Living in the United States for more than 20 years now, notice how Americans only manage to care for soccer every four years. That is because the world cup comes around that often. Americans don’t go crazy for it like the whole world does, but they do manage to give it a little bit of credit. According to an article from statesman.com, the world cup ratings went up 41% in 2010 from the 2006 world cup. This may happen because the U.S. doesn’t really care about sports in which they are not number one, and according to critics, in soccer they are far from it. The world cup gives them a chance to be world champions, but so far that has not happened. This is a major setback for the growth of the sport in this country.
I wanted to talk to an American who is actually as passionate, or even more passionate about soccer than me. That is why I contacted Ian Mcdougall. Ian was one of my soccer coaches back in high school and when I first met him I knew we had that in common. Today, the Seattle, Washington native is the Varsity girls’ soccer team coach at San Luis High School. One of the questions I asked him was how is it to live in San Luis, Arizona, a place where people only care about soccer due to its high Mexican population? “As a soccer lover myself, it’s been fantastic”, he said. “When I was back in Seattle it was hard for me to share my love for soccer with other because people only care about football, baseball and basketball. Here in San Luis, soccer is the sport of the people and I really enjoy that. I enjoy playing and watching others play the sport I really love”. When talking to Mcdougall we got to a subject that seemed to trouble him, why do you feel that the United States as a whole does not care for soccer? “That’s a hard question, a question that I also ask myself”, he said. “I don’t understand why the most popular sport in the world is not the most popular one in the United States. People prefer to watch the violence that is in football for example, instead of sitting down and watching a game of soccer. I also believe that they don’t care for it because the United States Men’s national team is not one of the best teams in the world. Here in the U.S. people care more about women’s soccer that men’s soccer because the women’s team is always a championship contender at the world cup, while the men’s team struggles to make it past the group stage every four years.
Europe has the most competitive soccer in the world. The dream from players all over the world is to make it big in their country’s league and then get a call from a European club that is interested in him. The top three leagues in the world are the Premiere League in England, La Liga in Spain, and Serie A in Italy. These three leagues have the top 50 players in the world, which makes them the most competitive ones. The United States has tried to bring these players to their league, but these players prefer to stay in Europe because the level in North American can’t even be compared to the one in Europe. The U.S. did manage to land David Beckham in an effort to raise the popularity of the sport in the country, but that has not worked out as they intended. Beckham came to the U.S. with his best years behind him and was only able to win one championship so far in the league.
In the soccer world, it is said that a country’s national team is a reflection of their league. This is the case with the U.S.: Major League Soccer, or MLS, had it first season in 1996 and it started out with only 10 teams. The idea for MLS came as an idea in 1993 for the world cup the U.S. was hosting in 1994. MLS is very unique because it is the only league in the world that starts in March and ends in November, while the rest of the world starts playing in August and end in May. They have to let their best players go in the middle of the season because during the summer they play with their nationals teams. This makes it hard for the league to increase its quality because they are missing their best players for a couple months. Despite everything I just said, this past season MLS had a better average in attendance than the NBA. This means that Americans are starting to look at soccer as the 4th most popular sport in the country behind football,baseball and basketball.
Jake is 19 years old and is a member of the Pima soccer team. I wanted to talk to him because he is around my age and I wanted the perspective of someone like me, only American. “When did you start playing soccer?” I asked, “I started playing when I was around 6 years old.” Jake said, “My parents took me to play when I was very young and I was hooked. I like the adrenaline and the fact that it is such a diverse sport.” I also asked Jake how it felt to play a sport that is not as popular as football or baseball. “I loved it and always have loved it, but my friends looked at me as some kind of outcast because I did not play what they played, football. There were still my friends and I they loved me, but they always tried to convince to play football with them, but I never really liked it. I’m thankful that I stayed with soccer and now I have a scholarship with Pima.” Jake said.
After writing this paper I can conclude that soccer is growing in the country, but it is growing at an extremely slow rate. Something needs to be done about this and from the looks of it the U.S. Men’s team need to try to win a world cup or at least be a decent contender in the next one. The rest of the world goes crazy for soccer, will the U.S. ever be like that?
