U Weekly. Serving The Ohio State University in Columbus Ohio

A.L.F.P.

(America's least favorite pastime)

By Michael Amann

The USA soccer team beat juggernaut Spain in the semifinals of the Confederations Cup - whatever that may be - last week. This was a huge upset, and all of the soccer people in America lost their shit. To commemorate our national soccer team's greatest victory of all time, the Cincinnati Enquirer promptly buried the story on the second page of the Sports section. While I could point to this out-of-touch move that hurts the credibility of dead-tree newspapers, I think this is a greater indictment on soccer and its perception in America.

I know a lot of people who are really into soccer. Half of these people are true sports fans, who go to games and treat it like the rest of the world does. These people are fine. The second kind of fans are the terrible ones.

These are the people who are horrified to be in a country that does not love and adore the other kind of football. They feel that their redneck nation fails to see the divine nature of this otherwise beloved throughout the globe sport.

Somehow, soccer transcends the typical jockish caricature of most popular American sports. This has always puzzled me. Soccer doesn't allow for the obsessive statistical analysis of baseball, or require the intricate strategy of football. The rules are phenomenally simple. There is a reason it's popular among toddlers. All in all, soccer is a pretty dumb game. I suppose it's the "international" appeal of the game that sets it apart from the provincial hockey, primeval mixed-martial arts, antiquated baseball, hickish NASCAR, barbarian football, and, uh, basketball. Most people who chastise America for not liking soccer don't consider sports as a subject of intellectual analysis, anyway. Dismissing American sports as stupid is really easy if you don't even bother to study them.*

I won't speak for the rest of the world (like some people we may know), but is soccer really every other country's favorite sport? I never hear the pseudo-intellectuals chastising Canada for liking hockey better than soccer. I'm pretty sure India never gets crap for liking cricket better than their beloved "futbol." As idiotic as it is to claim that America is the only nation to have not fully embraced soccer, it's even more insane to think that the United States should convert fully to soccer because everyone else likes the game. The call to assimilation is ironic because it often comes from the same people who complain that America doesn't have a unique endemic culture.

It's not like Americans don't give soccer a try. Perhaps the most damning indictment of the sport comes from the fact that nearly everyone plays soccer at some point in his or her life. So common is the sport among children that middle-class suburban mothers are referred to as "Soccer Moms." However, few kids stay hooked on The Beautiful Game. The kids who are good at sports move on to basketball, baseball, lacrosse, or football. Those that aren't so athletically gifted quit to play band or do science. In the nation with the most diverse market for sports, soccer fails at every level beyond puberty. Americans have the widest variety of sports to play and view of any country in the world, and very often they don't choose soccer.

The final joke is, of course, that even if soccer did succeed in its glorious struggle to topple the major four sports in America (to say nothing of NASCAR and MMA), what then would the soccer hipsters tout? Could they sing their rally songs with beer-gutted rednecks? Could they wear their team's towels with people who wear wrap-around sunglasses and handlebar mustaches un-ironically? For America's true soccer fans, the answer is, of course, hell yes. The lonely anti-American sports soccer fan, however, will likely have to take up jai alai. "God, Americans can't truly appreciate the fastest sport in the world. They're so primitive."

*I realize I did just refer to soccer - a sport I know only a little about - as dumb. I merely meant that it is not as conducive to high-brow analysis.

Originally Published: July 1, 2009

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