I'm sure soccer fans are thrilled with his new embracing of the sport.
Did he really embrace it? All I remember is him picking Tottenham as his favorite team and never mentioning soccer again. (Granted, this was when I started phasing Simmons out of my life.)
He just wrote a
column on his visit to Stadio Azteca in Mexico City to see the US-Mexico World Cup Qualifier.
I actually enjoyed the column quite a bit. Despite my previous bellyaches in this thread on how much I hate him, what I feel has always been his greatest strength is simply his perspective as a fan and his ability to articulate that perspective in a cogent and entertaining way.
I can take or leave his tired 80's pop culture references and his often times weak grasp of basic facts (e.g. his stupefying question to Jeff Ross in a recent podcast why there's no real stand up comedy scene in LA anymore)... Him sitting amongst 100,000 frenzied Mexican soccer fans and reporting the scene humorously and meaningfully is a glimpse at what made me first enjoy his work, and is the antithesis of the lazy old sports 'insider' he's become.