People often raise the question of why Americans do not appreciate soccer, the world’s most popular sport. It is as if when it comes to soccer there is the entire planet Earth in one side of the argument, and then there the U.S., alone, in the other. Some blame it on the media (not enough coverage), others blame it on the players (not strong enough technically), and others blame the fans (they think the sport is too boring or trivial). I think of all these excuses are symptoms, and not explanations, of the issue. In my opinion, American culture is too orderly for soccer. Soccer is an emotional, irrational game. Let us take a look at American football, in contrast. At first, the game may seem like a very physical battle of blocking and tackling, right? An image that many people associate with American football is a pile of big guys on top of each other with an oval ball buried somewhere underneath them. Another one is players running in opposite directions and crashing into each other at full force. Nevertheless, anybody who understands American football will agree that it is a mental game above all. It is all about strategy, numbers, and math. At any given point during an American football game, someone is calculating something – number of yards to go, the odds of completing the pass before the fourth down, how the scores will line up if the team goes for the two-point conversion after touchdown, whether to attempt the three-point field goal or to punt. In American football, for four quarters of fifteen minutes each, coaches, players, and the fans are united in this virtual algebra class. In a soccer game, there is no calculation of any kind. Even a toddler can tell who is winning by looking at the scoreboard. One is more than zero, two is more than one – no math required. Fans watch as the clock runs down and the one thing going on in their heads is will they score or will they not score before the ref calls the final whistle. When that is all that is required from your brain to process, you fill up the rest of the space with your heart. (Neuroscientists: I know, I mean it metaphorically). My heart learned how to be a soccer fan as a child. My earliest memory of a World Cup is from 1986, when I was nine years old and Brazil was playing under the leadership of head coach Telê Santana with legendary players like Falcão, Zico, Sócrates, Müller, Casagrande, and Leão; to name a few. The national team was lovingly dubbed “Seleção Canarinho”, a reference to their yellow jerseys, and to this day I can still sing the lyrics of the songs they played on T.V. during the tournament: “Noventa milhões em ação / Pra frente Brasil, no meu coração / Todos juntos, vamos pra frente Brasil / Salve a seleção!!!”. I get chills from head to toes as I type those words. They say that the hearts of ninety million people (roughly the size of the population of the country back then) are in action together with the national team taking Brazil forward towards the championship. Brazil had a great team that year; arguably, they were the best there ever was. But they did not win – in fact, they lost to France, on penalty kicks, in the quarter-finals round. Yet, the memory I have of that World Cup is not of our defeat. What I remember is running up and down the sidewalks of my neighborhood, wearing the yellow jersey and waving the Brazilian flag in my hands, while this song was blasting from loudspeakers all over town. What I remember is the pride. Fast forward to 1994. I was in my first year of college by then, and Brazil won the title beating Italy 3-2 in penalties after finishing a very tense match at 0-0 in regular time. This was the country’s fourth World Cup title, but it was my first. Their last time winning the “Jules Rimet” trophy had been in 1970, before I was born. The closest I have ever been of having a heart attack was watching that match, and I will never forget what it felt like when Roberto Baggio missed that penalty kick for Italy and got down on his knees crying, realizing he had just kicked the “Copa” to Brazil (pun intended). I lost my voice that night and had bleeding calluses in my hands from playing the drums in a local parade. I had a crush on goalkeeper Taffarel for years. So what would it take for Americans to love soccer as the rest of the world does? I mean not just appreciate or enjoy the sport … to love it with all of their flesh, be prepared to give their blood for it as the rest of us do? Some would say that the US would have to win a World Cup by defeating soccer legends like Italy, Germany, Argentina, France and of course five-times world champion Brazil in a series of epic battles. Others would say that the game should reconsider its rules, allowing for more scoring and making it more attractive to the American public. They are missing the point. What it would take cannot be explained. It is not rational. We are talking about soccer. Hundreds of years of a country’s culture cannot be wiped out and replaced, and the collective childhood memory of America is throwing an American football with daddy in the yard, getting your first baseball glove for Christmas, or eating a hotdog at a ball game in a hot summer day. That is why Americans do not care for soccer and why the rest of the world does not care for American football or baseball (and why nobody will ever protest that the U.S. gets to call their national baseball league championship the “World Series” even though there is only one country competing in it). My verdict, after spending two-thirds of my life in Brazil and one-third of it in the U.S., is that soccer fever will never catch in the Americans. Not because the players are not good enough, or because the scoring system is not appealing, or because the media does not show enough games. This is not what it takes. It takes ninety million people and their hearts in action.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 01:25:55 +0000
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