Possible Reasons Why Casual American Sports Fans Hate Soccer.

Posted by By Sports Session at 7 July, at 06 : 50 AM Print

The world cup is winding down, we are down to the “final four” (now final three) that will decide who the World Champion will be.  The four teams left are Spain, Uruguay, Germany, and the Netherlands.  I like many Americans only took a partial interest in the World cup in the past, and mostly followed the United States team and games.

I took a different approach this year though though, I have several friends who were born in foreign countries and soccer is their favorite sport.  I decided to sit down, and watch as many games as I could in order to see why they loved the sport so much, as compared to the feeling in the United States.  As I watched more and more games I started to get into the sport more and more, it went from oh this is boring to being on the edge of my seat on every single challenge.

After watching about 15+ matches of the 2010 World Cup, I can now see why the sport does not appeal to Americans so easily.  The most popular sports in America are generally ones where there is an abundance of scoring, and very strong individual stars that can make or break a team.  Football, Basketball, and even baseball to a lesser extent have enough scoring where there is constant action, and you do not have to think about it to be entertained.

The individual star power in popular American sports is strong, and the expectations are easily defined in those sports.  If Peyton Manning has a great game it is easy to claim him the hero, if he throws 4 interceptions it is very easy to coin him as the goat.  The expectations heaped on the best players in American sports are tremendous, and most of the time if they do not play well their team does not win.

Soccer is a little bit different, I only knew really of one top level soccer player before the world cup.  That was Cristiano Ronaldo from Portugal, only because of the many women I run into that want to father his children.  I knew who most of the players on the United States team were, but most of them are not considered big time “stars” on the international level.  As I watched more I started to learn players like Wayne Rooney, Kaka, and Lionel Messi just to name a few.

The funny thing is all of those players I named did not score a goal in the World Cup, but all of their teams made it to the elimination round.  Soccer is one of those sports where your best player does not score every single game, but there are things that player does on the field that setup scoring chances for other people.  That is very similar to dominant Wide Receivers in football drawing a double team, or someone being pitched around in baseball to get to a weaker batter.

The part that I believe is frustrating for most Americans is it is nearly impossible for a star player in soccer to win the game on his own.  Kaka is not going to get the ball from his goalie dribble it downfield past 10 defenders and kick it into the goal; it just isn’t going to happen.  Americans are used to the star athletes being able to take matters into their own hands if the rest of the schmucks around them are not showing up to play.  This is very difficult to do in soccer; you need a lot of pieces around players in order to be successful.

If you took Cristiano Ronaldo and stuck him on a team of stiffs then that team would be horrible, there is no way he could score enough goals by himself to make the team competitive.  But with Basketball you can put Lebron James on a team with a bunch of scrubs, and that team would actually be competitive at least some of the time.

I am by no means an expert on soccer, but after sitting down and giving the game a chance you start to pick up on the little nuances of the game.  If you look at how ESPN marketed the World Cup it was the same as we do with our sports, they put the biggest stars in the commercials and ultimately when those players did not do much it seemed a little off.  Then look at it Germany, The Netherlands, and Uruguay did not have one single player in any of those commercials, yet those teams are in the final four.

Ultimately Americans will fall out of love with soccer once the world cup ends, but I have gained a new appreciation for the sport.  The excitement lies in the lack of scoring rather than the abundance of scoring we are all used to, and when I found myself jumping at the shots on goal that almost went in I realized why 1.8 billion people around t he world love the sport.

Front Page Features International Sports american sports, cristiano ronaldo, foreign countries, futbol, Germany, Lionel Messi, ronaldo, soccer, soccer player, Spain, the Netherlands, Uruguay, usa soccer, Wayne Rooney, world cup