After the World Cup
Much to my business partners chagrin, here I am writing a blog about soccer. I am not sure what inspired me to write this exactly. Maybe its that I feel there are a lot of sports fans out there that are missing out on a great sport. Or maybe I enjoyed seeing Pluckers packed for a lot of the World Cup games. Or maybe I believe that Landon Donovan’s goal against Algeria will finally help soccer catch on in America. For those of you reading this that think that Americans don’t care about soccer, check out the security camera at our Baton Rouge store after Donovan scores his goal here. Or if you want to see another video that brings tears to my eyes every time I see it check out The World Reacts.
I was like you in the past…a soccer hater. I thought the sport was boring, too European, too many guys rolling around on the ground with fake injuries, etc. But something has changed me in the past 5 years. Honestly, I grew up a huge baseball fan, but since the strike in 1995, I have never fallen back in love with baseball. The NBA? The players have grown to become such “me-first” people that I find it difficult to want to cheer on any team. Hell, was it me or was Lebron’s “Decision” the worst 60 minutes of television in the past year? What genius thought that it was necessary to devote 60 minutes for something that took 3 seconds? Hockey? I love the NHL Playoffs, but I won’t even try and sell you on both hockey and soccer in one blog post.
What that left me was a gaping hole between March Madness and the start of the football season. So I decided to give soccer a shot at first just from April to May. Over time, I have really learned to appreciate the sport and without boring you, will give you 3 reasons why you should give soccer a chance also if you are a sports fan.
1. Relegation.
This is the single greatest concept in sports today. For those unfamiliar with the concept of relegation, each country has their own football association and the best 20 teams make up their top division. In England its called the Premier League, it Italy its Serie A, in Spain its La Liga, etc. Beneath the top division, there is a 2nd division, 3rd division and so on. Basically, if a team finishes in the bottom 3 of the 20 teams at the end of the year, they get relegated to the 2nd division and the top 3 teams of the 2nd division get promoted to the top division.Think about if we applied that to any American sport. There would be no expansion, no teams tanking at the end of the season to get a higher draft pick and every game would mean something, especially if your team was having a bad year and could get relegated. It also means no more having to deal with owners of teams like the Kansas City Royals, LA Clippers, Pittsburgh Pirates and Detroit Lions who consistently put a terrible product on the field, yet charge their fans big bucks to watch them. Finally, it means that any community, anywhere could start at the bottom and make their way to the top…basically the American Dream. The concept of relegation is American capitalism in its finest sports form, only we choose not to use it for our sports which is a shame.
2. Soccer is everything our sports aren’t.
Personally, I am fine watching 4 hours college football games because there are only 12 of them a year for each team. However, who wants to watch a four hour baseball game when there are 162 of them? Soccer is great because you have two 45-minute halves, a short halftime and then its over. You don’t have to commit an entire day to it on your weekend or more importantly if a game falls on a weekday when you have work.For those of you over 30, you may remember a time when watching sports was just sports. These days if you are at the stadium we are overwhelmed by jumbotrons, luxury boxes and a theme song for every batter or every trip up the court in the NBA. Back in the day, you pretty much just had sports at a sporting event. What a novel concept…attending an NBA game with the purpose of actually watching basketball! We didn’t need a scoreboard to tell us when to cheer or a cheesy voice telling us to yell “Dee-Fense” every 30 seconds. We watched the game and knew when to react.
Watch a soccer game and there is nothing but the game. Even on TV, there are no commercials, no breaks and no sponsors except in the upper corner of your screen. Sure there is music but that is the chanting of the fans singing throughout the game usually either in support of their heroes or making fun of their opposition. It is being a sports fan in its purist form in 2010.
3. Intra-Country Tournaments
Besides the regular season, there are also a series of tournaments that are held by each country’s football association. Some of tournaments are between the best of each country like the Champions League or UEFA Cup and others are just within the country. In England, they have the FA Cup which takes over 700 teams from all levels of football in England and puts them in one tournament. Its like March Madness, except on an even greater level for potential upsets. Instead of seeding the top teams to help assure they make it to the final rounds, there is no seeding whatsoever and matchups are chosen at random draw. Even cooler is that the team that gets to play at home is also picked at random. To compare this to an American sport, imagine if the New York Yankees had to play an away game against some semi-pro team from New Braunfels (or some other small community). It’s like that terrible hockey movie Mystery, Alaska except that it actually happens every year.
I could go on and on about other reasons why you should watch soccer, but I am hoping that those three reasons are unique enough to make you want to give it a chance. Ultimately, you are going to have to get over the fact that there are usually only 6-10 good scoring chances in many games and you have to learn the names of all those foreign players that you can’t pronounce. However, if you are a sports fan like me, give it a chance for one season (I suggest watching the Premier League on ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel) and see if you enjoy it. Heck, most of the games are on between 7am and 11am on Saturday and Sunday mornings so you won’t even have to miss any American football.
