The Gally Blog

We live in an era of absolute hyperbole. Nowhere is that more evident than the skipping record of articles that are written every four years about the World Cup. Either this is the year that America embraces soccer or we’ll never love a game that is so BORING and COMMUNIST. Most rational people (there’s about seven in the world, last I checked, and four of them are making Beerswear in Calcutta) know that reality is somewhere in the middle. Judging the reaction of friends/coworkers to the World Cup, it seems like more than mere jingoism. There are people that are becoming soccer fans, between these games and the Champions League final. I think that soccer can, in fact, catch on in the states. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Obligatory vuvuzela reference

Soccer is a tricky game to understand for most Americans. The strategies and assignments on offense and defense are reminiscent of hockey (another sport that’s not real cozy with the average American), while the theatrics are purely European (in the most negative stereotypical way possible). A 0-0 game can be a moral victory- in fact, ties are a common occurence. This fact alone kills Joe Six-Pack American Sports Fan The Plumber (his friends call him Hambone). In American sports, there is a winner- we go to great lengths to make sure that overtimes are in place and that every game has one. But in soccer, the head-to-head results aren’t that big of a deal- at least, as much as popular American sports. Sure, it’s nice to beat Chelsea, but it matters more what you did for the entire season. Much like college football, the sport tends to be top-heavy (the EPL has had four champions since being founded in ’92) but it can make a lesser team’s season to topple one of the elite clubs and avoid relegation (or, in college football’s case, another year of being called “just Northwestern”). I feel like this comparison needs to take off, if only because I’d love to hear Hambone yell about EEE PEE ELL SPEED, but I digress. Hambone feels this need to have every game end with a clear winner. Hockey learned this lesson and ended up with a confusing mix of soccer-like roots and an American flourish with the shootout…in regular season games. Which leads to the dueling factions of fans in camps of “I LIKE WINNERS” and “IT’S A SKILLS COMPETITION”, which in turn leads to the ‘real fan’ argument…but that’s another post.

He's not diving. He actually was shot.

The things that make soccer unique, though, make it more likely to find a niche in the American psyche…if only we could watch it. People wonder why soccer has never ‘taken off’ in the States, but tend to forget that the best soccer in the world doesn’t happen in the MLS…and the European leagues don’t time their games for easy watching on another continent. And that assumes you have Fox Soccer Channel (or ATDHE.com bookmarked). You can’t expect a mediocre to win over a populace. The reason NFL Europe flopped wasn’t because Europe hates football (at least not entirely), it was because it was a second (or third) rate league. You wouldn’t win basketball fans in India by exporting the WNBA either. The US is, and will be, stuck with lesser overall talent than Euro leagues, so soccer will remain a niche at best, because casual fans will find it difficult to get into- both for rules reasons and time reasons. But the rules can be learned with repetition, something that the limited coverage doesn’t allow.

Most columnists usually point out the involvement in youth soccer and wonder why none of those kids ever end up liking soccer when they get older. As someone that played from roughly 2nd-7^th grade- it’s because they never taught us anything. Sure, we knew how to dribble, but there was never any strategy or assignments covered. We just knew that forwards stayed forward, midfielders were everywhere and defenders stayed back. You were assigned sides of the field to cover, but it usually devolved into T-ball-esque displays of ball chasing. This is why so many people play soccer but don’t like watching it- there’s never any teaching going on at that level. I don’t think they ever even adequately explained offsides to us. It’s exceptionally hard to care about a sport if you don’t understand it, and that’s where youth soccer fails. It’s an excuse to tire out Little Timmy, and nothing more.

She's gonna sleep good tonight...(nevermind that the ball is in the other direction)

The thing that I think soccer benefits from is the lack of Hambones that follow it. Casual fans ruin sports for sports fans because everything about the telecast becomes catered to the lowest common denominator. Martin Tyler would never call a match if soccer was marketable to a wide audience in the States with any consistency (read: every four years doesn’t count). We’d end up with the Joe Bucks and Jim Nantzs of the world calling every match and pretending like they gave a crap. You’d have a permanent “offside line” visible on the screen like the 1^st down line in football. You know they’d find a way to cram in commercial breaks (I’d assume picture-in-picture like a NASCAR race). Sportscenter would let the brightest soccer minds…go work for someone else while they got Skip Bayless to yell himself into a rabid foam about Italy flopping. Soccer existing in a niche market allows it to be one of the purer sports, at least in America.

Now, I did say that I think soccer can still catch on in America. And it can. It starts with the FIFA video games. A quality video game can teach people the basics of the game (I’ve learned more in three months about the responsibilities of a striker than I had in the prior 24 years) while introducing them to teams, players, leagues and the concepts of league tables and whatnot. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re hopelessly addictive. It’s a chicken or the egg situation with Madden and the NFL, but it can at least be said that a very good video game would bode well for the sport. Similar to how hockey ended up with a much younger fanbase after the lockout (thanks largely to what is, by far, the flattest blogging landscape in sports moreso than the video games), the FIFA (and Winning Eleven, and the other) games could very well do what the massive youth soccer programs could never do. Get the youth of the nation (apologies to P.O.D.) to care about the sport and grow up to be actual fans.

The latest in soccer gaming

Even with that, it’s going to be hard to get to get the support behind pro clubs in the states that they have in Europe. With the years of tradition that grew- largely- organically, it’s impossible for an American club to replicate that in an era of over-marketed image-wary organizations. The place where this has a real chance of taking off is at the college level. You have a built-in rabid fanbase (students) that can basically replicate what they do at football and basketball games. Loosen up some of the rules on celebration at the college level (at least allow the Stanky Leg, come on), and try to grow the game that way. At the very least, it’s worth a try.

Oh...that's stanky...

No matter how you look at it, soccer will probably never be the most popular sport in America. It can, however, easily find its niche and avoid the pitfalls that the mainstream sports keep falling into.

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Related posts:

1. The Worlds Men Prefer Soccer Over Everything?
2. What we’re thankful for…: Soccer Hooligan Edition