Why Americans love/hate the ‘beautiful game’

Richard Roth, CNN’s United Nations correspondent, did a report on June 18, just as the World Cup was getting under way, in which he asked Americans strolling on the street why the U.S. hasn’t latched onto soccer the way the rest of the world has.

Roth, a soccer devotee, has for years prayed that Americans would embrace the “beautiful game” the way Europeans, Central and South Americans, Africans and now even Asians do.

“It’s coming,” Roth insists.

With the U.S. fielding one of its strongest World Cup squads in recent memory, hopes were running high that our boys would break through to at least the competition’s quarterfinals and show the rest of the world that, yes, America had at last become a soccer nation.

Alas, Ghana dashed those hopes with a well-deserved 2-1 victory in the Round of 16. U.S. media interest in the World Cup, which had soared after our national team posted a thrilling 2-1 win against Algeria to top its group (which included England) in the cup’s opening round, fizzled thereafter. And, it seemed, most Americans quickly forgot about soccer once again.

Sorry, Richard.

Until recently, I never understood what the rest of the globe saw in soccer, or should I say futbal? In many — if not most — countries, people worship the sport. For God’s sake, they riot over it. Why?

I played soccer as a kid. As a summer camp counselor in college, I spent a great deal of time around Europeans, for whom soccer wasn’t just a sport — it was the only sport. My wife, who was born and raised in Bulgaria, goes nuts over soccer. Normally quite composed, she often yells at the TV during World Cup matches. You should’ve heard her when Bulgaria placed fourth in the World Cup in 1994.

I play indoor soccer with a group of middle-aged men from Argentina, Chile, Italy and the U.S., all of whom see futbol not as a sport, but as a cultural tradition. Still, before I saw Roth’s piece, I just didn’t get it. Then, in one older gentleman’s response to the CNN correspondent, I understood. The unidentified man said it was a “biological oddity” to play a sport with one’s feet. Sports should be played with hands. That, he said, was why Americans have never — and likely never will — love soccer.