July 14, 2014
Greetings from the net,
Yes, I am that one guy.
Recently there was a series of soccer games that attracted
attention in the U.S. Strangely, it was
not the chaotic assembly of 7 year old girls running in 11 different
directions, randomly interspersed with a ball accidently rolling near the goal
net.
This was grown-ups competing in the sport, and Americans
watched it… a lot. As if it was
professional football.
According to the media, the World Cup was watched by 360
million people in the U.S. if you count undocumented aliens and foreign
lobbyists. That is everyone in the
country, except, according to possibly fabricated news reports, one guy.
This soccer phenomenon took me completely by surprise. I would have been less shocked to find out
that suddenly American sports fans were flocking to free style ballet
competitions.
Some years ago a celebrity soccer player, David Beckham, was
lured to play for the Los Angeles soccer team, the Galaxy. The press reported that this would change
the face of soccer in the U.S. I
remember at the time thinking “Why would a grown man play soccer with a bunch
of 7 year old girls?” and “What is a Posh Spice?”
Maybe that’s when the popularity of soccer flourished here,
but I don’t think so. Other than a few
underwear ads from Beckham, I never heard much about professional soccer again until
a couple weeks ago.
And suddenly people are watching the U.S. team compete in
the World Cup. (Finding out the U.S.
actually had a soccer team was a little like learning about the Jamaican
bobsled team.) People were crowding into
bars, gathering around TV sets, tuning into obscure radio stations, and
tweaking their laptops to watch soccer being played in Brazil. And I don’t mean Brazil, Indiana, birthplace
of Jimmy Hoffa and home to the annual Clay County Popcorn Festival.
What was even stranger was after the U.S. was eliminated,
American sports fans still were glued to the action, rooting for countries that
75% of the population can’t find on a map.
Everywhere I went people were talking about soccer. I heard guys who wouldn’t be caught dead
saying words like ‘quiche’ or ‘c’est la vie’ who were calling the game ‘fütbol’. What’s next?
Serving warm beer to men in knee socks and scarves?
I have thought about this for a while and I think I can
attribute the spike in soccer fans to a few things
- The Pee Wee soccer kids
grew up and still liked soccer.
- The overwhelming
popularity of the game in the rest of the world has finally seeped into
the U.S., probably from the influx of 50,000 undocumented children that
Obama allowed to sneak into the country. (Thanks Obama!)
- Football season doesn’t
start for 6 weeks and there’s nothing on TV except the Tour de France, and
we SURE aren’t going to watch that.
Whatever the reason, I’ll be curious to see if the interest
in soccer holds. The American sports fan
can be incredibly dedicated, and remarkably fickle. Next year we could all be sharing notes on
rugby for all I know. Or roller derby. Or Curling.
In a way I am sorry I didn’t get to see any of the World
Cup. (I don’t get Univision on my TV
unless I hold the rabbit ears in just the right way, while standing on the
roof) But I feel like I have been part
of the excitement since I live near a soccer field. Most evenings I can hear the giggling screams
of 7 year old girls, interspersed with the exasperated pleadings of their adult
coaches. So, I kind of get it.
I think the next World Cup is in four years, being held in
Russia, which is about 9 time zones from here.
It’s possible I could develop in interest in soccer by then. It’s also possible that competitive pig-flying
will be all the rage.
Hope this finds you doing a bicycle kick,
David
Copyright © 2014 David Smith
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