Perhaps it’s because I’m writing this on a Friday the 13th that coincides with a full moon (which won’t happen again until 2049), but I’m sorta’ feeling semi-generous about soccer. I know, I’m gushing. (I suppose I could have written this to coincide with the opening day of the World Cup, but I had to wait to see if Brazil was actually open for business.)
In the past, I’ve been rather harsh. I once wrote that “soccer is only popular in countries where chickens walk down the middle of the street. The reason that it’s not popular here in America is because we have options …like electricity.” That, of course, was facetious. I know for a fact that there are several countries in the world that have soccer fans and a dependable source of electricity.
Part of my longstanding animosity toward soccer can be traced to an article I read in The Los Angeles Times in 1966. The World Cup was being staged in England at the time and the headline read, “Is Soccer the Next Big Thing in America?” Forty-eight years ago, the answer to that question was “No.” The answer 48 months ago was still no. Even 48 hours ago, it was still mostly “Hell, no!”
It’s been a half-century since that piece in the Times and soccer still hasn’t caught on in a big way. To be sure, more Americans are playing soccer today than did in 1966. At the same time, there are also more cases of Americans with measles today than back then. At least one of those trends can be traced to ignorant parents.
I have always contended that soccer is a great entry-level sport. Kids wear shiny uniforms and get to run around outdoors. My daughter started playing soccer when she was three and my son when he was four. (I guessed that he would have the shorter attention span and I was right. They had both moved on to other sports by the time they each were six.)
There has been a growth in high-school soccer, and, before I forget, congratulations to FC Tucson, which, apparently, does everything the right way. They’ve kept the Kino Sports Complex from being an absolute disaster and they were on ESPN’s Top Plays. Way cool.
A kid I coached in track loves soccer and told me that I should watch the World Cup. I’ve already watched one-and-a-half games and I’ve seen three game- and tournament-altering bad calls and enough flopping to make a fish seasick.
That’s one of my biggest problems with soccer. I like my athletes to be tough. One of the good things about soccer is that you don’t have to be freakishly tall (as many basketballers) or huge (like football players). But doggone it, if somebody kicks you in the shin (for which you are wearing shin guards!), don’t have a seizure. Get your sorry butt up and go kick the other guy in the shin.
I was talking to someone from Tucson who has been working the past couple years in Germany. He said, with a straight face, that soccer players are the best athletes in the world. (They must have year-round Oktoberfest where he lives.) I readily agree that soccer players are good athletes. They’re in great physical condition and once or twice in a 90-minute game, somebody does something really athletic. Every year, around Christmas time, ESPN has a half-hour show featuring the greatest goals scored in the world that year. It’s fun to watch. But greatest athletes in the world? Come on.
One of the problems with that argument is that the start of the World Cup coincided with the NBA Finals. Let’s try this. You get the best soccer players from the country of your choice (Brazil, Germany, Italy, whatever). We’ll have them play a game of soccer against players from the two teams in the NBA Finals. Just imagine Chris Bosh or Tim Duncan in the goal, Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili handling the ball midfield, and Kawhi Leonard marking (guarding) Neymar. On a corner kick, who on Brazil is going to out-jump 6-foot-8, 270-pound LeBron James for the ball? We’ll assume that the soccer team would win, but what would the score be? Three-zero, maybe four-zero?
Then have the same two teams play a game of basketball. It would get nasty in a hurry. If the hoopers kept their foot on the gas, the final score would be 175-0 or so. Then, to break the tie, they could play tennis against each other. We know who would win that, also, what with the basketball players knowing how to use their hands.
I think the best thing that could happen would be for the United States to win the World Cup and then not stick around for the awards ceremony. Just tell FIFA to mail the trophy because we have to get back because NFL training camps are opening. You think the world hates us now?
As for soccer ever becoming the Next Big Thing, I just don’t see that happening. It might pass hockey and even baseball, but that would still put it in third or fourth. Still, you should never say never. Check back with me during the next Friday the 13th/Full Moon. I’m guessing that my answer to that question will be “Uh … no.”
This article appears in Jun 19-25, 2014.
Is he not taking his meds? What would I do with a million dollars…..Soccer players playing NBA Basketball team and predicting a score.
Sure gets old.
Something else just happened that probably won’t happen again until 2049, I agree with Tom.
Im beginning to think that Tom might have suffered some permanent damage from the smelter smoke during his time in Douglas at Cochise College. I can’t even begin to imagine those tatooed illiterates of the NBA trying to keep up with soccer players; Let’s hope the capitalists don’t figure out how to sell their beer and cars during a soccer match, In the meantime, I’ll watch Cristiano Ronaldo.
Danehick:
So you claim to remember reading an article nearly 50 years ago when you were what — 8 years old? Great memory.
Please tell us … what did you have for dinner that evening? A douche bag sandwich?
Signed,
Danehick Sux
When you’re detached and don’t care who wins a match or a game, it’s really easy to dismiss the entire sport and focus on things that annoy you about that sport. But you have to recognize high drama when you see it. Team USA has been waiting 8 years for revenge against Ghana. Team Netherlands lost to Spain during the last world cup final and have been obsessed with revenge ever since. These moments make for riveting entertainment. The emotional level is twice what it is in Seattle’s noisy football stadium.The games contain everything; national pride on the world stage, individual heroes and goats, blown referee calls, and nail biting moments when a center forward breaks out and goes one on one with the goalkeeper. This is why it is the most popular sport in the world. It has everything a sports fan could want. So, get a clue, Tom. Even Kobe Bryant was at the Brazil/Argentina match and he looked pretty excited about it. When a player dives and screams like his leg was almost ripped off, he’s trying to convince the ref that the illegal contact was of a dangerous nature and the offender should be given a red card and sent off rather than a yellow card. It never works. But if you don’t act that way, the other team beats the stuffings out of you and gets away with it simply because you shook it off and kept playing. In this country, we call diving like that LeBroning.
There are way too many dive artists in football (soccer), Ronaldo being among the all-time greats. They oughtta give him an Academy Award for Best Dramatic Performance in a Sporting Role. The refereeing can be terrible. That said, football demands extraordinary athleticism. It is, if properly played, 90 minutes of non-stop running. NBA players can’t do that. Football players probably couldn’t seriously challenge NBA players on the court. Football is played outside, in all weather conditions. Basketball is played in air-conditioned arenas. Just different sports, that’s all.
Give me football any day. Watching basketball is like watching paint dry. Solution to basketball- Start both teams with 100 points, play five minutes and get it the hell off the TV. Also, shorten basketball season from its current 13 months to something more reasonable, like two days.
Still love your column, Tom, and of course, I respect your right to be wrong about basketball and football.
Doc Leesson’s comments about basketball watching are right on, when it comes to the pros. However, college basketball remains the most gripping and entertaining – as well as skill-building – sports this country has developed. Similarly, college football is more fun than the pros, by far.
LeBron would cramp up after the first five minutes. That said, soccer is a great cure for insomnia.
Tom, your deliberate ignorance of the sport is astonishing, and your pride in that ignorance is not a good trait. I don’t know where to begin. Previous posters have explained better than I can.
About taking dives: have you watched the NBA lately?
Years ago during a discussion about high school sports a friend of mine made a great observation. He said that God invented soccer for kids that wern’t good enough to play football.
Well, I really don’t like most sports. Soccer I kinda like but don’t watch it unless I catch it flipping channels, then only a few minutes. I associate it with tiny blonde women in SUVs and there squalling brood. I did watch it when Pele played for NY, but then it was Pele. I watch baseball (live only, not on tv). Was a big fan of the Toros, which shows how long ago it was I left Tucson. I like cricket (playing not watching. That game will put you to sleep, but you have to like fielders that catch a very hard ball barehanded). For sheer brutality I like Hurling. Played in all weather with sticks used as clubs as often as moving the ball and from my observation done drunk or at least slightly tipsy. Haven’t watched basketball since Sean Elliott and Steve Kerr were at UA and didn’t watch it before them. Football appears to mostly be commercials and big men whining about things and patting each other on the butt.
Also, like Tom I don’t see soccer ever being big in the US, but because of advertising not folks disliking the game. No place in the game for advertisers to put there numerous commercials.
Tom has exhibited a rightfully (for him) earned jingoism in sports — much as the congress of the USA exhibited when it refused to adopt the metric system of measurement. It seems we have chosen, for whatever reason, too be out of step with the world — or apart from it.
Soccer (or more properly Football) only takes players, a ball and a flat surface for people to play. Most people do play without shinguards because they cannot afford them. Most people in the world at least get a small understanding of the teamwork involved in playing even if they do not develop mammoth muscles for the very exclusive game of what Americans laughingly call football, or demonstrate the extraordinary evolutionary trait of stratospheric height to reconsidered part of the team.
Heard something to the effect that Kobe Bryant was driving in Brazil and illegally overtook another car. When he was pulled over, the officer realized his mistake- Kobe would NEVER pass.
Sorry but next to watching golf on tv soccer, while it may be fun for kids to play, is woefully
boring. I’ve tried but I just don’t get it.
And what’s with soccer players taking big bites out of each other?
SonoranWinds—-good point. Try that in NFL football. You would not get a “yellow card” or a “red card”. Just think what the NFL would do. Or the players of the other team!
I think of soccer as a game for children who aren’t good at other sports, or for adults who don’t have enough sense to know hitting a ball with their head is stupid and will make them even more stupid.
Soccer is popular where there is a large Hispanic population. In Houston, TX there is a very expensive, fine, new soccer stadium for the Houston Dynamos. It is impressive with the view of the Houston skyline. The games are packed because Hispanics are in the majority in Houston. In fact, Houston Hispanics now have their own chamber of commerce and their motto is “The New Majority.” You will see soccer becoming the rage in your city when Hispanics are the majority. The world is changing, as it always does. It just seems to be changing more rapidly now.
Soccer (fútbol) is EVERYTHING to nearly every other country in the world, because they never had much else happening in the way of sports. They all started out by kicking rocks!
However, there’s this good news: USA women have won TWO World Cups!