Soccer and Americans a Bad Match

Moments like these are the only ones we Americans really connect to when it comes to soccer.

  We’re the weird ones, you know. And as much as we like to think that, as Americans, we have crafted the coolest sports and play the most popular ones, the truth is we haven’t and the truth is we don’t. Football is vigorous and baseball is timeless, basketball is rousing and hockey is bracing, but soccer is the Beautiful Game. It is the World’s Game. In our sports culture though, it falls underneath just about everything besides croquet and badminton, begging the question, “Are we that different from the rest of the world?”

Yes, and no. Soccer gives us what we crave as a sports audience, we just don’t see it. It also gives us what we loathe, and our eyes are much more discerning in this vain. The result is a game that we condemn as repetitive, uneventful, and painfully theatrical. This of course, clashes with what the rest of world (minus Canada) sees as fast-paced, imaginative and wonderfully dramatic.

This difference in opinion, which really is a difference in perception, is a function of our country’s thirst for furious action. We have been trained by mass media to want fast, aggressive, unrelenting activity that presents itself in a forceful manner. We want to be spoon-fed in this regard, often unwilling to delve deeper into something to appreciate its complexity and beauty. In the realm of entertainment – and sports fall here for most of our country – our jejune appetites are intensified, leading to premature judgments and sweeping generalities. “Soccer is boring,” is one such favorite.

Of course, that’s like a German calling baseball tedious. Or an Italian calling football predictable. They are dismissive, narrow-minded claims that come with very little latitude. I suppose it stems from our own vain self-importance, that we can watch 45 minutes of a sport (or less) and make a decisive pronouncement about it. We act like a 5 year old in the library, who restlessly scours the shelves for a book that catches his eye, tossing the rejects on the floor behind him until he finds a bright, unusual cover. He doesn’t care what’s inside.

But most sports fans are older than 5, and have long understood the “don’t judge a book by its cover” lesson, even if their actions might say otherwise. We’d be wise to apply it to soccer, for there’s a lot about the game that suits our spectator desires. What’s more, there’s a lot about the game that doesn't suit these desires, which presents an opportunity for us, as sports fans, to diversify and refine our palette. Like caviar or coffee, soccer is an acquired taste.

Chances are, it won’t grip you right away. There is no potential for a kickoff-return, when a soccer game begins. In all likelihood, the possessing team will bring the ball backward first, working it through the midfielders and backs before initiating any kind of attack or buildup. But continue to watch, and the game will begin to reveal itself to you. You will see the crispness in the passes, the deftness in the touches, and the cheekiness in the footwork. Keep watching and you will see the way players masterfully manipulate the ball, harnessing spin and pressure points and velocity the way a pitching ace commands the baseball. You will see the way they dupe defenders, faking one way and then suddenly cutting back another, artistically eluding their opponents the way a running back scampers around the linebackers. You will see how they powerfully elevate to win a 50/50 ball, soaring fiercely into the air, eyes wide and the mind possessed, the way a forward skies for a rebound off the backboard. You will see the geometric wizardry in their passing, intuitively opening holes and filling space, and working give-and-go’s the way a pair of wingers operate off their center, moving fluidly as one unit toward the goal. To see all this requires a keen eye, otherwise you might mistake the game’s swift, jaunty tune for a sputtering cacophony of tone-deaf fullbacks and out-of-tune strikers. The Beautiful Game wants your affection, but she wont throw herself at you. 

Unfortunately – and this requires far less patience and perceptiveness – you will also see a terrible amount of embellishment. Diving and acting and lobbying the referee for favorable calls is as much a part of the game as decorative celebrations. It is even encouraged by many managers, not excluding U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann who said recently that his players need to “get an edge” the way star players on high-profile teams do, by exaggerating fouls and “making their case with referees” in swarming droves. Not surprisingly, these comments did not rest well with fans of the national team, who are quick to point out that the Americans’ toughness and resiliency is one of the team’s strengths. Moreover, there is a level of dignity and self-respect ingrained in their aversion to diving that the players are unwilling to sacrifice for a few extra calls per game. As Landon Donovan said, “That’s not really in our character as Americans. … We try to play the game fair. We don’t really dive. We don’t do those kind of things.”

In fairness, Klinsmann comes from a soccer culture where embellishment is seen as tactful strategy, not cheap duplicity. So his urging the U.S. to adopt these age-old methods was in the name of gamesmanship, rather than cheating. But the issue remains the same: In a domain whose defining, most persuasive aspect is its unpredictability – its realness – soccer rewards players for staged behavior. And in a sphere where teeth-gritting toughness is the norm, if not the expectation, soccer is littered with episodes of dramatic pretense. Such fraud not only cheapens the game, but renders it soft. And Americans, who deem themselves a hardy lot, have no time for prima donna-like conduct. We’ve seen Muhammad Ali box with a broken jaw, we’ve seen Jack Youngblood play with a broken leg. We’ve seen Tiger Woods win with a torn ACL and two stress fractures. So when we see a diva on the pitch crumble to the ground like he has been shot, clutching an ankle or a leg as though it has been sawed in two, only to dust himself off and resume play thirty seconds later, it makes us sick.   

Soccer: The World’s Version is not meant for us. The skill is mesmerizing and the flair is alluring, but the embellishment and the whining is petty and shameful and more of a turnoff than an extra extremity. Soccer: The American’s Version isn’t quite meant for us either. The speed is impressive and the tenacity is rousing, but the want for technique is frustrating and the absence of artistry is uninspiring. To watch American soccer is to eat a BLT, sans bacon.

Perhaps one day we will form a hybrid, combining the refined style of the World with the hearty grit of the Americans. But until that day comes, soccer will continue to be slated on the reserve team of spectator sports in the United States.