I’ve always understood to a certain extent that being an avid soccer enthusiast rendered me somewhat of an outlier in the US. For the most part, though, I’ve consistently found myself in communities where soccer is somewhere between fairly popular and pretty popular. As such, I rarely found myself in the infamous “soccer in America” debate. I know that I played and I know that my high school team was freakishly good (and not just at winning state titles, but also at staging the greatest half time show in the history of sport). This didn’t mean that I was unaware of soccer’s general perception in the US. It mostly meant that I didn’t care because I could still follow it and play it as much as I wanted to. It’s not until soccer becomes part of the zeitgeist that I find myself running to the sport’s defense. Never does soccer become part of the zeitgeist except every four years when a fun little event called the World Cup is held.
I have distinct memories associated with every World Cup dating back to Italia ’90 when West Germany won. For those of you scoring at home, I was living in West Germany at the time. Believe it or not, this was a big deal to West Germans (and probably some East Germans, but they were quite mysterious and lived behind a wall). Much to the world’s chagrin, the good ol’ US of A hosted the World Cup in 1994. Hosting combined with a surprising run of success got everyone to care about soccer briefly. During France ’98, I happened to be studying French so I felt strangely connected to the champions of that year’s edition of the Coupe du Monde (yeah, yeah, I like France and French people. Whatever.) In 2002, the Cup Finals were held in South Korea and Japan, which meant watching the Yanks’ surprising run the Quarterfinals at extremely odd hours. The last World Cup never happened. OK, it happened, but the US Men’s National Team decided to all travel to Germany and poop the bed together so I’d just as soon forget.
World Cup 2010: South Africa feels completely different than any I can recall. There are varying degrees of events reaching the national consciousness. If you put them on a scale of 1-10, 10 would be “White Bronco” and 1 would be “Donald Trump’s Hair”. Historically, the World Cup fell somewhere around a negative 3 in America. Even before this year’s World Cup started, it seemed that soccer might really register on the national radar. The coverage during the run-up to the Cup was unlike any that I recall. Granted, this had a lot to do with shameless self promotion on ESPN’s part, but I didn’t figure they would go to such lengths if there was an inkling that nobody was going to give a crap. There were other signs pointing toward an increase in soccer’s overall popularity (look up Seattle Sounders attendance figures), but it was hard to tell if I was just seeing those signs because I like soccer and wanted the signs to be there. A draw that led to a USA-England match certainly didn’t hurt the Q rating, but still the Yanks needed to perform for this thing to really take off. An epic goalkeeping blunder, a miracle comeback, a horrific officiating decision and a last minute Cup saving goal later, suddenly 78 percent of Americans have an opinion on vuvuzelas[2] .
The downside of major soccer events is the influx of soccer haters coming out of the woodwork. Even the haters this year seem to be coming from a place of, “I don’t like the diving and ties, but hey this thing seems like a big deal so I’m going to give it a whirl”. I’m not of the belief that there is a need for soccer fans to convince non soccer fans that it really is the beautiful game. Similarly, I don’t think it’s necessary for non soccer fans to point out why it’s stupid. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but I hope the opinions are at least informed. To the person who thinks it’s boring because there aren’t enough goals, I hope you don’t defend baseball (and I hope you watched USA: 1 – Algeria: 0; if that was boring to you, then I can’t help you). To the person who thinks yellow cards are silly, I hope you say the same about the yellow flags in American football. It is easier to be comfortable with the silly things about “our sports” because, well, they’re our sports, damn it. To learn something new takesin time and sometimes it takes seminal moments. The US team and the diehards packing bars in US cities (like The Copper Hog in Bellingham, WA!) are doing their part to make the 2010 World Cup soccer’s seminal moment in this country. It may stick for good and it may go back to being a niche sport for liberal weirdos. Regardless, the world is watching. If you love soccer like me, enjoy the ride. If you’re new to soccer with this World Cup, I hope you stick around after it. If you’ve always hated soccer, and will continue to after this, well that’s OK too. I hope you at least gave it a shot at some point.
More to come tomorrow after (and maybe during) USA-Ghana. It may or may not involve crying. The World Cup has made me strangely emotional. Until then…
Let’s gooooooo USA!! Make us proud, boys.
[1] During the winter months, the lucky students at the Department of Defense school in Garmish-Partenkirchen, Germany had half days at school, with the afternoon spent skiing. Wonderful indeed. Especially when your mom is nice enough to always make sure that Wonderful Wednesdays were accompanied by the gold packs of gummi bears.
[2] I made that figure up. You thought this footnote would be a vuvuzela definition, huh? Why would I need to do that if 78 percent of Americans already have an opinion on them? Then again, I did make the figure up. They’re the horn thingies.
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