and the u.s. goes home to a country that really doesn’t understand why they were there in the first place. maybe it was the time of day, a match that started at 7am est, as that is the temporal pitfall of a sport played on the other side of the planet. but let’s face it, the world cup is either a curious mystery or a laughable curiosity to the american public. you will never hear anyone call into an afternoon sports-talk radio program to discuss soccer. if anyone tried, they’d be summarily insulted and dropped like a prank caller. or maybe we all think that there are enough sports to worry about without lumping in yet another. but what do we have? there’s baseball, the all-american sport invented by abner doubleday (or alexander cartwright), though it could be said that dear abby (or alexi) just adapted cricket to more wide open spaces. there’s basketball, another all-american sport created by james naismith, though it must be noted that naismith was actually canadian. and, of course, there is american football as orchestrated and fathered by walter camp (he even wrote the book on the subject). but these sports, as popular as they are in the united states, are rarely played outside of this country. and soccer? well, soccer is played everywhere. and it comes down to one simple thing: economics.
what do you need to play baseball, even a neighborhood pickup game? a ball, a bat, some gloves. sure, you can play with any stick and a rock, but it’s not the same. what about basketball? a larger ball, a hoop (with a net, preferrably), a hard surface. it was originally played with an actual basket, but times have certainly changed. and football? an odd oblong ball, goal posts, helmets, padding, cleats and a lot of room. you can get by with just the ball, but that’s not really football. it’s touch football, no tackles involved, unless you’re just wanting to get hurt.
soccer… soccer just requires one ball. sure, there are nets and large pitches (that’s fields to you and me) and referees and yellow cards and red cards and umbros and cleats and shiny jerseys, but it all comes down to the ball. if you have the ball, you can learn soccer, you can play soccer. with a rock and a stick, you are playing stickball, a low-grade shadow of an actual game. not so with soccer, not once you have that ball. this accessibility allows soccer to transcend economic levels and cultural barriers.
had the united states remained viable in the world cup, perhaps this country could have changed its collective mind about that curious game that so excites the rest of the world. but now the team is going home and the local radio jocks won’t be mentioning a thing about the remainder of the competition, i won’t come into the office to find the breakroom television turned to espn2 and the idea of professional soccer’s acceptance in this country will go back to the shelf.
