Why don't Americans get soccer? Every four years, the rest of the world gathers around the TV set to watch the world's best players play the world's best games; and every TV sports anchor in America smirks, or ignores the World Cup entirely. Even the guys I watch every morning on ESPN's SportsCenter -- who are supposed to be professionals and who generally do a much better job than the local yahoos -- make fun of the sport.
Americans find soccer effeminate, I think -- because it's a game ruled not by freaks who stand seven feet tall or weigh 350 pounds and can bench-press 600, but by smaller guys who are light on their feet. In soccer, strength doesn't mean a lot, as it does in football, basketball, and hockey. Agility and stamina are much more important -- the Nautilus machine is much less in evidence. The fact that you can't use your hands (unless you're the guy with the webbed gloves on) probably adds to the sissy factor, as far as Joe Sixpack is concerned.
It's his loss. Soccer is a sport with subtlety and simplicity. Even if you'd never seen a soccer game before and were given a free ticket for your birthday, you could follow the game pretty easily, because the rules -- most of them, anyway -- are so obvious. At the same time, though, it's a sport that requires a long attention span; instant gratification isn't part of the deal.
The low-scoring nature of soccer -- or of good soccer, at least -- is another thing the average American fan can't understand. Unlike our most popular sports, football and basketball (I think they've both surpassed baseball in total attendance, although I may be wrong), where scores are high and there are often several lead changes during a game, a soccer match between two good teams takes a long time to develop. Where a basketball game is like a series of horn blasts, one after another, a soccer game is like a long, slow crescendo. One team attacks the other for minutes at a time, then the other side gets the upper hand for awhile. Nobody scores. Tension builds as one team puts together more and more scoring chances, while the defending side escapes time and time again. This goes on for 30, 35, 45 minutes. Finally, a goal (or, as Andrés Cantor of Univision would have it, a "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!!!!!!), and the release of tension is like nothing we have, stateside.
American pro soccer leagues have always tinkered with the rules to encourage scoring -- but they're missing the point. A game that ends in a score of 9-8 is much less interesting, if you're actually paying attention, than one that ends 1-0, or even a scoreless tie. Soccer is all about artistry, not about numbers. American sports fans can't grasp that.
One of the most remarkable matches from the '94 World Cup was between, if memory serves, South Korea and Bolivia. Both teams played brilliantly, and both had many, many scoring opportunities -- but no goals. Skills were on display all over the field -- so what if they didn't result in ripped twine?
The best game (of the several I've seen) so far in this year's World Cup was Saturday's Mexico-Belgium match, which provided another example of what I'm talking about. Mexico starts out dominating the game, with several excellent scoring chances, but then, late in the first half, one of their players commits a flagrant foul and is shown the red card (which means he's out of the game), after which Belgium scores. Belgium goes up 2-0 early in the second half, and things don't look good at all for the Mexicans -- until they catch a break when one of the Belgians is red-carded, resulting in a penalty kick and a goal for Mexico. Playing at 10 aside, the Mexicans are able to regain their positional advantage, pressure the Belgian goal, and eventually tie the game. More scoring chances late in the second half for both sides, but no further goals -- so the game ends in a 2-2 tie, and deservedly so; both teams played well.
Americans can't fathom this kind of result. To their short attention spans, a tie game automatically means a dull game. They'd rather have a winner and a loser, even if it's by flipping a coin, than concede that sometimes, no one deserves to lose. That's why the new MLS league has no ties -- if a game ends up even, they go to a "shootout," in which each side gets five one-on-one chances against the other goalie. What's the point of that? It does provide the obligatory winner and loser -- but at the cost of cheapening the game and introducing an element of luck that has no business in a professional sport.
MLS is, of course, only the latest attempt to introduce professional soccer to this country. Probably the most successful previous attempt was the North American Soccer League of the '70s and '80s, which showed promise for awhile. One big problem is probably that the nature of the sport -- 45 minutes of continuous action, with no convenient TV timeouts -- makes it a tough sell to the networks. (That's why soccer fans say Gracias a Dios for Univision and Telemundo, the Spanish-language networks, which broadcast soccer -- usually from the Mexican league -- every Sunday.)
The biggest roadblock, though, is simply that for whatever reason, Americans just don't like soccer. When I was younger, I expected this to change, because almost every American kid plays soccer at some point while he/she is growing up. There are, and have always been, successful youth soccer leagues all over the place. I figured by the time my generation reached adulthood, we'd have brought our interest in soccer with us. Somehow, it never happened. And with the national team's fizzle in France this month, that's not likely to change anytime soon.
On the other hand, Americans' (and their networks') lack of interest in soccer has been good for my Spanish; on Sundays, you'll find me chiming in with Andrés: "GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!"
Copyright © 1998 John J. Kafalas