In America

As I was sitting at my sister's soccer game last night, I had to think about how so many people play soccer, but if you look at our international reputation, it doesn't correlate with how many people play. With so many players playing, you'd think that they might be more competitive in international competition. However, I think that the main difference is cultural. If you look outside the United States, soccer is much more cultural. Soccer is simply much more important in other countries just as football or baseball are much more important here. However, I wonder why that is? I think that in America, we tend to prefer faster sports with higher scores. Even though football is a slow sport, it is much higher scoring. Baseball is the anomaly as it is even slower than soccer but is still relatively popular in America. (As a side note though, I think that baseball is losing popularity sadly, but that is another story). However, soccer has had problems catching on the professional level as the MLS is nowhere near the Premier League. I don't really know why, but I hope that soccer catches on at a more competitive level in America.
Photo by Beth Rankin on Flickr

Sad Loss for Team USA

In four more years, the United States will care about soccer again. I'm sorry, but the only time that America cares about soccer is during the World Cup. It's kind of funny because many kids play soccer when they are young (at least around here). However, soccer seems to be one of the things that are sacrificed when busy schedules force kids to make a choice about whether to play piano or soccer. I'm not really sure why it happened this way because every other sport seems to be able to excite the American people. Compare Major League Baseball to Major League Soccer. One league is regarded as the best in the world for its sport whereas the other is only a league that steals players from Europe when they get too old or want a ton of money. We also have the best basketball and football leagues in the world right here and fans support them, but why can't soccer find a following? I don't have the answer to this question, but what I can say that the United States has the best power soccer team in the world has proven at the last World Cup in Tokyo, Japan! However, we will see if they can hold that crown in 2011; I will be cheering for them.
Photo by Dru Bloomfield - At Home in Scottsdale on Flickr

Soccer Time!

Today at two o'clock, everybody better be watching as coverage begins for the US and Ghana Round of 16 matchup in South Africa. I think that everyone in America will be watching Landon Donovan, the hero who got Team USA into this round with a stoppage time goal just a few days ago. However, I think that today will be a slightly tougher challenge than Algeria because Ghana is the only African team left. On top of being a very talented team, it would be a disappointment to Africa to not have a team at least go to the quarterfinals. To be honest, the United States has made me nervous. I was very excited when we drew with England thinking that this would finally be the year that the United States had plenty of talent to drive deep. However, after a miraculous rally was required to draw with Slovenia and finally only being able to beat Algeria in the added time, I'm a little bit more nervous about our chances because now it is one and done. They need to win today or go home. Hopefully, even though soccer is sadly not really a big deal most of the time, I hope that today everyone will turn it on and support their team!
Photo by Shine 2010 - 2010 World Cup good news on Flickr

Best Matches So Far

Again, nice to see the Phillies pull out a win while actually bringing some offense. However, there is a bigger story to write about today. How about the World Cup so far? Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to watch as much as I would like to, but it's still been quite the event so far. First off, we saw the United States and England battle to a 1-1 tie in a match that might be an indication of American improvement. Then, we saw Brazil almost get upended by North Korea in a 2-1 match that at least surprised me. North Korea has not been to the World Cup finals since 1966 whereas Brazil is always a force to be reckoned with on every level of the competition. Finally, yesterday was the biggest surprise of all as the Swiss took down Spain 1-0. Spain was the favorite entering the tournament for many people after winning Europe, but somehow they let this one slip by. It's kind of funny to look at the Group H standings right now and see that Spain is behind everyone (Chile, Switzerland, and Honduras). Whatever, I'm sure they will make a comeback and put this one little bump behind them, but congratulations to the Swiss on playing the game of the tournament so far.
Photo by ianlord on Flickr

World Cup Soccer vs Power Soccer

The Phillies won yesterday which is always good, but the bad news is that the US World Cup team is tied for second behind Slovenia. Somehow I doubt that Slovenia will be able to hold that top slot for very long with the United States and England right behind them, but it's kind of ironic anyway for the time. I was watching Germany versus Australia yesterday afternoon, and I began to wonder about some of the differences between soccer and power soccer. The biggest difference I noticed is that power soccer is much more dribble oriented while the World Cup match was much more focused on passing. However, I think that this difference can be accounted for by the fact that it is very difficult to lift a power soccer ball. I've only seen it lifted once or twice on YouTube and was only able to be elevated one or two inches. Therefore, power soccer players cannot make runs and try to beat the defender one-on-one while waiting for a pass to come over the top from the midfielders. Any long pass will probably get picked off by some defenseman without ever getting anywhere near its target.

Another difference I noticed was that almost every attack was based with some sort of cross to get the ball into the middle. We do cross sometimes in power soccer, but we mostly attack the middle of the field to challenge the goalie. I think this difference can accounted for because there are many fewer people on a power soccer team, so it is much easier to penetrate the middle. Since only one chair can be playing the ball at a time, why not take it to the goal?

The World Cup continues, a hopeful America can finally live up to the hype that it has brought to the past couple of Cups and put together a nice run.
Photo  by 1Happysnapper (photography) on Flickr

Olympian Feelings

I want to preface this post by saying that I am not wishing for another Cold War. However, what I am saying is that in this time, people became much more interested in the Olympics. For example, the contests between the United States and the Soviet Union were about more than just a game. In a way, it seemed as though in a war that was based on comparison and threats, proving your superiority in something as simple as a hockey game became an issue of national importance. It seems as though today's Olympics, at least in America, do not develop the same amount of patriotism that the Cold War era games did. Why was this? Like I mentioned before, this was a war of comparison and status. The Soviet East was saying that communism was better whereas the Western United States felt that capitalism and democracy were the tickets to happiness and wealth. Therefore, if communism could create better athletes, that would be one more mark in support of their style. These beliefs created a very patriotic following as many people did not want to see their country fall to the enemy in "battle." While I do not, as I mentioned before, want another Cold War, I want to see people get excited about America in the Olympics. We do have a great deal of success in the Olympics as a nation; I hope everyone will tune in to at least one event and watch Americans put their talents on display for the world to see and want to defeat as much as we want to defeat them.