Now that football season will soon be upon us and I’ve signed up for my fantasy league on NFL.com. The Midguard Marauders will hopefully improve upon their 7-7 record. But professional football (the American variety, at any rate) will be poorer by six teams next year as NFL has finally shut down NFL Europa, a 14 year experiment in exporting a uniquely American pastime. It’s a shame, but it’s not surprising. What we call soccer has never been able to displace our devotion to football and it would be asking a great deal to expect our football to replace soccer in the hearts of its fans in Europe. The fact that the original 14 teams of the World League of American Football diminished to 6 by the end should have been evidence enough that the effort had failed, yet the NFL Channel continued to hype it till the end. I’m looking forward to catching something on the NFL channel today to find out what they have to say about it. It’s really a shame in another respect because we’ve now lost the only football team that has a kenning for a name – the Rhein Fire – a kenning for gold.