I think communism was used as a stand in for Know Nothing Xenophobia. There still exists a residual behavior of smart ass sports media guys who like to take gratuitous swipes at soccer where they would never consider doing that against other sports that they don't particularly like.
Mostly, though, they met their level and got beat by better teams each time. And never teams that won the World Cup.
Yugoslavia had incredibly talented squads but could never put it together in WCQ or World Cup. They had the best shot as far as Eastern European teams go. Poland was strong in the 70's, early 80's- mostly punching above their weight, with some phenomenal results. When Yugoslavia broke up in early 1990s, there went their chances. Shout out to the deceased Stan Stamenkovic, thanks for the memories. Same with Stevie Z. Early 1980s MISL profiled some amazingly skillful and unorthodox Yugoslav players. They were heads/shoulders above the rest of the players in that league- the only game in town for years. Prolly most the thread has no clue what I'm talking about haha The Brazilians of Europe: PAUL KENNEDY: The Yugoslav influence 04/02/1999 (socceramerica.com)
They did indeed make the World Cup and even 2nd round, but outside of 9-0 shallacking of a weak African side, they didn't get a lot of results. Finished 7 out of 16 nations in a period in which Europe was clearly dominant in world football. Despite playing below their talent level, point taken that they got that far. By the way, it is an absolute joke this idea of 48 nation teams at the World Cup. Awful.
Top 48 does exclude any minnows. Jamaica are ranked 50th and Ivory Coast 57th. But there's just too much football. I probably won't tune in to neutral matches until the knockout stage.
They were good at basketball too....even though it was a hastily thrown together post war country ruled by Tito, though I wouldn't consider it part of the eastern bloc, they were more independent. They produced the Yugo, after all......
Before 1994 in the USA, anyone in the US who openly professed to liking Soccer was basically called every insult that could be used, from Communist to Un-American to Gay to Unpatriotic to Sissy. Soccer had serious social stigmas attached to it that are only now beginning to go away. Many of the sports media and news personalities who mock Soccer wouldn't dare say any of those things to Rugby or Aussie Rules players. Personally speaking, I believe the real reason the USA hated Soccer to that extent was because so-called "lesser" countries were better than the US at the sport. Remember, we're the mighty and invincible USA. No one could possibly beat us... (sarcasm)
They were communist but largely not part of the Eastern Bloc. Aligned with China more than Russia. I thought the discussion was more about Communist countries here vs. Eastern Bloc but splitting hairs for purposes of this discussion I suppose.
Look of the history of the macho British idea of football being a man's sport where you get stuck in and "no blood no foul" and Americans thinking of it as a women's sport for much of the later 20th century.
These things linger in large part due to lazy old white male sports journalists and the monopoly of coverage baseball and other sports received. They were too lazy to learn about a sport they didn't know. All the talk about the 'world's game' scared them. It was like the bully tactics of the hard right currently- if you don't agree with their view you are called a sissy, communist whatever. There was no logic to it. Soccer was viewed as a threat to their job. To this day, I see this as professional malpractice. In every job, you have to keep learning and growing. Nascar wasn't a thing, until it became a thing and if you were a pro sports journalist...you had to learn something about it. MMA. Women's sports. Going back to early 80s. USA Today was the only newspaper that gave soccer its due. Local papers didn't cover the league in general. In LA, the Aztecs got little coverage even though they had Cryuff. Many SportCenter anchors, save Bob Ley, openly mocked the sport until even the mid-late 90s. It was absurd and so unprofessional and odd. The domination of SportsCenter and local news by MLB and other pro sports put soccer in this country at a big disadvantage for decades.
I definitely remember Sportcenter mocked Soccer at every opportunity in the 1990s and then there was that provocateur Jim Rome as well...
From what I've heard, the association of soccer with communism by many Americans is a result of the fact that in the 1930s the American Communist Party came up with the idiotic idea that all immigrants love soccer, and thus used soccer in an attempt to recruit new members in immigrant groups. The subsequent comments of people like New York sportswriter and fool Dick Young ("soccer is a game for commie pansies") didn't help matters any. A few Eastern bloc countries beside Hungary did contend in World Cups. Czechoslovakia reached the final in 1962, Yugoslavia reached the semifinals in 1962, the Soviet Union reached the semifinals in 1966 and Poland reached the semifinals in 1974. But no communist country ever won the World Cup.
Urban areas have a higher percentage of people who are minorities and a lower percent of people who will say some people are un-American or should leave because they like soccer or for any other reason.
I think a turning point (or a thaw) happened when his alma mater won the NCAA championship nearly a decade ago and he is an alum real close to the school...I think UCSB...and that was a huge deal for that school. He caught some (soccer) fever...
Yup, when unseeded UCSB (my Alma mater), with Eric Avila, Andy Iro, Nick Perrera, and Chris Pontius, beat the favored UCLA. I look outside my apartment window and a bunch of people are carrying the goals from Harder Stadium and ended up throwing them into the ocean in celebration. I still remember the teams we beat on the way, SMU, Northwestern, and Wake Forest.