I love me some Team USA/World Cup soccer. But make no mistake about it; I’m caught up in winning and national pride. The fact that it’s played out on a soccer pitch is kinda irrelevant. So, after hearing over and over that soccer is finally taking off in America, let me propose three simple reasons that will never happen.
First, the soccer snob. He has that floppy haircut of so many University of Alabama quarterbacks, skinny jeans, some type of obscure soccer jersey and maybe even a scarf or two. He’s very focused on the match and his pint of whatever Euro beer that ends in “wheat.” He’s always yelling about “offsides” and talking loudly about British towns that sound like they came from Tolkien’s middle earth as opposed to modern day England.
And the good Lord help us if some commoner asks him about what’s going on in the match. At that point, he can break into his condescending diatribe about how we Americans (keep in mind that he’s one, too) don’t get it. We don’t understand the complexity of the game (keep in mind the ricochet is usually the best way to score) and the beauty. We’ll never understand the drama of Ipswich United vs. Canterbury in a friendly way (again, keep in mind that European soccer fans are often violent and intensely racist). As an ambassador for his sport, he is the perfect argument against it. He likes the small, elitist sand box and doesn’t want a longshoreman, eating a burger and drinking a Budweiser, cheering for his team. No, the soccer snob, like the music snob and hipster, derives his own self-believed coolness from his elitism. After his match he can get into his hybrid, turn on whatever nearly anonymous band only he knows about, and drive off with the self-satisfaction that only he understands sports on a high level of consciousness.
Second, the juice box. It’s unfair to criticize this tasty little treat, but it’s come to symbolize the don’t-keep-score attitude that surrounded the suburban, Saturday morning, preteen soccer league. We’ve seen the “participation trophy” generation grow up into know-it-all, video-game-playing slackers who still live in the basement. Maybe it’s unfair to criticize soccer or the juice box for the failings of a youthful generation.
Youth sports should be about fun, exercise, friendship and teamwork. Not about thunder dome-style death matches where the parents storm the field after a win. Unfortunately, too often preteen sports are about the latter. So, we equate soccer with a soft sport where kids are taught not to keep score. I happen to believe this is wrong. Heck, we always got a shaved ice after a game when I was growing up. But most American sports fans believe the soccer-is-soft narrative, and it’s awfully hard to dispel that when you see the flopping and convulsing on the pitch when a player is bumped to the ground.
Finally, there is no winning time, no moment on which the entire game rests. In America, we love a winner, and the best way to determine that is to keep score and have a definite point and time when the game is won or lost. It’s possible in a soccer match to score inside the first minute then have the clock run for 89 more minutes and the game end. So, effectively the game was over in the first minute, you just didn’t realize that until 89 minutes later.
And when it’s over, it’s not really over. There’s extra time put on the clock that only the head official has determined. Can you imagine Michael Jordan at the top of the key in Salt Lake City hitting that jumper only to have the referee put three minutes up on the clock and give Utah the ball out of bounds?
So, that’s a brief analysis of why soccer won’t truly catch on in the U.S. But who cares, lets enjoy the happening. I’m there in my red, white and blue rooting for Team USA even if I don’t know any of the players. For a couple of weeks I can ignore the soccer snob, overlook the orange slices and stay focused through a 90-minute scoreless tie. It might not be like beating the Ruskies in Lake Placid, but I’m still chanting “USA.”
Bill Vickery is a political consultant and appears on Political Plays on KARK on Friday mornings. Listen to him on The Sunday Buzz from 9 a.m. to noon Sundays on 103.7 The Buzz.