The FIFA World Cup Soccer tournament has gotten underway in Brazil and it is storming the United States, but not in the way you might think.
Television ads aplenty, scores of restaurants and business concerns touting the "big event," and lots of products are being sold which make reference in some way to the soccer cup games, a sport that is undeniably the most popular one in the world. However, it is not the most popular sport in the United States, especially in terms of the professional level.
The televised part of the World Cup drew almost 10 million viewers in the U.S., a record number in the country and a statistic that has some soccer enthusiasts ecstatic. However, when you factor in that there are over 300 million Americans, while a significant number are watching, it is hardly an overwhelming signal that world cup soccer has "arrived" in America.
Over 100 million folks watch NFL football in the U.S. and close to 80 million watch Major League baseball. A lot of American children do play soccer in the many and varied youth leagues. On the high school level, more than a million high school athletes participate in American football with 600,000 running track while about 550,000 play basketball. High school soccer players number about 400,000, not an insignificant number. Americans do play soccer.
Of course, the only people who call the sport "soccer" are the Americans as everybody else on the planet calls it "football."
Football in our native land means helmets, pads, striped fields, touchdowns, first downs and the like. While we call our main sport football, the ball mostly comes in contact with the players' hands. However, calling it handball would be even more confusing as there is another sport that goes by that name.
A lot of folks have done research into the origins of the sport we call soccer. The Chinese played a soccer-like game called Tsuchu with a leather ball that was kicked into a net suspended in the air. The Greeks had a soccer like game called Episkyros while the Romans developed their own soccer like game they called Harpastum. In each instance, the sport involved a leather ball moved by the players' feet. American Indians played Pahserman while the original Australians played Marn Grook, both involving kicking a ball up and down a field.
There is a bit of evidence that the present day sport got started in Great Britain when the natives ran the Norman invaders out of the country sometime after 1100 A.D. The story went that the Normans that were killed or captured were beheaded with the their heads used to kick around a field. When the heads, shall we say "wore out," someone got the idea of using an inflated cow's bladder instead, and so the game went on.
We know for a fact that present day FIFA soccer did get it start in Great Britain in the 1700s. Soccer rules were drawn up for public schools of the time, using a rectangular field, goals on each end with goalkeepers and basic playing rules being codified. Finally in 1863, the Football Association was formed, forging one accepted sets of soccer rules that became the basis of what we have today.
The first soccer/football cup championship game was held in 1875, with Denmark, Belgium and Switzerland adopting the sport by 1880. By 1900, most European countries were playing the sport. FIFA was formed in 1904 and the first ever World Cup was then played in 1930, with nearly the whole world raptly participating -- except the United States.
Now the U.S. has been playing soccer for a long time and we have had a national team for a long time, but we have never been particularly good at it on the world stage. I have read sporting articles bemoaning the lack of U.S. success in world competition, and I agreed with the belief contained therein that the athletic talent exists within our borders to develop a great team. However, as it has always been in the past and likely into the distant future, the top American athletic talents will continue to be drawn to football, basketball, baseball, track and a myriad other sports. While a great many American youths play the sport in elementary school, most don't continue beyond those years.
The United States will not win the 2014 World Cup, and probably won't survive the first round. On the list of athletic things I care about, it ranks about -- well it doesn't rank at all. I know that the world places great stock in that particular sport but America hasn't had a history of being a "me, too" country, so if the U.S. wins or doesn't, comparatively speaking, few will be concerned.
Don't get me wrong. I am for any sport that gets children outside, playing and getting some exercise. For the past few years, athletic participation for our nation's general youth has been declining. Some blame the social media, children being too busy to commit to a sport or the tendency for more and more children to just stay indoors. Whatever the reason, anything that gets children outside and strengthening their bodies is a good thing.
World Cup soccer? Not for me. I listened to a post-game soccer report once, following a 1-0 victory by some team. The announcer was waxing ecstatic over the many number of times a team almost scored -- almost scored. I took from that experience that an important soccer stat is the number of shots at the goal. I know in baseball, football and basketball, almost scoring is not something to be particularly proud of. Maybe I am missing something here.
World Cup soccer has been a great money maker for those that direct it. It's no secret that they covet the United States becoming like the other countries as they would provide a huge market for their product. I hope they don't bet the farm on it.
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Editor's note: John McGee is an award-winning columnist and sports writer. He is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Editorial on 06/18/2014