The World Cup

The World Cup final soccer game was played today. Italy won. France lost and America yawned.

While listening to the Drudge Report radio program this evening your faithful correspondent (and others) was treated to a tirade about how the US was out of it by not paying attention to the game. Various accusations were leveled: ignorance, lack of attention span, ignorance again and chauvinism.

Yours truly was in church during the game worshipping something other than a soccer ball, but even if he hadn't been he would have been searching for a baseball game, lacrosse game or golf tourney.

The fact of the matter is that Americans, generally, do not care for soccer. For thirty years I have heard the predictions of soccer promoters that Americans will embrace soccer because so many of their kids play soccer. It hasn't happened yet. Even when the United States women's soccer team won two World Cups the reaction in the US was five minutes of jubilation and then the question, "Are the Sox playing today?" ... Americans like soccer as a kid's game. They don't much care for it as a sport for adults. Soccer is seen as rather effete when men play it. Part of the reason is because since about 1965 the game has emphasized defense. Americans are about offense and aggression in sports. If soccer were played as it was in England in 1959 Americans might take to the game. But it isn't.

Now one watches soccer and sees a bunch of grass divers. Men fall down claiming injuries when no one has been near them to injure them. A football player prides himself on the albility to play hurt. A baseball player gets hit by a ball and keeps playing. But a soccer player has an opposing player come within five feet of him, falls down, grabs his leg and retires to the sidelines as an injured player only to go back onto the field as spunky as he was at the start of the game. Soccer players are actors. Americans like to separate acting from sports.

So it can be said that Americans are chauvinistic about their sports. But the have good reason. They have better sports to watch.