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The President Missed a Rich Tradition in U.S.

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With any luck, readers of Germany’s Bild am Sonntag newspaper will be savvy enough not to have swallowed the line fed to them Sunday by President Bush.

“As a boy, I never even saw a soccer ball,” Bush told the newspaper. “Where I’m from, soccer wasn’t played. The sport just didn’t exist. So there is a generation of Americans who really aren’t soccer fans.”

OK, let’s examine that a little closer.

Bush was born in New Haven, Conn., where soccer has been played at one level or another for more than a century. Just around the corner, in East Hartford, Conn., is where the U.S. team will play its send-off match May 28 before leaving for Germany and this summer’s World Cup.

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“As a boy,” Bush would have turned 4 just one week after the U.S. defeated England, 1-0, in the 1950 World Cup to record one of the sport’s greatest upsets.

He was raised in Texas, true, but he was attending Yale University in 1966 when the World Cup was played in England, and he was at Harvard Business School in 1974 when the World Cup last was held in Germany. He was also at Harvard in 1975 when Pele came to play in the North American Soccer League.

Both tournaments and Pele’s arrival would surely have penetrated even the thickest of Ivy League walls, if not the future president’s consciousness.

As for his Texas upbringing, Bush most surely during his climb up the political ladder must have run into Lamar Hunt, whose Dallas Tornado played in the NASL from 1967 to 1981 and whose FC Dallas (nee Dallas Burn) has played in Major League Soccer since the league was founded in 1996.

And Bush did live in Houston, where the NASL’s Houston Hurricane played from 1978 to 1980 and where MLS’ Houston Dynamo now plays.

Then there is the Dallas Cup, one of the world’s top youth tournaments. It has been in existence since 1980 and has drawn teams to Texas each year from almost 100 countries.

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It was in 1994 that Bush was elected governor of Texas. It was also in 1994 that the most successful World Cup in history was staged -- in the United States, including Texas.

So, no, it is not, as Bush told Bild am Sonntag, that “the sport just didn’t exist.” It is simply that, like so many other Americans brought up on a diet of football, baseball and basketball, he has opted to ignore it.

That was his choice, and no blame attaches.

“A lot of us grew up without any connection to soccer -- me, for example,” Bush told the newspaper. “But there is a new generation that has grown up with soccer. They obviously have a great interest in the World Cup.”

Obviously.

Perhaps when the U.S. returns from Germany, Coach Bruce Arena can arrange a visit to the White House for World Cup-bound midfielder Clint Dempsey.

Soccer might not have been a big deal in Midland, Texas, during Bush’s youth, but it was a big deal in Nacogdoches, Texas, during Dempsey’s youth.

Or perhaps the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, N.Y., can invite the president to its Aug. 28 induction ceremony. Carla Overbeck will be there. The two-time world champion and Olympic gold medalist played youth soccer for the Dallas Sting and attended Richardson High, also in Dallas.

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Texas might be a world of its own, but it also has long been part of the soccer world.

“Some of us older fellas are starting to understand how important the World Cup is for the whole world,” Bush told Bild.

Better late than never.

*

The president is not alone in lacking an understanding of just how deeply soccer’s roots are buried in U.S. soil.

The last week has shown a woeful absence of knowledge by those who should know better. Three examples will suffice.

* When ESPN2’s “SportsCenter” was given the opportunity Tuesday to reveal the U.S. World Cup roster, the talking heads managed to make a hash of it, none more so than the one who introduced Eric Wynalda as Eric Wylanda.

If ESPN2 can’t even get the name correct on the U.S. national team’s all-time leading goal scorer -- and one of its own employees -- what broadcasting horrors await us in its World Cup coverage?

* The print media is not exempt from blame. When Steve McClaren on Thursday was hired to succeed Sven-Goran Eriksson as coach of England’s national team, the Associated Press headline on the story read: “McClaren Named to Coach British Soccer.”

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There is no such thing. England, Scotland and Wales make up Britain. They each have their own national teams. There is no “British soccer.”

Throw in Northern Ireland and you have the United Kingdom. Just in case the Associated Press wants to torture its readers further, let it be advised that there is no such thing as U.K. soccer, either.

* Geographic ineptitude is everywhere. One New York-based soccer writer was horrified recently to receive proofs of his new World Cup book and discover that the publisher had made a couple of, um, changes.

Thinking that the writer had erred, it turned Serbia and Montenegro into two teams. As in two nations. As in a 33-team World Cup field.

Serbia and Montenegro plays Argentina, the Ivory Coast and the Netherlands in the first round of the June 9-July 9 World Cup. The last time anyone checked, the South Americans, the Africans and the Dutch had not complained about having to play “two nations.”

Perhaps the publisher was from Texas.

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