Why soccer will always fail in the US
July 12th, 2007
Sports is like religion, most people are born into it. It’s a sort of glue that holds together societies and helps define it’s culture. How some sports like Baseball can continue to survive in the USA despite being the most boring sport ever invented, next to cricket, boils down to one factor… Baseball is as American as apple pie.
Tom Cruise’s orchestration of bringing David Beckham stateside to kick off American soccer fever will fail just like Indoor soccer failed in the early 80’s. A flood of promotional funds will be pumped into the sport backing Beckham. The media and celebrity coverage will naturally boost soccer’s ratings. And if Beckham brings the US to a World Cup final, certainly some level of fever will grip the good ole US. But it won’t last long, and like the Cigar fad of the late 90’s, we’ll all be thinking… what were we thinking?
Why will Soccer never fully catch on in the US? Because at it’s core, it’s a negative game, and the American public is far too sensitive to negativity to endure it for any length of time. Here is why it’s negative…
- It’s called “football” not soccer, and while it may sound trivial, it’s very name poses a threat to American football. American football enthusiasts won’t embrace soccer simply because it will very much be in competition with American Football for media coverage and mindshare. Ultimately, for Soccer to become fully accepted into the US, it has to be called Football, and that’s not going to happen.- We humans are most adapt with our hands, watching craftsmen do amazing things with their hands is fun, watching people artificially suppressed of their capabilities isn’t. Hey, here’s an idea for a sport, lets take away eyesight.. make a basketball-like game where the players are blindfolded. It’ll be about as high scoring and as entertaining as soccer… little to no goals scored mostly by luck and penalties.
- Time keeps running up to 90 minutes, and then there’s extra time added on to make up for penalties and other stuff. Unlike football when the count clicks down to “sudden death”, soccer requires constant mental mathematics. And one still doesn’t know for certain how much time is left because they add more time on at the end.
- The game is too low scoring to be entertaining. Not only is this boring, but it makes for bitter, terribly bitter and negative outcomes. Hockey is low scoring also, but the games are shorter and the action moves more quickly. Also the TV camera is often tight and close with the players… plus there’s great fights.
-The problem is deeper than low scoring. When low scoring hockey games end, you are stuck with the memories of a few awesomely skillful finesse shots at the goal. With soccer, you are left with one or two outrageously bad referee calls resulting in game winning penalty kicks. It’s no wonder soccer spawns hooligans; littering the field, setting fires and brawling at matches. Don’t blame the booze, blame the game.
-Another problem with scoring… how are points scored. Runaway brilliance of a star goal shooter? 5% of goals. Telepathically nice teamwork? 15%. Ball kicked in from the corner and headbutted in? 30%. Penalty kick, 50%. These aren’t exact stats, just my feeling. I don’t know if it’s just me, but watching a ball being headbutted in from a referee positioned corner kick makes me feel sorry for the unfortunate goalie more than it leaves me in awe of the great teamwork and talent of the people who practiced over and over being in the right place at the right time and just got lucky.
- Matches can end in a tie… kind of like kissing your sister. What’s even worse is in World Cup finals where they don’t allow ties. So what do they do? “Penalty Shootout”.
- You would think they simply keep widening the goals until a team scores, or some intelligent system like that. Nope, they give each team 5 free kicks at the opposing goal. I’ve sat there watching a terribly frustrating game for 90 minutes where neither team can come close to scoring, (great display of defense? no, I say, poorly designed game) and then at the end, to determine the winner, they have a “penalty shootout”. The crowd of mostly Brits are all up and excited and cheering. Meanwhile, I’m thinking… this is the most stupid conclusion to the most annoying game I’ve ever witnessed.
- Watching soccer on TV just isn’t fun, there’s just too much void field and empty space, making each player look like a little dot, you don’t feel up close and involved. It’s like watching golf without the close-ups. And the sound leaves one with an empty feeling. Listen to an NFL crowd cheering, and it draws you in with excitement. Listen to a soccer crowd cheer and you get this feeling that they are all far too distant from the action to really be involved. There’s just too much open space, so everything feels, sounds and looks too distant.
-Soccer referee’s are God and make far too many discretionary calls. American’s can’t tolerate God-like referees, just look what happens when the umpire at one of junior’s little league ball games gets a chip on his shoulder. Now imagine some pompous soccer ref holding up red card in defiance of being given the stink eye.
-The problems caused by the power given to officials can’t be stressed enough. Americans are all about justice, equality, being fair and balanced.. and the officiating at soccer matches is anything but fair and balanced. Some ref’s hand out red and yellow cars like halloween candy while others simply give a certain glance to the coach signaling for him to remove the player from the field without the card. Once American’s see how much clout officiating brings to the game, they’ll drop it like a hot coal.
- Because of the power refs have over the game, the players and coaches are all forced to have very strict containment over their emotions and behavior, ie.. no display of passion and aggression… ie.. too boring for American’s who grew up on WWF.
- Certain penalty kicks allow the opposing team to stand in the line of fire. It’s not fun watching these guys cover their nuts in anticipation of having a ball come rocketed toward them. Whose sick idea was this anyway? Cruel and negative idea.
- It’s no wonder Tom Cruise gets along with Beckham, they’re both actors. All good soccer players have to be actors so they can pretend like they just got their shin bashed in when meanwhile, the slow motion replay shows their shin didn’t even get touched. I used to get all emotionally fueled when a player went down grabbing his leg, thinking to myself.. “oh, the poor, poor guy, this looks like a career ending injury, oh, I wish him all the best, I hope it’s not serious.”. Now I just think… ”get up and quit faking it you idiot”.
Occasionally the player really is injured, and then it dawns on me just how negative I’ve become while watching the game. The frustration over neither team being able to score, the annoyance over referee’s making arbitrary calls, the astonishment over learning the pointless and outdated rules… it brings out the negativity in me and I’m sure most intelligent people who are trying to embrace it.
Again, I’m not talking about beach soccer, high school soccer, the fun of playing the sport, etc.. I’m talking about why the American public will not adopt it as one of their top national sports.
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