A Pitch From Two Sides
Every four years the World Cup is played, meaning every four years Brazil reaches the final, England goes out in excruciating fashion, Spain goes home two rounds earlier than expected and in newspaper sports departments across the United States, editors can be heard grousing, “World Cup again? Is soccer ever going to make it in this country?”
As I wrote four years ago, the answer remains the same: It already has.
You won’t find it in the television ratings and attendance figures of Major League Soccer, which is the first place anti-soccer hardheads go to bang on the wall. So FC Dallas vs. Houston Dynamo is a blip on the radar screen compared to Spurs vs. Mavericks. So what? That’s missing the point.
Saying soccer isn’t popular in America because MLS numbers are low is like saying baseball isn’t big in America because a lot less people watch Texas League games than National League games. You can’t quantify soccer interest in this country by traditional means, not when the true “major league” soccer is played in Europe and South America.
American fans want to watch the best, regardless of the sport. You want to watch the best basketball in the world, you watch the NBA. You want to watch the best golf in the world, you watch the PGA.
You want to watch the best soccer in the world, you watch the English Premier League, or Spain’s La Liga, or Italy’s Serie A, or Germany’s Bundesliga. You want to watch Ronaldinho dribble like a mad magician for Barcelona. You want to watch Thierry Henry laser-point goals home for Arsenal. You want to watch Petr Cech smother opposition shots as Chelsea’s goalkeeper.
In other words, how are you going to keep them interested in Real Salt Lake after they’ve seen Wayne Rooney?
And in 2006, the biggest names in international soccer are more accessible to the average American sports viewer than ever before. Along with ESPN’s coverage of MLS and the European Champions League, two soccer-specific TV channels have taken root in the United States -- the Fox Soccer Channel and Gol TV. For the soccer fanatic, or even the soccer curious, the sport played at its highest level is now available in America around the clock.
(Ask a hockey fan to choose: a TV package similar to what soccer has . . . or the Outdoor Life Network?)
Additionally, the recent U.S. summer tours of English powerhouses Manchester United and Chelsea have played to huge crowds. Again, when the best come out to play, Americans will come out to watch.
Of course MLS is going to pale by comparison. MLS has only 10 full seasons under its belt, not 110. The league’s history is still too callow, its rivalries too new, its personalities not yet fully developed.
But even at that, MLS is on the upswing. According to SoccerAmerica.com, MLS attendance after eight weeks was up more than 2,000 a game -- from an average of 14,095 in 2005 to 16,128 in 2006.
And the league’s fundamental reason for existence -- to develop players capable of competing for the World Cup -- has been an indisputable success.
Last World Cup, thanks to the MLS-honed abilities of such players as Landon Donovan, Brian McBride and DaMarcus Beasley, the United States reached the quarterfinals, where the Americans came within a non-whistled handball from taking Germany into overtime.
The United States enters this World Cup tied for fifth with Spain in the latest FIFA world rankings. You can argue the merits of FIFA’s methodology here -- soccer could certainly use a more reliable and less confusing ratings system, such as, say, the BCS. But there it is today in black and white: the U.S. national soccer team ranked ahead of Portugal, France, Argentina, England and Italy.
Americans like winners, don’t they?
Our international basketball team? Barely medaled at the last Olympics.
Hockey? A wipeout at the last Olympics.
Baseball? Failed to even qualify for the last Olympics. And let’s not even get started on the World Baseball Classic.
If international standing is the barometer, the United States has become a soccer country. Our women win Olympic gold medals and World Cup championships. Our men are ranked fifth in the world.
Name another sport where we fare as well that doesn’t involve quarterbacks (we kind of own a monopoly there) and stock cars.
Whether you like it or not, you are already living in Soccer Nation.
Wake up and smell the coffee in your World Cup.
