[Soccer:] The Anti-American Pastime

I’ve always been a big sports fan, which explains why I have absolutely no interest in soccer. The fact is, I’d rather watch my accountant get his toenails clipped than take in a soccer game — and that includes the World Cup final, which I’m sure will be as scintillating as any other soccer game.

In soccer, they spend hours frantically trying to score. That’s not sport. That’s a young guy trying to convince his date that he likes her for her personality. If you could bottle soccer, you’d have a cure for insomnia.

But it’s not just because it’s so dull that I don’t like soccer. Another reason I don’t like it is because of the Americans who do like it. Most of these sports fans — a term I use with no regard for either word, “sports” or “fans” — wouldn’t know a fumble from a first down, a hit-and-run from a double play. But every four years they show up at bars and go wild when the American team ties the Tunisians zero-zero, or nil-nil, as they call it.

I’m not much of a fan of Ann Coulter either (though she’s infinitely more interesting than soccer), but she’s right when she says that soccer is “excruciatingly boring” and that “the reason there are so many fights among spectators at soccer games is to compensate for the tedium.”

Which brings us to how, for many Americans — almost always liberal elite Americans — soccer isn’t really about soccer so much as it’s about proving the superiority of the young over the old, of liberals over conservatives.

Take Peter Beinart, a liberal journalist and professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. Mr. Beinart was with Fareed Zakaria on CNN the other day and had a lot to say about how soccer just might save America — from its narrow-minded, insular self.

Soccer fans in America, he said, show us that “we have a less nativist sports culture and we’re more open — at least some groups in the United States — young people, immigrants, political liberals — are more open to liking the same kinds of things that people in other countries do. Things don’t have to be ours and ours alone.”

Part of the attraction of soccer, Mr. Zakaria says, is that we’re sharing the sport with the rest of the world; we’re following something the rest of the world is following. Yes, Professor Beinart says, but it’s much more than that. Younger Americans, who like soccer more than older Americans, “are far less likely than older Americans to say that American culture is superior or to say that America is the greatest country in the world.”

In case you were wondering, this is a good thing to Mr. Beinart, and I suspect many other liberals. Because “it reflects a more cosmopolitan temperament, more of a recognition that America has things to learn from the rest of the world, and that in fact maybe we have to learn from the rest of the world if we’re going to remain a successful country.”

After taking that in, Mr. Zakaria observes that soccer fans in the United States look a lot like the Obama coalition. To which Beinart replied: “That’s exactly right, and if you look at the states where soccer is most popular, they’re overwhelmingly blue states and the states where soccer is least popular are red states.”

You see: Soccer is much more than a game that puts people like me to sleep. It’s a bunch of guys running up and down a “pitch” in short pants teaching us an important lesson — a lesson about how the tide is turning, about how the same people who embrace soccer embrace the idea that despite all the talk from those old right-wingers, America isn’t so special after all. Or as Peter Beinart explains it: “Younger people are far more likely than older people to say they like the United Nations. There’s a willingness to accept the idea that America is one of many nations. Yes, we have a special affinity for it. But it doesn’t mean in some objective sense [that] us, and everything we do are necessarily better.”

So there you have it. He grants us that as Americans we might have “a special affinity” for our homeland, but thanks to soccer we can learn a lot from the rest of the world. We can learn that we’re not as great as we think we are — or, more precisely, that we’re not as great as old, conservative, red-state Americans think we are.

Turns out that soccer is teaching me a lot more about elite, liberal intellectuals than it’ll ever teach me about the rest of the world. In fact, soccer has already taught me that smug, liberal elites are the single biggest reason I have no use for soccer, and that Ann Coulter isn’t crazy when she says, “Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation’s moral decay.”

— Bernard Goldberg is a news and media analyst for Fox News and the author of Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News. His website is BernardGoldberg.com.

I don’t ‘hate’ soccer...but I do understand how it is being championed by the left.

Before I begin, my soccer credentials: I played it the whole time I was growing up, basically from the time I could walk. Never on an organized team, but quite often in pick up games with other kids. As a teenager, I would play indoor at least 5 times a week...again unorganized. My brother actually attended college on a soccer scholarship...my neighbor was known as the ‘father’ of soccer in Alabama

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Woodard_(soccer_coach)

And his son (who I played with often) went on to play professionally in an indoor league.

Anyway, I know a lot about soccer, and actually got pretty good at it...regularly playing with people who went on to compete at college and pro levels. Honestly, I really don’t care to watch it...I think indoor would be a lot better as a spectator sport, but watching it on a normal field doesn’t trip my trigger. But that’s just my personal opinion.

On to how the left is attracted to soccer:

First of all, whenever somebody ‘corrects’ me and says its really called football, or its the ‘real’ football...they are really implying that the US is ‘incorrect’ and should fall in line with the rest of the world. It irks me to no end. And when somebody so readily accepts that we are ‘wrong’ with our name, it shows how easily people can ignore or forget American exceptionalism. And frankly, the term Soccer is not even of American origin. We didn’t invent the term...the Brits just quit using it, out of contempt and jealousy for Americans.

And there is a whole group of people who desperately ‘want’ to like soccer. Why? Its hard for a conservative to wrap his head around this...but a lot of people in this nation are absolutely convinced that Europe is superior to the US in every way. And this group is attracted to soccer instinctively...and frankly they do put out an air of superiority....(no offense) often spouting out stats about how many people will watch the world cup, and how much bigger and better it is than football (or as they call it ‘American Football’). Why do they feel the need to prove how inferior football is? Once again, no belief in American exceptionalism...and soccer demonstrates that to them. Now you may like soccer for different reasons, but make no mistake, a large group of its fans like it because they don’t love their country (they might like their country but don’t love it). I’ve long thought the perfect question to ask Obama is “Do you believe, without question or qualification, that the US is the best, most moral, most enlightened nation that has ever graced the surface of our planet.” I don’t think he would simply say yes...and I don’t think the majority of American soccer fans could just say yes either.

Then there is the lack of individuality. I understand that there are standout individual players....but the vast majority of Americans playing soccer are young kids, with very few actual soccer skills, probably being coached by a parent with very little knowledge or skills either. So in this country, for most people, soccer is what you do between soda breaks and trophy ceremonies on a Saturday afternoon...you run around and kick a ball, but few people really stand out (the kids who do stand out in athletics usually gravitate to the money sports as they get older and leave soccer). Its just a gaggle of kids...and even the kid with zero athletic ability can disguise that fact fairly well. There’s something about that reality that doesn’t jibe with American individuality in my mind.

And I do think the current attacks on the NFL are coming from the left. I don’t think its sinister...but leftists tend to want to create a world with very little risk (which always results in less opportunity as well). They see football as an affront to this worldview - and will tell anyone who asks that they ‘never watch American football’, to make sure we know how enlightened they are. And, they view soccer as the ‘cure’ for football, plain and simple.

Anyway, its fine if you enjoy soccer. But your liking it as a conservative and the left’s cooping the sport are not mutually exclusive. Lefties absolutely love soccer...and they will try to ‘use’ it the best they can to advance their word view.

I asked you who started it or “who was behind it” You blame conservatives?

Behind what?

“we have a less nativist sports culture and we’re more open — at least some groups in the United States — young people, immigrants, political liberals — are more open to liking the same kinds of things that people in other countries do. Things don’t have to be ours and ours alone.”

This has been true forever. Did the Olympics originate in the US? Tennis? Golf? And what other cultural influences like dance, music, literature, etc. Or science and technology? American football evolved from Rugby. Baseball from the English game of Rounders. Basketball is one of the few sports invented entirely in America and now popular throughout the world.

I just find all of this conspiracy stuff tedious and meaningless.

Behind what? You know what.

This has NOT been true forever. Find me a liberal talking about tennis in the way quoted.

You are ducking the subject on purpose. I point out that libs like soccer because of liberal reasons, and you say that lots of sports have foreign origins. That’s changing the subject.

Stop pretending and changing the sujbect. The subject is not now nor has it ever been the national origin of a sport. The subject is why libs love soccer.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.