value is to provide a game for youngsters of all sizes and genders to compete on an equal footing as a low-cost, fitness-intensive pastime while there remain pro teams such as London City for them to aspire to.
The good news is it will always outlast the large-mouthed soccer knocker and related species. They just don't get it and never will.
