Americans and The Greatest Game Ever Played: My Appeal to Soccer in a Supersaturated Sports World
In the midst of this summer's daunting lineup of sporting events, will Americans become so overwhelmed by the sheer volume of athleticism set before them that they lose sight of soccer almost as quickly as England's goalkeeper Robert Green lost sight of Clint Dempsey's shot in the Group C opener? Will we watch helplessly as the perfect opportunity to grow The World's Sport in the US evades us, rolling slowly across the goal-line, by which I mean the point of no return?
If it was up to me, the response would be a resounding "NO!" Unfortunately, there are hundreds of millions of other people living in this country. These people have not carefully scheduled their vacations or penciled doctors' appointments around 9:00 and 9:30 and 10:00 AM starts. They haven't folded up beach towels and hauled themselves back to the couch to catch the 2:30 and 3:00 PM games. Most teenagers, now out of school, have not voluntarily left their beds at 7 AM to accommodate to FIFA's start times or to the time difference between Cape Elizabeth and Cape Cod. Or at least most of them haven't. And that's a shame. It may be completely irrational and insensitive to hope that more people might join me in filling out our daily itineraries based on who is playing whom at what time. People have jobs. People have families.
In some regard, however, I would love for us to be more like our European, and with increasing regularity, our Asian and South American counterparts. These people, too, have families, often large ones. They are professionals, whether they labor in factories and hold down blue-collar jobs, or they work as physicians, investment bankers, or teachers. They are Angela Merkel and Nelson Mandela. They are people with great responsibility, both personal and not. But they all seem to share one thing in common- or perhaps just another thing, one that we, as per usual, do not try particularly hard to understand. In this case, I am talking about a love of soccer. A passion for soccer. An obsession with soccer. People around the globe are wed to the sport in a way that it seems the USA will never understand. In fact, our relationship to soccer more closely resembles Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's marriage than it does the starcrossed love affair between the rest of the world has and the sport.
We have an on-again, off-again, every-four-years infatuation with the greatest sport in existence, while other nations practice their loyalties day-in and day-out, paying homage to greats of present and past, packing smoky bars and passing Guinnesses and singing diddies. Reading Frank Foer's "How Soccer Explains the World," I learned about the history of soccer, and the sport's context in an increasingly internationalized, modernized, and interconnected world. Foer's in depth study of soccer spans many continents, and sheds light on the significance of the sport in a wide swath of nations, from Nigeria to Scotland to Serbia.
In some nations, as in Iran, soccer reminds the people that other parts of the world operate differently, that in some worlds, women are free to attend sporting events and men can die their hair and paint their faces. It inspires Iranians to a new sense of nationalism, but also offers a glimmer of promise for what might be. In the Balkans, soccer and politics become so convoluted that there is often no distinction between club owner and political boss. Fans of particular clubs are also supporters of particular political parties. In these regions, as well as in regions reaching into Great Britain and Western Europe, these associations and allegiances are sometimes manifested in brutal confrontations, as deep-seeded soccer rivalries come to physical blows.
Let me be clear. I am in NO WAY suggesting that I wish American soccer fans translated extreme passions into harmful, disrespectful, or dangerous acts. I'm not advocating for disgruntled Red Sox fans to turn their resentments and sense of victimhood (we're already deranged enough) into violent or disruptive, even unlawful acts. I do not want Orioles fans avenging losses and Buffalo Bills followers avenging refereeing mistakes and justifying their frustrations the way a group of Chelsea Headhunters would. And I am thankful that so many of the issues of racism and hatred that other soccer-adoring nations encounter (see the anti-semitic prejudices at the root of the Chelsea/ Tottenham rivalry in England's Premier League) are significantly, even exponentially, less pronounced here. On the other hand, I believe our nation could use a dose of the passion and devotion that so many other countries have internalized.
I feel as if we, as a nation, are missing out, or more likely opting out, of an opportunity to come down from our pedestal of "American exceptionalism" and to join the rest of the world in its little triumphs and defeats. To share smiles and toasts and cheers and beers and tears with millions of others, and to erase, if only for 90 minutes, the perception that we see ourselves as above everyone else. In fact, I see our nation's resistance to embracing the sport of soccer as a sign of inferiority, a reminder that we Americans are not as infallible as some neo-conservative preachers of the moralist school of thought may have us believe.
In the midst of wars and terrorism and nuclear weapons, and despite regional, tribal, and religious differences, despite conflicting value sets and even hatreds, all of this is set aside, or at least overshadowed, by the grace and breathtaking performances of twenty-two men running back and forth across a nicely manicured field. But it is so much more than that. It is the innate human desire, human impulse, to identify with and distinguish oneself from. It is the romanticized idealism that we all want to believe in, that which soccer makes a reality, if only for 90 minutes + 1' or 4' or the occasional 'PK.' I think we would do well to share in the rest of the world's admiration of the sport; there is certainly much to admire.
Even if increasing our attention to, and passion for, the world's sport does not necessarily translate into economic prosperity or manifest itself in tangible foreign policy successes, opening our hearts up to soccer would do more for us as a nation. It would remind us that the globalization of the world, as Foer observes, is inevitable, but would also allow us to see that welcoming our new interconnectedness does not necessitate that we abandon our history or our nationalism. In fact, loving soccer would provide much needed guidance, showing us how we might incorporate ourselves in the global economy and yet maintain our sense of Americanism, and yet revive our patriotism. We would learn how to be proud Americans, but not hardheaded ones who refuse to accept facts. Not ones who ignore or put down other nations and cultures. By appreciating not only the sport, but the entire soccer-playing world, we could learn a thing or two about comparative advantage, about diversity, and about the wealth of talents and resources that each person and land has to offer. And that is something that even George Steinbrenner cannot buy.
(Photo credits: http://www.nytimes.com, http://www.fifa.com)
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