Original Post:
Athletics in the United States tends to take on some familiar characteristics these days; play as a youth in any number of sports, not specializing in any. When high school beckons, continue to play the sports you love, but, if you are truly gifted in a particular sport, begin to specialize in that sport, perhaps even to the exclusion of those “other” sports that you participated in as a kid. The idea is to get yourself noticed by college recruiters because we’ve generally taught our children that going to college is an important step on the road of life. The thought is that a free ride in basketball or football will get us to “the Association,” or “the League.” The American media perpetuates this idea, what, with huge television contracts to televise individual sports, the marketing of jerseys and apparel, and the general idol-worshiping attitude that most young people take towards both college and professional athletes.
However, there is one sport that is different. In the United States, the highest participation rates for youth have generally gone to the sport of soccer. And this number keeps growing. If anything, this growth only reinforces the idea that getting to college, and then to the professional ranks is the primary goal for those kids who are superior athletes because if soccer had a high paying, high profile professional league, then it only makes sense that kids would continue to play those sports as much as basketball, hockey and football past high school. But there is no high paying league, so there is no exposure…or is there?
At the end of December there was a large elite soccer tournament held at the Disney complex in Orlando, Florida. The idea behind the Disney Showcase Classic was to take the best high school aged players in the country, (even if they’ve transferred here from overseas), and have them play in games that essentially are a tryout for various college programs around the country. But there were many professional scouts in attendance. Some were from Major League Soccer, while some came from teams that are heavyweights in the English Premier League.
The rest of the world has a love affair with soccer and as such teams take their scouting at least as seriously as an NBA team does here in the States. They’re just looking for something different. See, the rest of the world has this crazy notion that certain kids may not be cut out for the typical college experience. These kids amy also be prodigies on the soccer field. That’s why most high level European teams have long established academies where the best of the best can train and learn the sport while still attending school. The United States has finally caught onto this idea. The US Soccer Federation has established an academy, known as a “residence program,” in Bradenton, Florida where the best American high school players go to get noticed by MLS clubs or clubs from overseas. Before you dismiss this academy as something of a novelty, know that several Minnesota players are currently living at the academy and several more are in line to move there in the next year or so. How successful is this process for Minnesota players? One, Abdus Ibrahim of Richfield, was just selected as the first pick of the second round of the MLS Superdraft by FC Dallas.
The point is the girls and boys playing soccer in Minnesota may finally have an outlet and reason for playing beyond their sophomore year of high school, and a reason for specializing in soccer. As MLS grows and brings in more “name” players like David Beckham, expect the interest in soccer, both in the US and Minnesota to only rise. It only makes sense that as interest goes up, so do the opportunities for those players who can go on and play at the next level…even if that means they don’t go to college.
42 Reader Comments
4:19 pm
Soccer is almost as boring as hockey.
4:23 pm
Hockey has never precipitated a war.
4:26 pm
Linkless 1000 word posts?
4:27 pm
soccer’s been the next big thing in america for what, 40 years now?
4:33 pm
Soccer will become a big sport in America about the same time we switch to the metric system.
4:36 pm
just pick up the damn ball already
4:40 pm
What we really need in this country is Aussie rules football. That sport is nuts.
4:42 pm
Kids play soccer because no one strikes out. That’s why parents love it.
It’s the perfect collectivist sport. And you can walk when you get tired.
4:46 pm
I always love how any soccer discussion basically devolves into Americans don’t like it and the rest of the world are idiots.
That said…”Chicks dig the long ball.”
4:46 pm
“Kids play soccer because no one strikes out. That’s why parents love it.
It’s the perfect collectivist sport. And you can walk when you get tired.“
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My daughter plays in several different leagues at different times of the year. Right now is indoor season, played in a rink-like facility. It’s incredibly fast, you play off the walls, and the games are high-scoring. And, damn, are these girls ever good! Ball handling skills I can hardly believe. The games are scheduled basically all day throughout the weekends, rotating hundreds of kids though the multi-field domed facility in a southern burb. In the summer, head out to Eden Prairie at the airport fields and watch the 40 – yeah, forty – soccer fields going every weekday evening, and all day Sat and Sun.
Walk when you get tired? Yeah, if you want your butt kicked. Collectivist? Yeah, just like those collectivist pansies in the NFL. Soccer scholarships are huge for kids right now, and you don’t get those for team play – it’s for individual performance.
But, yeah, it’s not a true sport, like, say, (yawn) baseball.
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4:46 pm
Kids play soccer because no one strikes out.
Never thought of it that way, but it’s true. And pretty much anyone can play because it’s such a simple game. No need to learn technique or subtleties. Just kick it as far as you can.
4:47 pm
Jigga-what? Nobody strikes out in football. Or wrestling. Or hockey.
4:50 pm
No need to learn technique or subtleties. Just kick it as far as you can.
Your sister’s gonna kick your ass as far as she can.
4:57 pm
Klosterman has the best take on soccer out there. Check out Cocoa Puffs, in which he writes:
“To say you love soccer is to say you believe in enforced equality more than you believe in the value of competion and the capacity of the human spirit. I would sooner have my kid deal crystal meth than play soccer.”
5:02 pm
So that’s chuck. Here’s my take. I love the world cup for all the same reasons I love our American sports. Great athleticism, competition, drama, and gambling opportunities. Who cares if America sucks at soccer? Our best athletes play football, baseball, and basketball (and Tom, I’m not talking about the ladies–who cares about female soccer, or female basketball. Don’t bore us with the supportive daddy shit). Frankly, I don’t see anything wrong with our best athletes playing Our Sports (if anything, I’m concerned that our best athletes aren’t playing enough baseball). I mean, why do we have to have soccer forced down our throats?
5:04 pm
Does he then give a recipe for meth?
5:11 pm
The pundits are right when they say: “Soccer is the Metric system in short pants.” It’s true that soccer was the up-and-coming thing for decades, but the powder keg of American interest in soccer has long since fallen apart, with its contents scattered.
5:13 pm
And hasn’t Giovanni ever heard of the minors? Go back to Italy, you America hater.
5:14 pm
I thought it was spelled thoccer. And per Bobby B’s example, I’m seeing Eden Prairie as some sort of factory farm for growing white children.
5:25 pm
“I thought it was spelled thoccer. And per Bobby B’s example, I’m seeing Eden Prairie as some sort of factory farm for growing white children.”
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Rich white children, for whom you will spend the rest of your life working.
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5:26 pm
I always love how any soccer discussion basically devolves into Americans don’t like it and the rest of the world are idiots.
That said…”Chicks dig the long ball.”
»» Submitted by »»» TBartel at 3:46 PM on January 22
True enough. And for a unparalleled example, check out the one played to me, Dennis Bergkamp, in a 1998 World Cup match against Argentina: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ESl0-qZxlik.
Now THAT’S a long ball, played to me by a player NOT on steroids.
5:31 pm
bobby…whatever…fact of the matter is that your kids & my kids are going to be working for rich Chinese children.
5:43 pm
If 9 year-old girls do it, it’s not a sport. It’s a game.
5:47 pm
It’s the perfect collectivist sport. And you can walk when you get tired.
Sounds like baseball.
The thing about the conventional wisdom displayed by some commenters is that it’s so conventional but hardly wise.
The World Cup final this year drew more viewers than any game of the NBA finals and more than all but 1 game of the last 2 World Series. What hurts soccer in America is that its audience is so fragmented: the Mexicans want to watch the Mexican league, the British ex-pats want to watch the English league, the Italians want to watch Serie A, etc.
And the idea of soccer being a ‘collectivist’ or ‘enforced equality’ (i.e. ‘communist’) endeavor is ridiculous (and if you’re getting your talking points from Chuck freaking Klosterman, you need as much help as if you were taking them from Tony Kornheiser). It’s a much greater meritocracy than US sports are, because if you finish near the bottom you get demoted to the next division down. So, to use an example from the NFL, this year the Lions and Raiders would be saying “Hello, Arena League.”
5:52 pm
Hockey never ended a war.
6:00 pm
Kids play soccer because no one strikes out. That’s why parents love it.
Another reason for parents to love it is that it’s cheap. What do you have to buy? A ball, sneakers and some shinguards. No expensive equipment or ice time to pay for. If my son can’t make up his mind which sport to go out for I know which one I”ll nudge him towards.
6:05 pm
Sneakers and shinguards? Come on down to Powderhorn Park in the summer. These guys play in cowboy boots, barefoot, Redwings, or whatever they’ve got on.
It’s a popular game because all you need is a ball, someone to kick it, and someone to try to keep you from doing so.
6:26 pm
soccer is a beautiful game. unfortunately, some people don’t have the attention span required to watch two 45 minutes halves without any break. the advertisers (and therefore the broadcasters) don’t like it because they can’t sell the usual ad spots in between time outs, fouls, downs, or whatever.
man, the arsenal vs man u match this sunday was sooo good!
6:47 pm
Soccer will only get so big because of the way it’s marketed.
It’s supposed to be a “family sport.” Well, the big spenders (lets say the top 10 to 15 percent), are mostly males who buy the magazines, season tickets, jerseys and cable subscritpions do so to get away from the family.
Kids will play soccer until they graduate. Then they’ll be sucked into the maw of professional football fandom, which will make them fans for life by creating a spectacle unsurpassed in big time sports.
Besides, soccer’s unwatchable. That doesn’t help.
6:51 pm
funny, the same people who deride soccer as being boring will spend over 3 hours in front of the tube watching a football game that has a total of about 8 minutes ( if that much) of actual action.
johnjohn – you ain’t lying. henry’s header during stoppage time was as dramatic as it gets.
6:57 pm
Me, I’m a cricket man. We’ll see what happens if Pakistani coach (and Native South African) Bob Woolmer is brought on to coach the English team. They need to do something after the Ashes disaster.
6:57 pm
Frank Rich on pro football:
“Again as in the (Janet) Jackson case, we are also asked to believe that pro football is what Pat Buchanan calls “the family entertainment, the family sports show” rather than what it actually is: a Boschian jamboree of bumping-and-grinding cheerleaders, erectile-dysfunction pageantry and, as Don Imus puts it, “wife-beating drug addicts slamming the hell out of each other” on the field.”
7:57 pm
WOW!!! Please tell me that what the comcast lady just told me is not true…that as of feb. they are no longer affiliated with Comcast so they wont honor the 19.99 — I think we need another thread about this…Right after I got a bill from COmcast for 44.83!!!
8:12 pm
i have to agree with johnjohn about the advertising issue – football is made for tv and sells ads for the networks.
I think soccer finds it difficult to attract TV sponsors.
Maybe pro soccer will catch on when all the kids playing now come of age.
9:35 pm
“soccer is a beautiful game. unfortunately, some people don’t have the attention span required to watch two 45 minutes halves without any break. the advertisers (and therefore the broadcasters) don’t like it because they can’t sell the usual ad spots in between time outs, fouls, downs, or whatever.“
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Amen. “Sports” television in America is geared towards the Spectacle and the Pageantry – i.e., spectation – and the beer and chips on the couch. I’d guess that soccer fans are far more likely to be in shape and participate in some sport activity themselves than football or baseball fans.
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9:55 pm
Just like soccer itself, that original post was way too long with no more than two exciting points.
10:07 pm
Zing!
11:38 pm
My hockey mom can kick your soccer mom’s ass.
11:45 pm
Just cuz soccer has been fun for little kids to play for the past 30 years doesn’t mean adults like to watch it.
Soccer: Sport of the future!
9:13 am
One word will make soccer popular in America.
Hooligans!
The soccer games I have went to are all FAMILY entertainment. No one wants family entertainment and you will never be able to charge top dollar for those mid field seats when its family entertainment.
People want drunk people beating up on each other and fights in the stands. That’s what makes sports popular not little Bobby and Susie coming to the games with their Sateen Burnsville Fire jerseys over a long sleeve t-shirt to keep them warm.
12:21 pm
For a bunch of people who had a whole ‘nother conversation about how much they don’t like sports, there are quite some nuanced views expressed here.
The average attendance for MLS was 15,500/game last year. That’s a lot.
I’m seeing Eden Prairie as some sort of factory farm for growing white children.
Heh.
1:06 am
My hockey mom can kick your soccer mom’s ass.
True that.