It’s almost spring, and it’s almost club soccer time (after two years of waiting). So let’s talk about the beautiful game and the number-one question everyone has about it: Will the USA ever be a power in soccer?
No.
The USA will never be a consistent player on the world stage and here are all the reasons why:
Players—We don’t have them. No matter what anyone says about how we could have the best players in the world if we would get our best athletes to play soccer at a young age, it’s just not true. Landon Donovan is the prime example. He’s probably the best American player ever, and Germany had 10 guys better than him on their 2014 World Cup squad.
National Support—We don’t have it. Sure, we’ll all go crazy and lose our minds in patriotic euphoria when the World Cup comes around, but we do the exact same thing for any Olympic sport. Everyone knows Americans will get behind any competition involving us against the world, but that doesn’t mean the game itself has any kind of support once those big worldwide events end.
TV Exposure—We have some but it’s terrible. Major League Soccer (MLS) gets the Sunday afternoon slot on ESPN2 after bowling. Even the best teams in the world in the best leagues in the world have to play on Sunday mornings at 9 a.m. on Fox Sports. A “big soccer game” here is never going to be big enough to overcome a big football or basketball game for primetime TV slots.
Strong leagues—We absolutely don’t have them. This goes hand-in-hand with having good players, but it also ties in with the lack of exposure in the U.S. No overseas players are coming here in their prime to have no one watch them play on a bad team. Sure, you get guys like old Thierry Henry or old Kaka or old David Villa. But that’s chump change compared to other leagues around the world.
Soccer culture—This is the biggest obstacle, because we just don’t have it. Culturally, the U.S. will never be a soccer nation. The only thing that could possibly alter the landscape here is if we were to win a World Cup. The fact of the matter is, we live in the country where football, basketball and baseball were all invented. That’s a huge mountain for soccer to overcome.
The U.S. is dominant athletically, but as we get better at the sports we care most about, the sports we only sort of care about are going to become diluted. That’s soccer’s real problem: it isn’t a priority to our people.Until it is, don’t expect us to ever be one of the big boys.
