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.
That ought to be an interesting series. The Hartford Whalers..I mean Hurricanes owned by Michigander Peter Karamos, vs rival Mike Illitch and the Red Wings.
Karamos and Illitch aren't exactly the best of friends from what I've heard.
The US plays 18 months of WC qualifiers against North and Central American teams and the WC itself has been in both the good ol' USA and Mexico.
So so much for that theory.
Its still gay.
Yeah right, as if golf and bass fishing provide flurries of activity.
Doesn't it make you wonder why a 6o minute football game takes over two hours to play. Could it be that more time is spent in "down time" than actual playing? The same for baseball and basketball, whereas in soccer, the action is primarily non-stop. Boring my a**.
Probably. What's your point? He was saying most games ended up in a score of 0-0, which is false. To me, soccer is like hockey in the fact that when a team scores a goal, it is that much sweeter, as opposed to basketball, where it's a run of good points that is sweeter than just scoring a basket.
Not to mention if in football, we counted touchdowns as a point and counted field goals as a half point (and omitted the extra points and safeties), we'd get scores like 3.5 to 2 in many, many, many games, and even games like 1.5 to 0.
Americans dominate golf. We didnt invent it and more people play it than any other sport when you include recreational players. And yes, more people play it than soccer.
Basketball, Football, and Baseball are very popular around the globe.
Had the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia not been broken up, their teams would be just barely, if at all, behind the US.
If they had a league in their countries with the number of teams that we have, how would their teams stack up against ours? Pretty poorly I would think.
I have to just shake my head at a lot of the comments I'm reading here. Especially the ones about only liberals liking football. Hello! There are conservatives in other countries as well and they like it.
I grew up in the South and I liked playing the game as a kid although I never mastered any particular aspect of it. The US Army also plays a lot of "soccer" for PT and loves it. I like all sport and love to compete against other people, I don't care what it is- American football, foot racing, throwing rocks for accuracy or distance or just chess. It's silly to say football is a game for Eurofags- I mean that's just plain silly. It's a game like any other, it takes time and dedication to master and keeps you fit if you play.
I don't follow the clubs here in the UK or greater Europe. What I love though is the World Cup. This is an event. Every nation has their all star line-up and the whole hopes and dreams of entire countries are riding on those 11 men who run out on the pitch to represent them. Watching those rare moments like the penalty shootout between Brazil and Italy in the 1994 Finals- man, that's tension and that's the stuff that makes a great sporting event. And it is a time to be PATRIOTIC, which I would figure my fellow Americans of the conservative stripe could get into.
But bottom line, football (or soccer if you like) is not a straights vs fags, conservative vs liberal, girly men vs burly men thing- it's a universal sport. And it's a difficult one as well. I found it was a lot easier to hit a baseball through the gap than to kick that damned ball into the goal. The game has its finer points, its dull points and its exciting points just like any other sport and I wish Americans were more competitive in it.
How would it get into your mind that I should "trust you" about something I follow and watch myself?
How many people complain about and dont understand why people watch golf on tv? A lot.
But baseball fans and golf fans dont behave the way soccer fans do when it comes to trying to sell their sport. If soccer fans werent obnoxious about and have a condescending attitude toward non fans, us non fans wouldnt say the things we do about the sport.
People don't argue in the same way about baseball vs football or hockey vs basketball. The fact of the matter is this type of soccer bashing comes about because there are so many soccer evangelists like the author of this article. I'm all for having a broad spectrum of sports but why do the schools etc have to push soccer over all other sports? At my son's school soccer is the only sport allowed at lunch or recess.
BTW, my wife and I started to notice a while ago that kids on TV, especially on commercials, play soccer almost exclusively. See if you notice the samething.
Yep (for me, I won't speak for other fans). I like ultimate fighting, too. All the rest of that crap might as well be ballet dancing as far as I'm concerned. If there's no risk of grave bodily harm or death, it's just stick and ball games, suitable for children and embarrassing for adults.
Oh, and I like hockey. Well, playoff hockey, anyway.
Yep (for me, I won't speak for other fans). I like ultimate fighting, too. All the rest of that crap might as well be ballet dancing as far as I'm concerned. If there's no risk of grave bodily harm or death, it's just stick and ball games, suitable for children and embarrassing for adults.
Oh, and I like hockey. Well, playoff hockey, anyway.
They assuredly do not "copy us." Very few other countries care at all about baseball or football. Basketball--invented by a Canadian--has traveled well, and the rest of the world has caught up with the US.
Better luck next time.
I would have to disagree with you on that one PL. I actually think that the answers to all those questions are "yes". Soccer is constantly attacked by sports people whose fixation is only football and baseball. Thats fine, but it only encourages a response.
I do love going to baseball games, where the fights remain on the field and not in the stands, Something relaxing about a baseball game (without sending me into a coma).
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