Are Americans Catching ‘Soccer’ Fever?

Zidane / World Cup 2006

By Gilbert Mercier, NEWS JUNKIE POST

In South Africa today, the US Soccer team will have the opportunity to take on mighty Brazil. It is a first for any US Men Soccer team to reach such a stage in a major international competition. Today Americans, like the rest of the world, will be glued to their TV sets. It seems that the fever of the only global sport has finally caught up fully in the US.

The US women Soccer teams have performed well in top world competitions, but the men teams had never reached this stage in a big international tournament. The sporting event is the Confederation Cup, it is sort of a dress rehearsal for the World Cup taken place in South Africa in 2010. Up to a few days ago, you would have had a hard time finding news about it except buried deep inside your newspapers’ sports pages. But then, the “improbable event” happened; the US defeated the current number one team worldwide according to FIFA’s ranking, it is Spain, they are also the current European Champion.

It is common knowledge that most Caucasian Americans look down on “The Beautiful Game”. They consider it a good game for kids and women but are annoyed by the low scoring, and quite frankly do not get the intensity or the strategy involved in it. For a lot of Americans it is not a “real man’s game”.

The appellation itself is revealing and somewhat insulting for people from the rest of the planet. Soccer is universally called Football, in various spellings and pronunciations except in America. The name was already taken by American Football. To be fair US teams were also not taken very seriously by the football elites of South America & Europe, the defeat of Spain by the US team will reset the clock.

Today, the US players are the underdog against Brazil, just like they were against Spain, and football loves underdogs. They will also need all the luck they can get to deal with the Brazilians who are the real artists of the Beautiful Game.

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