I'm now blogging into my third year and I find it odd I've never once mentioned my crack-whore-esque addiction to English Premier League Footbal -- that's soccer to most of us here in the States, of course. Almost from the first year it could be viewed here, I was on board like a rat. 

Some complain that soccer is a slow game. Trust me I've seen slow soccer and it IS a wrist-slashing venture; however, anyone who would say that the sport is slow across the board hasn't a clue at what level the English game is played.

A high school game in America can be slow. College, the same. Men's National Team is a step better. The MLS -- United States' Major League Soccer -- is another. The interest continues to improve with the Women's National Team, believe it or not.

Beyond these, the game -- that's now called Futbol or Football, depending upon where you're talking about -- gets truly interesting with the various second-teir international professional leagues, like Australia, Asia, Scotland or Turkey.

Then, once you get to the big boy leagues: Germany, Italy, Span, France, Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, etc. With these, you're hard-pressed not to find something astounding in each and every game. Commonly, even games announcers label as "disappointing" or "slow" is anything but. They're just spoiled because their expectations are so ridiculously high.

But the grand poobah of all Football in the world, again, is the English Premier League. On average, the teams are stronger than any others in the world. Tournaments that pit all top clubs in Europe find English teams consistently at the very top. Only a small handful of club teams -- and only those from the very strong leagues -- can compete with those from England.

Simply stated, the league's management "got it" before any others did. Back in '92, they found the formula that worked. I don't pretend to know what exactly that formula is or was but from that date, English soccer left the world in its rear view mirror. As a result, the league, now in its 18th season (as of this posting) boasts the highest payrolls, the best players and, if I'm not mistaken, the highest consistent ticket sales.

You may not understood any of that so here it is in a nutshell. Let's use the NFL as an example. Pretend for a moment that at the end of the Football season, the bottom 3 teams don't get rewarded by earning first pick in next year's draft. Instead, they get kicked out of the NFL entirely because they suck. That gap is filled by the BEST three teams from the next league down.

What this accomplishes is two-fold. Not only do the bottom teams fight viciously to "stay up" in the NFL, making even the games between the crappiest teams interesting to watch, the teams in the next league down also are fighting with equal ardour to be "promoted" into the NFL. 

Now that might all sound like the interesting games are only at the bottom where the crappy teams reside. It would be true if that's where the planning stopped. 

Now imagine that the rest of the world gave a crap for American style football. (They don't, by the way) At the end of the season, not only is the Champion crowned in the Super Bowl, the top FOUR teams in the season win the right to compete against the top three or four teams from all the rest of the world's best league teams.

So the seasons for these excellent teams are filled not only with inter-leage games, but international games as well. It's a terrific system that works well to add interest to an already amazing game.

The next major argument against soccer is that there are ties. I can understand that, from the outside, it sounds like a tie would be a let down. In a sense it is a let down in exactly the way its thought to be but that disappointment is countered by the points system.

The Premier League champion is decided by points over the whole season. A team earns 3 points for a win but BOTH teams are awarded 1 point for a tie. So, feasibility, a team that ties in every game could do quite well by the end of the season. A tie is worth fighting for. Even a scoreless tie is worth fighting for because a singe goal means the difference between 1 and 3 points and that's huge.

The points system nearly guarantees the best team is the champion. In the NFL, one slip-up in the playoffs and a  lesser team is crowned.

So, bottom line: My hope is that if you don't have Fox Soccer Channel or can't find a game on Pay-Per-View, you'll head to your local Lion & Rose or check out the highlights on YouTube. Give "The Beautiful Game" a chance in whatever form you can, but try your damnedest to watch the English Premier League.