The Never-Ending Neoconservative War on Soccer

dearieme

American Football is rather camp for my taste. Soccer edits down for highlight shows very well. Rugby is best, with the runner-up as Rugby League if played to the standard of the Brisbane Broncos of 20 years ago.

Dave B

" the cosy, anti-competitive cartels that run American sports"

Isn't British rugby copying that model?

Alex Massie

Dave B - No really. True, there's a salary cap in the Guinness Premiership, but it's not a closed shop even if, for a number of reasons, it's very difficult for promoted teams to establish themselves in the top flight. However, if the professionalisation of the English second division is a success then this may change in the medium-term...

Tony Pandy

The randomness of victory and defeat is best explained by the typical scorelines of a win or loss in the sport in question. In soccer, typical winning margins are only 1 or 2 goals per game, so a weaker team only has to dominate for a couple of spells of a couple of minutes each to win. In Rugby or basketball, where results are determined by many, often dozens, of 'scores', the highest points total (e.g. 80- vs 60 points in basketball),is always amassed by the team that plays consistently best throughout the game. Baseball is like soccer, a low-scoring game, so a very random outcome, and NFL is not much better.

Tony Pandy

The randomness of victory and defeat is best explained by the typical scorelines of a win or loss in the sport in question. In soccer, typical winning margins are only 1 or 2 goals per game, so a weaker team only has to dominate for a couple of spells of a couple of minutes each to win. In Rugby or basketball, where results are determined by many, often dozens, of 'scores', the highest points total (e.g. 80- vs 60 points in basketball),is always amassed by the team that plays consistently best throughout the game. Baseball is like soccer, a low-scoring game, so a very random outcome, and NFL is not much better.

Tony Pandy

The randomness of victory and defeat is best explained by the typical scorelines of a win or loss in the sport in question. In soccer, typical winning margins are only 1 or 2 goals per game, so a weaker team only has to dominate for a couple of spells of a couple of minutes each to win. In Rugby or basketball, where results are determined by many, often dozens, of 'scores', the highest points total (e.g. 80- vs 60 points in basketball),is always amassed by the team that plays consistently best throughout the game. Baseball is like soccer, a low-scoring game, so a very random outcome, and NFL is not much better.

lyca

This article states the obvious in that it is very difficult to become interested in a game we didn't play in our youth.

THX1138

N Korea reached the World Cup Finals last week enough to drive a wingnut Neocon crazy.

Harry Tuttle

You'd figure if soccer was so random then, perhaps, Olympique Marseille wouldn't have won the French title 7 out of the last 10 years, Baern Munich wouldn't have won the Bundeslige 7 out of the last 10 times, that someone other than Man U, Arsenal or Chelsea would have won the EPL in the past 15 years or that Inter, AC Milan and Juventas wouldn't have taken 14 of the last 15 Serie A championships. Even the smaller leagues are dominated by one or two teams like Celtic and Rangers in Scotland or Ajax and Eindhoven in The Netherlands.

Todd

I don't think that America's reticience to accept soccer as the dominant sport has anything to do with "neocons" despite what this author might like to think. It's simply cultural; soccer in the US is viewed as a game for children, predominantly girls, the way that baseball is viewed as "rounders"; a child's game, in the UK. The US is also traditionally hostile to anything perceived as being "imposed" on us from the rest of the world, such as the metric system, electronica, Abba, Robbie Williams, climate change taxation etc. The US places a high value on individualism and Americans are inherently distrustful of anything perceived as "globalist" which is not dominated by the US, ie the UN. Finally, soccer in the US is associated not with Europe but with Mexico and South America due to the immigrants who play the game in America. Because these immigrants are perceived as being lower class, soccer has a reputation as the game of choice for impoverished third-worlders who cannot afford athletic equipment. All this being said, I am a big fan of the game and was excited by yesterday's result!

porkbelly

And the United States reached the finals yesterday, enough to drive a whimpering pseudo-con mad. Wonder who Obama will support if N Korea plays the U.S.?

Pat Pattillo

On this side of the pond we like things LARGE, as in the same state (Texas) that brought us George Bush. They say everything is bigger in Texas. Even our game of baseball is predominated by musclebound sluggers on steroids.

This leaves the shorter, lighter boys emasculated and wondering whether they will ever match up unless they have world class speed in which case they might make it in American football.

Come to think of it there is more silicon in the ladies locker room at the local health club than at them beach so even female role models have been tainted.

Would it be unpatriotic for me to say this is regrettably lamentable?

Andrew

I wonder how Schmitt would account then for the popularity of the NCAA Basketball tournament every year. It's perhaps, along with the Super Bowl, the iconic American sporting event, and people don't watch it to see all of the number 1 seeds go to the final four. People watch it to witness small 'Cinderella' teams defeat powerhouses, which they do by slowing down the pace of the game, defending vigorously, and hitting a large number of three pointers. If this all-American exercise isn't similar to Greece in EURO 04, I don't know what is.

Mike Evans

I'm sorry, perhaps I've misunderstood something. You're telling us that a statement from a individual formerly of the PNAC and now at the AEI is perhaps not based in reality?

Seriously, is this a joke? I know this is meant to be a light-hearted post, but does anyone still take these guys in any way creditably, at all, ever? Precisely how much does a 'think tank' have to get wrong before we stop legitimising them by reporting on what they say, even to poke fun?

Drew Steen

Gary Schmitt tells me that if a team plays a good-looking game, controls the ball, etc, it might deserve to win, even if don't actually score as many points. Does that mean that a poor kid in a bad school who tries really hard, spends a lot of time on his homework, etc, deserves to get into good colleges even if his test scores aren't any good? 'Cause I think I know Gary's answer to the second question.

rj walker

The real reason soccer is so Unamerican is that the scores are too low.

Give 'em 6 or seven points for each score and Americans'll go after 'em like, well, delicacy suggests that a euphemism such as comparing the Grand Tetons to a highway overpass in Ohio would be most appropriate....

Rieux

I think Alex and some of his commenters are significantly misconstruing Schmitt's assertion that soccer "is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of." (And I say this as a flaming liberal Europhile who watches, and enjoys, plenty of soccer.)

Schmitt muddied his own argument by referring to "underdogs" later in the quoted passage, but that's really beside the point. The nub of Schmitt's initial assertion isn't that Americans don't want the Clippers to beat the Lakers, the Nationals to beat the Phillies, or WBA to beat Man U. What I see him saying is that Americans don't like to see the team that plays better in a particular game lose. (Whether that's actually true about our preferences, who knows.) It seems to me that Schmitt is noting the not-exactly-obscure phenomenon of soccer games decided by a goal or two that are "against the run of play."

I certainly haven't done a broad-based study, but I've seen more than a few soccer games in which one team had the lion's share of the ball possession, shots on goal, etc., and yet gave up one or two lucky-fluke goals and lost. Arguably the U.S.'s win over Spain fits in this category, or perhaps the U.S. win over Colombia in the 1994 World Cup does.

Sure, weak teams beat strong teams in lots of sports, baseball among them, but I don't think that necessary has anything to do with Schmitt's point. Where are the numerous baseball games won "against the run of play"? That would have to be a game in which one team sprays doubles and triples all over the field, has a hot starting pitcher who's mowing down the opposition... and then loses 1-0 on a walk and a three-base error or something. I can't say I've seen that game.

I think Tony Pandy's (double) comment above is closer to the mark: in a sport where lots and lots of games are won 1-0 or 2-1, it's just easier for a game to turn on a fluke. Baseball isn't that low-scoring. (Actually, it seems to me that soccer's main competitor for the Injustice Crown would be ice hockey. Run into a hot goaltender, as my Minnesota Wild did in the '03 Western Conference finals, and all of the "run of play" you'd like can be worthless. Same thing happens periodically in soccer.)

When the Steelers and Lions take the field in Detroit this October 11, let's say Detroit is able to (1) move the ball up and down the field at will and (2) sack Ben Roethlisberger repeatedly while stuffing Pittsburgh's running game. If Detroit thereby wins 35-3, I don't think that would fall afoul of Schmitt's principle at all, notwithstanding the Steelers' recent title and the Lions' historic suckiness. (Same goes if WBA had blown out Man U the way Liverpool did in one match this past season.) Underdog or not, that win would be earned--which is the point.

All of that said, the notion that soccer is some kind of paragon of egalitarianism is just stupid, for the reasons expressed by Harry Tuttle above. How can a right-winger not like a sport in which Russian oligarchs and Saudi billionaires throw money at their teams (and thereby buy championships) to a degree that would make George Steinbrenner and Mark Snyder blush? I mean, c'mon--the Premier League is a crony capitalist's dream.

hdtv information

Dont listen to the Neo-Cons, they dont provide any useful reading, except to ridicule.

What they say usually doesnt amount to anything better than listening to Ahmadinejad

LWB

Great point about relegation and promotion ...And one could point to the Neo-Cons perhaps favorite sporting event of all time, "Miracle on Ice" when the US Hockey team beat the Russian hockey team (I quess unexpected outcomes are okay when the US beats Russia). And if we really believed in meritocracy track and field would be loved in the US and hated elsewhere (when in fact it is the other way around). The bottom line is NEO-CONS are just raving lunatics.

Bloix

Winning soccer requires cooperative team play without the controlling presence of a coach. It's a sport of equals - no quarterback, no pitcher, no coach calling plays and exchanging players every other minute. There's no boss. That's why neo-cons hate it.

Benji

I agree with you and your observations.

I would like to add that in the NFL there are some teams that can win their division as an 8-8 team and make the playoffs. There was also almost a case where the NFL could have had a sub-500 team (7-9) make the playoffs.

Michael

I think your comparison of viewing figures for the World Series and World Cup are unfair. Firstly, the World Series is of course played over multiple games (in 2006, 4). Lots of people watched at least one. With the World Cup, we know which game will produce a result, which does not happen unless the series goes to Game 7 (which hasn't happened since 2002).

You also chose the World Series with the lowest ever viewing share. Possibly choosing a year when two small market teams (Detroit and St. Louis) without large national followings contested the World Series isn't the fairest way.

D'Anglo P. Hobe

Why do the English denigrate the Confederations Cup so much? Is it because they will never take part in it as they are nowhere near the best team in Europe?

RG

I was told a few weeks ago by a co-worker that he doesn't like soccer because the Americans don't dominate the sport. He said, "We should dominate every sport." Sad.

Dennis Paulson

Who s this ***-hole knocking the Clippers and why is he writing in an English paper?

propitiousmoment

Rieux: "Where are the numerous baseball games won "against the run of play"?"
Angels, 2002, come-from-behind game after game, finally culminating in winning the World Series. That was some very dramatic baseball.

toby

The joy of soccer is that runty backstreet kids can play it well & indeed excel at it.

You don't need to have the physique of Arnold Schartznegger & the speed of a champion sprinter. Good feet, physical fitness and a footballing brain will see you through.

As kids we played with balls of rolled up newspaper in the street with a telephone pole and a wall as goalposts. I lived in a small village, but that's going on now in backstreets and patches of waste ground all over the world. No need for special equipment or a specially laid out pitch.

It is most democratic and least elitist of sports which is also why the neocons hate it.

Jamey

You cite statistics to bolster a couple of my pet points--i.e., that there's no such thing as an "upset" in baseball, and that the NFL, with its competitive-balance-at-all-costs practices and state-of-the-art revenue-sharing schemes, is the most socialized institution in American life.

I think Americans' resistance to soccer is born of nativist tendencies--that it's "yurpean"-like...and the brown people south of the border fence also like it, too, so I'm agin' it.

camel54

Didn't the soccer hater mean "...just dessert..." and not "desert?"

CG

In 1996, Wigan rugby league played Bath rugby union. They were both the undisputed champions of their sports and it was difficult to see their eras ending. But they did. For the next few years it looks as if Leeds and St Helens will dominate league but it is more competitive than a few years ago. If Americans want to look for real evidence of socialism in sport, look no further than the drafting policies in American football and basketball (both of which I enjoy very much, so this is not a sneer)

jbk

The New England Patriots. 16-0 and a Super Bowl loss.

Joe

Wow some people really are stupid. I suspect Schmitt simply doesn't like soccer so is grasping at straws to criticize it, but his argument is inane. Has he ever watched a game of American football? The swing of the game can change dramatically on turnovers and lucky plays. I have seen plenty of games where a team dominates in yardage and possession time but loses. He should have been honest and said what he really thinks: soccer is boring.

annoyed

lets not forget, the socialist tendency of salary caps in American Football and Basketball. that more than anything should offend their conservative sensibilities

Cecilia

Just goes to show you, the neocons are wrong about EVERYTHING. Gary is a big fat stupid head.

Linden Gray

Soccer in the good old USA is very young and growing.

The reason some sports celebrities such as Jim Rome hate soccer is because they are ignorant, dont understand the game, and see it as any easy target to fan the flames of Un- Americanism, whatever that means.

Soccer will overtake most sports in America, because it is what most youths in America want to play. Everyone participates and contrary to your latest post, the best team usually wins? Soccer is not the most popular sport in the world because the rest of the world have an inferior knowledge, taste, or attitude about other sports. The US sports media pound us with supposed stars in baseball, football or basketball. They can do this because all pro sports in the US generate millions and millions of dollars in advertising and TV revenue. The average football game has 25 minutes of action and 2 hours of commercials. There are 160 baseball games in one season? US Professional sports is no less a business than your local BestBuy. Please. Its all about the money and eventually they will figure out how to generate the dollars necessary to get the attention of the sports media in the US. Then the sports media will start broadcasting how soccer has suddenly arrived and the US sports fan will be told what soccer game to watch and why its worthy of their attention.

The US Spain game is simply another step closer to getting soccer into the mainstream of American sports.

Long live the most popular game in the world!

Doc Z

Great Article. The American NeoCons are crazy. I am a red-blooded American from Texas, grew up on football (the american kind), and watch both college and professional teams.

As for soccer, football, it is The Beautiful Game. American football cannot match is grace, agility, and athletic beauty. The last World Cup has made me a huge fan, and I am looking forward to S.A. 2010. (Hopefully the US will have a better showing.)

But, please do us all a favor, ask Beckham to stop modeling underwear, some of the adds are absurd.

Regards.

Bill

The only game Gary Schmitt cares about is the political point-scoring game he and his publisher are playing. He wrote that piece to score points with this audience.

His drivel isn't written for the general public. (We are all eavesdropping when we read it.)

He never expected to sway anyone away from football/soccer. He is merely pick fruit from a low the low-hanging Xenophobic-tree.

Stan

NEO-conservatives?!?!

Hostility to foreign influence is probably the most paleo- of all conservative tendencies.

As a moderately conservative (did not vote that way this time around, but it was a difficult choice) person who holds DC United tickets, I'm a bit bemused that all forms of conservatism are--in the eyes of its opponents--now 'neo'.

wacked

The reason the Right dislikes soccer is that it is played by so many foreigners! All the brown skinned people that play soccer in the parks instead of disappearing into their neighborhoods after work makes the whole sport uncomfortable to them.

Pat

So the reason alot of wacko rightys don't like soccer is because of it's European influence? I guess in a weird way that makes sense - to them. I think their thinking is bizarre. I fell in love with the game over 25 years ago -watching my husband play and then watching my girls grow up playing and excelling at the game. The game the other night was beyond wonderful. The U.S. played with guts and heart and skill and it was beautiful. Spain is a better team - no question - but on the night we were the better side, we put the ball in the back of the net. That's what counts. I hope we win Sunday - I'm not sure we will but part of me doesn't
care. We aren't great - we're a long way from great - but we'll get there. Thanks guys. You were a joy to watch.

Edward S.

When I first learned about relegation and promotion I was horrified. Then it dawned on me that perennially underperforming (and underspent) teams could be punished. I got on board. American sports could use such incentives.

Conservative Cabbie

Stan

Thankyou. Some long awaited sense.

Alex Massie

Stan/Cabbie - The reason I mention neoconservatives is that Gary Schmitt IS a neoconservative (PNAC, AEI etc). I don't consider it a pejorative term; indeed I enjoyed Schmitt's company on the handful of occasions I've met him. However, he is a neoconservative and there's nothing wrong with saying so, not least since he'd have no qualms about describing himself in such terms.

Anti-NeoCon

The American Enterprise Institute is the home of the Neo-Conservatives. They're failed policies include cowboy diplomacy, and the illegal Iraq invasion. Its doesn't come as any suprise that a Neo-Con nut would take such cheap shot at Latin America and Europe imploring the use of soccer. Its not enough that Neo-Cons lost the last two Americans elections & destroyed the US economy. They simply do not accept reality and therefore lack the ability to be embarassed enough to STFU.

Ade Ifelayo

Thank you Alex for this rebuttal. As a proud neo-con and AEI-supporter, have to say that Gary Schmitt does not speak for me. I don't understand this paranoia on the right about the beautiful game. It's not being impossed by anyone in Brussels or Paris for goodness sake. Just an ancient game that blends tradition, camaraderie, hopes and desire

Mark

Gary Schmitt has written the single most ridiculous thing (Non-Coulter Division) that I have ever read.

Questions:

1. From under what rock or settlement did Schmitt crawl?

2. Why do you even acknowledge this imbecile by posting a response?

Valerie Joseph

What really amazes me is that neither of the articles nor in any of the comments I scrolled through did any of you MEN mention the international success of USA WOMEN'S soccer. I guess when it comes to American competition women still don't count as much as men.

Jerry

One more point...possession time does not necessarily men that one has the superior team. It also is often a way to play defensively. In addition, pulling your backfield up may, to an untrained eye, suggest that you have the superior play, but strategically it sets one up for that "lucky" counterattack.

What the US did was not luck, except in the sense that good players take advantage of the mistakes of others. They made fewer mistakes and had the skill to capitalize on them.

griloco

I filed the neocon's article under Schmittripe. Soccer won't catch on in America until we figure out how to bet on it.

Art Amolsch

May I suggest what I think is one of the main reasons some Americans can't stand soccer? Because one has to pay attention for a whole 45 minutes at a time. A few years ago, some statistician showed that, while an American pro or college "football" games runs 60 minutes off the game clock, it takes about three hours to play and something is actually happening on the field for about 12 minutes. I doubt those numbers have changed much since they were compiled.

Think about it: huddles, times out, resetting the ball (and now, "instant replays"), commercial breaks while the players sit around on the field waiting for the TV/radio spots to play out. The average play lasts 3-5 seconds. After every punt, there's a timeout for the 22 players on the field to leave and 22 new ones to come on.

And one of my favorite statements from football announcers and writers is identification of each team's "skill players," implying that there are some unskilled players on even NFL teams.

And baseball? Please.

Not many commercial-bathroom-snack breaks in futbol.

If I were an executive recruiter, I'd be looking for soccer fans, players or not, likely to have attention spans greater than, say, 5 seconds.

العاب

its a good and interesting article.I have seen many of games where a team dominates in yardage and possession time but loses.