How the U.S. learned to love soccer

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USA fans in Chicago watch their team's World Cup game against Portugal.As an England football fan, I’m well used to the national mood swings that ebb and flow with the fortunes of my country’s team at major tournaments. For a youthful supporter in 1990 and 1996, glorious semi-final runs have defined my recollections of those entire summers.

Equally, the catastrophic capitulation to Germany in 2010 and numerous penalty shootout fiascos are recalled much less fondly.

Either way, something I had usually taken for granted was that every few years I could expect the England team to compete on a major international stage and - for a few weeks - it felt like the whole country was in it together.

Win or lose and whether the failure was triumphant or abject, there was always something comforting about the collective, patriotic experience.

Having moved to the United States a couple of years ago, it quickly struck me that American sports fans have never experienced anything like it.

This is a hugely sporty country. Roughly 120 million people tune in for the Superbowl every February, the baseball and basketball seasons seemingly never end, there’s a rabid obsession with collegiate sports and all of the above are pervasive in everyday popular culture.

But rarely, if ever, does America unite to cheer on a collective team against the rest of the world.

The basketball and ice hockey squads sent to the Olympics every other year hardly get the collective pulses racing and we all know that baseball’s World Series is the biggest misnomer in all of sport.

Most American sports fans would choose their own provincial teams over the country as a whole.

But since 1986, there has been the opportunity to emotionally invest in something bigger.

Their football players, the ‘soccer’ team or the US men’s national team (USMNT) has qualified for the World Cup every four years. The trouble was, nobody noticed. Soccer was hitherto seen as a high-school game for girls and the butt of smug anchor jokes on ESPN’s nightly flagship show ‘SportsCenter.’

Historically, it’s been a hard game for Americans to embrace. There’s not enough scoring and there’s not always a winner. Even in meaningless baseball, basketball and hockey games they’ll play all night until one of the teams emerges victorious.

In almost every other country, the quarterfinal run of 2002 would have made national news, but here - barely anyone noticed. And the few Americans who did care were mocked internally for their ridiculous exuberance and for what was perceived as a limited and or geeky knowledge of the game and its history.

In 2010, the satirical publication ‘The Onion’ mocked the country’s ‘lone soccer fan’, whose ‘World Cup fever’ was becoming ‘insufferable’ to his colleagues at work. The message was pretty clear - anyone eschewing American football, baseball or basketball for soccer was an outsider, a loser.

And this year, with a cult following of more than 350,000 on Twitter, there is @USASoccerGuy who account provides a running commentary of the tournament, lampooning the Americanization of football with phrases like ‘headkicks’ (headers), ‘death strikes’ (penalties) and ‘felony cards’ whenever a player is booked or sent off.

However, there is growing evidence that those stereotypes may not be quite as accurate as they used to be.

There is little doubt that, across the land, the U.S. is finally being seduced by soccer’s charms. NBC’s successful first season of covering England’s Premier League - (with the right package, every match can be watched live here - is validation of the burgeoning interest.

Anecdotally, I’ve been pleasantly surprised to make many new acquaintances, who rank soccer as their favourite sport.

As we gather to watch our sons play baseball –- one of those boys is called Beckham - the conversation typically revolves around the latest Premier League drama and the fortunes, in particular, of Everton. USA and Everton goalkeeper Tim Howard’s connection means that many Americans have a soft spot for the Toffeemen.

Curiously, these friends don’t like what they see as a European game being ‘Americanized’ by broadcasters like Fox Sports. They much prefer the British commentators and analysts found on NBC or ESPN, because it’s obvious they understand the history and culture and haven’t had to learn it from a book.

Meanwhile, television viewing figures for this World Cup are breaking records. ESPN’s ratings are up 30% on the 2010 event, while the Spanish-language Univision reports an increase of 50%.

Across both channels, Sunday’s dramatic 2-2 draw between the USA and Portugal topped 25 million, a figure that easily trumped the decisive game five of the NBA finals (nearly 18 million) the previous week and thrashed the average audiences for the World Series (14.9 million) and the Stanley Cup Final (five million).

And the real figure is certainly higher because the Nielsen research doesn’t account for the audience consuming the action on phones or computers or en-masse in bars and fan parks.

Many more are absent from the count altogether because they’re in Brazil to watch the action live. FIFA sold more than 154,000 tickets to supporters in the United States, by far the most of any country except Brazil. USA players at the tournament have said it feels like they’re playing home games at this World Cup.

Whatever happens during the Germany game and possibly beyond, 10 of the 23-man squad will return to play out the rest of the Major League Soccer (MLS) season, a league that has been rapidly growing in size over the last decade.

Since the arrival of David Beckham in 2007, seven new teams have been added with three or four slated to kick-off in the coming years. The expansion is proof of the growing interest and the atmospheres at games in Seattle and Portland would be the envy of some Premier League clubs.

Nonetheless it would still be a stretch to say the U.S. is gripped by ‘football fever.’

The sheer size of the country means it will be a long time before the nation collectively holds its breath during a World Cup game, and it may never happen.

But the last two USA games alone have undoubtedly made a few converts and forced all American sports fans to acknowledge at least one thing: tied games don’t have to be boring.

They might not have liked the heartbreaking draw against Portugal, but no one could ever claim it wasn’t a pulsating, breathtaking, edge-of-the-seat experience!

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