Today the U.S. Men’s National Team plays a crucial match against Iran in the 2022 World Cup. If the Americans win, they advance beyond the group stage into the knockout stage and keep their long-shot hopes for the World Cup alive. If they lose or tie, they are out. Since the U.S. team has played to two draws in its first two games, they face a significant challenge, and because their opponent is Iran there are obvious geopolitical overtones.
I’m not a soccer fan, but I am a fan of my country, so I watched the U.S. game against England that ended in a scoreless tie. After the match, some loudmouth commentator on another channel said that the 0-0 tie (“nil-nil” in soccer lingo) was boring, and that’s why more Americans don’t pay much attention to soccer. The guy’s comments were part of a weird dynamic that has bedeviled the U.S. soccer scene for as long as I can remember: non-soccer fans make fun of the injury-faking and the low scores and argue that the sport is a total snoozer, and soccer fans respond that the non-soccer fans are basically knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing cretins who can’t appreciate the subtleties and strategies of a game that, incidentally, the rest of the world absolutely loves.
I didn’t think the U.S.-England match was boring. The U.S. has a very young team, and the fact that they played heavily favored England to a draw and kept their chances of advancing alive was a great result for them. They don’t seem to go in for the ridiculous play-acting on the injury front, either, which I appreciate.
I clearly don’t get all of the nuances of world-class soccer, but it doesn’t take much watching to appreciate concepts like reversing the field and trying to clear things out for breakaway runs and passes. I’m still working on the penalties, what results in corner kicks, and other elements of the game, but I can watch a soccer match without understanding those issues just like I can watch a hockey game without knowing what “offsides” is or the significance of the red line and blue line. A low-scoring soccer match involves its own special brand of tension where you know one mistake could be fatal–just like in a low-scoring baseball game. And you can’t help but admire the energy, athleticism, and skill of elite players, who run hard throughout the match, can bend and place a ball with amazing precision, and then can mash it with astonishing force. Soccer may not feature crushing hits or thunderous dunks, but it definitely offers a lot to admire.
I’ll be at work today and won’t get a chance to watch the U.S. match against Iran, but I’m definitely hoping that the U.S. finds a way to win and advance. I’m also hoping that, if they do so, we can put this perversely American argument about soccer to bed, once and for all. Both sides of the great soccer divide need to understand that not every sport needs to appeal to every person, and there’s no value in denigrating either soccer or those people who just don’t enjoy it. Live and let live, sports fans!
Go U.S.A.!
I’m not going to pretend that I know all of the rules of soccer — I certainly don’t, and probably never will — and I’m not going to claim that I am as interested in soccer as I am in, say, college football. I will say, however, that I enjoyed the U.S.A. run in the World Cup this year, and I’ll be hoping that the Americans make another, even deeper, run the next time they get to play on the world stage. The U.S. may not be one of the elite teams yet, but it looks like the Americans may be getting there. Good try, U.S.A.!
After a FIFA disciplinary panel decided that Suarez could not play in any additional World Cup games and would be suspended for four months and nine Uruguay matches, the press learned that Suarez — unbelievably — had made a submission to FIFA in which he flatly denied the bite. Instead, Suarez claimed, he had lost his balance, fallen into the Italian player, and felt his face make contact. Given the undisputable video evidence, FIFA rejected that claim, and also noted in issuing its suspension decision that Suarez not only had denied any wrongdoing but “at no moment showed regret or remorse of any type.”
It being soccer, both players fell to the ground in hopes of getting a penalty. (Can you imagine how LeBron James would react if a player guarding him bit him on the shoulder? I don’t think his first instinct would be to fall to the ground. This is one reason why many Americans find soccer so bizarre.)
Yup, they’re playing futbol down in Brazil, in all of those glitzy new stadiums that the Brazilians, desperate for more positive “emerging world leader”-type news coverage, have spent billions to build even though the country is beset by horrible, grinding poverty, terrible crime, and other awful societal afflictions. Maybe all of those poor people will forget about their empty bellies and cardboard shanty homes while FIFA bigwigs limo around town and futbol fans from around the world show up in their colored wigs and toot their horns and chant their chants while men run around in shorts, kick a ball, and then fake injuries whenever they plausibly can.
Brazil’s good press, however, always seemed at odds with the country’s great disparities in income and its grinding poverty. Recently some of our friends visited Brazil and were shaken by the terrible living conditions of the poor, the aggressive begging, and an outright street theft in which a necklace was snatched from a neck by urchins who sprinted away and were quickly lost in the ever-present crowds. It’s safe to say that they aren’t recommending it as a tourist destination.
I was out doing some errands on Saturday and listened to part of the World Cup game between the U.S. and England on the radio. The broadcast seemed to feature the worst sound quality in the world — until I realized that people were intentionally making the infernal buzzing noise using a horn called a vuvuzela. The noise made even listening to a radio broadcast intolerable; God knows how horrible it must have been listening to the piercing drone live in the stadium! Now 
Why is this so? Mainly, it is because soccer is a relentlessly boring spectator sport. Who wants to watch a bunch of earnest lads sprinting up and down a long field kicking a ball without seemingly accomplishing anything? Baseball is boring too, of course, but soccer manages to combine the boredom with painfully embarrassing touches. The players wear shorts and knee socks, for example. When a goal is actually scored the player takes off his shirt, runs aimlessly, and then falls to his knees like a goal has never happened before. Even more appalling is that all world-class soccer players practice faking injuries. It is humiliating to even watch these fine athletes squirming on the field like over-tired children, shrieking and blubbering and holding their knee or ankle or head and acting like their limbs are so brittle that a slight bump caused crippling disfigurement. In Europe or South America cultures might celebrate a guy who is a good injury-faker and can draw an unwarranted penalty; in America we would rather emulate the athlete with the toughness to play through real pain or overcome an actual injury.
Webner House 