New to soccer. Where can I find the rules? The announcers are very limited in their "teaching" us newbies

Try here: http://www.ussoccer.com/referees/laws-of-the-game
The URL will take you to the official "laws" at the US Soccer site

World Cup: Red card rules out Belgium's Steven Defour for Round of 16 matchup vs. USA | MLSsoccer.com

Guess this just means this player is out for a while from the World Cup not that the Belgium team has to play with a man down.

The U.S.’s Odds of Beating Belgium And Every Other World Cup Opponent | FiveThirtyEight

The US may have a good chance of beating Belgium. I will have to do more research next week before making a prediction.

Exciting game this afternoon between Brazil and Chile. Chile almost won!!

Anyone who thinks this game is boring does not understand it. Google the rules and read them. Try Wikipedia. Lots of opportunities. As a former soccer mom, I love seeing it on TV. I hope after the World Cup, we will see more matches televised. Next year Orlando's team, the Lions, will be in the MLS and in 2016 the revamped stadium will be ready. You can keep up with the MLS on line. By the ways, the is an app for that. MLS Matchday in the App Store. Also there is an app called Sofa Score or many sports. It has a section for FILA World Cup in Brazil.

Just reading a bunch of rules is boring and won't help. I watched some of the world cup because of the USA playing and tried hard to enjoy it.
I learned American football by watching years of TV and learning from the comentators. These comentators that I've heard in soccer are no help and talk way above the level of fans trying to learn the game. Their commentary was fine I suppose for someone from Brazil, but if they want soccer to catch on in the US then they need to do some educating or there will be no interest.
Right now the interest is high because of the US playing other countries, but once it's over soccer will go back to a minor sport in the US.
I've got to say I've enjoyed the skill I've seen of players passing the ball with accuracy that is unbelieveable, but the public needs to learn the game, rules, and strategies and the best way to learn this is for the comentators to explain what is going on and not assume everyone already knows.
I'm trying to become a fan but need help.

My husband found the game more interesting after he learned some of the rules. But I agree with you about the commentators. Quite frankly, a lot of them come off as snobs.

Also, some sports are just not interesting to people. I was a soccer mom too. I was also a swimming mom, lacrosse mom, baseball mom, basketball mom, football mom. I only missed being a golf mom because other sports seasons interfered. (This was all one kid!) But other than football, lacrosse, and baseball, I wasn't a real "mom" to any of those sports. They just aren't interesting to me, and soccer tops that list. I don't feel I need to force myself to like any sport. It either catches my excitement, or it doesn't. If it catches my eye, then I make the effort to learn more about the game.

I think soccer has a bright future in the US because there are so many kids playing it these days. Already the first group are in their 30s, and the spectator base will continue to grow.

Hate to disagree Shimpy, but soccer in the US is no longer a minor sport. There is a Major League that has 16 teams in the US and 3 teams in Canada. They average over 18,000 per game and are a profitable league. Major League Soccer has the third highest average attendance of any sports league in the U.S., and is the seventh highest attended professional soccer league worldwide. With over 13 million Americans playing soccer in the United States, soccer is the third most played team sport in the U.S., behind only basketball and baseball/softball. The game against Portugal had 24 million viewers in the US compared with 15 million viewers for the NBA Finals. The largest category of soccer in the United States in terms of participation is boys' and girls' youth soccer. Soccer is one of the most played sports by children in the United States. In 2012, soccer was the #4 most played team sport by high school boys, and soccer overtook softball to become the #3 most played team sport by high school girls. As of 2006, the U.S. was the #1 country in the world for participation in youth soccer, with 3.9 million American youths (2.3 million boys and 1.6 million girls) registered with U.S. Soccer. The number of high school soccer players more than doubled from 1990 to 2010, giving soccer the fastest growth rate among all major U.S. sports. In recent decades, more youth sports organizations have turned to soccer as a supplement to American football,
and most American high schools offer both soccer and football in their fall sports seasons. Due to the rising number of youths playing, the term soccer mom is used in American social and political discourse to describe middle- or upper-middle class suburban women with school-age children. Americans between the ages of 12 and 24 rank professional soccer as their second favorite sport behind only American football. And in 2011, the FIFA video game ranked as the #2 most popular video game in the country, behind only Madden.
So, while people of our generation may not be soccer fans, the generations behind us appear to be.

Unlikely to become popular on television in the US because they're no time outs for the beer commercials.

They could always have the beer commercials as part of the big screen presentations. You could have spectators doing beer commercials in various creative ways. The wave but done, for instance, in a figure of a Budweiser frog! Or, more simply, just people spelling out Bud.

You have a point there. Somehow the other countries find enough ways to provide the sponsors with sufficient opportunities to make it worthwhile for them. Stand by to stand by...

Chances are that you would not miss anything if you took a beer break any time during the game.

I took a nap during one game and it was still 0-0 when I woke up.

Z

It seems to be more about defense. This is one of the great ones doing his best dribbling-- [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9NVRhbzky0]Cristiano Ronaldo CR7 Dribbling Arsenal Defense HD 480p YouTube - YouTube[/ame]

I follow college football, baseball and basketball. While the players are generations behind us I've heard no mention of college soccer. With fans of the SEC, ACC, Big 10, Big 12, etc. being fanatic supporters of their conference there is no mention of soccer. I've just got to believe there is no interest.