America and soccer The unfamiliar sport

Every World Cup, it arrives like clockwork. As sure as the ultimate soccer spectacle brings guaranteed adrenaline and agony to fans across the United States, it also drives the right-wing noise machine utterly insane.
“It doesn’t matter how you try to sell it to us,” yipped the Prom King of new right, Glenn Beck. “It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get, it doesn’t matter how many bars open early, it doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run, we don’t want the World Cup, we don’t like the World Cup, we don’t like soccer, we want nothing to do with it.”
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Dear Lord, where do we begin? First of all, I always find it amusing when folks like Beck say, “We don’t like soccer” when it is by far the most popular youth sport in the United States. It’s like saying, “You know what else American kids hate? Ice cream!” Young people love soccer not because of some kind of commie-nazi plot conjured by Saul Alinsky to sap us of our precious juices, but because it’s – heaven forefend - fun.

Wow.  Where do i begin? First of all, just because more kids play soccer these days doesn’t mean they enjoy it or understand it, but that’s not all.  I played soccer for three years growing up and I couldn’t begin to tell you what the rules are.  I made quite a fool of myself one day about ten years ago when I was sitting in Arrowhead Stadium watching the Kansas City Wizards play the LA Galaxy.  I was trying to explain the game to my then-girlfriend.  Two German immigrants sitting nearby were making fun of my lack of understanding–something I’d never have known had my date not been fluent in German.
What I think is really going on here is that Zirin just isn’t happy that American’s don’t accept his sport.  Despite decades of soccer moms (like my own) driving their kids to practice two days a week and to games on Saturday, we just haven’t accepted soccer.  We stick with our traditional American sports like baseball and football and this drives him absolutely bonkers.
When I was a kid, I wanted to play football.  I got stuck in soccer because 1) my brother played it and it cut down on the extra driving mom had to do and 2) mom thought it was safer than football.  Interestingly, I never had a serious injury playing football.  The only really bad one was a strained thumb trying to block a Tight End, but I was back at it after a week’s recuperation.  I was sent to the hospital four times in three seasons playing soccer: I sprained an ankle (twice), broke a toe and fractured a vertebrae.  So much for “safer”.
The biggest reason Americans don’t accept soccer is that we don’t understand it.  The fact is, most Americans who are interested in sports understand baseball, basketball, football, and many even get hockey, golf, tennis and NASCAR.  But when it comes to the soccer field we’re left scratching our heads and asking questions.
“Why don’t they stop the clock during penalties?”
“Why don’t they just wear cups like football players?”
“Why is this game going into overtime when it’s not tied?”
“What the heck is a yellow card and what does it mean?”
The list goes on.  Even with the lesser-understood hockey and NASCAR, most Americans can watch and appreciate these sports without knowing the rules in detail or even liking them.  The object of the game and in particular what is going on during this instant is usually fairly obvious to us.  Not-so with soccer.
Worse, the people who DO understand soccer (oh, I’m sorry, fútbol) don’t much care to explain it.  Ask any knowledgeable hockey fan what icing is, and they’re almost universally glad to explain it in detail.  The same goes with baseball and the infield-fly rule or NASCAR and the intricacies of pit road etiquette or restrictor plates.  Soccer fans, on the other hand, don’t seem to want to explain anything.  Many of them remain aloof, secure in their elitism about their favored sport.  It seems many would rather continue to think those of us not “in the know” as idiots than try to explain anything.  Even worse, there’s no John Madden character drawing lines on our TV screen to explain what just happened and why the crowd is cheering when seemingly nothing consequential has occurred.
Granted, this mentality doesn’t cover everybody who enjoys soccer.  It’s simply a generalization based upon my personal experience with soccer fans.

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