How I Know Americans Still Don't Care About Soccer
When Landon Donovan's rebound play shot past Algeria's keeper yesterday, I leapt from my seat, spilled a drink, almost smashed my iPhone through a glass coffee table and scared my family with my yelp of joy. They were 25 feet away and through two walls at the time. Watching 91 minutes of tumultuous soccer in which Algeria seemed to be playing to win and America seemed to be playing to tie helped the emotions percolate. If the U.S. did anything other than win, they were done -- failures in the world's game yet again. Another four years of our normal imperialist arrogance scoffed at by the more developed futbol nations.
For the first time in history, perhaps, the United States general population was aware of its country's soccer team. They seemed to care about the outcome. Reports are that Wall Street even paused for a celebratory yell when Donovan saved the day and advanced the U.S. to this year's round of 16. Soccer has matured in America now to not only support a professional league with world class players, but to rally a sense of patriotism around our World Cup effort.
But there was one subtlety that I noticed watching the U.S. vs. Algeria on Wednesday that made me almost as ill as watching my country's team's defense allow counter chance after counter chance from their opponent. It wasn't probably noticed by many others, though I'm certain the director of the broadcast was likely fuming over it as well.
In the final minutes of what was then a 0-0 match with the U.S. hopes of advancing in the balance, in a match that appeared to thwart U.S. superiority and pride, in a game where a country few Americans had heard of and even less could point to on a map was -- at times -- outplaying us in our most important soccer match in years, the television cameras could not find an American in attendance concerned. For every time the television cameras found a U.S. fan (Who had presumably travelled halfway around the globe to see its team play, who is then presumed to be a die-hard, true-blue American soccer supporter.) their furled brows and lost-hope expressions suddenly changed.
They saw themselves on the jumbo tron.
The most invested of our fans, in the most critical moment of the most critical match, lost themselves in vanity. They became gleeful children, hooting to their moms or dads or fraternity mates. They forgot for a moment their team was about to be dismissed from World Cup play, that their country would become the globe's punch line, that the hopes of a nation's soccer faithful would be dashed, diced and sauteed, to dance and wave and say, "look at me."
Americans don't care about soccer. They only care about themselves.
Until that changes, soccer is but a folly here. World 1, U.S. 0.
