When I first came to this beautiful country a mere nine years ago I was immediately thrown in to a sporting universe completely alien to me. Baseball, (American) football, and basketball were a long ways away from cricket, rugby, and footy – the colonial sports I knew so well in England and South Africa. At lunchtimes I was relegated to the side of the asphalt, watching as all the other kids played basketball and cursing the day I came to this stupid-ass country.
Back then my one saving grace was after-school soccer (which, as a snub to the name-changing elitism of American culture, I will from now on call football – it’s real fucking name). In South Africa, and even England, none of the schools I went to ever had organized football teams. It was always left either to epic lunchtime games on the green, or after-school pick-up matches with a crushed-up Coke can (yeah, I’m hood. What of it?).
Things are more legit here. FIFA estimates that about 18 million Americans play the game today – more than any other nation in the world. And with the relatively low price of football becoming increasingly attractive to schools with tight budgets that number is on the rise.
But why? If America took the time to create and cultivate it’s own athletic niches, even having the balls to deem them globally competitive (World Series my ass), why not stick to its own games?
Think about it: while the U. S. of A. may have global hegemonic power, with an economy and a military industrial complex that doesn’t come close to being matched by any other nation in the world, it still suffers from a crippling football impotency. No matter how baller we are – baseballer, American footballer, basketballer, big money baller – the fact that we cannot dominate the international football stage leaves us feeling a little like Kobe Bryant with whiskey dick.
Dominating the football world would not only alleviate a cultural helplessness long felt by American football fans, it would also, in a very real sense, mean global dominance. Being the rulers of the most popular sport in the world would extend our power out of the economic and military spheres, and in to the athletic/cultural sphere.
Who knows? Perhaps politicians are plotting The Great American Soccer Conspiracy as we speak. As America becomes increasingly international, both in its domestic diversity and the way in which it deals with the outside world, it is now being forced to play the games other counties play. Bernard Mergan, professor of American Studies at George Washington University claims that “[w]e have been unduly nationalistic and ethnocentric about our professional sports, looking down with some condescension on other cultures that do not play, or come up to our levels, in football, basketball, or baseball. But they, in turn, perceive us as less than civilized because we can't play soccer with them or even discuss it intelligently.”
Indeed. Gone are the days of American exceptionalism, in both a political and sporting sense, and America is in it to win it.
At least 130,000 World Cup tickets already have been bought in the U.S., more than any other country outside South Africa. There is also now a huge domestic demand for football to be shown on T.V. Initiative Sports Futures, a London-based analysis firm claims that the U.S., having ranked 23rd in World Cup viewing in 1998, jumped to 13th in 2002, and 8th in 2006.
And the U.S. team has performed in tandem with demand. In the 2002 World Cup they somehow made it to the quarterfinals, eventually losing to hosts and fourth-place runners-up South Korea. After coming last in the Ghana-Italy-Czech Group of Death in the 2006 World Cup, the U.S. made a spectacular bid for the Confederation Cup last year, beating top-ranked Spain in the semi’s only to lose their two-goal lead in the second half of the final against Brazil. This year, there are high hopes for the Yanks to up the ante.
But try as they may, the U.S. football team will NOT win the World Cup. At least not this year anyways. If they did, chances are angry football fans from across the globe would lash out, ramming vuvuzela’s in our George Bush-loving asses and choking us with their national flags. The fact of the matter is, Amurrka just isn’t considered as freakin’ awesome to foreigners as it is to its patriotic inhabitants. In fact, empirical evidence has shown that many people in other countries actually think we’re ignorant douchewad’s. WTF??
Right now, football is America’s main global concession (That, along with having a black president in a country run by old white men). Bar the financial crisis, the U.S. is still just about pwning every other country. Being shite at footy gives the rest of the world some cultural weaponry, no matter how futile.
But if the U.S. isn’t going to dominate the World Cup athletically, it’ll sure as hell do so economically. Aside from Coca-Cola being the official soft-drink sponsor (the Third World loves that shit), Budweiser has won the coveted bid for official beer sponsor. During the Confed. Cup the company cut a deal that made sure Bud Diesel was the only beer that could be sold within a 5-km radius of the stadiums.
Luckily, Bud has loosened the restrictions since then. Germans reacted angrily to Bud’s 2006 World Cup beer monopoly, with one university student even setting up a website, BudOut, to slander the ‘dishwater’-making brewery, calling Budweiser’s exclusive rights "an insult to beer lovers, taste buds and football fans." Bud seems to have taken the hint, and this year will allow other brewers to sell their beer around the stadiums.
Economics aside, it’s only a matter of time before the Great American Soccer Conspiracy is realized. In their book Why England Loses, Why Germany and Brazil Win, and Why the US, Japan, Australia, Turkey — and Even Iraq — Are Destined to Become the Kings of the World's Most Popular Sport, authors Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski single out wealth, population size, and a nation’s experience with international football as the primary indicators of future success. America only lacks the latter.
If, however, for some absurd reason – extraordinary luck, extraordinary skill, or a deeply entrenched and widespread plot on the part of the U.S. government – Landon Donovan you find yourself about to score the winning goal in the dying seconds of this year’s final, do everyone a favor and take a fucking dive. The world doesn’t need America running around and kicking everyone’s ass in sports too.
First of all, you love america more than anyone else, and always call it soccer. Secondly, i do not love george bush. You, apparently love george bush. And lastly, if your worried about america getting better than other countries at football, and your so good at it, maybe you should go back where you came from and do something about it... instead of sitting in your cushy american apartment photoshopping your friends faces onto naked bodies. But what do i know, i don't even really watch soccer.
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