7 Reasons Why Americans Suck At Soccer
The world’s greatest nation is surprisingly mediocre when it comes to playing the world’s most popular sport. It’s not that they keep losing - far from it. Americans have a winning mentality that automatically ensures that whatever team they put out will be competitive.
However, when it comes to genuine footballing talent, the US are found wanting. Many people have blamed this in poor infrastructure, training methods and the short period of time that proper club football has been around in the US. I disagree - these might be symptoms of a country that doesn’t generate footballing talent but when you consider the sporting talent in general that the US has produced over the years it’s clear that there’s something else at hand here.
Personally, I put it down as a cultural issue - Americans by and large just don’t care about football. Sure, there are fans here and there, but compared to a nation like Spain or Italy, the US as a people do not value soccer, they don’t respect the game and there’s very little cultural love for it.
So here are 7 cultural reasons why Americans have no real talent for soccer:
1. No Hands
The most popular American sports - basketball, baseball, American football, ice hockey, golf - primarily involve the use of hands / upper body to compete in. In fact, you could argue that feet are only for mobility (only American football allows for kicking, and that too is best done long-range).
Now if you drop a sport like soccer - all feet, some head and no hands - it’s like asking someone to walk on their hands instead of their feet. It’s not easy to switch around to compeletely different way of playing a sport.
This is the primary reason why when you see the MLS, the terms ‘long-ball’ and ‘headless chicken’ come to mind.
2. Ridiculous Name
Soccer? Seriously? The biggest obstacle to soccer’s popularity in the US may well be its name. You can’t have two sports by the same name, unless you want to see Eddie Johnson pick up the ball and then do his customary dash up the pitch and then look around all confused as opposition defenders pile up on him.
Soccer. Sawker. I feel dumber just saying it. It’s called football, and unless the American people learn to call it by it’s real name (come to think of it, Australians have their Austrian Rules footy and they still call the beautiful game football), it’s not going to be successful.
3. No Breaks
Who in the world thought of a 90-minute game that only took one break, and that too after 45 minutes? The American public is used to a quick break every 5 minutes, if not sooner. Basketball has its quarters. Baseball has its regular breaks with batters coming in and going out. American football is a stop-start game. In golf you hit a ball a couple of hundred yards and then you walk towards it (the game is a candidate for the most retarded sport ever award).
On the other hand, soccer has a natural ebb and flow to it that no American sport can match.
Americans have been bred on small, easily digestible segments of everything - sport, news, knowledge, etc. It’s a cultural effort to make low concentration levels a standard across the country. It’s also why the typical American watching soccer feels the inevitable urge to flip to another channel and watch commercials every 5 minutes.
This is why you see US goalkeepers do so well - they thrive in the stop-start nature of a goalie’s involvement in the game.
4. They Hate It
They didn’t create it, and they’re not very good at it. Either one would have been enough to foster some passion for the sport, but since there are so many countries in the world that are better than the US at soccer, the American people have little interest.
And it makes sense too - why follow something in which your side keeps losing? After being subjected to a lifetime of doctored news and world views, this sudden brush with reality is overwhelming for the average American psyche and they do what any American would do when faced with something they don’t know - they turn their back to it.
Ironically this disdain for soccer makes it more difficult for the sport to take off in the country - a vicious cycle.
5. No One Likes The Americans
Usually, when there’s someone in your family who’s not as good at a sport as you are, you tend to try and help them out so that they can get better and (hopefully) provide more of a challenge to you later on.
At least that’s what I’ve seen.
With the US though, the rest of the world isn’t so kind. We’ve made it acceptable to make fun of US soccer instead of going there and investing in the sport in America. We’ve made it acceptable to mock them instead of training them and coaching them.
That’s why when someone like David Beckham - an excellent businessman - goes to the US to invest in soccer, the world laughs at him. Would you laugh at Bill Gates if he invested in a new technology startup? People would scramble to get involved. The world doesn’t take Americans seriously, and soccer is worse off as a result.
6. It’s Illegal To Cheat
Did you know that American sports in general do not follow WADA rules? That the use of performance-enhancing drugs is not strictly regulated in US sports? The World Anti-Doping Agency has strict regulations that almost all sports adhere to, especially soccer with it’s spot drug testing and what not. American sports, on the other hand, play by their own rules, which is a nice way to say that American sports feature more drug abuse than more global sports.
In some cases, having a global authority making sure that you follow certain standards is a good thing.
But hey, what’s the point of playing a sport when you can’t pump yourself with drugs to make you faster / stronger? If you can’t cheat, why play?
7. No Cheerleaders
In all honesty this is where I agree with the Americans. Soccer needs cheerleaders like one need a glass of cold water on a hot day. As we’ve discussed before on Soccerlens, cheerleaders can stop hooliganism, provide suitable pitch-side (or on-TV) distractions when the game itself gets a little tedious and once you give each club their own cheerleading squad, there’s a whole new set of rivalries to play upon for the advertisers.
Plus if there’s no porn, how can a genuine American sports fan enjoy the game? Without cheerleaders soccer just isn’t manly enough. It’s blasphemous.
…
So there you have it - 7 reasons why American society is setup to undermine the soccer’s success in the US. Let us know what you think in the comments (or on your blog).
Another reason might be that you just can’t have commercial breaks in the playing time (but that might tie into the break thing). Thus, it can’t be commercially successful, and the game fails.
I agree with most of the article, but three of the points stood out of my mine as ridiculous and down right idiotic. Lets start with point number 2, yes I agree that it should be called football but since we already have our most popular sport called football and even Canadians and Europeans are getting into it, the name soccer must stand. If you can think of a better name to call Soccer then be my guest and suggest one, we will never change American Footballs name due to its popularity. On point number 4 we as Americans don’t hate the sport, we just don’t care for it as much as the rest of the world that plays it. Maybe its lack of awareness, maybe its due to the fact that we as Americans have atleast 5 different sports (Basketball, Baseball, Football, Hockey, Soccer, and Nascar) to watch and admire, some of those other countries that play soccer ONLY play soccer and nothing else. Besides as time goes on there is gonna be more and more countries playing American Football just like baseball, basketball, and Hockey and soon there will be a world tournament to help promote the sport. I growing up as a big American Football Fan and Player (I also like Basketball, baseball, hockey) am getting back to my italian roots and my new found Portuguese and Latino friends, in Perth Amboy, NJ in an area dominated by a latino community, am getting back into the game of world soccer. In 2002 and since then I root my Italian national team, its hard to get into the clubs because not alot of soccer is shown on American TV but am still trying. This last point pissed me off, point number 6. Americans have to cheat to play any sport are you kidding me??? We have cracked down on illegal use of any performance enhancing drugs in all sports. We don’t need a corrupt world organization to tell us how to police ourselves, we as Americans take pride in the fact that we can do this all on our own. Yes we have had problems with it in the past, but as time goes on the games are getting cleaner and cleaner. Trust me on this, if we took Soccer as seriously as my home country Italy or Spain then we would be the Power House in the sport and other countries would fear us. I do agree on all the other points, I do believe that other countries hate us and won’t help us because its the ONLY thing that they have that is better than us, Yes making a transition from using our hands to primarily your feet is a big step, I don’t really agree with the fact that we need to take breaks but i won’t argue that point. In conclusion I think you need to reconsider those three points and revise this biased story.
loool good one the only wrong piont is the soccer one because i can understand americans would call it a different name after all it doesnt make sense to have 2 sports which are called football plus in australia we call it soccer aswell so that piont is piontless as we have our own football as you said which is not played by anyone in the world expect for us aussies probley no one has heard of it.
cheers
One important point missing here. Soccer has a ridiculous amount of flopping. I thought American Basketball was getting bad, but the two World Cups and the European Championships had much more of that crap. It is just not right when a sport is set up so that a team is rewarded when a player pretends to be hurt, or fakes being fouled.
American Football is our sport because it fits our mentality- it’s 5 seconds of violence followed by a committee meeting.
Totally agree with all this… Nice post mate
Hardy har har… Going for cheap reactions from the american soccer fans who live their lives on the internet?
Yes you can cheat in Football. It’s called diving, and it’s a problem that is long overdue in dealing with.
Soccer is a British word, the Yanks didn’t invent it. I’m often reminded of that when I watch Gillett Soccer Saturday on Sky or walk by the Soccer Scene on Carnaby Street in London.
At least the Yanks have beaten Portugal in a major tournament in recent memory.
Speaking as a Canadian I have to admit I don’t like Americans either really. I call football football not soccer. The only other reason I can think of is England exporting gay rockstar footy fans like Rod Stewart definitely isn’t working for football. Of course Bowie moved to Australia and wrote “I’m afraid of Americans”. Pussy in cars and sipping on Coke the American way.
some view:
Point (1) “No Hands”….you could argue that 95% of the sports in the world require the use of a sportsman’s hand more than their feet, so its not just people playing american sports have to adjust to.
Point(2) “No Breaks”. i think this is a good thing. teh world is a busier place and we all have less time because we work longer hours, ferry our kids around etc. One of the benifits of soccer is that a game only lasts 90 minutes + 15 mins of break. This means we can easily fit in a game after work without the grief of thinking its going to finish so late at night.
Lastly, american’s always go on about how they have other sports that compete with soccer and take away athletes, but this also occurs in other countriies! England primaray sport is soccer and they are ok at it, but they also play cricket (ok at that), rugby union (were world champions), rugby league (ok at that). Australia also has 3 sports competing with soccer. Other european countries are mainly soccer based, but do have other sports like cycling, basketball & athletics.
No cheating? Please. What about Jack Warner, Seth Blatter, Calcio, Juventus and so on….
The Mexican Leagues have Cheerleaders.
Do some research bro…
As a general sports fan living in the US, there are a few points i don’t agree with. point number 2 is bogus. I admire the European way of doing things (politics, football, etc) but when i attempt to call it football in America, people get confused, so i don’t.
point number 4 i also disagree with. Ignorant americans might assume we are the best at everything and therefore be turned away by the fact that we aren’t in soccer, but then there are people that care who are making an effort to fix it. I work at a soccer complex in an impoverished neighborhood in Baltimore teaching kids soccer. There are some of us, many of us in fact who are trying to change the soccer landscape.
point six is just wrong. The only sport in which there’s been cheating in america is baseball but its been handled finally and we are past it now. football hockey and nba dont have steroid issues and neither does soccer. Also, the only honest non steroid user in cycling is an american and he happened to win the tour de france seven straight times. Never used drugs.
Cheerleaders are essential for the casual watcher, but quite annoying for the serious fan. It truly is a double edged sword. casual fans need every incentive to come the games but the serious rain or shine fans think they’re distracting. I tend to like them even though i would consider myself a hardcore fan, who doesn’t like to look at some beautiful ladies during a particularly bad game.
point 5 is accurate but that will be changing very soon. A nation with 300,000,000 people has a lot to offer if soccer becomes a widespread sport. Many British teams have recognized the potential of American Soccer and have already invested in teams and academies here. One of my local teams, Crystal Palace FC is directly tied to one in Britain. They even send players back and forth and play each other once a year. They also have an academy which develops young players, some of them which have made it to the full team. As you recently saw, Chelsea just invested in developing American soccer so purely as a business thing, it makes sense and europeans will come to help us because of our great potential and the gems they might find while helping us develop.
Americans also aren’t as good because in the urban areas, people play football and basketball. If you switched half of those children to soccer, we would be a footballing power. US soccer is a suburban game and many of the best athletes don’t get a chance to play it because they are dreaming of the nba. salaries also need to be at a point where a poor child can say, “i’m gonna get rich out of playing soccer” That doesn’t happen because the salaries in MLS aren’t competitive with NBA NFL MLB NHL. There is a lot to be done but if I know Americans, we can do it. In 20 years I think we will win a world cup.
By cheating I specifically meant drug abuse.
I’ve got to agree with you on point 2. Okay, I’ll admit that it’s confusing to have two sports with the same name. But how can a game played primarily using the feet not be called football when another one that doesn’t use the feet so much (except for running) is called football. That’s even more confusing.
I think a lot of this cultural analysis is fine, but it doesn’t get to the point of why Americans don’t show the same flair and creativity as the rest of the world.
American players, in general, disappear near the penalty area and resort to random crosses. Americans may dribble at people in youth games, but at the highest level here (MLS, National Team), it’s rare to see a player with one-on-one skill penetrate the penalty area by taking people on. I don’t see the creativity and confidence I see in good international players from South America and Europe, especially the southern countries.
America lacks creative and skillful central midfielders. Our supposed best was Claudio Reyna. Claudio Reyna? A nice player, I suppose, but not a creator who sees the field and has a true attacking mentality. Landon Donovan has been criticized as being too soft to have made it in Germany, but domestidcally he has shown signs of running at people, having good vision and providing pinpoint service to open players.
But I think the real hope at the present is Freddy Adu. Overhyped, overpublicized, etc., he somehow survived all that and had the courage to go to a strong club in Portugal. In recent World Cup qualifying and friendlies, he’s shown the dribbling skill he always had plus a new side — the creator and distributor. He’s no longer the selfish dazzler and egotist, but a spark on offense and a hustling player on defense.
The others:
Eddie Johnson — a joke and no feel for the game.
Clint Dempsey — sparks of potential, but the jury’s still out.
America needs more of the Latin influence, one-on-one skill and flair, and less of the stolid German style of play.
That’s where Soccer Lens’ cultural points come into play. Look at the creative basketball point guards we’ve produced and the elusive football running backs. If African Americans grow to see earning potential and cultural affirmation in the World’s Game, America will join football’s elite. We have a huge Hispanic population, which is a positive thing for our footballing future. The culture and passion is there for the Hispanics and the hope is that our Anglo-Saxon regimented training methods won’t stifle the creativity.
What kills me is that Americans like “fat” sports like Baseball…Americans in general want to lay back, eat, watch commercials and watch an over weight baseball player chew and spit….
That is why SOCCER will never take off with the americans
This article basically shows more of an anti-American attitude than an insightful understanding of why Americans “suck” at football, or whatever you want to call the game.
There are two very real reasons why the US is so far behind the rest of much of the world when it comes to football:
- Top youth athletes in the US have always been pushed to play basketball, (gridiron) football, or baseball. The talent pool of younger footballers is basically the second-tier of athletic talent. This is evident in the fact that many of the US National Team’s players are smaller. The US Women’s team has been a top team for the past few decades because the top female athletes in the country are playing football. If even a minor percentage of youth that opt for basketball, particularly in the urban areas, focused on football there would be a much larger pool of talent.
_Secondly, the US is a television society! Yet Americans have only had quality access to football on TV for the past ten or so years. They just don’t know quality football when they see it, although that is changing slowly. I have been amazed at the number of people who got into the recent Euro tournament.
As an example, I was evaluating a few youth programs last summer in England as part of a coaching exchange program. Together with a few Brasilian coaches, we noticed how well-structured the players were, how well they understood the tactics and positional play, even though they were 12 year-olds. However, it was also plainly evident that their fitness levels were atrocious, half of them were blatantly overweight, and we saw one 14 year old smoking a butt at half-time! Comparably, American youth players are in much better shape, they just don’t yet have an understanding of the technical aspects of the game.
Things are changing in the States when it comes to football, slowly but surely. I am a Brit now living and coaching in California. Parks in the USA are bustling with activity, I hate to say this, but there is way more youth football being played in the US than there is in Britain. I don’t believe the US will become a powerhouse in football anytime too soon, but things are changing, and, I think it is high time British football enthusiasts gave some credit to “American football” and what they are trying to do.
man what an idiotic article. your “points” are juvenile and poorly thought out. i’m not american and i can’t stand watching the MLS but man, you’re article is just asinine.
1. are you seriously suggesting that because there isn’t the use of hands americans are bad at the sport? they aren’t really that bad afterall, they can give any team a run for their money and have progressed quite a bit in the last 20 years. sure some of the best imports america has to offer are keepers (which they produce on a production line almost) but they also have many promising young players and that trend is only going to continue i think. plus look at all the european nations that play sports like cricket, basketball, handball…
2. wow… i actually can’t believe you brought this up. are you this juvenile? the name soccer was created in ENGLAND, short for association football. so is it really the american’s fault that they are using a name for a game that was originally invented by the people that created the modern game? american football is a stupid sport, no doubt about that… but saying that americans suck at footie because they call it something different than most of the world (italians call it calcio, do they suck?) is simply not a debatable point. what a waste of time.
3. ok.. so what does the no breaks have to do with them sucking at it? this entire point is based on the fans. again, juvenile point that has nothing to do with your argument.
4. they hate it? are you serious? there are millions of people that love and are dedicated to football in the US, the problem is that there are established sports (many of them) that have 90% of the population’s imaginations totally captured.. and one of them is NASCAR (horrible). that is the real problem, yet they can still draw from a talent pool many millions bigger than many countries that compete in the world cup, euros or copa america. they do afterall have a rather large population. so again, i wonder.. what the hell does “they hate it” have ANYTHING to do with them supposedly sucking at the sport. idiotic argument proven yet again.
5. WOW… you are ridiculous. the mexicans take americans pretty damn seriously when they play them, its become one of the most heated rivalries in the americas. this is getting boring… what does that have to do with them sucking?! nothing.
6. this point is almost the dumbest one you’ve made so far. are you suggesting that because they cannot use steroids or other drugs that they can’t compete properly? i don’t get it, your argument here doesn’t really say anything at all. without trying to dissect your inept attempts at making a point, i will draw your attention to the many allegations of italians using performance enhancing drugs in serie A and other places in the world. if you are so naive in thinking that the USA is the only place where steroids are used in sport you better wake the hell up. the internet is a helluva place when you are subjected to garbage writing like this with absolutely nothing more than a misguided opinion backing it up instead of 5 minutes of research which would have disproved everything you’ve said.
7. i’m not even going to comment on this point.
“Soccer. Sawker. I feel dumber just saying it. It’s called football….”
Anyone find it idiotic and ironic that the author of this ‘article’ dislikes using the word ’soccer’ and yet its in the name of the site he created? he is a smart one indeed.
If he wasn’t so busy reaching for cheap analogies to put down americans, he would have realized how dumb this makes him look. He would’ve noticed the full bars and restaurants with euro08 games being shown. He would’ve possibly admired all the innercity and suburb enthusiasm for futball.
I have no sympathies with america or the moronic average american voter, but keep your political feeling and futball separate. You are bitter, and dont like american foreign policy, so you put this out? Im not sure if you were trying to be funny, or you actually believe what you wrote.
If the latter is the case, then you have no understanding, not even the basic fundamentals of economics. Let me spell it out for you like a child. When you have large, multi billion dollar sports, about 5 of them competing against futball, who is going to win out? Yes, the ones that have been there for decades and are well entwined with the corporate sector. But i doubt you’d understand that being that you are in pakistan worshiping english football, and european politics when many western european countries, with holding britian, are modeled after the american system, especially post wwii. The EU is another clone of the UN which we all know (barring maybe mr. bilal) was created heavily to serve american agenda following the dismantling of its early 20th century predecessor.
But all this is neither here nor there. You decided to let slip your disdain for america, which is fine, but it disgusts me to no end when you put it in the context of a futball website. Dont try to mix oil and water. Oil being the muck of your personal politics with the purity of water that is the universal sport of futball. We are all fans of the game here, whether yellow, white, brown, black or purple, whether from Asia, Europe, Africa or Antarctica. Too bad you decided to go against that thought and pull a trick from the biased news media you make fun of in america. Heard of fox or sky news? This garbage i just read comes right out of their journalism playbook.
For your information, as you seem so desperately misinformed, Soccer is not nor will it ever be an american word, as it was not created there, merely derived. Blame the english, but i doubt you want to do that to a country that is in bed with the america you so dearly despise. A country whose over reaching empire massacred your people, but you wouldn’t want to criticize them now would you? Of course not, its just not the sexy thing do when everyone else is on the hate america bandwagon. Hey, maybe if you put that out of your mind for a few seconds, you could pull off a half legible amateurish blurb here with even a slight semblance of relevant futball news in it.
rahoul - good to see that you can argue so passionately and with reason too. now if you only understood satire. You can say that it’s not funny and I won’t disagree with you (you don’t seem to be in the mood for a laugh anyway), but it’s a tad bit sad to see that you spent so much energy without grasping the real meaning of the article.
But since you said all of that…
1) the theory is that a predominance of hand-biased sports is an obstacle to football’s success in the US. Football in Europe has had a lot more time and when it was introduced there was a lot less commercial competition, hence easier for a sport to surmount such an obstacle. Now it’s not that easy, and the hand-bias makes it harder.
2) Soccer is a term adopted by the official US football authorities. It doesn’t matter who started it - what matters is who uses it.
3) Yea, if fans don’t have an interest, then there are fewer commercial opportunities hence less commercial backing in comparison to other sports. Read the first comments.
4) I’ve seen wide-ranging opinions from hate to ridicule to ‘wtf is sawker’. Your argument of ‘millions’ is misleading - there are hundreds of millions of people in the US who are NOT soccer fans. The rest of the point? See the above point on satire.
5) I’m sure everyone takes the US seriously when they play them on the field. The point had to do with European football investing into grassroots football in the US with a view towards improving the game (as opposed to just milking it for leverage / profits). I guess you didn’t score high in comprehension?
6) Again, satire. By the way, my 5 minutes of research made me certain that US sports do NOT follow WADA regulations while FIFA does. There are allegations everywhere, the point remains that control over drug-usage in US sports is lax compared to FIFA-governed competitions.
7) Good, because it was again tongue-in-cheek and I was getting tired of telling you to read the bloody dictionary.
So….what did you learn today?
1) Insults lead you nowhere.
2) Comprehension is not your strong suit.
3) You need to learn what satire and tongue-in-cheek is.
4) You probably even need to go out and get some fresh air and stop getting pissed off at a guy who wrote something on a site on the Internet.
5) Insults, once again, lead you nowhere. Especially if they’re not backed up by intelligence.
Cheerio…
…someone complained about the use of the word ’soccer’. That’s deliberate. Figure out why and you get a prize.
Ah, there he is.
Al - no personal politics here, although I did take perverse pleasure in mixing some cliched claims about the US society with my own ‘light’ analysis of the situation.
Wow. Full bars. I AM impressed.
Let me spell it out for you like a child.
Yes, you did a very good impression…
And since you got personal (which I think is only fair given that they don’t teach satire in US schools)… my politics are neither pro-Europe nor pro-US, nor do I worship European football / politics. And my understanding of the fundaments of economics and business AND international politics - both basic and complex is quite sound. Not so keen on microeconomics but I could debate foreign and economic policies with you all day as long as you tried to understand what I was saying instead of jumping in with your hallucinations.
When you have large, multi billion dollar sports, about 5 of them competing against futball, who is going to win out? Yes, the ones that have been there for decades and are well entwined with the corporate sector.
I thought this was too obvious, so I played upon cultural reasons. But I now understand that Americans need to be reminded of this revelation every day lest they forget and have an important argument on the Internet, like this one.
Sidebar on politics - how do you propose that the EU serves the Amiercan agenda? NATO maybe but the EU? Do enlighten us…
so now you claim your article is a satirical piece on americans sucking at soccer…
i believe that is called ‘backpedalling’… and even if i were to take this at face value and accept your labelling of your article as satire. it is poorly written satire at best, satire involves wit to show the ineptitude of the topic at hand, you showed none. you just made me never want to read an article by you ever again if you think that posting such a poorly edited and thought out piece is acceptable.
just realize you wrote a weak article with weak backup and many others besides my self have been thoroughly annoyed by your words.
you did a poor job of making your point. end of story.
oh and regarding insults.. you insulted everyone who read this article by posting it in the first place AND you managed to insult everyone in the american soccer community. i am no cheerleader for the americans, quite the opposite.. i want them to lose pretty much everytime i watch them, but that doesn’t mean i don’t see the progress in their football.
As an American, I definitely agree that we lack the attention span to appreciate soccer- er- football. We’re definitely conditioned to a certain style of play, and the buildup and flow of soccer doesn’t lend itself well to American fans.
Additionally, American fans have become accustomed to the fantasy sports culture. Soccer doesn’t have a whole lot of statistics for individual players. As such, a player like Roy Keane, who was perhaps the most important player for Manchester United during their treble run, wouldn’t necessarily be recognized as such by American fans because he didn’t score goals. It’s why MLS had to go to great lengths to assure its fans that just because Beckham wasn’t a goal scorer, it didn’t mean that he wasn’t a great player. It also explains why someone like Blanco has taken MLS by storm while a defensive-minded player like Reyna is seen as a flop. It’s why Ronaldo (the overweight striker from Brazil, not Cristiano) would be perfect for MLS. Plus, if he ended up with Red Bull New York, then he could take advantage of all the tranny prostitutes the Big Apple has to offer.
I disagree about the cheating comment. Cheating is not unique to American sports. Look at bike racing. The biggest scandals in bike racing (other than Floyd Landis) have involved European racers like Jan Ullrich, the Festina team, and the Operation Puerto case, to name a few. Additionally, one need only take a look at the East German swim team and Ben Johnson to know that there have been plenty of doping scandals in the Olympics that didn’t involve anyone connected to BALCO. Even in soccer, the biggest doping scandal in recent years involved Diego Maradona at the 94 World Cup. There haven’t been many other doping scandals in soccer, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. You can’t just go with drug test results. After all, Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens never failed a single steroids test during their entire careers. That doesn’t mean that they were clean.
I always wondered why there weren’t any cheerleaders.
Meh, some teams in the MLS (dynamo, to be specific), due have their own cheerleaders. They really could use some higher quality ones though.
I’m an american, and I agree with most of these points
/shrug
What’s the use in arguing. America needs a few kicks in the right direction regardless
I did a good job of anticipating your comment though (see second sentence of my reply to you).
Also, it’s interesting how you choose to talk about perceived insults and criticise the article for being poorly thought out, and conveniently ignore the real issues (again, bonus points if you figure them out without throwing a fit).
…
Since you’ll ignore them again - perhaps we can agree to disagree? Or will you haunt us again with your hallucinations of what I’ve done to the american soccer community?
The only way the US becomes a footballing power is to have poor impoverished city kids trying to get out of poverty by playing soccer. If this happens, we will win a world cup and will compete with the top sides in europe and south america. Until this happens, we have no hope. MLS salaries need to be on par with NBA MLB and NFL to make these kids think soccer is an avenue to success. If we win a world cup, there will be mass migration to watch the worlds sport in america and that starts with converting poor inner city kids to soccer rather than having them play football baseball or basketball.
That is truly the one thing that will catapult us to competition with the worlds best
For those arguing about why Americans call it “football” when it’s predominantly played with hands, it’s because the length of the ball is one foot long. Surprisingly not many Americans know this fact and are hence stumped in arguments over the name.
well done red ranter, the first bit of fact spewed from anybody’s mouth yet
That article was funny, but most of the comments on it are even more amusing. It’s certainly safe to say that very few readers around here are familiar with the concept of tongue-in-cheek! Also, while I’m here, I’d like to offer my sincere apologies to all non-American readers on behalf of the handful of bright, decent Americans (such as myself) who had the good sense to vote against the Bush/Cheney junta and are eagerly awaiting the end of it!
Ahmed, you’re from Pakistan and you’re making fun of the US when it comes to soccer?
And for the Canadian douchebag that commented, you’re 100 times worse in soccer than the US. I wouldn’t talk. When is the last time you’ve been to the World Cup? Exactly!
Mark, I’m american, love it and didn’t vote for wack job bush/cheney but we have a long way to go. develop the urban areas into soccer breeding grounds and we will win a world cup
I appreciate some good satire. I will forgive. Because, at least the Americans can qualify for major tournaments.
As far as the soccer/football thing, it’s not strictly an American phenomenon. It’s used in every English-speaking country where there is another form of “football” that is more popular. Hence, it is the dominant term in the U.S., Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. It is also used quite heavily in Ireland to distinguish it from gaelic football.
It’s a fundamental misunderstanding that the game needs more grass roots development in the United States. Soccer/football is the most popular sport played by kids in the U.S., by far.
There are two major problems.
1. Money - Soccer is not seen as a sport where you can make a living in the United States. If players choose soccer, they often face a choice of either going to college and having their ability stifled for four years, or playing at entry level in a U.S. professional league and making under $20,000 per season. If you have an elite athlete who is good at both soccer and basketball, basketball is far more lucrative, whereas it would be the other way around in the States.
2. Typecasting - Elite American athletes get thrust into other sports. If you are a powerful 6′4″ striker someone plucks you off the field and puts you in a football or a baseball uniform. Consequently, most American national team players are either too small to play other sports or are the children of immigrants.
other way around in Britain*
@mark
the only reason everyone bashes the US in soccer instead of the other roughly 130 countries that are worse than it is that most of the other countries have an excuse to be bad at the sport. the US doesnt. they’re sposedly the world’s greatest nation, yet they fail to make an impact on the world’s greatest sport. thus every1 has a right to make fun of US soccer :P.
that being said, i agree that Canada does suck.
All the world is afraid of the Americans. We are the dominating world power. America speaks and the world listens. All you idiots from other countries need to realize that when your countries face adversity, who do you call? AMERICA!! So you can take your “football”, “Soccer”, or whatever you call the game and shove it up your keesters.
i’m american but your are ignorant of the world hummingcow
I shall lead americans to ther first world cup victory…intell then i wont argue!! :))
Another reason might be that Yanks are too fat to run for more than 5 seconds so they have these breaks in NFL…
To continue on the discussion as to why American footballs are called footballs:
The early versions of the American football were round much like a football. The diameter was one foot or close to it.
Very interesting article.
I agree with the premise that the US will never be good at the sport, but the ONLY reason, and I mean ONLY reason is that Americans cant make money playing soccer in the us. we have amazing atheletes, and many play soccer(football) as kids, but by the time they get old enough, they know that it wont make them the big dollars. Until they pay better they will go to american football, basketball, and baseball
At least we were good at war. Happy 4th of July Yanks!!!!
The reason that football is so popular is because it plays to the lowest common denominator–its rules are simple, the game play is easy to follow, and anyone can practice it almost anywhere. It’s cheap and easy for kids to start up a game no matter how poor they are, hence people grow up playing it all over the world and end up identifying with it the most as adults.
All of these things, however, do not make it an exceptionally interesting or good sport. There are lots of details about soccer that your rather superficial overview ignores. Like the fact that you generally watch for an entire game just hoping to see one goal. Americans want more give and take than that–they want the possibility for teams to gain a sizable lead, and to see amazing comebacks. What’s so amazing about coming back from a 1 point lead? That’s really the worst part about football. The fact that it consists of lots of running back and forth, and not much really worth cheering about.
Want to make football interesting to Americans? Shorten the field by at least 1/3 and make the goal more accessible. Sure europeans will think that it degrades the sport, or that american’s just can’t handle playing on a regular sized field with a regular sized goal, but the truth is, football just isn’t that interesting the way it’s setup right now. Make it a faster paced game with more exchanges and it’s suddenly interesting to americans.
Okay, I read this site nearly every day, and I really disagree with this article, but not for the same reasons everyone else does. I know that the essay is satirical and that you were going on limited research, but I don’t understand the reason for such an article. Yes, pick on Americans and their sports, and many people around the world will agree with you, but what is the point of picking on Americans for topics that you either don’t truly understand, or did limited research like you said. It’s funny to be satirical and use “tongue in cheek” writing, but I don’t see the point in this article, as well as your arguing with the people leaving comments. I go to this site because I trust the opinions of the people who write on it. Being a young American who just became interested in this sport a few years ago, I look for intelligent opinions on soccer…or futbol and I sadly, no longer trust your opinion or your articles on this site. it’s sad. Have a good day, and maybe someday I will respect you again.
eveything but the porn
americans suck at soccer because playing soccer in america doesnt pay.
plus americans have alot more options of sports to play
I,m 49 years old. I live here in the States,Sacramento
California to be exact. Thanks to my father, I have been a
fan of futbol all my life. Seen Pele play live with the
Santos F.C. vs Chivas of Guadalajara in a club friendly
at Kezar Stadium in 68′ or 69′. Even jumped the fence and
ran on the pitch with him. Before there was cable or satellite T.V. we traveled to San Francisco or Oakland,
California to watch the 1970 World Cup on Closed Circuit
broadcasts. I have always followed the World Cup since
then, but now with cable and satellite, I am able
to follow the major competitions around the world, IE.
Champions League,The Euros,Copa Lib.,W.C. qualifiers,
La Liga,The Premiership etc.. My father immigrated here from
Mexico in 1948. Brought the love for the game with him.
Joined with others from his homeland to play on amateur
Futbol teams, with names like Jalisco,Liberated,Tepeyac,
there was also a team comprised of German immigrants
call Turn Verein. These teams were based in Sacramento
but there were other teams up and down Central California.
When I was 11 I played on 1 team of maybe 8 youth teams in
Sacramento at the time. Today there are 1000’s of teams
in Sacramento. Recreational Teams that is. Cost, last
time I was involved, as a coach, it cost $35.00 per
player. Recreational!! To play competitive it will
cost a family hundreds, if not more.
One more quick story and I’m going to wrap this essay up
on “Why Americans Suck At Soccer”. One day before practice
2 young boys, 12 years old or so, were dribbling and passing,
running up and down the pitch. Without effort or loss of breath, laughing. I asked if they were on a team.
They sadly said “no, their mother couldn’t afford it .
We need the HEART of the hungry urban youth, of all
ethnic backgrounds. To expose urban kids to real
Futbol, World Futbol. We need it to be like Boxing here .
An escape sport, where a kid with nothing, who has to pay nothing can make something of himself. Then America
can bring a team of hungry young lions to the pitch.
Fast,sleek,able to play the beautiful game.
Get that American Football mentality out of the game.
Good article but some weaknesses. The No Cheerleaders part has nothing to do with why Americans dont like football. Adding cheerleaders will do nothing to trhe sport because the MLS has some teams with cheerleaders and it still doesn’t work. Baseball teams dont have cheerleaders and yet its one of their biggest sport. What was failed to mentioned was not enough stats. What makes every American sport worth watching for Americans is that stats and the ability to watch ESPN and discuss all the nonsense stats all American sports have. Americans love STATS (not that their good at math anyways) but they love STATS. You put a game like Football (the real one) and they are left with a game and that is it. Everyone else in the world knows that football is all about skill, passion, love and loyalty. Americans dont see their sports like that. They put STATS equal to skills, Capital equal to passion, love and loyalty all in one. We all know that Americans dont have the greatest attention span and that is why Football wont be their sport because they cant sit their and watch 90+ of talent on tv without commercials every two minutes.
Australians DO NOT call this sport football. When I lived there calling soccer football was as prone to confusion as calling using “football” for soccer in the US or calling North American football “football” in britain. Really the only difference is that British and Australians will usually be aware of the cultural and language differences where as many many Americans are oblivious to the fact “football” can refer to many different sports.
The thing that I find ironic is that most of the countries that have English as their first language use the word football for different sports, but many other languages use essentially the English name (eg. futbol in Spanish Football in French and Fussball in German)
“Americans love STATS (not that their good at math anyways) but they love STATS.”
GunnerStrike, not that you’re good at grammar anyway.
I’m sorry Ahmed, but your post is rife with ignorance. Point number 6, (the one about steroids) is flat out wrong. The only sport I can think of where steroids is a problem in America is baseball, but the commissioner of the baseball league is making very strong efforts to rid the league of steroids.
Point number 4, (the one about how Americans hate soccer) is an argument of how soccer will get better in America. Americans always feel the desire to be the best at everything. (then again, many countries have that competitive drive) Being bad at a sport only drives Americans to practice and become the best in the world at it. They do not quit the sport because they are bad at it, they practice longer and harder to get better.
Point number 7 (the one about how there are no cheerleaders) is, again, an argument of how soccer will get better in America. Cheerleaders are a distraction to the game, entertaining only for the casual watcher. With no cheerleaders, viewers focus more on the actual game of soccer instead of women. I don’t understand how not having a distraction to the game would be a reason why americans suck at soccer.
Please research the information before you make an entire post based off of stereotypes and ignorance.
I took my dad to his first Premiership match in February, as part of a trip; we’re season-ticket holders for the MLS, and avid baseball fans, but eschew basketball and pointyball entirely.
You know what we saw after we drank our beers and ate our meat pies at the Reebok Stadium in Bolton?
Cheerleaders.
I know, i’ve been trolled.
this is a completely biased biased, anti-american article. I could hardly get through it. You sound like a jealous, bitter child. How about America has 4 traditionally major sports for kids to play and people to follow? At least the US has a football league, they at least HAVE a team. What does England have? A baseball team, a football team, a basketball team? no. I have another question…Americans don’t like football, what do you care? You mention it’s because we suck - England are a joke. Not only in football, but in pretty much every other sport. I refer you to a previous soccerlens article discussing England’s poor sporting quality: http://soccerlens.com/england-second-best/8103/. At least America has sports they are good at. The sports that were created in the country they are actually good at - unlike England. Keep in mind, I’m an American and I’ve lived in London most of my life (and I absolutely loved it), and this article is pretty much spot on.
My question to the Americans is when are they gonna learn something about the game before arguing about it? The World Cup is not the only thing that happens in the world of football. Yes, there are many issues with modern football regarding diving and match-fixing (oh and when we are on match fixing, I would like to ask you guys to learn more about the Calciopoli and clear Juventus’ name in your heads; knowledge is again key to a comment of worth here). But, the game is the most beautiful game in the world and I have seen that more and more Americans play it. The truth is, Americans don’t suck at it, they just aren’t as good yet as the rest. But just as Lithuania, Serbia, and Argentina have kicked NBA’s stars’ ass in the past 5 years, so can the US kids grow up to kick Brazil’s and Italy’s ass in football. America has the money, they just need the culture. And that is something which takes time and effort. Stop making this such a black and white issue. Nothing in the world is black and white anymore, especially nothing which involves the USA. My advice is - stop showing the ‘game’ of baseball and show football on the screens and start playing it at the lowest levels at schools. Then you will have a richer culture, country, and sports nation. Peace y’all
when it comes to genuine footballing talent, the US are found wanting
Funny how none of the criticism on this article deals with this starting position.
guess what you know why americans suck at soccer, because we don’t care its a fucking ridiculous sport. its like watching a bunch of panzys running around for 90 minutes, and then if the game is close, not tied, close they keep playing, fuck that. in football if its close at the end the team in the lead wins, in baseball if its close same as football and every other sport, hell even tennis, and why the fuck do people classify golf as an american sport, it was invented in fucking scotland, so maybe you all can get off your asses and learn a real sport that requires something more than endurance, because that is all soccer is, endurance, you want an endurance sport try baseball cause guess what that, bitch can go on for hours you lazy european bums.
One thing: it’s just MLS. There’s no “the”.
when it comes to genuine footballing talent, the US are found wanting
-well the reason for that is the athletic talent in the country (which is far greater than any other country) goes to other sports, American sports. It is America after all. I don’t see why you people are attacking the US for its lack of interest in football or lack of ‘talent’. Mind you, if football was anywhere near as popular as the other sports in the country, the US would easily be one of the best teams. I fully believe this will happen in the near future.
01.) Yeah, no hands obviously means we’re bad at soccer. Why don’t you find some Fulham supporters and ask them how bad we are at soccer considering its Americans who have kept them up for the last few years? Maybe you’ve heard of Clint Dempsey and Brian McBride? Or maybe ask some Watford supporters about Jay DeMerit? Or some Rangers supporters about the skills of DaMarcus Beasley? That’s 1 out of 1 in the ignorance scale.
02.) This is the funniest one. Yeah, only Americans call the sport by its British name despite the South Africans, Irish, South Koreans, Canadians, New Zealanders, and Australians calling it by the same name. You’re 2 for 2 in ignorance so far.
03.) Oh sure, the fact that there are no breaks (oh, besides player injuries…real or imagined) stopped ESPN from paying millions to secure the rights to MLS, Euro 2008, and World Cup matches. Yup. Ignorance points now stand at 3 for 3.
04.) Yes of course Americans hate soccer. Why is why the World Cup gets higher TV ratings than the World Series. Which is why more than half of MLS’s teams play in their own stadiums. Which is why soccer is bigger than baseball as far as youth participation sports go. Which is why Adidas paid MLS millions to be its sole jersey sponsor. Which is why multinationals like Microsoft and Red Bull have gotten involved in MLS. Yup, we hate soccer. That’s 4 for 4 in ignorance points.
05.) This isn’t even a sports issue. Do some people in the world dislike America? Sure. But an almost equal amount love America. This is a weak attempt to try to prove the author’s sad “point”. If everyone hated America then why does America have the largest amount of immigrants? Yes, that’s now 5 for 5 in ignorance points.
06.) Of course no one cheats in soccer. That’s why nothing happened in the Italian Serie A concerning matching fixing. Nah. Nothing happened. You guessed it, 6 for 6 in ignorance points.
07.) Of course Americans hate all sports without cheerleaders. That’s why baseball, ice hockey, and NASCAR have no fans in America- no cheerleaders. Congrats genius, that’s a perfect 7 for 7 in ignorance. I’m impressed.
You’ve made me feel better! I thought you were the one who told me that people didn’t understand ‘tongue-in-cheek articles.
For what it’s worth, I think the article is amusing. I know you are not anti-american and it is such a shame that people can’t accept a light-hearted article in the way it was intended.
Maybe the people who understand it don’t bother commenting.
This may all be true, but I’ll give American footballers one thing . . . there is not a single swan-diving, ground-rolling, injury-faking pansy in the bunch. The lasting image of the WC 2006 for me as an American fan of the game is De Rossi elbowing McBride in the face and he hardly flinched, walking calmly to the sideline to the trainer to stop the blood from pouring down his face.
On similar note, I was watching the Houston v. FC Dallas MLS game the other day and saw the most awesome thing… DeRosario (though Canadian) gets fouled by a young South American player (I forget his name), when the ref is turned the fouler, in Dida-like fashion, drops like a sack of bricks long after the contact he initiated. Here’s the brilliant part, DeRosario, in total disbelief at what this guy is trying to pull, bends down with both arms and aggressively grabs him by the front of his shirt and yanks him to his feet. The ref books the kid for his foul, completely ignoring DeRosario’s response. In Europe, DeRosario probably would have been sent off. Volkan Demirel got a two match ban for a small shove. DeRosario roughly pulled this guy off the ground and didn’t even get a yellow. In America, we say serves that punk right for trying to pull something like that, we won’t tolerate it!
This is all to say that where America falls short in footballing talent, we make up for it with some things that the rest of the football world could use some more of . . . PRIDE and HONOR! Thanks Ahmed, for the forum to spread a little Fourth of July joy for my fellow Americans!
I agree with all of this, and I live in America. I love watching…soccer, I will call if football for the sake of this article. I would rather watch football than any other American sport. I really don’t get baseball, it is pretty much as boring as golf is to me. And American football is just ridiculous, stop, start, stop, start…every 6 seconds the game stops. Another reason why Americans do not have good footballers, is because all the, we could say “recruiting” goes towards American football. All of my friends ask me how can i watch a game where scoring can happen sometimes once in a mathc. I reply to them, “Thats what I love about it, even if a player misses, just the excitement that leads up to it, and then finaly when your teams scores, its just amazing.” I will always be a die hard football fan, no matter what anyone says.
i’d have to agree with a lot of this. being a football fan myself, i’d say that it’s mainly because of the breaks. and really, most sports in the US resort to height advantages. Look at Lionel Messi, Shaun Wright Phillips and other players.
Coming from a country where football is still called soccer, where basketball is still the main sport (though our heights can’t match), i guess we need to promote the sport more, just to capture a few more countries.
I don’t know if this article is meant to be completely ‘tongue-in-cheek’, but the reasons that Americans will not become a football superpower any time soon seem rather straightforward to me. Pele58 and Max Zeger hit the nail on its head by pointed out that it really comes down to money and youth. There is a MASSIVE pool of untapped talent in the US who have no access to football and no role models to emulate. Not only that, but youth football is expensive - the fees for the team I’m coaching (12-13 yr olds) are $130 this year - and I know the fees for Premiere travel teams easily reach and can exceed $1000 per child (I live in Maryland). Not only that, but for a kid to play organized football also requires a significant commitment from the parents - even at the rec level. Practices and games are always far away (NOTHING is walking distance in the US). As a result, many kids from single-parent homes and those who come from poor families are automatically excluded from participating. Add to that the lack of money in US pro football, the lack of prestige (MLS), the absence of iconic superstars, and the wealth and popularity of other sports, it’s understandable why US football is found wanting.
It would be decades before football becomes a big sport in America but I think that it might be a big sport one day.
I think they should organize something like a Derby del Cuore. The Derby del Cuore is an annual match played in the Stadio Olimpico in Rome between famous Romanisti and famous Laziali. I think that people who usually close their eyes to football would watch it. I hate baseball, I detest it but if you tell me Al Pacino’s playing I’ll watch it.
I’m not sure if this article was meant to be a joke or not, if it was, it was moderately funny. If not then this is what I have to say…This is the dumbest article i’ve ever read, even for the internet…
(1) yeah, American soccer sucks because we call it soccer. Brilliant, you cracked the code. Oh, and by the way, THE WORD SOCCER ORIGINATED IN ENGLAND..
(2) B/c there are no breaks? Another astonishingly astute analysis. Yes, Americans are so dumb we couldn’t possibly wrap our heads around an idea as complicated as doing something for 45 straight minutes twice in the same day. Again, Genius…
(3) No Cheerleaders? apparently you’ve never seen a South America Club play, every team has cheerleaders there, its great you have such an expansive knowledge of the game and how it exists around the world…
(4)can’t use your hands? name another game popular in other countries not popular in America where you can’t use your hands? Don’t worry, I’ll wait. Soccer is the only major sport in any country where you can’t use your hands, its not just prevalent in America…
(5) Illegal to cheat? Other than major league baseball, American sports leagues have as good of drug testing policies as any orginization in the world. Just b/c testing is done by a single American entity rather than via the “international” community holding hands and using WADA doesn’t mean its doing a worse job. By the way, WADA’s not doing such a bang up job themselves…
(6) American’s don’t hate the sport, they just don’t have time for it. No Country in the world has as many premier sporting leagues as America. We host the best Baseball, Basketball, hockey leagues in the world, and our most popular sport, American Football, is comprised of completely American players (and some pacific islanders). not to mention NASCAR. What Americans don’t like is stuck up Eurosnobs telling them that their crazy for not being 100% dedicated to a sport b/c the rest of the world likes it…
I love Soccer, and we are getting better and better at it each day. I can’t wait for the day (maybe 10, maybe 20 years from now) when we blow the doors off of the same stuck up A-hole “football” fans who talk sh!$ about our approach to the sport. I hope one day we beat England in a world cup final match. Nobody is more stuck up about American soccer then the English fans and announcers (players and coaches are perfect gentlemen). England is such a mediocre footballing power, and yet their fans think they should be the best for some strange reason. it would be the icing on the cake (there are others, I don’t mean to pick on england exclusively)… Again, if this was meant as a joke, disregard my babbling
as a huge football/soccer(i interchange the terms) fan, when i watch games with people who don’t enjoy the game, the complaints are
1) nothing happens. americans can’t deal with long periods with no scoring.
2) soccer players are weak. sports icons here are all large and muscular, whereas soccer players are much more lean and agile. the diving doesn’t help either, although it doesn’t seem to affect basketball popularity.
3)we aren’t the best. americans are spoiled with the best football, basketball, baseball, hockey leagues in the world. when players from around the world are good at any of these sports, they are instantly imported to the biggest teams of the sport in the US. i follow the EPL closely, and when you compare the quality of that league with the MLS, its almost unbearable to watch. bringing in big(old) european players to the MLS or promoting the EPL are probably the best methods to increasing the popularity. heres hoping henry comes to the red bulls in a season or two.
alright, ahmed. your frustratingly destitute diatribe regarding the relationship between the general american public and football/soccer/calcio/futbol/footer/soccball is one thing, but your embarrassing attempts to defend your “satirical” post against the rightfully peeved commenters is entirely another. now,
1- i’ll agree with you on the hand v. feet argument. those arguing need look no further than the fact that the posiiton Americans prosper at the highest level in soccball is the goalkeeper.
2- everyone has already lambasted your ignorance for pinning the Americans with the unspeakable dirty deed of using the term “soccer” and not including the handful of other countries that share the term. not to mention the italians having an alternate name for the sport as well. and furthermore, why does anyone care that much anyway? did you come up with the term football? why so staunch in defending it? changing american football’s name would be far to difficult as it’s now overtaken baseball as america’s new pasttime. you call it what you want, others will call it what they want. let ig go.
3- the lack of breaks argument is a worn-down, abused, and just plain irrelevant one to make at this stage. the only difference between american sports broadcasts and soccball broadcasts are the in-game commercials or tv timeouts, and i honestly have a hard time believing american sports viewers would have a problem with if they were eliminated, like they are in soccball. just because the clock is continuously running doesn’t mean there aren’t stoppages in play, either. every foul, every offsides, every flop and subsequent clearance of the ball for strategic purposes; how is this any different to 2 free throws? and the attention span argument doesn’t work either, amercians will sit for 6 hours and watch cars turn left around a track hundreds of times, which is about as mind-numbing as sport can get, i think. which means that if NASCAR were soccer, car wrecks would equal goals.
4- yeah…..ok, buddy. i don’t want to touch this with a thirty ft. pole, it’s so silly.
5- well, the americans didn’t really help out the argentines or the greeks throughout the years in basketball, and yet the US national basketball team has been eliminated by these two countries at the last two major international tournaments. although the argument that the rest of the world feeling animosity towards the states seemingly has very little to do with America’s prowess on the pitch. i don’t even know what point you’re trying to convey here, honestly. even if it’s sarcastic, it’s bad.
6- first off, and this is for everyone, american football (NFL) players cheat. they take steroids just as much (probably more, come to think of it; have you seen the size of some of these guys?)as baseball players do, they just don’t get caught or vilified by a very misguided congress that needs to sort out their priorities and worry about things more important than doping in sports. however, just assuming that all american athletes are raging about on roids and that nobody involved in soccball does is absolutley ridiculous. nobody in the NBA worth mentioning the past 50 years has had any sort of public altercation with steroids, although one doth remember a certain Diego Maradona having one. not to mention the insipid match fixing scandals prevalent throughout association football, which attacks the integrity of any sport far more than performance enhancing drugs do. if anything shouldn’t be looked at lackadaisically, it’s that, not steroids.
7- you would end it with this. this is the worst idea for football i’ve probably ever heard. i can only hope you were joking and never think about it again.
you then go on to primp your own article up for all to see in the comment,s reaffirming everyone here’s belief that you are in fact an alarmingly large tool. wondering aloud why people aren’t questioning a certain sentence in your piece? praising yourself for your follow ups? using italics for emphasis? come on man, you’re letting anyone taking the time to read this site down with things like that.
peace
Yea I agree mostly but being Australian myself I can’t say I know anything on MLS.. Sure though soccerplayers dive.. but when people say they always dive at international level its true.. but thats in the eyes of all the world.. If you watch the English Premier League, by far the best league in the world, there is very little diving.. end to end football which is probably the most entertaining sport in the world.. When silly yanks and people who know nothin of soccer and use international games as a reference of diving and that the game is a shambles its idiotic.. In Aus we dont dive.. We’ll win a world cup in the coming decades or so simply because we have many multicultural backgrounds, many of whom play soccer. And were tough..
americans don’t know what they are missin by give football litte or no auds it the world biggest and no 1 sports give it his reps tanx
9ja 4 life
one thing about american football that i will always admire almost above that of the absolute skill of the other nations is that americans do not and will not flop ever — one thing (and probably the only thing) about watching american football is that you will not see them falling down over nothing — cant say that about any other countries out there — europeans are flop happy and in my opinion flopping is cheating, period.
There is some truth to this article. As an American that loves to watch American sports as well as international football, I understand both sides. Honestly, the main issue with American soccer (I’ll call it this to prevent confusion) is that it’s not the sport all the great American athletes are raised and told to play. What’s ironic is that soccer is the sport that almost every suburbanite American kid plays when they are 5-7 years old. But once they get older and into school, it’s all about the big-time American sports, the big three being American football (which requires an incredible amount of athletic ability despite what some may say), basketball, and baseball.
I love European football (soccer), but who ever said that America HAD to care about it? There are so many great sports in the world, and America happens to have created several of them, or at least molded older sports into their own unique forms. American football (NFL or gridiron) gets a bad rap from Europeans, as they often try to compare it to rugby, saying that Americans are wusses because they use pads or whatever. The thing is that American (gridiron) football is really nothing like rugby, and as such there is no point in trying to say which is better; it would be like trying to compare tennis and ice hockey. The point of sports is not to be as tough and hard-nosed as possible - otherwise we’d all sit around watching bare-knuckle boxing or something like that. American (gridiron) football requires incredible specialization at certain athletic skills. While NFL athletes may not be as well-rounded athletically as rugby players, you can bet all your money that Americans have individuals players that are ridiculously fast, ridiculously strong, ridiculously good at catching a ball, etc. Plus American (gridiron) football is an immensely strategic game and requires a very high intellectual capacity at the professional level.
I say all that to say that all sports are different and nobody can say that everyone SHOULD play this sport or SHOULD play that sport. For being a country that isn’t too great at the world’s most popular sport, there sure are a lot of people worldwide that make the Super Bowl one of the most watched events in the world.
Besides, the U.S. still has arguably one of the top 25 national teams in the world. And they are getting better. With ongoing globalization and the media connecting every country to each other, I’m sure that one day Americans will develop a keen interest in the sport and will remind everyone what happens when they really apply their competitive spirit and athletic talent.
So, while I’m sure it’s fun for everyone else to make cracks at America and American sports, I think for now we’ll be pretty content with our some 2,400 Olympic medals. Give us a call when anyone comes anywhere near that number. Then we can at least entertain the debate of who is the best sports nation. Thanks, and long live Chelsea.
As a sidenote (in case someone is serious about football in the US and isn’t content with attacking the article on the wrong fronts)…
TIAS’ Adam Spangler talks to Frank Dell’apa from the Boston Globe - where Frank has written about international football and the MLS for almost 2 decades. It’s an excellent interview and gives a unique insight into how the American media thinks about football:
http://www.thisisamericansoccer.com/friends-of-tias/the-domino-effect/
Frank Dell’apa is a douchebag and so are you.
Point #8
They hate the fact that the “World” Cup actually means all the teams in the world. Instead say the World Series and such.
I tried watching soccer once. I brought my beer to the couch and here we go. Naturally 5 minutes later I need another beer - does the game take a break? No. I get parched. At 15 minutes in I’m really thirsty. No scoring, by the way, the players are just playing keep away. Finally some guy kicks another guy (did that hurt? the guy is on the ground in tears! what a friggin baby!) so I take the opportunity to grab another can of suds and some potato chips for good measure, but as soon as I’m out of the room there is cheering and pandemonium coming from the TV in the other room. A goal has been scored.
I sit back down with my suds and chips and watched another scoreless 10 minutes of keep away, but when it was time to go back to the refrigerator, I knew I was going to change the channel when I came back.
Silly, silly euro sport for skinny boys who are delicate. Um, no disrespect meant if you like that kind of thing.
Now the cheerleader thing is quite an idea (a very American idea, I’ve got to love it). Instead of just having them at half time, perhaps they could be the “ball boys” scattered around the edge of the field in amazing outfits or lack thereof.
Thinking this out further, if FIFA were to adopt topless ball girls as a standard requirement to ensure fair play and the control of hooliganism, while it might be a tough sell in Kansas, the core US sports audience would support it enthusiastically, if not openly. We may hate France, but we love lingerie, and therein would lie the ultimate demise of the NFL.
“Pads, helmets?
Get More Naked:
Play Futbal”
While Ahmed usually gets it right, he’s waaaay off the mark on a number of points here.
#2 - I find it hilarious how many Euro purists make this retarded argument. Go look at what the ‘A’ in FIFA stands for and you’ll understand that ’soccer’ (which is merely a shortening of “association”) is as or more historically valid than, say, ‘calcio.’
#3 - Only the NBA has quarters. If you’re going to whinge at us, get it right.
#6 - True comedy! If there’s no cheating then how does Materazzi still have a job? In all seriousness, the obvious cynicism, flopping, and general whimpyness (which, by the way, stops the run of play plenty often) drives Americans nuts.
While we didn’t really invent baseball (which is exciting cricket) nor American Football (descended from rugby), we like those plenty. Try again.
The real reason is that all our best athletes are busy doing other things.
There are cheerleaders!…so to speak. Chivas has some girls that come out and dance and what not.
Also, Ahmed, didn’t you ever read Dave Eggers take on why Americans hate soccer? Be/c its a COMMUNIST SPORT and we all know we dealt with that issue…haha j.k. Great article. I’d add, we hate low scoring games (hockey being the rare exception).
Please don’t call us Yanks. When Americans hear the word Yanks, we think of the New York Yankees baseball team which is hated by most baseball fans except there own. Kinda like Chelsea in the Premier League. Also, the main reason why we suck at soccer is because most of our athletes are playing real sports like baseball, basketball, and (real) football. I agree with cherie that it is too low scoring also. The only reason we like hockey is because of the fights and hitting. But the bottom line is that America just doesnt care enough to put out a competitive squad.
Dear hummingcow, did the Palestine people call for America’s help? And most of the time it’s more of ‘barged-in’ instead of people asking America for help… anyway, back to football (soccer for those who disagree), this article is funny, and should not be taken seriously… some correct points here and there… If only Figo would choose his final destination to be MLS then maybe US will appreciate football… Hala Madrid!
or the fact that football/ soccer is a second tier sport in America.
the best athletes play sports such as basketball or football.
Soccer is an English word, not American. It was brought over with the game. Don’t really understand the british obsession with us using the the term.
Additionally, Aussies, South Africans, Irish, Canadians also use the term, though not as formally as Americans.
Comment removed by moderator.
3 more -
Cheating - Yes cheating, soccer is a carrot and stick sport. That is football(soccer) players regularly bend the rules: Get too close on a free kick, Take a guy down on the 18, Take a guy out, Kick a ball the ref has set in position, Fall down when touched. I would say in football, that the rules are a bigger part of the game and thus the officials are a bigger part of the game. There are 4 officials. Each has a job enforcing the laws of the game. American’s view this as a problem. They believe the center has all the power and misses all the calls, but these missed calls are footballs way of letting the players regulate the game themselves. Which leads to the ebb and flow. . .Let’s not even talk about advantage. I spend at least 15 minutes a week explaining diving, advantage and offside(NOT OFFSIDES). Am I getting through? I hope. No America, do not ruin football with instant replay. Those fouls aren’t supposed to be called! My favorite as a youth coach is, today I’m going to teach little Suzzie how to: pull her opponent down at the top of the box, deliver a forarm to the back to keep a girl from turning, or smoothly slide myself in front of another girl causing her to fall like a ton of bricks! Parents say, those girls play rough, cheat, whatever!
Scoring - In football, there is one way to score and it is worth one point. In American football, and basketball, there are multiple scoring levels because there is more than one way to score. Please avoid the 3 point line in football. Yes, I’ve heard requests for that.
Attention span - At a football match, players work to control the game through posession and movement of the other team. This creates opportuities. That creates shots. That creates goals. To score, you have to complete the list: Posession, movement, opportunities, shots and then a goal will come. Great matchups create dull(to Americans) games because 2 quality teams spend all day working on maintaining possesion and moving the other team. Hence the 0-0 with a win in PK’s. In American favorite sports, the first three are given to you and all you have to do is make the most of your opportunities. Amer. Football is maybe the only exception, but you get 7 points for a touchdown and PAT, so that makes up for it! There is no way an ADD American can watch ever second of a possession battle which goes to a quick mistake or worse yet a 0-0 tie!
its because all the good players are in italy, spain, germany and england………because their attracted by the champions league - which is not a big thing in the u.s.
In general this article had some basic points I agreed with along the lines of popularity of the sport and how you only get one half time break, which makes tv stations weary to carry it because you show 45 minutes of tv with limited ad revenue, because we operate everything to make money not for the love of the game. We already have our own professional sports that take away from fan base in soccer. We have 3 big leagues, the NBA, MLB and NFL which all have their serious fan base and act like their sport is the sport. You can not deny that football is the main sport in England, where America does not have one main sport that the crowd loves. You can try to refute me and say that if Cricket, Rugby and Football was on in a bar/pub in an airport the fans would be evenly split up among the crowd enjoying these games. The only problem with this article is just an attack on America. You could have easily talked about why soccer is unpopular in the country or lack of foreign involvement in the US Soccer infrastructure but you attacked the nation, making some parts sound like a mad rant. Sorry you are unhappy with my country, I guess just keep categorizing us into one mold and stereotype us more next time earlier so I know to quit reading earlier on.
i’d say americans cant take a joke but you’ll consider it a stereotype, so I guess the people reading this article and getting pissed at it really can’t get satire. including you.
Its funny that everyone argues that America’s world power will “soon” translate to football success. They’ve been a power for the last 70 years or so. How long do you need? The World Cup itself is only 78 years old, so America has been a power for most of the time the World Cup’s been around so I ask again: How long do you need?
World power means nothing in football terms. e.g Brazil - never been a major player in the world, but are the most successful nation at football. Tried up against two world powers - America? No major trophies etc. Or England? Don’t think I need to say anything. I’d say Australia, but we’re not really a major player in world schemes.
And even if world power meant something football-wise, in todays world power is created by money. How much does America have. I mean really, not the private sector, banks etc. The actual U.S government? about negative 10 trillion U.S dollars. So if money buys power, America has overstayed its welcome as the worlds main power…but like I said, power doesn’t translate to footballing success, and for the sake of a more competitive global football scene, I hope America can get into soccer.
Sorry, I think I may be trapped in last year still, the World Cup is in fact 79 years old this year…my bad…tell you what the 2010 tournament will be a big milestone
what i don’t understand is why they decided to call american football that anyway because there was already a game with the same name, also the whole thing about them not inventing it, the majority of sports played by the us weren’t invented by them
I loved the article and I don’t understand why people are getting upset over an opinion…. I mean for being american don’t we all have the freedom of speech (and some of us really use it when it really isn’t necessary)?
back to the article… I found it very humorous. What I found even funnier are the ones that commeted and they dont even watch the sport or even care to watch it.
I grew up watching the mexican league and i got into epl when newcastle bought shearer from blackburn. i tried and tried to get into mls but it just plain suks. i feel (and this is only an opinion) as though you can train chimps to do the exact same thing as what they do. I even have friends that play for the Houston Dynamo team. They laugh when i say that but they know its true.
So there’s my little rant
Love Peace and Chicken Grease!
But they do produce immense keepers going back to the hands thing. Brad Friedel & Tim Howard to name but 2!
First off to Ahmed Bilal, satire itself requires some sort of wit to it, like Guilivers Travels or something like Jonathon Swift with his Modest proposal are some that come to mind when I think of satire. This is hardly satire. Where is the satirical humor in this? It contains quite a lot of attacks on American Sports and American Society, but I fail to see the satire. As for Stereotyping, I do get offended when it comes into play, I doubt this is hardly a joke article, most articles are well written on this website and tend to be works of passion that I enjoy reading and take them as a serious piece. If this is a mere joke, then I do not find it funny, just like anyone else would dislike attacks on their country’s football program come from views on that country’s society.
As for statements of free speech, I am not in disagreement of this article getting published, I am happy I can read something like this and put my two cents in, people can publish what ever they like, it doesn’t make it true.
For the comment on how much money America has and and how your world power status doesn’t effect how good you are in football, I would agree with examples like Brasil or even how well countries like Croatia and Greece play shows that, but why bring up America’s economy for football? I did not realize that we were discussing our economic downfalls now. I see that the recent market recession and bankruptcies have not effected Europe at all, I mean football teams like Chealsea, West Ham and Portsmouth certainly have not felt any of it.
As for why I think American Soccer is subpar compared to some International Teams and why our league isnt very good is because of our youth system. It means our players can only be drafted at age 18, drafted! That means we must rely on highschools and universities to train our youth and turn them into star players. Very few of our youth get into our youth soccer academy, and we really only have one. MLS teams do not have academys which severely limits our youth system, which is our biggest downfall. I am very eager for 2010 when some of our young stars like Adu, Alitdore and Bradley can shine and show where we are at in American Soccer.
The essence of football is also the individuality and history of the teams. In England, Wigan Athletic, founded in 1932, are the youngest team in the Premiership. Whilst America is a young country, granted, as are its soccer leagues, the fact that clubs are considered “franchises” and not “clubs” automatically gives the MLS no credibility. Decentralise ownership of the clubs away from one company, to make the league more competative and less of a laughing stock!
The essence of football is also the individuality and history of the teams. In England, Wigan Athletic, founded in 1932, are the youngest team in the Premiership. Whilst America is a young country, granted, as are its soccer leagues, the fact that clubs are considered “franchises” and not “clubs” automatically gives the MLS no credibility. Decentralise ownership of the clubs away from one company, to make the league more competitive and less of a laughing stock!
ARE YOU KIDDING????????????????????? 1st, when have you ever seen an American player dive?????? at least we respect the rules of the game and play on true ability! unlike Ronaldo! (MESSI SHOULD HAVE WON PLAYER OF THE YEAR) and the US has incredibly strict drug regulations, steriod use hasn’t been an issue for years now, except for true fat american sports like baseball. I am Amertican, and I absolutely love soccer, it is my favorite sport. You only speak of a percentage of Americans in your reasons, which makes it completely absurd to anyone who is truly passionate about soccer from the US. Albeit there is a large gap of quality, it isn’t just because of those reasons. WE SPEND SO MUCH MONEY ON OTHER SPORTS WE CAN’T AFFORD TOP OF THE LINE SOCCER EQUIPMENT, COACHES, PLAYERS(UNLESS YOU CONSIDER BECKHAM ONE, CONSIDERING HIS LOAN TO MINLAN), AND ADVERTISEMENTS. THE BIG PROBLEM IS WIDESPREAD POPULARITY.
It all comes down to advertising dollars. American television will fight against soccer until they can insert advertising into the game. (on screen ads, billboards and half time are not enough for them.) Rugby has the same problems here and that sport has the aggression that Americans would love, but no time-outs.
This is the same reason why we have 9-ball billiards instead of snooker. Short quick mindless games with plenty of commercial breaks.
I ultimately think soccer will be the biggest US game someday. I play on an adult league in America, there is only one American born player on the team! We have Italians, Brazilians, Brits, Canadians and one Columbian. America is a changing melting pot of international influence. California is mostly Mexicans! (ok thats not true but you get my point)
Haha
“That’s half time in the UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea, stay tuned for our half-time show with special guests commentating the Aerosmith concert, Soccer-greats: Pele and Maradona discussing ‘drugs or erectionettes - increase your sex drive’ brought to you by Carlsberg, the drink americans don’t know cos they’re retarded!’
just to let you guys know….if you great great great great grandpa was german or italian or irsih or whatever…that doesnt make you people that…your americans..us europeans always laugh at that aspect…you cant speak the language and your obese…your not anything but a bloody american
overall american “soccer” is a joke… and i agree with the authors comments.. England invented the game. and it spread all along the world..god didnt intend it for the americans.. so he cursed them haha…
FOOTBALLS COMING HOME IN 2010
P.S : I HATE AMERICANS THAT ROOT FOR OTHER NATIONAL TEAMS… NATIONAL TEAMS ARE ABOUT THE NATION AND ITS BLOOD… NOT SOME AMERICAS THAT THINK THERE GERMAN OR FRENCH BECAUSE THERE GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GREAT GRAND DAD WAS
i came upon this article by mistake and i actually find it kind of amusing, and not in a good way. i’m an american and honestly, i couldn’t give a shit about soccer. i’m sorry if that offends any of you die hard soccer fans, but believe it or not, people have different opinions from your own.
i played soccer as a child and absolutely hated it. after i stopped playing around the age of six, i started playing tennis and i’ve been playing ever since.
it really annoys me how ignorant some of the people that commented this are. yea sorry that soccer isn’t as popular as it is in our country then it is in yours! WE HAVE DIFFERENT CULTURES! GET OVER IT! not everyone in the world worships soccer or “futbol” or what ever the hell you call it!
and to the guy that wrote this bull shit article, have you even been to the states? do you have a slight clue that even though soccer is popular from ages 5-18, it’s pretty much one of the least cared about sports when it comes to american football and baseball.
and about the “everyone hates americans” part, we americans do not give a shit whether you like us or not. there’s enough hate in this world as much as there is enough love in this world for the united states. and just so you know, i’m not one of those dumb asses that supported bush in his past two elections and mccain in this past one. george “dubya” made us all look like idiots….thank god his term is over!
I still can’t believe u racist americans elected obama haha…but anyways americans are obese and foolish..and that’s why u are hated…get over it tossers
Back again to check up on what people have smeared my culture as. I am happy to see that this article seems to have drawn up the mindless comments of obesity and us being stupid and what not with some stupid name calling mixed in. You guys are just some Euro Trash posers who amount to nothing. Congrats on having a superior league because you only are good in one or two sports, and just remember for how much you hate America, your government most likely needs us.
More drivel that fails to get to the heart of the matter. And BTW, soccer is a name that came from the English term Association Football.
So blame England for the name, and just enjoy the game.
I’ve seen a few games of American Soccer on channel 5 in my time and let me tell you, its the most excruciating 10 minutes of my whole life, they have to technical ability at all, despite half their teams being Mexicans. On the point of Ronaldo diving, he is the most hacked player in the premier league and probably the world (along with Messi) if anyone has the right to go down easily its him and normally the ref misses all the blatant fouls on him (Pogatetz choking him down in the box) so he has to dispense his own justice. Ronaldo deserved to win Player of the year anyone who said otherwise either has not seen last years premiership or has no brain (probably why the americans are saying it) Messi will win it next year and he will have deserved it judging on his current performances like ROnaldo deserved ti last year.
You are right by stating that they have a Ridiculous Name. Naming football soccer, men it evens rimes with sucker. And whats that with americans, Im not from USA and still Im american Why? The last time I saw a map USA its only a small part of the American continent. So that sport they call American football its all wrong named, hey since they like playing with their hands a lot they should call it handball. Besides why play “american football” when its a COPY of RUGBY.
actually, to be completely honest the english are the ones who started calling football “soccer” don’t get me wrong i hate the word too but i thought u should know, if u don’t believe me, go on about.com and search it
forget the faggot British and australians and other lame countries. America rules mmk we kick ass at everything
Forget the poofter Americans and their candy-ass brand of handball they call “football”. They used their hands and that’s it.. Oh my God, they used so much padding it is funny! How can those drugged up, cashed up, over-rated, steroid laden American GridIron players can even run with all that protection on??
Very good point about US goalkeepers doing well because the nature of the position is much a part of American sports culture.
how funny.. u write that ‘Soccer’ sounds crap… and you forgot that ur writing your post in “Soccerlens”.. maybe we should call it “football - lens”
Ahmed i would have to agree whith most of your points except that golf is a game of reetards. It is probably one of the most respectable games on earth.Also it is not at all an american game. I think you just hate americans and are pointing out the reasons why no one in the world would like to seat in empty stadium for 3 hours to see it all come to the famous nile nile tie.
This article is foolish. While the rest of the world was playing football America was being creative and fostering a group of sports that engages our creativity. Basketball, Baseball and American Football all have qualities that international sports lack, which is why the rest of the world is following in our footsteps in placing american sport leagues in their home countries. European basketball and Asian baseball leagues. The reason why American’s aren’t dominating the international sport of football is because its low on our pecking order of popularity, our real athletes stop playing football at the middle/high school level and focus on American football. This would be a different story is Reggie Bush, Ladanian Tomlinson, Allen Iverson, or any other top class American athlete would focus primarily on football or “soccer”. This article is narrow minded, funny how the world points its finger at American’s but are always the next to follow suit. Peace bitches
As an American, I agree that soccer/football isn’t one of the more popular sports. There are the reasons why me and friends of mine do not play soccer/football:
-the crap called MLS isn’t the best product. they can’t keep possession for more than 10 seconds and the touch is awful, making the game very boring and pointless to watch. you don’t get the skills and finishing of the top european leagues to razzle dazzle the crowd. if the NBA players and skills were more like high school players, basketball would not be a top sport for very long. it also doesn’t help that soccer players in the MLS make what NBA, MLB, NHL, and NFL stars make in a week. what is the point of trying to make it as a professional in the MLS if you cannot sustain a good lifestyle and even a good retirement out of it?
-to watch those european leagues and those great players, one would have to have the most expensive satellite package in order to get the games and when it is available, it is usually on at 3/4am in the morning.
-unless you lived and grew up in a preplanned suburbia neighborhood, there are no soccer youth leagues. most of us played basketball or american football because it was easy to get a game going, it was readily available to us, and it was always on TV. baseball is one of the top sports in america, but very few people living in urban areas end up playing it.
-football/soccer is a tiring sport. i’m not going to lie, a lot of children were fat when i was growing up (maybe 25%?). physical education was a mandatory class we had to take growing up, but no one really pushed us and made us try hard so we all really didn’t bother in trying to be fit. sodas and hamburgers were readily available to purchase at school and were the most popular food choices. add this all together, we are a bunch of unfit kids. football/soccer is a game where running is of great importance. factor in our physical shape and unwillingness to be active, and you an already unpopular sport.
-with other sports such as football or basketball, if you were out of shape, you could still be competitive. you could either play a different position such as linemen or center, and still be able to be good at the game.
BUT there is no reason why we should suck at soccer. we have state of the art training facilities and we have health clubs at our disposal. we have big parks every mile or so of residential neighborhoods. we have the most resources at our hands, when we compare our country to the rest of the world. the real problem is getting the youth to become captivated with soccer. possible solutions to this problem could be showing reairs of good matches on ESPN during primetime or the daytime. i know fox sports tries to do this, but showing chelsea v. derby at 11am on a thursday doesn’t exactly do a whole lot. another misconception kids have is that soccer players in the top european leagues do not make a whole lot of money. not trying to sound superfical, but money is a big factor in our lives here and what we do. there are many solutions to get american kids excited about soccer, so the possibilities are endless.
so everyone who is trying to argue that we suck at soccer, you’re just lying to yourself. i’ll admit that we don’t suck, but we aren’t good. our wins against “top” european sides such as sweden does not count, because they are friendlies and they are mostly comprised of fringe players.
well that’s my rant about the topic. peace.
and one more thing…not everyone is what you think of as the stereotypical american. a lot of us in southern california and in new york city are a lot more educated than the rest of the lot and aren’t what you think of as a “typical american”
This is probably the most biased and offensive article I have every read; it is painfully obvious that the author has no real ties to the United States or our soccer programs here. This author seems to be biased by hearsay and the media; a rookie mistake as a journalist and football fan.
Joga Bonita…no matter where or who is playing. Get over yourself.
p.s. The language difference point the author made was pretty lame/weak; “soccer” is no different than differntiating between football and “voetbal” or “fodbold”.
Isn’t “Soccer” derrived from the English name for the sport “Association Football”?
This entire debate is a joke. I’m sorry if someone in the comments already pointed this out, but there is one very obvious reason why America doesn’t produce a great national soccer team. It is the same reason the English aren’t good at basketball, and the same reason the French suck at American Football. In American culture, soccer takes a back seat to other sports due to historical circumstances. Basketball, baseball, gridiron football, and golf all have deeper historical traditions in the United States than does soccer. Circumstances surrounding the development of these other sports has led to increased public awareness, improved training, and greater funding as compared to soccer. That’s your answer. Nonsensical bs about cheating and backhanded swipes about fat American culture have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Why is Romania good at gymnastics? Why does China suck at American football? Why does France produce no decent sumo wrestlers? When will Ireland get a decent basketball team? Why does Brazil’s national baseball team blow? Jesus, it must be because of cheerleaders, steroids, the use of certain appendages, and commercial breaks. This article (even if supposedly satirical) contains all the rational analysis of a 10 year old European kid who knows one thing and one thing only: that he doesn’t like the United States.
Ok, I’m a European who ended up in the US.
Ditto on nearly every point from the original article.
Especially about the word “soccer”. Brits invented that but even the Brits call the noble game its real world “FOOTBALL”. Most popular, most loved and most followed game in the world. Sorry Americans, “American Football” much like “Ausie Football” is hardly known outside of your country. If someone gets confused, that’s their problem. Example, there’s game called tennis. If tomorrow some imbecile comes up with American Tennis, should the great name of the original game be bastardized too? Get real.
It is also true that average Europeans enjoy making fun of Americans and American and rightfully so. The situation would change to the better nevertheless when (if ever) the americans adopted a healthy habit of achievement before advertisement.
Disagree with the point regarding the doping use. The situation seems to turn to the better in the US lately whereas the rest of the world seems to have given some slack on it. It might have to do that there’s entire industry out there with load of money in it that constantly pops out substances that are harder to trace, as opposed to the layers of bureaucracy among international sport authorities.
I think I read this guy was from Pakistan… And doing a little RESEARCH… I found that pakistan is currently 177 in the FIFA world rankings. USA is 15. So who wants to write an article about how Pakistan will always suck as soccer?
Football is the only world sport. America is the best at every thing. Fouls are made to stop th opponent if you know they can beat you on the fly fake or real.
{poster}”Incredibly Stupid” had a good post and summed up what I was going to say.
And by the way, for those that don’t think Football/Soccer players are using steroids/PED, you need to do your research better. Not only have athletes been caught, but many do it and don’t get caught. That’s what is great about money, power, popularity, science, etc.
And you also have to remember you can still use PED and get away with it. Who do you think started PED/Steroids anyway? EUROPEANS.
Look at the Olympics as an example: Strict tests but many cheat.
In addition, I don’t want to hear this b.s. that we don’t like it because we didn’t invent it. USA didn’t invent boxing and look at the production she had in the 20th century and that is a WORLD Sport that dates back to ancient times.
The last part is that WE DO LIKE SOCCER; but it is our WOMEN that like it more…which is why they are routinely one of the best if not the best team in the World in that sport.
uh…american football does not use feet; what idiot thought of calling american football ‘football’; on the other hand ‘european football’ or ‘world football’ is based on the foot. ; anyways I think the best point is the vicous cycle which began becuase the u.s was isolated enough to create its own sport and have it become popular; now as the article mentions; u.s folks ignore it becuase they suck at it and becuase they ignore it they continue to suck at it.
..just to add ; look at how lousy the ratings of the ‘world baseball championships’ are in the united states; no one watches it becuase the u.s. never makes it to the finals..yet baseball is very popular in the united states..go figure; I think this adds to the ‘we suck at it so lets ignore it’ attitude…theory…
@ Kansas Citian
The colour of your skin doesnt make you a better player, ya there are flashy point guards and running backs but that’s with a ball in their hand not their feet. And it doesnt matter if tey are hispanic its all about where you learned to play.The reason europeans and south americans are better is because of how they are taught over there. In the states it’s basically if you are more athletic then you will be better but in soccer thats just not how it works. Thats why america will never be good at soccer.
someone on here commented about how usa was ranked 15 in the fifa raknings. The only reason for that is cause they qualify against the north american and central american teams which suck, teams like panama and canada. Thats why they always qualify for the world cup
hahaha @ american
“and just remember for how much you hate America, your government most likely needs us.”
that’s funny but considering the major recession and how it’s hitting the states really hard I think your government needs us
One more reason: Football is a simple game. One team tries to kick a ball into the net, while the other team tries to prevent it.
Have you seen how ridiculously complicated the rules of American Football & Baseball are? Hence, football being a simple game does not appeal to Americans.