Eng 123 - the Most Beautiful Game - Soccer

The Most Beautiful Game

Phillip Dungan

ENG 123

It’s the world’s most popular sport and watched globally more than any other event.  No it isn’t the Super Bowl or game seven of the NBA Finals or Major League Baseball World Series it is soccer.   Though the sport has been played and watched in the United States it is only recently beginning to challenge the dominance of other sports like hockey, baseball and basketball and may supplant them at some point.  

The early development of football in the United States was quite different than in Great Britain as the hands and feet version eventually become the recognized standard and led eventually to the creation of the National Football League in 1922. To differentiate the kicking game became known as “soccer” (a shortening of Association Football or Assoc. Football) and the NFL rules were called “football”.  In the 1920s soccer was very popular in the Northeastern Unites States especially among the large minority communities that were created after the passage of the Johnson-Reed Act.  These immigrants brought a passion for soccer with them.  The climax of this early rise was the 1930 World Cup were the US men’s team achieved a 3rd place finish.  Unfortunately these early beginnings were lost in the great depression and incredible amounts of league in-fighting between owners of the soccer teams. Soccer would fade from the sporting scene for over 30 years. (Phillips)

The 1966 World Cup saw a renewal of interest in soccer in the US as over 8 million viewers watched the final between England and Germany. (Tossell)  As a response and hoping to catch a piece of this popularity, the North American Soccer League was founded and led by Jack Kent Cook the owner of the NFL’s Washington Redskins.  English players and teams were recruited en masse as the “…Wanderers traded the Black country for California to become the Los Angeles Wolves, while Stoke City left the Potteries to become the Cleveland Stokers and Sunderland were re-invented as the Vancouver Royal Canadians.” (Tossell 14) After some early financial struggles the NASL would see steady growth in the mid-1970s with arrival of Pele from Brazil to the New York Cosmos soccer team.  The league would be heavily populated by stars from the British game as famous players like George Best, Bobby Moore, Gordon Banks and Kevin Keegan all played significant portions of their careers in the NASL.  International stars like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Johan Cruyff made it the most glamorous league in the world.

Unfortunately not long after Pele’s departure the leagues popularity would soon dwindle and financial misdealing’s caused the league to collapse in 1984. A lasting legacy of the NASL was creation of strong youth soccer movement in the US so much so that “Soccer Mom” has become part of our vocabulary.

Interest in the sport though would soon be renewed with the emergence of the US Men’s and Women’s national team.  The US Women’s team in particular became not just competitive but dominant on the world soccer stage.  They have won the Women’s World Cup twice (1991 & 1999), have been runners ups once (2011) and came in third place three times (1995, 2003 & 2007).  They have also won the Olympic competition four of the last five times.  One of the most iconic moments in the last quarter century was when the Woman’s team won the World Cup the first time and Brandi Chastain celebrated the winning goal by taking off her shirt.

FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, decided the time to capitalize on this growth had come and awarded the 1994 Men’s World Cup to the USA.  Despite some critics, “the ’94 World Cup became the most successful World Cup event in FIFA history by setting an attendance record of 3.5million.” (Diaz) Some of the critics of the US World Cup bid included Senator (and former NFL Quarterback) Jack Kemp who said their football, meaning European, was, “European Socialist” compared to American football which expressed, “democratic capitalism.” Other mostly conservative politicians like George W Bush and Glenn Beck have also added their criticism.  Beck even went as far as to say, “I hate it (soccer) so much, probably because the rest of the world likes it so much.”  Much of this criticism is attributed to the fact that is the only major US sport not invented in the United States.  (Hertzberg)

Despite these critics in 1990 the US Men qualified to play in the World for the first time since 1950 and have qualified for six straight world cup appearances.  This growth in popularity was punctuated by television history being made when in the 2010 World Cup, Landon Donovan scored in the closing minutes of a match against Algeria to propel the US to the 2nd round.  Over 1.1 million people watched it online and 6.2 million on ESPN in the United States alone. (Jordan).  The next game was watched by an estimated 20 million Americans as the United States went down to defeat to Ghana 2-1. (Hertzberg)

As a direct result of the popularity of the Men’s & Women’s national teams, Major League Soccer was established in 1993.  Also the growth and availability of satellite/cable airings of European soccer helped continue to fuel growth of the sport in the United States.  The early growth of the MLS was slow but steady with teams being set up in major markets like Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington and Dallas.  The first season itself would end with, “160 games being contested, with 539 goals scored, averaging over three goals per match.” (Zuhosky)  

In 2007 the league took its next step to respectability by opening up rules to allow more foreign born players and created a “Designated Player Rule” to allow the signing of mega soccer super stars like David Beckham. (Wahl)  Several European and South American stars like Thierry Henry, Robbie Keane, Diego Valeri and Juan Pablo Angel have joined the league.  

Since 2007 several new teams have been founded with ties to the old NASL and this has renewed some important rivalries.  The most notable and famous of these rivalries are between Vancouver, Canada, Seattle and Portland.  These three teams play a sort of mini-league for the Cascadia Cup.  Whichever team has the best record against the others wins the Cup.