SOCCER SUCKS An American Perspective on the Worldʼs Most Overrated Activity by Jim McManus TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1, Soccer 0 (OT) Chapter 2: Lights! Camera! Boredom! Chapter 3: Would You Please Change the Channel, Now! Chapter 4: Are You Joking with Me? Chapter 5: Do You Want Americans to Hate this Sport? Chapter 6: The Worst Rule in the History of Team Sports Chapter 7: If Two Teams Donʼt Score in an Empty Stadium, Was the Game Really Played? Chapter 8: Thereʼs No “I” in “Team” and Thereʼs No “Team” in “Soccer” Chapter 9: Have You Considered Seppuku? Chapter 10: Evolution, Shmevolution Chapter 11: Americans: the Worldʼs Greatest Athletes, the Worldʼs Greatest Sports Minds Chapter 12: The Womenʼs World Cup: How to Misinterpret a Phenomenon Chapter 13: New Soccer Inspired Vocabulary Chapter 14: Bite Me Chapter 15: Soccer II: Electric Boogaloo Soccer Sucks by Jim McManus 2 ”The true measure of a manʼs worth is his disdain for soccer” -- Garrett J. Day Chapter 1, Soccer 0 (OT) Americans Hate Soccer Give it up, world. Youʼve seen our games; weʼve seen yours. Ours are better. I know, I know, American ideals donʼt take well. They never have. Thatʼs why our country is what it is. But you have got to get over this unbelievable obsession with soccer as your main form of sport. Soccer is a boring, puerile, and contradictory waste of time. As a method of deciding the worldʼs greatest athletics, it ranks slightly above the tug-of-war and slightly below the “X-Games”. You mean to tell me that the worldʼs greatest athletic events should end in a tie more often than not? Are you saying that someone who has no arms can replicate the worldʼs greatest athletic feats? Are the worldʼs greatest contests decided with what amounts to a free-throw contest? Sorry, no. Thatʼs wrong. World, you would be better off pulling for some marijuana-toking rebel riding a wheeled shovel. At least in the “X-Games”, there are a variety of stupid events. In soccer, thereʼs just one, and it sucks. The world is wrong It shouldnʼt come as much surprise to anybody that the world is wrong about soccer. Since when has the worldʼs consensus ever been the right one? The world is wrong about many, many things. The world rarely agrees in elements of genius, but undeniably overindulges in the uglier moments of human life, like ethnic cleansing, war, starvation, and the movie Titanic. The vast majority of world participants indulge in bigotry, religious fervor, and lack of hygiene. It only makes sense that the world should choose as its main form of entertainment a sport with no merit whatsoever. Just donʼt bother asking us to join in. We like our war, bigotry, religious fervor, and lack of hygiene just fine as is. I put it to you, world my friend: do you have any idea how much we Americans think this sport sucks? You probably donʼt. You probably think, “if the Americans just gave it a chance, theyʼd see how wonderful this sport is.” No, no, no, no, no! We hate it! We hate it! We hate it! We hate it! We hate it! We hate it like McCarthy hated Commies. We hate it like Brando hates a crowd. We hate it like Gollum hated Bilbo Baggins. A few of us like it. Many of us donʼt think about it at all. But most of those Americans among us who have given the manner some thought cannot stand the game the way Jerry hates Newman. Let me put it this way: there will, one day, be a woman U.S. president. There will, one day, be a homosexual U.S. president. There will, one day, be a black woman Jewish right-wing homosexual NRA loving U.S. President. But there will never, ever, be a day when soccer is accepted as this countryʼs number one sport. Soccer Sucks by Jim McManus 3 We Americans understand that the world is dying for the United States to embrace soccer. You see, as Americans, we are not only the entertainment, political, and economic captains of this globe; we also produce the worldʼs best athletes and athletic competitions. Anybody who objects to this point can take a long, hard stare at the 20th century; youʼll find very few athletic events that have not been absolutely riddled with American influence. And, not coincidentally, the world has tried very hard to influence the American love of soccer. The world conspired. It gave us Pele (Sorry “Pelé”). Itʼs like the world allowed the Brazilian soccer genius to sign a contract with a floundering soccer league in the United States just so soccer would officially come to our country. Pelé did sign in 1975 to play for the New York Cosmos, and the demons followed. Like spies discovering military secrets, soccer villains infiltrated our country. They gave our children free clinics; they taught them the soccer basics – passing, shooting, and standing around. They coined the term “soccer mom”. They encouraged minivan use. For no known reason, Kyle Rote Jr. became a minor, albeit very minor, celebrity and appeared every once in a while on the bottom of a box of Ding Dongs. Soccer was taking off in the United States. We seemed to love Pelé. So what the hell happened? It has been decades since Pelé first signed that contract and do you know what soccer has to show for itself in the United States? The Womenʼs World Cup, the co-opted phrase “Hockey Mom” and the guy (Andres Cantor) who screams “GOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLL!!!”. The one lasting American soccer memory in history (recent or otherwise) is Brandy Chastain taking her shirt off in the 1999 Womenʼs World Cup. Thatʼs it. Nothing else. There are no corresponding lasting personalities, or goals or saves or passes or great moments in standing around. There is nothing in the game itself that the United States has embraced. Baseball is our national pastime. Itʼs not our favorite sport anymore, but it still is our national pastime. What lasting impressions has baseball made in these decades? Not much, except for, lessee, thereʼs the Hank Aaron record, the domed stadium, the domed stadium with removable roof, the McGwire-Sosa thing, two different sets of Yankee champions, the pine tar game, Ken Griffey, Jr., Bill Buckner, Kirk Gibson with big moments in two different World Series, free agency, the first $1 Million per year contract, the revelation twenty years later that the average contract was over $1 Million per year, two major strikes, stereo sound in every stadium, diamond vision, etc., etc., etc. I could go on for hours and still not hit your personal favorite moment. What long lasting impressions has soccer made in that time? Brandy Chastain taking her shirt off. What a moment for us all. We love soccer. Itʼs pathetic really. 1994 was supposed to be a landmark year for American soccer. The United States hosted the World Cup – soccerʼs one truly important event was going to be hosted by the Americans. The United States is finally going to love this sport. And, you know what? We made great hosts. The violence so often associated with soccer was way down. So were the riots and the patriotic [read: bigoted] language associated with the Soccer Sucks by Jim McManus 4 event. Why? Because we didnʼt care. The World Cup means nothing to Americans as a whole, and so we were quite easily able to treat the event as an event and not a soul- searching identity crisis. To Americans, the World Cup was no greater on the scale of importance than a big monster truck rally, a Hootie & the Blowfish concert, or the grand opening of Mission: Impossible II. Itʼs five years later, and we still donʼt care a lick for this inane waste of time. Itʼs twenty-five years later, and we still donʼt care a lick for this inane waste of time. It will be five hundred years later, and we still wonʼt care a lick for this inane waste of time. The Game Itself Isnʼt the Only Turn-Off Americans arenʼt really keen on soccer fans, either. Thereʼs nothing more pathetic than a player who canʼt seem to remember that itʼs just a game after all. No, no. Iʼm wrong, there is one thing more pathetic: when fans canʼt seem to distinguish between “game” and “something really important”. Look, I want my team to win, but it isnʼt worth some sort of knife-wielding gang brawl. No, it isnʼt. The fact that anyone can die as a result of any game, especially a game you didnʼt even play in, is unthinkable. Why? Why would that happen? In the U.S.-hosted World Cup of 1994, the United States upset Columbia in the qualifying round. A key play in the game came when U.S. forward John Harkes passed a ball deep in the Colombian zone that Colombian defender Andres Escobar slid to block, and accidentally knocked into his own goal. A month later, Escobar was murdered outside a bar in Columbia. The murdererʼs message: “thanks for the autogoal”. Think about that one for a moment: someone was actually murdered because of his poor play in a soccer match... and in Columbia no less. Do you know what Americans think of Columbia? When youʼre not growing coffee, youʼre growing, cutting, and exporting cocaine. But let me understand this as well as I can: your sense of national identity revolves nowhere near the disgusting drug problems associated with your country, but with your ability to compete nationally in a game in which a ball is kicked repeatedly.