A Great Game We All Loved As Children

Americans lost something kinda near and sorta dear to our hearts last week – we lost the World Cup. If you listened closely to the din that exuded from living rooms and bars across America as the last seconds of that fateful Belgium game ticked away, you heard 300 million bandwagon fans raise their voices in angry defeat, sigh, shrug their shoulders and then change the channel. We’ll see you again in 2018, soccer.
But but but … “Because Futbol!” FIFA was promoting their sport big time with #hashtags, beer commercials, fast food sponsors and the kind of marketing campaign that perhaps Disney admires. I read somewhere along the way that the U.S. team didn’t expect to win it all this year but they would be happy if they raised Americans’ interest in the sport because, let’s face it, we generally don’t care much for the game outside of this four-year event. Or do we?
Soccer seems to be the one sport that a majority of children play. Probably because they get to run around like the little maniacs they are in pursuit of a ball that is in constant motion. Though the young players know they are supposed to somehow work the ball to their opponent’s side of the field and score a goal, they often get caught up in the wild pursuit and lose track of which way they are supposed to be going. These matches that are played by tomorrow’s athletes are just plain fun; everyone participating seems to be having the time of their lives. But then, a few years later, soccer disappears for them. Some middle and high schools carry the sport and probably some colleges, but by that age it becomes an acquired taste that few find delicious.
Part of the problem we don’t fall in line with the rest of the world here is because we call it something completely different than everybody else. To the soccer-playing world at large, it is futbol or football. We can’t have that! We’ve already got our football here and our football games are often high-scoring feats of manliness (insert Tim, the Tool Man Taylor’s man-chortle here).
Sports are so ridiculous. I am a fan of many but sometimes wonder why. We put so much of our hopes on teams and players and their contests when, in the end, they’re just games. Why not welcome one more into our national fold? What’s it gonna harm? We’d then be right there with the rest of the world who absolutely go nuts for this game. We know we, as a generally non-soccer loving nation, went nuts ourselves for the World Cup right up until it was all over for us last week. After that, how many of us wrote off soccer? I’m willing to bet the answer is many. We’re so fickle, aren’t we?
But then there’s Tim Howard. If you were on the internet at all the day after the U.S. lost to Belgium, and you didn’t know anything about soccer, you might have seen his face everywhere and thought he singlehandedly won the World Cup for America, created a new energy source that makes oil obsolete and founded a civilization of super humans on the moon. Not to detract from his amazing athletic prowess, Howard apparently was quite heroic (if you want to throw that word around) in his goal-tending abilities. If anyone wanted to ignite a soccer revolution in this country, they would need Howard on board as spokesperson. But the revolution would have to be now. Right now. Don’t wait. Americans have no patience for waiting.
As I write this, it is July 3 and our nation’s birthday is tomorrow. In order to retain our interest in soccer, Howard needs to lead the charge and keep the sport in the forefront of our minds. He needs to come out and deliver some brilliant/corny sound bite in an interview that keeps the game in our hearts and rockets it to a new level.
“Soccer is all about colorful explosions and is as American as fireworks and family,” he might say. Boom, there you go. Play that clip over and over and over again and we’ll never forget how much we desperately want to love soccer.
I caught a few games of the World Cup and they were exciting to watch. It is constant action and you become emotionally involved even if you don’t understand it completely. Maybe that’s just human nature – to follow the crowds and the excitement. But where can you go for that soccer fix now and for the next four years? How do we keep that interest fresh without changing the channel? I’m sure there are professional soccer leagues that exist but get zero attention from the media and that’s our own collective fault for having waning interests.
I think the World Cup did reach a new level for us this year, but now that America is out of it, none of us really care anymore. Whoever wins the competition, it won’t be us. Soccer’s just not our thing. We were delusional to think it could be. And we’ll probably be right back at it in 2018. But until then, the devoted fans are probably the rare few who actually play soccer, as adults. They are the ones who appreciate it for what it is: a great game we all loved as children.
Bryon Cahill has a Twitter account @shakabry where he likes to kick the ball around.