American soccer fans

Cruik:

Despair not, that is human nature.

Let's get back to football, in a 'round about way.

We all know what the difference are that seperate Soccer from Rugby from Aussie Rules from NFL/CFL.

I am wondering what, if any things, do all of the field sports have in common?

 

In a nutshell, in the 1860-1870s (ish) there were several similar sports which were derivatives of something called football, each played under different rules - i.e. rugby football, association football etc (similar to how lawn tennis, real tennis and table tennis are all derivatives of tennis, or ice hockey & field hockey). In Britain, association football became the dominant sport and the word association was virtually dropped and rugby football became known as just rugby. Other countries, such as the US and Canada, invented their own rules for a football type game and due to the lack of any other football type games any prefix which might have been was dropped, allowing their game to be called football in their countries.

Although impossible to prove, the word soccer is almost certainly accredited to the public school's amazingly unimaginative style of nicknaming (i.e taking the first syllable of a name and adding 'er' or 'ers' to the end). The game caught on relatively late in London (going first from the public schools to the north & scotland - why the geographical leap? Nobody seems to know or ask, although it may be to do with the introduction of factories giving workers Saturday afternoons off for the first time), making the possibility of it being cockney rhyming slang incredibly remote. Also rhyming slang is normally a two word phrase, one word of which rhymes and the other one is the word which is used (e.g. a suit gets call a whistle, from whistle & flute). As soccer is meaningless (apart from the football context obviously) it would almost cetainly never have been created this way. Also bear in mind that 19th century society is not like today's - the ruling classes were by far more prominent in the shaping of the language. Culture did not come from 'the street' as it tends to today.

What I don't know is when soccer as a word became the tacky, cheesy word it is regarded as now in many parts. It may have been down to the old NASL which to the outside world seemed a very tacky artificial enterprise. The NASL, a sporting south sea bubble, a true epitome of style without substance, probably tainted a word which might have previously been regarded as quite ordinary.

 

Fair point, we did get a bit off topic, but that tends to happen on this site. Getting back to the topic, the difficulty of being a soccer fan in the US, its not so much the ridicule as it is the trouble finding a game on TV. If you don't cough up the money for Fox Sports World, you would never see a premiership or Bundesliga match, and reports about the US national side cover all of about 30 seconds, of match highlights, if there is one. One problem is MLS, which had a good idea of playing most of its games on Saturdays. MOST was a good idea, but does it have to be ALL games on Saturdays? They are only competing with baseball in the summertime, they should throw a few games out there on weeknights, especially for those of us unfortunates who have to work on Saturdays. This would also get the league more exposure, and more of us fans would get at least a partial fix.

 

So who's your favorite team?

 

I imagine most American fans become fans by having played the game in their youth. In my own case, I played when I was very young, but then sort of forgot about the game. The 94 World Cup captured my attention, though, particularly since I was working with a lot of fans at the time. Shortly after that, there was a time when ESPN would show a Premiership game each week, plus Champions League, and those are what really hooked me. That, and also in college I had some European Track & Field teammates who watched, and also explained everything patiantly to the new, clueless American. Another convert to the only true world religion. lol

 

Interesting how this thread got hijacked into the weary topic of what we call the game. Thankfully it moved away from getting dragged down to that tired subject againl. It's soccer here everyone. Please, everyone, get over it. Does anyone get wrapped up in their shorts because the Italians call it Calcio? By the way, I was watching a rugby game from England yesterday and guess what they called the ball? A football. So I guess it's OK for us to call our derivation of rugby 'football', yes?

Now, as to the original question. It's, as others have said, much easier to be a fan these days. It's still lonely. Before the World Cup I've sat in hotel bars watching a US National Team game and been the only one cheering (and therefore drawing odd looks as I went nuts over a goal). But that's the worst part, and I don't know what it would be like now after Japan/Korea. I do know that a lot of my acquaintences who didn't have the game on their sports radar now do. There is no derision for being a soccer fan. It may even be entering the realm of 'cool'. Seen the Nike ad with Elvis' 'A Little Less Conversation'? That one was so popular that you can buy a CD with 11 minutes of the song in various mixes.

The game is all over the advertising on television (yeah, I know--adverts and telly--but I call it soccer, remember). Seems like most ads have the obligitory soccer ball. Nine out of ten (estimate, no research to back this up) ads that have kid's teams feature soccer. I even saw one today where the kids ran out of the kitchen to play soccer and the mother accidentally knocked over a vase, caught it with her foot, flipped it up to her knee and bounced it from there into her hands. No call, though.

There are games at all levels going on all the time. Millions play. I watched a college game in person today, will be at RFK for DC United tonight and tomorrow my wife and I will drive up to New York to watch my daughter play. My wife was with her U19 team today. There are so many teams that want to play in the Washington Area Girls Soccer League that they restrict each age group to 50 teams. The bottom ones are relegated out of the league--there is no Div VI. The boys league is almost as larger. Our local soccer club has 500 teams from U6 through U19, with three competitive levels from recreation to select.

Adults can get play in the many adult leagues (there are even O (over) 50 leagues. There are also Hispanic leagues and, in Washington D.C., even an embassy league. If adults don't play, they can be administrators of soccer clubs, coaches and refs. The basic soccer problem in the US these days is not enough fields. I travel a lot, and flying into any city you can see fields scattered all over. I've also been surprised by my assumptions that out in the country I won't find the game. Wrong. Soccer fields are to be found in farm country.

Cable and satellite TV carry games from Major League Soccer, A League soccer (our second division--sort of--you can't be relegated into it or promoted out of it), WUSA, the Premiership, the Honor Division, Serie A, Bundesleaga, Argentina, Brazil, Mexican Fotbol League, the USMNT and USWNT (including the current U19 women's world championship with the US in the final, having outscored it's opponents 25-2 in five games).

The major dailies offer adequate, and sometimes spectatular, coverage. Soccer is gradually squeezing it's way onto very crowded sports pages and is even chipping away at TV coverage. You've got to remember that this is a sports nuts nation, with 'big games' happening all the time. Right now, for instance, we've got baseball heading toward their championship series, all the college football teams starting up, professional football kicking off its new season next weekend, the WUSA championship just completed (probably not a highlight of most US sports fans), and MLS only a few games away from the season ending playoffs.

So given an incredibly crowded sports environment, I'd say we're doing all right with soccer. It's not what it will be, but it's not what it was.

I'll end by saying this: the US citizens on this board are part of a valiant band which has pushed and fought and bled for this game which the rest of the world takes for granted. We are fanatics. Rather than ever being denigrated (as often happens) by those born into the sport by nationality, we should be supported and acknowledged for having fought the good fight for the official sport of the human race.

Which is why what our men did in Korea was so incredibly significant. It was as if everything we have been fighting for was being validated.

Well, for some of us there is something called children. My oldes boy (now 27) started playing in first grade. My wife, who had never played the game, was drafted to be the coach of his team. She's still coaching, and has been wise enough to bring in trainers and coaches who have played the game. Along with her coaching she also got involved in the administration of the local soccer club.

Then my next two boys and my daughter started playing (they all, by the way, tried baseball, and eventually all left it for soccer. All wound up playing travel soccer year-round). I, meanwhile, was watching my kids play and starting to gain an appreciation of the game. By the time the World Cup came to the US, our children were playing select soccer, which means we were watching them play year-round. Between them and other games on TV I was averaging about 7 games a week. And by that time I was reffing. And involved in our travel club's administration.

And I'm still watching our kids. That college game I went to today--five of the players on the one team were mates of my daughter on their travel team. And in the stands were parents whose friendship I made many years ago--we're still watching our girls. And that's how all of them got involved in the game. Ten girls who were on that select team are now playing college soccer.

So for some of us, who were of a generation which didn't have the game to play, we have been fortunate to have had our children have lead us into the game. What's that phrase about a child will lead you

 

BZZZZ WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You're kidding, right? Don't you know how awful weekday night attendance is in MLS?

 

This is an interesting subject. Is attendance awful? It depends. If you own the stadia, have mostly salaried employees, then weekday attendance is more than enough to cover marginal costs. When MLS teams aren't paying rent, I think we'll see a lot of weekday games. We need a 40+ game season

 

A BALL!!!

do i win a prize?

 

Re: Re: American soccer fans

Can you call a football a ball?? It's certainly not round.

 

This should be required reading for every football fan in Europe and South America. When they are talking about the US being a Sleeping Giant, someday to awake, this is what they are talking about. Not the athletic ability of the US. We really are not any better athletes than anyone else. It is the dedication, the time and the resourses, especially money, that individual American families can devote to something like a single sport.

Will that be enough to overtake decades of European football tradition? No doubt, whatsoever.

Will it be enough to overtake South American Football which is for many the only way out of abject poverty? Time will tell.

 

Excellent post “Dad” you are one of the true fans in this country who realize that the future is with the kids.
I don’t remember not playing the game and I’ve played in many different countries. When I first came here I picked up games with a few mixed teams of Brits, Hispanics, Euro’s, and South Americans, now and then we’d have an oddity, a real yank who’d played in college and wanted to keep playing. It was the best time, always pizza and beer afterwards to trade jokes and insults about the game. A real camaraderie.
One of the ‘funnest’ teams I’ve played on here was a team of lawyers; they wanted to argue every call. They still liked their pizza and beer though.
Over the years I’ve watched the goalposts go up where previously there were non and a yank isn’t so much of an oddity now. (oddball that’s different..!)
Now my playing days are done but I still love the game so I spend a couple of evenings a week working with a fun team of U15’s here just north of Seattle. They have fun with my scouse accent but it doesn’t stop them listening about the game and working on drills and plays to improve theirs.
And NO! I don’t insist they call it football. In fact the first time I used the word football was when I got excited about a practice play that went perfect I yelled “Now your playing football.!” One of them who has the same last name as me said “Football???” (I really think it was the first time he’d heard it called that.)
I used a little license and told him that of 150 something countries that play World Cup only one calls it Soccer. (So I lied) But it’s still soccer with us.
As for the loyal US supporters on these boards, I think that they are as loyal as any other countries fans. As for being denigrated, well you have to admit that some ask for it and a lot is just in fun.

I watched a womans football match on telly last night; US v Germany the two commentators, Brits sounded pleasantly surprised and very complimentary as to the standard of the US teams play.

The bar is rising and the future is with the kids.

I had to edit your tome a little only the first 5000 words...

 

Re: Re: Re: American soccer fans

dunno what funny $h1t you have been smoking but the last time i looked footballs were very round

 

also the answer is really in the question. "call a footBALL a ball"

hhmmmmm

 

A couple of problems with this. They do not play American Football in the CFL, they Canadian Football. In that game there are twelve men to a side, a one yard line of scrimmage, a larger ball, a three minute warning in the second and fourth quarters after which the clock stops for every gain, no fair catches on punts, one point awarded for every kicked ball not returned from the endzone, one time out per team, twenty seconds between every play, and most signicantly, three downs to gain ten yards.

What happened was that Harvard played McGill in an exhibition, but McGill wanted to play rugby. They played both, and the Harvard men liked rugby so much, they convinced the Ivy League to adopt that game. However, it was still largely rugby. When eighteen players died in a single year, Theodore Roosevelt told the Ivy Leagues to change the rules. Walter Camp stepped in and introduced, among other things, the forward pass. The Canadian Rugby Union would not alter the rules of Canadian Football (which the CRU governed) to allow the forward pass until 1933. The games influenced each other. In 1956, the Candadian Football Council was organized, as football had superceded rugby. Sometimes, you'll hear the old terminology used in the CFL. Try/major instead of touchdown, rouge instead of single, pivot instead of quarterback, etc. When more and more Americans started entering the League, they introduced their lexicon.

Lord Albert Henry George, the Fourth Earl of Grey (like the tea) contributed the Cup in 1907, to be awarded to the Amateur Rugby Football Champions of Canada. It was challenged for by universities, semi-professional and amateur sides, and professional clubs in the Rugby Football Unions. Some of the early champions included the University of Toronto and Queen's University. However, the professionals started out-playing the universities and they withdrew from competition. In 1957, the trophy became solely challenged-for by the Interprovicial Rugby Football Union and the Western Interprovincial Football Union. The next year, these two bodies became the Canadian Football League. By 1967, the CFL owned the Grey Cup.

 

Re: Re: American soccer fans

You're mixing up a few facts here. The US colleges played what was basically 11-man rugby until the 1880's. It was during the 1880's that Walter Camp introduced the rule changes that turned rugby into American football: blocking, the line of scrimmage, the hike. But no forward pass. The forward pass did not come until 1906, when the NCAA was under pressure to open up the game because of frequent injuries and deaths. The other major rule changes occurred twenty years earlier. Interestingly, during the crisis of 1906, the major West Coast colleges went back to playing rugby, and didn't switch back to American football until World War I. The US gold medalists of 1920 and 1924 were from these West Coast rugby players.

 

Amazing when you think that CFL teams contested for the Grey Cup going back decades before 1967.

Now, if you really want to bother to learn the history of Canadian Football, go to their web site and get set straight.
There you will read this:
- The rules of a hybrid game of English rugby devised by the University of McGill were first used in the United States in a game at Boston between McGill and Harvard. On Thursday, May 14th, Harvard won 3-0 using Harvard rules. The next day, the teams tied 0-0 while playing Canadian rules. Harvard liked the new game so much they introduced it into the Ivy League. Both U.S. and Canadian football evolved from these games.-and so much more.

and there is so much else that you wrote that is wrong, I will not bother with the rest of it.

 

Well, at least you're a right-thinking man. As a season ticket holder to both the Ravens and DC United I can say that they both have good defenses and miserable offenses. Unfortunately, your information about the Ravens is a little out of date. Most of their Super Bowl winning defense as well as their tight end, Shannon Sharpe, are gone. Thankfully, so is Grbac, but the QB position and Jamal Lewis's recovery from major knee surgery are big question marks for this year.

As far as the topic itself is concerned, being a fan here has its advantages and disadvantages.

On the plus side, it's pretty easy to get tickets to any league match, friendly or WC qualifier that you want to see, and those tickets are quite affordable compared to ticket prices to other sports in this country.

On the down side, we don't know if MLS is going to be around for the long haul and the TV packages for the league are weak. I'd say that fewer than half of United's games have been televised this year. Major tournaments are available only on pay-per-view and we were pretty lucky to even get the WC broadcast in English. Thanks Uncle Phil!

The mainstream sports media still pretty much ignores and/or ridicules soccer (see SportsCenter). Slowly but surely though, as our national team improves, so does the press coverage of soccer. Newspapers like the Washington Post do a good job covering the game, but the internet is probably the best source for soccer news here.

Seriously though, I've got no complaints compared to what soccer coverage was 10-15 years ago. I think the first soccer game I ever remember seeing televised was the 1986 World Cup Final. I'm not sure there was another soccer game on TV in the US until WC 1990.

 

That camaraderie is one of the great things about us Yanks adopting the game...the instant fellowship with the rest of the world. I see it in the e-mail exchanges I have with Brits I've never met in person. I experience it at RFK when someone who speaks only Spanish and I, who speak none, can exchange high fives and embrace at a DC United goal.

One other rather large group that deserves recognition is that group of expats from other countries who have settled here and contributed so much to the development of our kids. Many of them also share the dream of the sport growing here, and put a heck of a lot of effort into it. One reason my daughter is as good a player as she is today is the result of an Irishman (now an American) who spent many the afternoon with her and a couple of her teammates working with them on their technical skills.

And, truth be known, when I'm talking to my English and Irish friends, I call it football, say nil-nil, and even have learned what a wanker is... Found this out by asking on a particularly colorful Rovers' board.

All of this because of a game. Amazing.

 

Neither is a rugby ball? Is that not a field sport?