Soccer: Alienating American sports fans since before America existed.

I was just recently pondering the question that all writers ponder: How could I decrease my American readership with just one sentence? It hit me like a well-driven ball to the top corner of an inviting goal.


I'm going to write about soccer.


Thanks for sticking with me, America. Listen, I know that you love sports with the flair and nostalgia of ancient Americana. I know you hate new things, like the centuries-old European obsession with "football." I know you hate sports where people run around for 90 minutes. If you want to see men running, you prefer the 10-second dashes that you only have to watch twice a decade when the Olympics come on. I know you don't understand this game with so many rules, and you prefer the simplicity of American football or the consistently enforced rules of the NBA.


But hear me out. Allow me to lay out a solid defense of soccer in America.


Complaint: Soccer is boring, and don't tell me it's because I don't understand.
Refutation: Soccer is like war. That's why the Europeans like it. They used to go to war all the freaking time. When that fell out of style, and they all started adopting the same currency, they needed to continue their bitter rivalries in other ways. Now they pour all of their hatred of their neighbours into various cup competitions. 


Now, you don't understand the tactics. Well, that's because they aren't drawn up. You hate hockey for the same reason. You think soccer is boring because you are unoriginal. Every movement on the soccer ball (or the hockey puck, actually) is unscripted and inventive. You deconstruct it afterward, not prior to. You can't predict it. That's what makes it fun to watch. Stop trying to understand it, because you are making it boring.


Complaint: Americans are bad at soccer.
Refutation: Well, yeah. We just got dismantled by Spain...and then Panama. At one point, we owned their Canal. Now they own us. But Americans are slowly carving out their own definition of soccer. It isn't that "boring" style of play that the Europeans play. It isn't the flopping and rolling around, faking injury to get calls. American soccer is cutthroat and adventurous. Americans sacrifice a solid defense to score for glory. They take very un-European risks. They have their own niche that reflects their identity. Let's look at footballing nations and see how their teams' football reflects their national identities:

1. Spain: almost like they are a tourist attraction themselves.
2. Netherlands: you don't know why they can't win the big one, until you realize that win or lose, they are still going home to a party.
3. France: cheese-eating surrender monkeys in any arena.
4. Italy: flamboyant and prone to surprising collapse under the wrong leadership.
5. Germany: terrifyingly efficient, and you always want to keep an eye on them.
6. United States: rebellious and can only play their own way.
7. England: pretentious and reveling in past glories, while doing nothing of importance in the meantime.
8. Brazil: they play like they are reminding you that they have Rio de Janiero, and you don't.
9. Czech Republic: classic overachievers in every possible arena. 
10. Australia: they aren't very good at war, and they're not very good at soccer. But they don't care. They live in Australia.

So, Americans aren't bad at soccer. We are bad at international soccer, because we don't play like the other guys. But if we did, we wouldn't be the United States. It would be like France getting along, Germany being sloppy, or England actually accomplishing anything in the modern era.


Complaint: The MLS was terrible 10 years ago, and it still is.
Refutation: And this is the big one, and part of why I'm writing this. The MLS just got good. It took them a long time. They wanted to put teams in all of the "big markets." Multiple teams in New York, Southern California, Florida, etc. Dumb. No one cared. They were over-saturated sports markets. Recently, however, those teams have been pared down and soccer in America has been rescued.


The Northwest is America's soccer mecca. I was out in Seattle a couple of years ago, when the Seattle Sounders opened their season in the MLS. I was in a sports bar on a "dead" sports night, where only baseball was happening in most cities. In Seattle, the Mariners don't actually play baseball, so they didn't even have that going for them. But in this sports bar, something else was on. It was soccer. And the people loved it. They cheered, yelled, misunderstood the rules, cheered anyway. They wore scarves, bright green shirts, acted like Europeans. It was great. They were crazies. If you don't believe me, watch a Seattle Sounders game: A Sounders crowd is rowdier than a Seahawks crowd.


So the MLS capitalized. They invited Portland and Vancouver into the fold. They brought in Toronto. The culture is alive and well, and the games are reflecting it. Don't believe me? Go watch some recent highlights. The talent, heart, drama, and suspense (even in highlights!) will erase your misconceptions about the beautiful game.


Now, the US is not going to win the World Cup. Get over it, Americans. We are the rebels who don't play right. But soccer isn't about the "three-peat," the "dynasty," or union bargaining and rules enforcement. It's about the narrative, and we're part of it now. The fact that we're starting to see some incredible soccer being played in our own backyard is just an added bonus.


So, the NBA and NHL have all but wrapped for the year. Baseball is on all the time. The NFL is an elitist mess. College sports won't be back until September. Next Saturday, make it Soccer Saturday. Watch the beautiful game and enjoy the narrative. If you are lucky, the narrative will be punctuated with one of the greatest goals you ever see. But you will never know until you try it out.