World Cup: Americans Are Simpletons

So goes the usual assertion charged towards Americans (and North Americans really) who don't like soccer.

It's a popular saying every World Cup.

Now, I don't share in the view that soccer is nothing "but a bunch of divers playing a boring game walking around for 90 minutes." If someone played the game they'd see first hand how physically demanding it is and that tactics do exist. The pace and pulse of soccer is sophisticated and palpitating at the same time.

However, I don't think the fact some Americans don't like the game stems from a simpleton outlook. America is a place where baseball and football has captured the the public's sports psyche for over 100 years. And last I checked baseball and football are far more complex than soccer.

I think what irritates Americans is not the game itself but the surrounding parts. They have a hard time with the concept of a tie or draw playing a prominent role. How time is kept may also be another irritant. A clock would be more practical than leaving in the hands of one ref acting as an arbitrary time keeper - for extra-added time anyway. The cynical diving and play acting don't help - even if it's a ploy to waste time. Just put in a clock and stop time to weed it out, no? I agree with this by the way. Substituting players with 30 seconds left (that one has always made me laugh and I play the game) also leaves some befuddled.

To a newcomer or casual observer, all the games look alike. Differentiating the strategies of each team is hard to detect unless you follow the game. It's much like trying to understand pitching in baseball. To a person who hates baseball, all pitching looks the same. They don't consider a pitcher's style, what he has in his pitching arsenal, the mechanics and pyhsics of his release, what pitches he relies on in different situations and for batters etc. Soccer is similar.


The game isn't perfect. In fact, it's intent on clinging on to old traditions of a time long since gone refusing to modernize in spots where it can benefit - like replay. It's the stupidest thing that the Americans have to accept an incompetent ref's decision to disallow a goal as was the case in a 2-2 draw with Slovenia. On that front, I dismiss it's "part of the game" crap. When people had no access to replay and the internet, they could only take the printed words of a reporter to deliver the truth. The controversies at the 1954, 1962 and 1966 World Cups have stayed in the collective memories of contemporaries. The stories passed on orally or by print for posterity. These days they're immortalized on youtube and blogs.

Today, we all have access to everything instantly. It's absurd to know truth while a sport wallows in ignorance under the guise of being true to itself. Baseball wallows in the same pointless delusion, slaves to a romantic view of a mythical image of its history.

Americans may have their reasons to not jump on the soccer bandwagon, but claiming it's because they're simpletons is a simplistic statement to make.