In a way, it is quite admirable that America has, by and large, resisted soccer. Americans shouldn’t be expected to appreciate “the beautiful game” — they have their own sports.

There is something impressive, moreover, about the proud unwillingness to succumb to the never-ending attempts to impose this foreign, transnational sport on American culture. Take the great Bill Kauffman:

The docile subject of globalism is expected to eat the same chain fare, wear the same sweat-shop stitched togs, watch the same moronic and degenerate TV shows, and kick the same damnable soccer ball as collaborators and would-be Esperanto speakers throughout the world. Well, not in our yard, Jack.

Nevertheless, as Alex Massie and Matthew Yglesias point out, the weird neocon campaign against soccer is absurd. In this passage, AEI’s Gary Smith says that soccer cannot work in the USA because it is anti-capitalist and therefore UnAmerican:

As someone who didn’t play soccer growing up, but had a dad who did and whose own kids played as well, I can say unquestionably that it is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of. Or, to put it more bluntly, the team that deserves to win doesn’t. For some soccer-loving friends, this is perfectly okay. Indeed, they will argue that it’s a healthy, conservative reminder of how justice does not always prevail in life.
Well, hooey on that. And, thankfully, Americans are not buying it. In spite of the fact that one can drive by an open field on Saturdays and usually see it filled with young boys and girls playing soccer, the game’s popularity has not moved anywhere toward being a major sport here in the United States. It’s grown for sure but not close to where folks once expected it to be given the number of youth that have played the game over the past two decades.

For sure, there may be a number of reasons that is the case but my suspicion is that the so-called “beautiful game” is not so beautiful to American sensibilities. We like, as good small “d” democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert. And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe.

Bunk. It’s true that American capitalism and soccer are not compatible, but that’s more because successful Americans sports must have stoppages and time-outs every 18 seconds so that TV networks can cram in as many mind-numbing advertisements as possible. (I know, I know, that’s been said many times before.) Plus, as Alex points out,

If we are to talk about sporting meritocracy, we might consider the Darwinian competition enshrined in european sports leages that provide for promotion and relegation and contrast that to the cosy, anti-competitive cartels that run American sports and in which money is diverted from the richest and most successful to the weakest and the mismanaged. (Hello, LA Clippers!).

So, sure, disparage soccer all you like, but at least try and base your arguments in some kind of reality, chaps…

Well said.

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