Posted on 05/31/2002 9:28:33 AM PDT by xsysmgr
The most-watched sporting event in the world has begun, and most of my fellow conservatives in America are going to miss it.
While some of you no doubt are thinking that the Super Bowl and World Series are both months away, the event I'm referring to is the World Cup of Soccer, watched by an estimated 3.5 billion people around the world, including millions in the United States, almost all of whom are apparently liberals.
As a movement conservative and rabid fan of the beautiful game (that's soccer, by the way), I find myself as something of a de facto missionary for the sport to the political and cultural right. What is it about soccer that makes it (in America) the nearly exclusive domain of liberal sports fans?
Growing up in Ohio, I started following the game at age 12 via the weekly PBS program (should have tipped me off right then) Soccer Made in Germany, which featured a condensed match segment accompanied by English commentary. Youth leagues were just getting started in our part of the state, and my interest grew as I started coaching kids and playing in high school, but even then it was made clear that I was involved in an outsiders' game in a conservative area.
When I took an announcement of a big victory to my high-school principal one morning, I was greeted with a dismissive glare — it's not a real sport, after all. When my coach, the parish priest in a mostly Catholic town (and thus the only person for whom it was acceptable to be a fan) threw a party to view the 1982 World Cup championship match, only three players showed up. Once, before an afternoon match, my mom informed me that if I didn't cut the grass beforehand, I couldn't go to my own game. Does the high-school quarterback have to mow the lawn before his games?
As I became a more avid follower of the game during the '90s, I started wondering why all the soccer fans I was meeting were political and cultural liberals. I had moved to Washington, D.C. in 1994 to work for a member of Congress, and even the fans from the midwest, south, and west I was coming across via the vast and intricate underground soccer network (it exists, trust me) tended to be liberals. With conventional media coverage of soccer not abundant in America, soccer fans turn to the Internet for information. But a casual survey on the preeminent web gathering place for American fanatics — bigsoccer.com — again demonstrates an overwhelming presence of liberals among the rank and file. If I deign, on the other hand, to ask a fellow conservative about the game, I am treated to the usual pejorative responses.
For the uninitiated (those of you who don't persecute soccer, but just tolerate those who persecute it), such responses include "Soccer is not a real sport"; "Soccer is for girls"; "Soccer is a Commie game"; "Soccer is boring"; and the most damning of all, "So… you watch soccer… ?"
It is fair to note that soccer has had very mixed reviews from the American public in general, not just from conservatives. While the sport as a national youth activity has grown by leaps and bounds (an estimated eight million children are playing this year), the professional game has struggled to catch on. The U.S. went for almost 15 years without a top-flight professional league, and only time will tell if major-league soccer, the well organized and energetic effort to establish such a league here, will become an American institution. Soccer's TV ratings in the U.S. are low. While the women's national team attracted a lot of attention when they won the Women's World Cup in 1999, fan interest in that appears to have been quite specific to that event, much as it was for the Men's World Cup held here in 1994.
The main drawback to soccer for "traditional Americans" is that it is a game requiring some patience to appreciate. Baseball, the thinking man's game, has been affected by this national attention-span deficit to some degree, and traditionalists bemoan how the channel-surfing highlight culture has hurt the game. Turn on a soccer match and you are not likely to see something spectacular immediately (it's kind of like a Rembrandt in that way). While the seasoned fan can recognize the difficulty and artistry of a lengthy and complex buildup to an attempt at goal — often unsuccessful — much of modern-day, sports-viewing America wants feverish action, and wants it now.
There is, of course, huge interest in the game among many of our immigrant communities. Fans follow their homeland teams via satellite and cable telecasts of matches from abroad. In some cities, thousands of fans will gather at a theatre or recreational center to watch a closed-circuit pay-per-view match from South America, Africa, or Asia. Go as an American to a viewing place with a predominantly foreign clientele and you will still draw looks of surprise that a "Yank" or "gringo" would be interested in "their" game.
This perhaps touches near the heart of the issue for a lot of conservatives. Americans have typically come up with their own games to dominate. We invented football (even taking "soccer's" proper name and redefining it to an almost Orwellian degree), basketball, and baseball and made those our major sports. To the degree that these are played and/or followed elsewhere, they are American exports. While baseball is popular in Japan and parts of Latin America, and basketball in Europe and Australia, they are still "American" games first and foremost. Soccer will never be that. In fact, American football in part began, as legend has it, when a game of "soccer" became too boring, prompting a player to pick up the ball and begin running with it, and the rest is gridiron "pointyball" history.
Golf and tennis are also "foreign" in their origins, but they are not linked as closely to their international roots as soccer, and at any rate already had made deep inroads in the American cultural establishment by the early 20th century.
While eschewing anything deemed international or, worse, "European" suits the isolationist streak among certain conservatives, it seems to me that a much more proper Ameri-centric response would be to embrace the game for the purpose of demonstrating American superiority through it. For instance, doesn't saying "We play the best football in the world" kind of have a hollow ring to it? I mean, who else is there? But if the U.S. were to produce professional soccer leagues that rivaled those in Italy, Spain, England and Germany, and a national team that could defeat the likes of Brazil, Argentina, and France, how much crow would the internationalists have to eat then?
To be honest, my attraction to soccer is just that I like the game. But if the lure of American superiority is enough to get you interested in the game (kind of like when Americans get interested in things like bobsledding and Greco-Roman wrestling during the Olympics), so be it.
The time is ripe. Following the explosion of youth leagues, the quality of the American player development system has improved exponentially. We are even making some inroads on the rosters of clubs in England, France, Germany, and Holland. If American conservatives dedicate themselves to backing American soccer, the resultant energy and optimistic buzz might just push the U.S. men's national team to the final rounds of this summer's World Cup, or at least lower the percentage of the fans sitting next to me who voted for Mondale, Dukakis, and Gore. Help a brother out already! Strike a blow for federalism, apple pie, and the gold standard, and make a commitment to watch the World Cup this June.
By the way, the matches, played in South Korea and Japan, are airing live at 2:30 a.m., 5 a.m., and 7:30 a.m. EST. Happy viewing.
— Robert Ziegler lives in Northern Virginia with his wife and children, and directs media relations for a nonprofit public-policy group.
If you haven't seen it then it must not occur. Got it.
By way of partial answer to your challenge, many of the examples I could give you would come from my own biography, people I know personally, and thus would not impress you (and your request for "documented" examples).
The most recent "documented" (meaning, I guess, it was in the media...) example were some comments about soccer I recall hearing from Eleanor Clift on the McLaughlin group a year or two ago. No, sorry, I can't repeat her comments verbatim. I guess this means they did not occur and therefore you can continue your pose of pretending to believe that no leftists ever make pro-soccer comments for political reasons. Bravo!
A few offhanded comments by media liberals does not a conspiracy make.
Wait, so you admit there are such comments? But... but... I thought for the purposes of this post you were pretending to believe otherwise. Couldn't keep up the pose for even a whole paragraph, I see...
Anyway, what a tired straw man you beat on here. Good point genius, it's not a "conspiracy". You're right. What was I thinking?
Wait a sec. Who said anything was a "conspiracy" here? I am responding to comments from media liberals. You now admit that such comments are made. So what's your dispute with me? Pretending that my claims rest upon whether there's some kind of actual "conspiracy" is pretty cheap.
FYI, elitist leftists in Europe don't particularly care for soccer (or sport in general) and only pretend to do so when running for public office.
I'll make an even more general statement: elitist liberals don't particularly care for soccer (or sport in general) and only pretend to do so when it suits their political purposes. Running for office is one such purpose, but there are apparently others which I admit I do not fully understand (cf. Eleanor Clift pretending to care about soccer on a TV political talking head show for some reason..).
Your conspiracy theory is beyond bizarre, and merely theoretical or rhetorical - that is to say, not based on reality.
Yes, "my conspiracy theory" is bizarre. Not only that, but it doesn't exist other than in your head. Let me clue you in Mr. Disingenuous: I never had a "conspiracy theory" to begin with, just some observations about tendencies of people of a certain political stripe.
I realize of course that it's much easier to argue against me if you can pretend I said there was a "conspiracy". Sorry to burst your bubble, but I didn't. Try again.
I don't know if your a** is boring, but soccer sure is.
We will as soon as we get all these soccer fairies back in their place! ;o>
All kidding aside, I love American football too, but soccer is like religion or sex, it is a passion! Gooooooooll Goooooooooooolll
Thanks for illustrating for us all the condescending nature of soccer elitism.
My favorite sport is baseball, but I realize that many people don't like it and have no interest in it. To each his own. People have different tastes and I respect that.
By contrast, you are a soccer fan. You like soccer. But not only that, anyone who doesn't like soccer must be a knuckle-dragger! In your head there's simply no room for different tastes or opinions about the subject.
This disrespect for and disdain for the notion that other people can have different opinions from yourself illustrates perfectly why some soccer fans are so irritating. It's precisely the attitude I've been responding to in this thread. To certain elitist soccer fans (and leftists momentarily pretending to be soccer fans) there's just no way they can conceive of that anyone can honestly or legitimately form a negative opinion about soccer. Thus, all negative opinions about soccer must necessarily come from ignorance or xenophobia or head-in-the-sand stubbornness or knuckle-dragging or whatever.
Pure arrogance. Perhaps now you understand why I tire of the soccer proselytizers and react to them the way I do (whether their arrogant words and disrespectful attitudes are part of some coordinated "conspiracy" or not...).
You might find this to be an interesting article:
South Korean players display anti-U.S. gestures on field
Some samples:
``We knew that our people still have some grudge against the United States for the skating incident, so we wanted to allay that with the goal ceremony. It would have been much better if we had won the match,'' Ahn said. Ahn's celebration drew thunderous cheers from the home crowd
[...]
President Kim Dae-jung, concerned about possible anti-U.S. protests during Monday's match, did not go to the stadium.
Ahhhh..... "respect".
Fans of low-scoring hockey, tights-wearing baseball, and butt-touching players react agressively whenever they see soccer on TV. They say soccer is "less manly" even though soccer players beat the crap out of each of other with no helmets and no 20-minute sissy time outs 4 or 6 times for commercials or to spit.
Car racing is OK
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