It's the World's Game, Just Not Ours

I remember playing soccer growing up as a kid and enjoying it immensely. It wasn't just me: lots of my friends in New Jersey were in leagues or on traveling teams when we were young. We played because we were encouraged to do so for a while and, more importantly, because it was fun. Yet somewhere along the way, for most of us, soccer became uncool. Gradually, football, basketball and baseball took up more of our time and focus because they were the "real" American sports, or so were told . . . They were the true tests of athletic prowess. I believe it is this athletic discrimination syndrome, if you will, that has continually kept our nation from competing at a high level with the other top soccer powers on the international stage of the World Cup.

Think about it: the United States of America has a diverse population of over 300 million people, way more than the combined populations of countries like England, Italy, Germany, Portugal and Argentina, yet it is those nations who regularly dominate us in the sport of soccer, er, football (whatever). We lost to the Czech Republic, 3-0, for crying out loud! I realize our country handled itself well in the 2002 World Cup, getting all the way to the quarterfinal round, but everybody gets a little bit lucky once in a while. Don't think that was anything more than a fluke. We'll be out of this World Cup by the end of the opening round next week.

To me, it's not all that embarrassing though. Most of us in this country are brought up viewing soccer as nothing more than a kids' game, a fun social get together for the soccer moms and dads. When we get old enough and our physicalities start to develop, we're steered towards the other sports. And so our nation's greatest athletes become hoopsters and hurlers, receivers and runners, instead of strikers and goalkeepers . . . There are execeptions to this, of course, but unlike in most of the rest of the world, where all the good athletes play soccer, the bulk of our best do not. This trend being clearly reflected in the whoopings our national team has routinely taken on soccer's biggest of stages over the years.

Will it ever change? Probably not. As long as football, baseball, basketball and golf continue to dominate the collective American sports conciousness, soccer will keep on laying in the bin on the side with the rest of the not-so-much games, like hockey and tennis and swimming and skiing. We just have too many options here in the States, which isn't a bad thing really, except when it comes to fielding a killer national soccer club. So don't take it personally when we get ripped by Italy this weekend and Ghana next week. Soccer just isn't in our blood.

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Final Four World Cup Soccer Picks:

Brazil, England, Italy and Argentina

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-JAB