Soccer: Some Say it is a Kick (not me!)

My recent reaction to the United States men’s team having lost in the World Cup was as follows, and I quote myself: “Well, at least we can go back to not caring about soccer for another four years.” For a number of decades, it has been widely known and criticized that soccer is the most popular game in the entire world but not here in the United States.

Many pundits have suggested that the reason for this fact is we Americans are selfish, that the purity of a team sport is lost on us. I disagree. Our team sports are just as lofty as soccer. Football (sorry, American football) requires absolute commitment to team. Has anyone ever watched how many times a wide receiver runs the thirty-yard-dash in a given afternoon? As well, blockers within the trenches take a beating that make the ever-popular “header” look like a kids’ game. I won’t say soccer is not physical in nature, but so is basketball.

Some have said that we do not like the so-called “international game” because it isn’t high-scoring enough, that somehow a 1-Nill final is not enticing to the American way of excess. Again, I disagree. The 2007 Steelers 3-0 victory over Miami on national television in a hurricane-induced swamp-of-a-field was one of the best games to watch – ever! As well, a baseball game wherein a pitcher’s duel results in a 2-1 final score is outstanding, and many fans enjoy that game for the edge-of-your-seat anticipation. Besides, what the hell is “nill”? How dare you call us snobbish when we say the score was one – to – zero! Or, maybe just a shut-out. Take your nill and get the hell off my couch!

Still, others have offered that we have too many distractions, too much to do as a whole society so that the focus of one solitary game becomes impossible. Maybe this is true. After all, we have 300 million citizens – we cannot all be fans of anything, though somehow television has tried its best to overtake us. The distraction argument goes right through your umbros, kid. The whole world is distracted – that is why we participate in or watch sports to begin with. We need a break so that we can be distracted! It is time soccer fans get off their high horse (no wait, that is polo) and realize that their game is no better than any other. Let’s see you take a skate across the throat. When that happens, call up the NHL guys and ask them how popular soccer is.

I have long wondered how anyone who professes a love for soccer could call baseball boring. Granted, fans of jai-alai (if anyone still is), competitive bull-fighting or roller derby can fairly state that the level of excitement in any of those contests is higher than baseball and soccer combined, but those are not even sports – they are glorified self-abuse camps for the athletic masochist. Baseball is a game for purists, and, okay, we tend to over-intellectualize and aggrandize ourselves for that purpose. However, I have come to understand that soccer is actually popular only because it is boring.

Allow me to explain.

If by definition, a pastime is deigned to, oh, I don’t know, pass the time, then how or why we become fans of any team, country or player is ridiculous. We are not supposed to be investing our loyalties; we are supposed to simply be passing the time. We are not expected to be involved to a spectacular personal level; we are simply expected to be spectators, to watch! So, then, how did fandom become fanaticism? I think it has something to do with the human need to “ism” everything into existence, but that would be another topic for another column.

Soccer allows for time…a lot of time…a lot of wasted time…ninety minutes of nothing happening time…a lot of extra add-on time that seems to be unfair to competition…to pass time without much going on. So, yes, it is the ultimate pastime. And what do people do when they have time to pass? They party! Therein lies the secret, America. The rest of the world loves, adores, dies for, admires, and follows soccer because it is a lengthy excuse to party. And, in turn, they criticize our dislike for soccer because they don’t want us to crash their proverbial football party.

You don’t have to pay attention all that much when watching soccer – just wait until a collective roar goes up from the teetotalers or twelve-step-programmers, glance quickly toward the field, and see if one of the three goals to be scored all afternoon just happened to hit the net at that moment. If so, yell and scream and bally-hoo and hug strangers; if not, drink up! There might be overtime.

The reality is this – just because something is popular does not mean it is good. Aerosmith is popular, Rush is good; The Rolling Stones are popular, Led Zeppelin is good. The Beatles…maybe both. Apocalypse Now is a good – no, a great – film; it is mainly popular among film fans, Uber nerds and guys who like guy movies that do not necessarily star Nicolas Cage (there is a Coppola joke in there if you are clever enough), but you might only catch it uncut on cable a few times a year on certain weekends. You will never see Pretty Woman shown in a film class at Marquette University, though you will see it broadcast on cable sixteen times a week. While that absurd story is popular, it is not a good movie!

The examples could roll on as long as a soccer match itself. Grease, that musical / movie, was popular, it was not good! Hair spray (not the movie this time) was popular once, we now know it is not good for various reasons. Binge drinking is popular, it is not good. Hell, even the necktie is popular, and that is definitely not a good thing. Hockey is good, soccer is merely popular.

Again, and with emphasis: just because soccer is popular does not mean it is good!

Finally, that damn clock. Let’s add time to a game because an injury occurred? Really? In our sports we have this thing called a whistle. If play needs to be stopped for an injury or a ball that goes out of bounds, the play is stopped. See, sports are an artificial construct in which the participants determine how much time is to pass; soccer seems to believe it controls “real time” by keeping the clock moving – and upwards at that! Oy vay! Oh, wait, there is a sport that does not even require a clock? What sport is that? Wait, I know this one. Don’t tell me. Oh, yeah, baseball! I rest my case. Soccer, popular; baseball, good.