“… Welcome back to Popular Opinion Court TV’s coverage of the Vuvuzela Trial. I’m , the prosecution has just wrapped up its’ case for the banning, stuffing in a closet and locking up forever of the controversial Vuvuzela horns. Let’s go over some excerpts from today’s testimony.”

RICK REILLY, ESPN.COM: It was the dreaded vuvuzelas, the yard-long plastic horns (voo-voo-zella) that South African fans blow all the time, without rhyme nor reason, when something is happening and when it’s not (it’s usually not), during timeouts and time ins, during halftime and at the breakfast table and while they’re on the bus and while doing their taxes, until you just want to stab two fondue forks deep into your ears and stir.

JOHN LEICESTER, ASSOCIATED PRESS: “Fifteen minutes into the opening game and I already took two aspirin,” lamented Boaz Gabbai, from West Hills, California.

“Those vuvuzelas are making me nuts!!!” wrote Myriam Seyfarth from Venezuela.

“And in a surprising last-minute move, the prosecution even called in figures from other sports to testify in what had been, up to now, an issue contained to the soccer pitch. Let’s take a look at some of that testimony now.”

JOE MADDON, MANAGER, TAMPA BAY RAYS: They’re annoying. I mean, there’s cool things and there’s very non-cool things. That’s a non-cool thing. … It just doesn’t make any sense.

“Non-cool, indeed. We’re joined now by noted legal analyst Snidely T. Whiplash for his analysis of what must surely be a steep challenge for the vuvuzela defense team going into its’ final statement.”

SNIDELY T. WHIPLASH, ESQ., LEGAL ANALYST: Indeed it is, Marla. I mean, seriously, even Hitler hates vuvuzelas these days. About the only people outside of South Africa who seem jazzed about the horns are Photoshop enthusiasts, and those people are almost as bad as bloggers. Would anybody really want to be associated with that lot?

“We’re getting word that the defense team is about to begin making its final statement to the jury – and to ear-ached football fans (or soccer fans, if you prefer) around the world. Let’s go back to the courthouse, where Amadeus Joao, the self-proclaimed ‘Footballing Barrister,’ is making his last stand for his clients.”

AMADEUS JOAO, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: “Ladies and gentlemen, let us be clear – the arguments my esteemed colleague brings up against the vuvuzelas are not to be confused with any legitimate concerns. And I am perfectly willing to concede that there are some.

“At least one study has measured the noise generated by just one vuvuzela at more than 100 decibels – enough to cause permanent damage if listened to over sustained periods. But as with anything else, moderation is key. And as we all know, moderation – chemical or otherwise – is a word seldom associated with the enjoyment of a sporting event, regardless of sport or continent.

“No, most of the complaints the prosecution has laid out are simply the grumblings of people who already hate this most beautiful game based on principle – that principle being, it’s a sport in which the U.S isn’t, you know, exceptional at it. And in today’s echo-chamber-like mediaverse, the droning on about the horns has gotten louder than the horns themselves – and that’s 140-plus decibels, ladies and gentlemen.

[chuckles from the gallery]

“But for the sake of argument, let us consider two other factors:

“First, the vuvuzela, while commonly associated with South Africa, actually originated in Mexico over three decades ago. In fact, watch any Primera División match on the telly, and you’ll hear that familiar buzz — especially if the match is at Estadio Azteca. And there’s nary a peep to be heard about it. Why? Because the fans in attendance are there for the game, and have learned to adjust. Besides, the prosecution seems to have conveniently forgotten that vuvuzela demand has created a demand for earplugs. Would my opponent squash the hopes of micro-business owners?

“But I digress. What I mean to say is, it is possible to learn to enjoy a match in spite of the horns’ noise. Which brings me to my second point.

“I’ll be blunt: it’s not like football – or any game outside of tennis or golf, at matter – is contested in a library. Mr. Maddon’s own Rays organization gives away – gives away, ladies and gentlmen! — cowbells for fans to ring during contests. And baseball players are expected to hit miniscule balls traveling at more than 90 miles an hour with thousands of people yelling. And have you heard a cowbell? Sure, the joke was funny because Christopher Walken said it, but does anybody you know actually need a cowbell to enjoy a game? I thought not.

“And Mr. Reilly, let’s not forget, has made a healthy portion of his living covering American football. So noisy horns are to be abolished, but Oakland Raiders fans are okay?

“Speaking of fans, let’s get back to the pitch, where all of this started. If the vuvuzelas are where the line is to be drawn, where, exactly, do the antics of British fans fall? Like songs such as the ever-popular “Feed The Scousers,” directed at Liverpool F.C. Fans? How about this lovely ditty from Chelsea supporters? (Note for readers: With all due respect, when British fans are involved, do I really have to tell you those links are NSFW?)

“Are horns like hooligans? No, but in the grand scheme of things, there’s much bigger fish for FIFA to fry. It wasn’t the vuvuzelas who gave Kaka that bogus red card. It wasn’t noise that led to the U.S to be robbed of an incredible victory. And the Italians flop like Jonah Hex at the drop of a hat – not the toot of a horn.

“So please, America, on behalf of South Africa. Of Mexico. Of fans of noisy, silly, non-sensical fan traditions like the Rally Monkey and the Terrible Towels and continuing to buy L.A. Clippers season tickets. Let this go. It’ll all be over in less than a month now, and this division between us will be healed. Then we can all go back to hating the Yankees.”

I wake up today to a sad world. Sure, things may presently be peaceful in my corner of the universe, with birds singing and cockroaches scuttling happily about their business of scaring me to death. Yet there is a melancholy note in the birdsong and the scuttling of the unholy abominations known as blatta orientalis has an automaton, going-through-the-motions feel about it.

Precious is lost. And by “precious,” I mean the Champions’ League title. Well, for Chelsea, anyway.

There’s a reason why I don’t write much about football. My two favourite teams, Chelsea and Dynamo Kiev, are like the dorky, gifted kids at school, forever getting stuffed into lockers and denied the glory that’s their due. While Hollywood and modern technology have been busy fulfilling the “and the geek shall inherit the earth” prophecy, things are a little different on the pitch.

Last night, as I watched the Champion’s League final (held inside Moscow’s Luzhniki Stadium, the hallowed ground where my father went with his father to see many a Dynamo Kiev away game), I expressed my hatred of Manchester United many times over. The expressions I used were creative, and not entirely suitable for this publication. In my defense, I’d like to point out that if it wasn’t for Cristiano Ronaldo’s face, I might have been more civil.

This might seem superficial, but I just can’t stand dudes who smile like evil ferrets advancing on a nest of baby chicks. One of these days, the fall of civilization will be traced to this smug, self-satisfied countenance. You’re laughing now, but you’ll be sorry later, as ashes fall from the sky, the locusts advance, and, somewhere, Cristiano Ronaldo continues to grin maniacally.

Let’s put it this way, if Cristiano Ronaldo lived in the States, he would have already made at least one sex-tape with Paris Hilton and/or Tom Sizemore, then gone on some third-rate reality TV show to brag about it.

You might argue that football is, ultimately, for the smug and the self-satisfied. After all, confidence is what helps plant terror in your opponents’ hearts, no?

While this is usually the case, I happen to think that there is a vast gulf between regular old confidence and nuclear-strength douchebaggery. Look no further than to the morons who buy expensive Manchester United jerseys without ever having watched a single one of their games for an example of the latter.

I’ve got no actual problem with real Man U fans (aside from the ones who are likely to crack open my skull in a frenzy; sadly, Chelsea boasts such supporters as well). My main problem is with the idiots who’ve decided that Man U is “hip” and “so hot right now” or whatever, turning Sir Alex Ferguson’s ego into even more of a loathsome juggernaut, and actually celebrating the fact that that Cristiano Ronaldo’s evil face gets to stare at me from video game boxes and book covers until I hastily exit Virgin Megastore, screaming in terror and revulsion.

“Oh, but Natalia,” you’re thinking right now. “Surely it is easy to hate the big winners. Surely you are just trying to be fashionably contrarian.”

Am not. I never hated Real Madrid. I never wanted to punch Beckham or Ronaldinho in the face. I never fought the urge to vomit when some guy in a Brazil shirt hosted an celebratory drinking contest a few feet away.

I am biased, but it’s a bias borne out of righteousness and serious intolerance to Wayne “Testicle Stomper” Rooney. Seriously, between having the Antichrist and Mr. Below the Belt and a bunch of pretentious non-fans on its side, Man U just doesn’t do it for me.

Oh, and they won on penalties this year. Lots to grin about there, Cristiano.

This entire Champions League debacle is the perfect example as to why I try to avoid writing about football. There’s just little joy in it for the likes of me. Hopes are slaughtered like heretics in a Medieval hell-hole. John Terry cries, and the cruel world watches. The management of Dynamo Kiev attempts to bribe referees with fur coats (sure, this was in the mid 1990′s, an era ruled by gangsters in Adidas tracksuits, but painful childhood memories die hard). One’s normally stoic boyfriend curls into a fetal position and repeats the word “why.”

A wise person than I once said that “life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.” This year, football has done nothing to disabuse me of the notion.

In the interest of fairness and good sportsmanship, I’d like to point out that I don’t particularly like Roman Abramovich’s smile either.

A few seconds ago, I was trying to eat two chicken drumsticks at the same time, so you can imagine how dignified I must look. And yet I am the calm center of an emotional hurricane. It is mind boggling that this has come to pass.

Last week, people were ecstatic, people were depressed. People were vindictive and gloating, people were defensive and drinking to forget. I can’t say that this was a unique situation. Much the same scene was taking place all across the country, as people celebrated and mourned the particular ending of a particular game. A game which, for my taste, involved way too many “good game” pats to way too many plump buttocks encased in metallic tights.

As a mental exercise, I have hypothetically divided the world into two groups:

Group A consists of people who do not care about the Superbowl. This group encompasses the majority of the planet’s population. So obviously, Group B is comprised of people that do care about the Superbowl. Group B doesn’t understand Group A terribly well (statistical analysis would probably show that this has something to do with the divorce rate, but that’s a different issue altogether).

I can’t fit myself into either group. I’ll watch some games, but I can’t claim to care too much on the whole.

I think professional baseball is the recourse of twinkie-guzzling porkers with the predictable jock mentality, but none of the talent or athleticism required to play any of the good sports. Football has too much down-time… plus, I’m not-so-secretly afraid of anybody with both the mass and mentality of a deranged killer whale.

I envy basketball players for their smug, casual tallness, and nobody ever listens to my theories on why Steve Nash is the ultimate expression of communism and/or the human spirit. I watch hockey for the exact same reasons I was good at Mortal Kombat as a kid: a childish, whimsical fascination with the utterly gross.

Simply put, I don’t have the proper emotional or intellectual equipment to be a proper sports fan. So, my primary interests in the Superbowl were a) eating until I herniated, and b) watching emotions run high. Mission accomplished.

But why did I see the things I saw? Decades-old friends began to snipe at each other like drunken divorcees in front of a baby sitter. Everyone examined each play for scientific evidence as to why supporting the other team meant that you’re a bitch. People discussed each others’ mothers at length.

It was all entirely unprecedented. And while I’m the kind of person that enjoys this sort of social chaos, I’m also the sort that wants to understand it.

I’ll put this premise forward, and you can take it or leave it: American football is a stupid sport. It’s not any more or less stupid than any other sport, but it is undeniably stupid. It is a sport of hyper-manly proto-men capable of lifting or eating entire SUV’s. It is a sport of men that spend the majority of their day sprinting, squat thrusting, hopping through tires, and then gulping down bovine growth hormone milkshakes. And it is a sport where some of the earth’s most physically powerful men use a complex system of rules to play professional grab-ass.

These men are not from the city you claim to love, and they are much to busy emptying buffets or eating puppies for protein to care where you spent the first six years of your life. If football once represented the spirit of true competition, it is now an arms race of energy bars and signing bonuses. If it once celebrated manliness, it now pays out dividends for being feral – but still celebrating a touchdown with emotional leg-humping.

Heartbreaking as it may be, if we accept the points I’ve outlined above, then it makes little sense to care about the Superbowl, and even less to make it the most watched event on television. So, the question I’m asking is the same one that has been asked by theorists and many lucid women for decades: why get so bothered by the whole affair?

And the answer, I feel, is that sense has nothing to do with it. We don’t view sports rationally in practice, and we shouldn’t. The entirety of sports-fandom only exists in the absence of logic, in a world where feelings are allowed to roam free and occasionally butt heads, like bison.

People just want something to care about. We love to anticipate, and we can’t help but hope, even when that hope is entirely baseless, utterly arbitrary. The original BoSox fans were rooting for David when he bonked Goliath with a rock and pretty much cemented his signing bonus with the Almighty. People want to want, and then they want their wants gratified. Football builds a want for an entire season, brings it to a climax, and then pretty much finishes this sexual metaphor in one of two entirely predictable ways.

Sports are a sustainable, self-renewing source of emotional investiture.

Do you know what this says about us as a species? We are bored. We might have come a long way, baby, but somewhere between inventing the wheel and developing Viagra, we just gave up.

It’s tough to care when you don’t really have to. Back when starving hunters were dragging half-cooked haunches of mastodon back to the cave dwelling, there just wasn’t time for a pre-season draft. In the pre-penicillin days, the best medicine was prayer and leeches. For all you knew, not caring about something in the right way would get you a dose of the plague, or at least a good stoning. But now? Now we’ve won. Now we have to manufacture concern.

I’m OK with that. It is what it is.

I’m much happier watching football than I ever would have been during the Spanish Inquisition or the Ice Age. And at least sports will never be affected by writers’ strikes.