While the rest of the world was fiercely anticipating and frantically preparing for the 2014 World Cup hosted by Brazil, Team USA stood tight while its rather uninspired fans assembled together, filled with slight ambivalence for what to expect from the red, white and blue this go around. Following regular eliminations early in the tournament bracket in prior years, many were hesitant to select the USA from advancing even past the group stage. Yet, after stirring up scattered excitement from its fans following a 2-1 victory over Ghana and a 2-2 draw against second-seeded Portugal, Americans began to find hope and a rush of patriotism. Fans began to trade their plain caps and t-shirts for face paint and more vibrant displays of patriotism. And when the team emerged from Group G and made history with its second consecutive trip to the knockout stage, the home audience erupted to a decibel previously unreached in recent years.
However, just months removed from when Team Star and Stripes was eliminated from World Cup contention by Belgium in a 2-1 loss, the supposed soccer “hype” seems to have subdued once again. While aspirations of soccer once again attracting millions of American viewers could very much become a norm across thousands of households, once all the fog clears, the reality is that America has still a ways to go before adopting soccer as one of its premiere sports. Today, “why Americans hate soccer” disappointingly appears as the first search term in Google upon the entry “why Americans…” As a matter of fact, chances are that the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) has become a more common household term than its professional, adult counterpart, the Major League Soccer (MLS). The reason for that is threefold: its inferiority on the international stage, the repeated break in action and its lack of marketing.
First, aside from America’s prolific performance every four years in the Olympics, soccer is not included in that supremacy. As dominating as Team USA is across the board in various sports, its struggles with soccer have been well publicized. The truth simply remains that Clint Dempsey is no Lionel Messi. Each year, Team USA will predictably and undoubtedly struggle in attempting to assemble a team capable of rivaling Brazil and Germany.
Second, people also tend to find the abundant amount of turnovers that occur every five or ten seconds pressingly unappealing. Ordinarily, the brief amount of time a team possesses the ball is not nearly enough to build up anticipation and excitement before the ball is recklessly kicked out of bounds or suddenly intercepted. The occasional break aways, closely resemble that of fast breaks in basketball games and are capable of generating great action, but more often than not, it will end in an inbound kick from the corner at most. Other times, teams will find it difficult to hold on to the ball long enough for the crowd to build up excitement or be intrigued by the offensive scheme.
Finally, soccer and its identity is simply not as widespread and popular across the country. One would be hard-pressed to find a single individual who cannot identify the National Basketball Association (NBA), Major League Baseball (MLB), or National Football League (NFL) logos, but there are a handful who cannot even name five teams belonging to the MLS. Moreover, people must also ask themselves, “How often do people come across a soccer commercial advertising professional soccer events?” Realistically, there is no space for soccer to grow into considering how basketball, football and baseball are the sports that first enter one’s mind. That is not to say that there is no chance for soccer to grow in popularity, but its advocates have been rather passive in their approach.
Simply put, soccer just does not hold the same appeal to Americans as sports people have branded as predominantly “American.” In fact, as of now, it seems hard to envision the national soccer team one day submitting a stronger performance than the national basketball team. Whereas Americans can expect nothing less than a gold medal from most international competitions (soccer excluded), advancing past their respective group is enough to ignite American soccer fans.
It is safe to assume that the World Cup will never supersede the Super Bowl here in America, but with a handful of inspiring games here and there, soccer has considerably more than a slight chance to pick up a strong cast of enthusiastic fans and possibly develop into an entertaining American pastime. Single -game performances featuring rising stars highlighted by a 16-save effort from Tim Howard, for example, undoubtedly inject a dose of thrill and exuberance through an otherwise mundane fanbase. Soccer may not become the next “American sport” tomorrow or the next week, but one could absolutely predict that it will be on the rise sooner rather than later.
