Posted on 03/11/2009 8:56:05 AM PDT by AreaMan
How Soccer is Ruining America: A Jeremiad
Soccer is running America into the ground, and there is very little anyone can do about it. Social critics have long observed that we live in a therapeutic society that treats young people as if they can do no wrong. Every kid is a winner, and nobody is ever left behind, no matter how many times they watch the ball going the other way. Whether the dumbing down of America or soccer came first is hard to say, but soccer is clearly an important means by which American energy, drive, and competitiveness is being undermined to the point of no return.
What other game, to put it bluntly, is so boring to watch? (Bowling and golf come to mind, but the sound of crashing pins and the sight of the well-attired strolling on perfectly kept greens are at least inherently pleasurable activities.) The linear, two-dimensional action of soccer is like the rocking of a boat but without any storm and while the boat has not even left the dock. Think of two posses pursuing their prey in opposite directions without any bullets in their guns. Soccer is the fluoridation of the American sporting scene.
For those who think I jest, let me put forth four points, which is more points than most fans will see in a week of games—and more points than most soccer players have scored since their pee-wee days.
1) Any sport that limits you to using your feet, with the occasional bang of the head, has something very wrong with it. Indeed, soccer is a liberal’s dream of tragedy: It creates an egalitarian playing field by rigorously enforcing a uniform disability. Anthropologists commonly define man according to his use of hands. We have the thumb, an opposable digit that God gave us to distinguish us from animals that walk on all fours. The thumb lets us do things like throw baseballs and fold our hands in prayer. We can even talk with our hands. Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet? When you are really angry and acting like an animal, you kick out with your feet. Only fools punch a wall with their hands. The Iraqi who threw his shoes at President Bush was following his primordial instincts. Showing someone your feet, or sticking your shoes in someone’s face, is the ultimate sign of disrespect. Do kids ever say, “Trick or Treat, smell my hands”? Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine (they are one of the body parts most frequently attributed to God), while feet are in need of redemption. In all the portraits of God’s wrath, never once is he pictured as wanting to step on us or kick us; he does not stoop that low.
2) Sporting should be about breaking kids down before you start building them up. Take baseball, for example. When I was a kid, baseball was the most popular sport precisely because it was so demanding. Even its language was intimidating, with bases, bats, strikes, and outs. Striding up to the plate gave each of us a chance to act like we were starring in a Western movie, and tapping the bat to the plate gave us our first experience with inventing self-indulgent personal rituals. The boy chosen to be the pitcher was inevitably the first kid on the team to reach puberty, and he threw a hard ball right at you.
Thus, you had to face the fear of disfigurement as well as the statistical probability of striking out. The spectacle of your failure was so public that it was like having all of your friends invited to your home to watch your dad forcing you to eat your vegetables. We also spent a lot of time in the outfield chanting, “Hey batter batter!” as if we were Buddhist monks on steroids. Our chanting was compensatory behavior, a way of making the time go by, which is surely why at soccer games today it is the parents who do all of the yelling.
3) Everyone knows that soccer is a foreign invasion, but few people know exactly what is wrong with that. More than having to do with its origin, soccer is a European sport because it is all about death and despair. Americans would never invent a sport where the better you get the less you score. Even the way most games end, in sudden death, suggests something of an old-fashioned duel. How could anyone enjoy a game where so much energy results in so little advantage, and which typically ends with a penalty kick out, as if it is the audience that needs to be put out of its misery. Shootouts are such an anticlimax to the game and are so unpredictable that the teams might as well flip a coin to see who wins—indeed, they might as well flip the coin before the game, and not play at all.
4) And then there is the question of gender. I know my daughter will kick me when she reads this, but soccer is a game for girls. Girls are too smart to waste an entire day playing baseball, and they do not have the bloodlust for football. Soccer penalizes shoving and burns countless calories, and the margins of victory are almost always too narrow to afford any gloating. As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.
Let me conclude on a note of despair appropriate to my topic. There is no way to run away from soccer, if only because it is a sport all about running. It is as relentless as it is easy, and it is as tiring to play as it is tedious to watch. The real tragedy is that soccer is a foreign invasion, but it is not a plot to overthrow America. For those inclined toward paranoia, it would be easy to blame soccer’s success on the political left, which, after all, worked for years to bring European decadence and despair to America. The left tried to make existentialism, Marxism, post-structuralism, and deconstructionism fashionable in order to weaken the clarity, pragmatism, and drive of American culture. What the left could not accomplish through these intellectual fads, one might suspect, they are trying to accomplish through sport.
Yet this suspicion would be mistaken. Soccer is of foreign origin, that is certainly true, but its promotion and implementation are thoroughly domestic. Soccer is a self-inflicted wound. Americans have nobody to blame but themselves. Conservative suburban families, the backbone of America, have turned to soccer in droves. Baseball is too intimidating, football too brutal, and basketball takes too much time to develop the required skills. American parents in the past several decades are overworked and exhausted, but their children are overweight and neglected. Soccer is the perfect antidote to television and video games. It forces kids to run and run, and everyone can play their role, no matter how minor or irrelevant to the game. Soccer and relevision are the peanut butter and jelly of parenting.
I should know. I am an overworked teacher, with books to read and books to write, and before I put in a video for the kids to watch while I work in the evenings, they need to have spent some of their energy. Otherwise, they want to play with me! Last year all three of my kids were on three different soccer teams at the same time. My daughter is on a traveling team, and she is quite good. I had to sign a form that said, among other things, I would not do anything embarrassing to her or the team during the game. I told the coach I could not sign it. She was perplexed and worried. “Why not,” she asked? “Are you one of those parents who yells at their kids? “Not at all,” I replied, “I read books on the sidelines during the game, and this embarrasses my daughter to no end.” That is my one way of protesting the rise of this pitiful sport. Nonetheless, I must say that my kids and I come home from a soccer game a very happy family.
Stephen H. Webb is a professor of religion and philosophy at Wabash College. His recent books include American Providence and Taking Religion to School.
12 NFL teams make it to the post season tournament. And yes the eventual winner is the WORLD CHAMPION. Deal with it.
What’s funny is that all of these people dissing soccer, will be right there waving their flags and shouting ‘USA!! USA!!!” when we make it to the World Cup Finals, just like back in 1980 with the Olympic Hockey Team. (And I can see it happening in the not-so-distant future)
Thank you very, very much.
May God bless William Webb Ellis.
RD
Kids who bowl can bowl into their 60s, 70s, 80s. And at 53 I’m a better bowler than I was at 25.
Guess what... I am a conservative and LOVE SOCCER!!!
Don’t tell anyone...
American Football isn't a sport either. They are both GAMES.
Sports have consequences, such as sword fighting, jousting, motor racing, bull fighting or mountain climbing.
In a sport you wager your skills against a tangible risk to your well being. Bow hunting a bear is sport...
Sure, you can get hurt playing games, but if Football was a sport the losing team would be put to death..
Join the club, we’ve got jackets.
That actually did happen in soccer, to the Colombian player who put the ball into his own net against the US, back in the 94 World Cup.
“It’s the sport where everyone is ‘a winner’. “
Oh please. All little kids’ sports in the U.S. are that way. But by the time you reach a certain age in soccer, it’s all about scoring goals and winning the league or district or whatever. The best players get most of the playing time and your benchwarmers warm the bench, except in a blowout.
Women’s football (soccer)
“Association Football (soccer) is the most prominent team sport for women in many countries, and one of the few women’s team sports with professional leagues (the other global one being basketball).”
Women’s football first became popular on a large scale at the time of the First World War, when employment in heavy industry spurred the growth of the game, much as it had done for men fifty years earlier. The most successful team of the era was Dick Kerrs Ladies of Preston, England, who made up most of the England team for the first Women’s International (playing Scotland in 1920, and winning 22-0).
Despite being more popular than some men’s football events (one match saw a 53,000 strong crowd), women’s football in England suffered a blow in 1921 when The Football Association outlawed the playing of the game on Association members’ pitches, on the grounds that the game (as played by women) was distasteful. This led to the formation of the English Ladies Football Association, and play moved to rugby grounds. The English Women’s FA was formed in 1969 (as a result of the increased interest generated by the 1966 World Cup), and the FA’s ban was finally lifted in 1971.
In the 1970s, Italy became the first country with professional women’s football players, albeit on a part-time basis. The first full-time professional team was the United States national squadThe United States women’s national football (soccer) team operated by the United States Soccer Federation, is the first women’s team in the sport made up of full-time professionals. It is also one of the most successful women’s national football teams, Japan was the first country to have a professional women’s football league.
http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Women:s:football:soccer.html
get Setanta for $15.00 a month on your cable and you won't miss a game.
The dumbing down of America and the arrival of soccer were simultaneous, around 1972. Missed me by about 3-4 years
I’ll be stuck with going to BBC Sport to get the commentary.
Soccer has been here as long as in the rest of the world.
Read up on 1950, when we beat England in the World Cup.
Could happen. They're both amazing sides, guess I just have a preference for the one that has some actual Englishmen on the team. :-) I enjoy the skill and speed of EPL soccer. The Mexican game bores me to tears, except Super Classico. I've seen half a dozen international matches and enjoyed them.
About a decade ago, I watched Mexico beat Brazil in the Gold Cup competition at the Coliseum in L.A. US took third the same day. Rain pouring down, 60 thousand soaked fans, and everybody having a great time. Took me several days to get dried out and warm through again.
Best fun ever was seeing Trinidad and Tobago play. They travel with their own steel drum corps. Well, that, and Brazil's memorable Samba girls.
I won’t. Even though I don’t hate soccer I do hate the World Cup (I think the round robin rules encourage boring soccer) and don’t care who wins. I was born a hockey fan (almost literally), I kind of liked all those band wagon fans. If the US team wins that’ll be nice, but I ain’t gonna be watchin.
ESPN 360 has the video feed free.
There's nothing to deal with!
I can declare myself as World Tiddleywinks Champion of my street but it it would be meaningless and hollow, just like the NFL's hype is.
Being "World Champion" of a purely domestic tournament that has no International component?
So what?
I guess it fools the dupes, doesn't it?
Read up on 2006, 2002, 1998, 1994, 1990...when everyone and their brothers beat the US. Outside of the World Cup I watch exactly zero minutes every four years of grass fairies feigning "injuries". Got to admit though, it is damn hilarious when an "injured" grass fairy is carted off the pitch only to jump off the stretcher 10 seconds later to rejoin the "action".
That's right!
And back in 1969 El Salvador and Honduras went to war over a World Cup Qualifying result..
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