Oh, my....where to begin...
In short...soccer is just another sport, among many. Love by many, hated by many just like any other sport.
If you hate it - there’s no convincing...if you have a slight interest in sports in general and are willing to spend some time watching somewhere to 5 to 10 good games...you will pick up the nuances and intricacies of the game.
If you want to be intitiated in the sport, I recommend not wasting anytime now, but wait until next year’s World Cup in South Africa. The best will be on display, and you can cheer for the good ole’ USA.
If you still hate hate it after that, then that’s just it...no need to try and convince you otherwise. I’ve tried and tried to enjoy baseball, but just can’t get there...too boring. Football - I like, but can only stand watching it on TV. At a real game, it’s 10 minutes of actual play time stretched out into 3 1/2 hours. Basketball, my favorite sport...Hockey - only the playoffs interest me. Cricket.....
I love football, but I've heard it described as the worst parts of American culture: moments of extreme violence separated by long meetings. :-)
If you look at the major sports, most of them have one team clearly trying to score while the other team is keeping them from scoring. Baseball - only the offense can score. Football - except for a turnover or safety, only the offense can score. Basketball - switches back and forth between offense and defense especially with the shot clock where you don't run into soccer's problem. Hockey - fast action and relatively common turnovers, plus you can have fights. Soccer (especially at the upper levels) - it looks like two teams trying their best to keep the other team from scoring, with their own scoring only coming as an afterthought.
The thing which would perk up soccer for me is eliminating or at least greatly reducing the offside rule. A long kick to a teammate streaking to the goal to bring the score to 10-8 would be much more interesting than yet another 1-0 match.
Funny how tastes differ. I've always considered basketball a huge practical joke the whole world plays on me. There's really now way a rational person would consider such a ridiculous activity entertaining. It's like they sat down and made a list:
-A sport with constant time outs? check
-A sport best suited for young girls because anything physical is illegal? check
-A sport with way too much scoring, making the each score nearly meaningless? check
-A ridiculous obsession with style instead of substance, like a 7 foot man jumping a foot off the ground to dunk is some sort of athletic wonder? check.
-A sport that's impossible to really officiate, because not only do you have to decide if the poor dear was fouled, you have to decide which poor dear fouled the other.
-A sport that on the professional level is so infested with gang culture that a trip to a live game is an assault on your senses, as rap music blares non stop? check
-A sport where the last two minutes can literally take a half our and include 8 commercial time outs? check
-And last but certainly not least, a sport with the most exciting feature of all human existence...the free throw? check
Soccer can move rather slowly, but it's a threesome with Shania Twain and Brooke Burke compared to basketball.