Soccer, an Un-American Sport?

Landon Donovan, man of the matchLandon Donovan, man of the match       

Sports Saturday

Years ago I read (I think in The Washington Post) a humorous article about why Americans are not great soccer enthusiasts.  The article said that Americans have problems with a game where a two-goal lead is practically insurmountable.

Robert Frost would have something to say about that.  I’ll get to him shortly.

I remember the article saying something to the effect of “America is the land of the free because you can use your hands and come from behind.”

Whatever Americans think, the American team this year has made a specialty of coming from behind.  The most spectacular instance was yesterday’s 2-2 tie with Slovenia in the World Cup tournament after trailing by  two goals.  In fact, if a controversial disallowed third goal had counted, the U.S.  would have been the first country ever in World Cup competition to recover from a two-game deficit to win.


In any event, the U.S.-Slovenia match was the highlight of the 2010 tournament so far. While I was rooting for the United States, I liked the outcome from one perspective because I spent two years in Slovenia as a Fulbright scholar and am in love with that country.  As a result of the tie, both countries hold their futures in their hands.  If the U.S. beats Algeria and Slovenia beats England, they both advance. 

There are certain American rituals that are replayed every four years in conjunction with the World Cup.  One of them is to write articles exploring why Americans are not more enthusiastic about soccer, even though more Americans play it than any other sport.  Participating in a youth recreation soccer league is practically a required initiation rite for every American boy and girl.  Most, however, lose interest as they grow older.

There is one particularly funny exchange between conservative columnist David Brooks and liberal columnist Gail Collins in the New York Times Thursday  on the lack of U.S. passion.  Looking for explanations, Brooks thinks that Americans don’t like soccer’s tragic vision:

Soccer is a sport perfectly designed to reinforce a tragic view of the universe, because basically it is a long series of frustrations leading up to near certain heartbreak.

He also points out (maybe with Switzerland’s stunning upset of highly favored Spain in mind), that soccer also teaches us that life is unfair:

Because goals are so scarce, it is possible for a team to be outplayed for 89 minutes and yet still score one fluke goal and win the game. Superior performance often does not translate into victory.

Collins responds,

I lived through eight years of George W. Bush. I don’t need a game to remind me that superior performance is not always the key to success. 

But she then goes on to second Brooks’ point.  Americans, she says, always want more whereas soccer seems to be about less:

How can you be so excited about soccer when the Celtics and the Lakers are going to Game Seven? True, it’s a little weird that basketball is still going on in the middle of June, but that’s what Americans like in their entertainment. Too much. Americans could never get into a sport that had its World Series every four years. We not only want one every year, we want it to last until it’s time for the next season to start.

I think these two are on to something.  When I look at American sports, it seems like we require lots of scoring.  It is not unusual for two basketball teams each to score over 100 points in a game.  We have made it easier to score touchdowns in football, emphasizing passing over running and doing more to protect receivers.  In baseball, when scoring was down in the 1960’s, we lowered the pitching mound, and the American League doesn’t require pitchers to bat since they seldom get hits.  Baseball teams also regularly remodel their stadiums, drawing the outfield fences in to encourage more homeruns.

Soccer, by contrast, is an exercise in continual frustration.  Only the truly great teams and great players score regularly, and on any given night all their shots may bounce off posts while their opponent scores a lucky goal.  Forget about rags-to-riches, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps, it’s-never-over-til-it’s-over, I-am-the-master-of-my-fate-I-am-the-captain-of-my-soul, never-say-die, you-can-do-it-if-you-really-want American dreaming.  Soccer seems positively un-American.

Which is why I find interesting a Robert Frost poem that seems to capture the essence of soccer.  “The Oven Bird” talks about an animal that comes into its own in the dog days of summer rather than the glorious days of spring:

There is a singer everyone has heard,
Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,
Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.
He says that leaves are old and that for flowers
Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.
He says the early petal-fall is past
When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers
On sunny days a moment overcast;
And comes that other fall we name the fall.
He says the highway dust is over all.
The bird would cease and be as other birds
But that he knows in singing not to sing.
The question that he frames in all but words
Is what to make of a diminished thing.

In Frost’s contest, it’s

Spring Flowers 10, Midsummer Flowers 1 

And continuing along this vein:

Cherry blossoms 10, Old Leaves 1
Song of other birds 10, Oven Bird’s song 1

So Spring kicks Mid-summer’s butt, as Frost sees it.  And yet, that means that spring isn’t very good at handling life when it is diminished.  And this, I think, is Brooks’ point about soccer.

The U.S. often gets in trouble when we think that life is always spring and that everything is possible.  We think that democracy can be established (and fairly quickly) in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan.  We think that we don’t need to cut back on energy, just find ways to produce more of it.  We think that each generation will be wealthier and more successful than the previous one.  We think that we will be happier when more and more goals, homeruns, baskets, etc. are scored.

Frost understood, and was suspicious of, this American mindset. In his best-known poem, as I have discussed in a previous post, he at first gives us the impression that he is celebrating “I did it my way” individuality and initiative.  But he then reveals (as we examine “The Road Not Taken” more closely) that this is a myth, perhaps even a lie, that we make up about ourselves.  The poem is really saying that, sometime in the future, I will tell myself that I took the road less traveled by, even though (looking back at the actual facts of the case) I really didn’t.

Frost is the other side of American optimism, the side of ourselves that questions our grandiose claims.  As a result, he is better situated to handle disappointment and defeat.  If America’s days of world dominance are over, maybe we will come to appreciate better the world’s most popular game.  The question soccer frames in all but words is what to make of a nil-nil existence.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.

2 Comments

  1. WordPress › Error

    There has been a critical error on this website.

    Learn more about troubleshooting WordPress.