But flopping in soccer is a problem. Flopping is essentially a combination of acting, lying, begging, and cheating, and these four behaviors make for an unappealing mix. The sheer theatricality of flopping is distasteful, as is the slow-motion way the chicanery unfolds. First there will be some incidental contact, and then there will be a long moment—enough to allow you to go and wash the car and return—after the contact and before the flopper decides to flop. When you've returned from washing the car and around the time you're making yourself a mini-bagel grilled cheese, the flopper will be leaping forward, his mouth Munch-wide and oval, bracing himself for contact with the earth beneath him. But this is just the beginning. Go and do the grocery shopping and perhaps open a new money-market account at the bank, and when you return, our flopper will still be on the ground, holding his shin, his head thrown back in mock-agony. It's disgusting, all of it, particularly because, just as all of this fakery takes a good deal of time and melodrama to put over, the next step is so fast that special cameras are needed to capture it. Once the referees have decided either to issue a penalty or not to our Fakey McChumpland, he will jump up, suddenly and spectacularly uninjured—excelsior!—and will kick the ball over to his teammate and move on.

That's Dave Eggers, four years ago, in an article explaining why Americans have yet to (and quite likely won't ever) fall in love with soccer.

I missed the article in 2006. I was in Beijing, eating popsicles, sprinting shirt- and shoe-less through flooding alleys to rescue a lost taxi cab, muting the painfully repetitive Chinese commentators in favor of Mos Def or Sim Redmond Band, and realizing that it's a beautiful thing to be somewhere other than the United States for the world's greatest sporting event.

This year I'm here, though. In LA. And very excited for tomorrow morning. South Africa vs Mexico kicks it off. At 630am.

Thank you, Slate, for republishing the Eggers. And thank you, China, for making me a soccer fan.