Like It or Not, a Promise to Bring the World to You
The 11th of January is a little too deep into the new year to start making any resolutions, so instead consider this simply a statement of purpose.
For the past year or two, this column has wandered all over the map, unsure whether to focus on the sport in the United States or the sport around the world. Usually, it has fallen in between, satisfying few, least of all the writer.
More often than not, it has leaned toward items about American players and American coaches and American teams, even if all three are far down in the global pecking order.
No more.
From now on, new rules apply. From today, this becomes an international column, focusing on the world’s top teams and leading players and coaches, no matter where they are located. Which means, look for European soccer here. Look for South American soccer here. Look for the World Cup and the Copa America and Euro 2000 here.
Most Laker fans have never heard of Gabriel Batistuta or Paolo Maldini or Roberto Carlos. No matter. This is not aimed at them.
Most Dodger fans would find it impossible to place Independiente or Deportivo Coruna or Juventus in their correct countries. No matter. This is not aimed at them.
Most King and Duck fans couldn’t tell a FIFA from a UEFA from a CAF or a CONCACAF. No matter. This is not aimed at them.
Instead, it is intended for those tens of thousands of soccer fans in Southern California who have grown increasingly frustrated at not being able to read about the game at the highest level in their newspaper or hear the results on their radio stations or see the games on their myriad myopic television networks--Univision, Telemundo and Fox Sports Americas being blessed exceptions.
They have been a distressingly silent minority, but perhaps even silence can be heard amid the din made by all the other sports.
What better time than a World Cup year to start wondering whether Ronaldo is worth the $27.9 million Inter Milan paid Barcelona for him or if Manchester United is hurting the English game by its dominance or if Sweden’s Leonard Johansson really can succeed Brazil’s Joao Havelange as FIFA president in June?
Surely it is more interesting to contemplate how Bora Milutinovic will fare as Nigeria’s World Cup coach than to note the latest lame signing by Major League Soccer. Surely Mario Lobo Zagallo’s arrogance is worth more debate than whether the short-sighted U.S. college game is doomed. Surely youngsters now playing in AYSO would like some real heroes to emulate, such as 17-year-old Michael Owen, now starting for Liverpool, or Real Madrid’s Raul, who as a teenager two years ago insured his legs for $15.5 million.
Which is not to say that MLS will be ignored here. Its name players certainly will be featured. It is worth pursuing, for instance, whether the league actually did turn down the Galaxy’s trade of goalkeeper Jorge Campos to the Chicago Fire, as rumored. That’s a worthy subject. And why did MLS find it necessary to sign an aging Pole, Piotr Nowak, and an even grayer Colombian, Leonardo Alvarez, when what the league desperately needs is young players?
The U.S. national teams, both men and women, also will make their appearance here. They are, after all, the best and the brightest of American soccer. But if Steve Sampson or Tony DiCicco think this is where their efforts and their players will only be praised, think again. The bar has been raised. Criticism will be sharper. This is an international column now and the names competing for attention are much more noteworthy than, say, Jeff Agoos or Cindy Parlow.
And another thing. Soccer fans do not need explanations alongside every name or every acronym. If you do not know that Agoos is a U.S. national team defender or that CAF stands for Confederation of African Football, too bad. You will learn in good time.
So if you don’t know your Ajax Amsterdam from your Chivas de Guadalajara or your Benfica from your Botafogo, this is not the place for you. Or maybe it is. Maybe you will learn that the world of sports extends far beyond the outfield wall at Dodger Stadium or the 18th green at Riviera or the backboards at the Great Western Forum.
Nike and Michael Jordan might by synonymous, but if soccer were not seen as an equally worthy investment, ask yourself why the Portland-based giant kicked in $120 million for U.S. Soccer or paid $200 million for the right to outfit Brazil or why it is preparing to offer $150 million to sponsor England.
At a wide-ranging symposium in Singapore this past week, it was revealed that soccer, globally, is a $200-billion-a-year industry. Staggering as that figure is, it was no more staggering than the debate launched by none other than Alan Rothenberg.
Only days after Joseph “Sepp” Blatter, FIFA’s general secretary, had warned his Singapore audience about tampering too much with the game or allowing control of it to fall into the hands of commercial interests, Rothenberg, also in Singapore, said he would be willing to see MLS act as a guinea pig for the sport.
“Football has become a product, but we have to protect the game,” Blatter said in a speech to delegates at Football Expo ’98. “There is a danger that our marketing partners are trying to take over the rights of football associations or clubs.”
Particularly troublesome in recent years has been the European Union’s intervention in forcing free agency on the sport in Europe and increasing pressure from television to schedule games to suit its programming requirements rather than the sport’s needs.
Although televised soccer has an estimated global audience of 1.2 billion people every year, its grip on the game is “a danger which we have to be careful of,” Blatter warned.
All of this did not stop Rothenberg, U.S. Soccer’s president and the founder of MLS, from suggesting that the American league might be just the place to try some experimentation with the rules of the game.
“The NBA would not exist today if the shot clock had not been introduced,” Rothenberg said. “There was a lot of resistance to that and to the three-point rule. I urge football not to be conservative. I am not suggesting radical changes, but I do not think we can stand still.
“I think football should take a much more vigorous look at this and experiment more with rule changes. If FIFA asked the United States to play a couple of seasons with new rules, I’m sure we would agree. I ask people not to let their love of the game hinder change.”
Reaction was not long in coming. No less a figure than Sir Bobby Charlton, World Cup winner in 1966 and spearhead of England’s World Cup 2006 bid, questioned the need for rule changes of any sort.
“I get very irritated by FIFA tinkering with the rules of the game when it is not necessary,” Charlton said. “The game is very popular, the most followed sport in the world. It is very popular, so why interfere with it?
“There are times when football is more important than life to some fans. It is difficult to go back and rescind changes, so I am very much against changing rules without a lot of thought going into it first and the opinion of the fans being sought.”
However, Germany’s Franz Beckenbauer, World Cup winner in 1974 as a player and 1990 as a coach, said recent rule changes such as banning back passes to the goalkeeper being handled and the almost universal adoption of three points for a victory instead of two, have been positive.
“I feel some of the rule changes in recent years have helped improve football,” Beckenbauer said. “The back pass and the three point rule are good examples. The three-point rule has changed the philosophy of coaches--they go out for a win nowadays and not a draw.”
In the end, it was Blatter’s words that were recalled.
“Please never gamble with our game,” he said, “because it is not just a game. It is about life.”
In the coming weeks, months and hopefully years, that life will begin to be seen in greater detail and greater depth in this column. Pele once called it “the beautiful game.” Viewed at its highest level, soccer is exactly that and much, much more.
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FIFA Final 1997 World Rankings
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Rank Team Pts. 1996 1. Brazil 73.45 1 2. Germany 65.41 2 3. Czech Republic 64.92 5 4. England 61.26 12 5. Mexico 60.80 11 6. France 60.36 3 7. Romania 60.35 16 8. Denmark 59.95 6 9. Italy 59.59 10 10. Colombia 59.44 4 11. Spain 59.13 11 12. Russia 58.35 7 13. Norway 58.29 14 14. Japan 57.98 21 15. Morocco 57.97 27 16. Chile 57.75 26 17. Argentina 57.74 22 18. Sweden 57.47 17 19. Croatia 56.95 24 20. Yugoslavia 56.90 55 21. Zambia 56.73 20 22. Netherlands 55.89 9 23. Tunisia 55.85 23 24. Bolivia 54.82 39 25. Austria 54.49 34 26. United States 54.42 18 27. South Korea 54.35 44 28. Ecuador 54.23 33 29. Paraguay 53.97 38 30. Portugal 53.11 13
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