Many positive things have been written
recently about the performance of the United States Soccer team at
the current World Cup. While placed in a group of death and given
little chance to move on to the round of sixteen, our men surpassed
our expectations before being eliminated by Belgium. Still we exited
the tournament with only one win along with two losses and a tie
which is about par when compared to our recent World Cup efforts.
Still, this is nothing to be excited about when you compare what our
country has to the other 31 nations in the tournament. In fact, it
raises a number of questions as to why a nation as large and diverse
as ours is unable to become a soccer power after what is now decades
growth in the participation of the sport in our nation.
For starters, how is it a nation
of 316 million citizens is unable to beat national teams whose total
populations often represent what would be large metropolitan areas in
our country? It's too easy to say, “Well those countries love to
play soccer while we play lots of other sports.” With the
exception of Germany and its population of just over 80 million, or
about one fourth that of ours, no other nation in the world has as
many youth participating in organized soccer as we do. And many of
ours are playing on travel teams that play pretty much year round so
it is not as if our kids are distracted with other sports.
Uruguay, a nation of 3.4 million,
was picked by many to go as far as the semi finals and are considered
a disappointment for failing to advance that far. Portugal, a country
of about 10.5 million was suppose to beat the U.S. with ease when we
were unlucky enough to give up a last second goal for a tie, failed
to advance past the opening round. Then there is the European power
The Netherlands, with a population about half of California's making
another world cup semifinal. Both Chile, population 17.7 million, and
Colombia, population 48.3 million, gave host and favorite Brazil,
population 201 million, a run for their money while we were
eliminated by Belgium, population 11.2 million. California, New
York, and Texas alone should be able to find enough soccer talent to
challenge most of the world's top soccer countries and yet in a
nation as large as ours, we are considered underdogs to tiny nations.
The reason is not about numbers
but rather, hunger. American soccer is a middle class sport in which
parents will pour in a lot of their time and money into developing
the skills of boys in part, as a way to keep them off the street and
out of trouble. It has become a largely white sport on the organized
level and is often looked at as safer than football, more action
packed than baseball, and not as “ghetto” as basketball. If a
kid has talent at the club level, he will get noticed and perhaps
land a college scholarship which will make a college education far
more affordable. Rare is the case in which an American family is
willing to pack up and send their kid to another country at the age
of 15 or 16 to be developed by one of the top European club systems
who are always on the look for up coming talent.
While there is a growing central
American population in our country, many of these kids come from
families that lack the means to place their kids on club teams that
travel the country and play in tournaments. They will play in local
recreation leagues and in pick up games and all too often they lack
the academic grades to be eligible to play at the high school level.
Worse, they often identify more with the national team of the country
of their origin than they do with ours. In countries like Costa
Rica, Honduras, Mexico, Ecuador, and many more, they lack the youth
programs we have here so they find their talent on dirt fields,
neighborhood streets, and pick up games. For these kids, a chance to
be placed in a soccer academy, be fed regularly, and play a game as a
way to a life off the streets means more than it does to the average
middle class American kid. In that manner, soccer is to them what
basketball has become for our inner city blacks.
When you are hungry, you work
harder to develop what you have when the opportunity strikes if it
offers you a better life. In the United States, a professional
soccer player just does not make that much money. If you look at an
MLS roster, you will see a large foreign contingent of players who
are happy to make 70 or 80 grand a year playing a game. While that
is a huge salary in most nations, it is barely enough to live a
comfortable life here. It 's less than what LeBron James makes per
game.
You can talk about soccer being
religion in other countries and in many ways it is. Life comes to a
complete halt like it does here for the Super Bowl when European and
South American powers kick off. Officials and players are killed
over results. Stadium violence erupts because the passions run so
deep. Meanwhile, in the United States, our national team plays in
stadiums that are often filled with immigrants from our opponents
countries more than those rooting on the good old USA. We have to go
to great lengths and schedule important matches with local rivals
like Mexico and Costa Rica in more predominantly white areas just to
have an advantage in the fan base.
I remember one World Cup when
Italy failed to advance to the elimination round. Their fans back
home were tossing televisions out their windows and were outraged
over the team's poor performance. They traveled to their airports to
confront them when they flew home in large enough numbers that the
team had to be flown into another country and bused in during the
middle of the night. We, on the other hand, win one of four matches
and our team receives a congratulatory call from the President Obama.
That's the equivalent of giving everyone a trophy so they feel good
about themselves.
But why are our women far more
successful than our men, especially against many of the same
traditional powers? Understand, woman's soccer has not been religion
in most other nations like it has for men. In countries like
Croatia, Ghana, Cameroon, Algeria, Iran, Ecuador, or Nigeria, all
participants in this year's World Cup, women do not have the same
status or opportunities as ours have. They are not encouraged to
develop their soccer skills and in many cases are not even allowed
to. Our women simply do not have to overcome centuries of soccer bred
into their opponent as our men must.
However, in a nation of over 300
million people, we should expect more from our national soccer team
than what we get from our men. We should have hundreds more Landon
Donovans, Curt Dempseys, and Tim Howards fighting and clawing for a
spot on the national team rather than assuming they have one locked
up due to the lack of talent.. The sad fact is, until the sport
becomes far more lucrative inside our country than it is outside it,
we can not expect to see our youth pursue it with the same passion it
is pursued in much smaller, and far more successful countries.
Soccer will be something our guys play until they are ready to move
on to “adulthood” or to “settle down” and not something
pursued by those looking for a better way of life. Simply put, we,
as a nation, lack the hunger for success in a sport where others see
it as a way to end hunger.
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