Soccer - "The Un- American Activity"

[Boom_70]

Interesting article on soccer in last weeks New Yorker by Jeffery Toobin.  Here are a few excerpsts :

Soccer fans in America are evangelical in their fevor, yet cultish in their numbers


In all, the World Cup in 2006 suggested another false dawn for soccer in America. The game the capivates the rest of the world - where it is a source of rapture and revenue remains only a niche product at home.

Soccer is the Canada of American sports, viewed less with contempt than with indifference.

On losing to the Czechs:

"The problem wasn't just a dearth of skills but a lack of mettle.The Americans had more World cup experience but the seemed timid by comparison"

"The game was an object lesson in what haunts American soccer -- The curse of the mini van"

"Every kid in the American suburbs owns a pair of shin guards. Soccer accords nicely with baby boom parents notions of sports-- every kid gets to play and there are lots of trophies. They wander away from the game by adolescence. Soccer in America serves mostly as a bridge between Barney and Nintendo.

" MLS survives largely because of Phil Anschultz - the right wing media mogal" who owns 4 of the 12 teams and is willing to subsidize heavy losses."

 

[Herbert Anchovy]

 

[KP]

Interesting article on soccer in last weeks New Yorker by Jeffery Toobin.  Here are a few excerpsts :

Soccer fans in America are evangelical in their fevor, yet cultish in their numbers


In all, the World Cup in 2006 suggested another false dawn for soccer in America. The game the capivates the rest of the world - where it is a source of rapture and revenue remains only a niche product at home.

Soccer is the Canada of American sports, viewed less with contempt than with indifference.

On losing to the Czechs:

"The problem wasn't just a dearth of skills but a lack of mettle.The Americans had more World cup experience but the seemed timid by comparison"

"The game was an object lesson in what haunts American soccer -- The curse of the mini van"

"Every kid in the American suburbs owns a pair of shin guards.  Soccer accords nicely with baby boom parents notions of sports-- every kid gets to play and there are lots of trophies.  They wander away from the game by adolescence.  Soccer in America serves mostly as a bridge between Barney and Nintendo.

" MLS survives largely because of Phil Anschultz - the right wing media mogal" who owns 4 of the 12 teams and is willing to subsidize heavy losses."

How many players are there on a soccer field at one time? How many players are there on a football field at the same time? Not sure how that solves the every kid gets to play argument.

 

[Boom_70]

Interesting article on soccer in last weeks New Yorker by Jeffery Toobin.  Here are a few excerpsts :

Soccer fans in America are evangelical in their fevor, yet cultish in their numbers


In all, the World Cup in 2006 suggested another false dawn for soccer in America. The game the capivates the rest of the world - where it is a source of rapture and revenue remains only a niche product at home.

Soccer is the Canada of American sports, viewed less with contempt than with indifference.

On losing to the Czechs:

"The problem wasn't just a dearth of skills but a lack of mettle.The Americans had more World cup experience but the seemed timid by comparison"

"The game was an object lesson in what haunts American soccer -- The curse of the mini van"

"Every kid in the American suburbs owns a pair of shin guards.  Soccer accords nicely with baby boom parents notions of sports-- every kid gets to play and there are lots of trophies.  They wander away from the game by adolescence.  Soccer in America serves mostly as a bridge between Barney and Nintendo.

" MLS survives largely because of Phil Anschultz - the right wing media mogal" who owns 4 of the 12 teams and is willing to subsidize heavy losses."

How many players are there on a soccer field at one time? How many players are there on a football field at the same time? Not sure how that solves the every kid gets to play argument.

I think the observation is apt. basically if a kid can stand on 2 feet they can start playing soccer around age 5. The earliest a kid can start playing football is age 8 if they can handle the physical and mental aspects. That makes up a very small group.

All kids can play soccer and feel like they are doing something and not feel over matched.

 

[hondo]

Interesting article on soccer in last weeks New Yorker by Jeffery Toobin.  Here are a few excerpsts :

Soccer fans in America are evangelical in their fevor, yet cultish in their numbers


In all, the World Cup in 2006 suggested another false dawn for soccer in America. The game the capivates the rest of the world - where it is a source of rapture and revenue remains only a niche product at home.

Soccer is the Canada of American sports, viewed less with contempt than with indifference.

On losing to the Czechs:

"The problem wasn't just a dearth of skills but a lack of mettle.The Americans had more World cup experience but the seemed timid by comparison"

"The game was an object lesson in what haunts American soccer -- The curse of the mini van"

"Every kid in the American suburbs owns a pair of shin guards.  Soccer accords nicely with baby boom parents notions of sports-- every kid gets to play and there are lots of trophies.  They wander away from the game by adolescence.  Soccer in America serves mostly as a bridge between Barney and Nintendo.

" MLS survives largely because of Phil Anschultz - the right wing media mogal" who owns 4 of the 12 teams and is willing to subsidize heavy losses."

How many players are there on a soccer field at one time? How many players are there on a football field at the same time? Not sure how that solves the every kid gets to play argument.

I think the observation  is apt. basically if a kid can stand on 2 feet they can start playing soccer around age 5. The earliest a kid can start playing football is age 8 if they can handle the physical and mental aspects. That makes up a very small group. 

All kids can play soccer and feel like they are doing something and not feel over matched.

Yeah, but that doesn't mean they're any damn good at it.

 

[Blitz]

Soccer was "accepted" a decade or two ago as a youth sport de jour, taking its place alongside youth football, basketball and baseball/softball.
It's popularity among American parents was in no true way parallel to the religiousity that others in other parts of the world accept soccer.
The sport, among American youths, is largely a lily-white entity.
These American parents who did, and often didn't, play youth sports of their own, are often of the breed who enjoy living vicariously through their kids and the pursuits of the little ones.
Soccer is all-inclusive.
It allows the kids to get out and achieve maximum cardio workouts on a routine basis.
It also gets the little ones "field-time", when many of them would not get that time if they played football, basketball or baseball.
Kids sports, as we've already discussed on this board, are much more pussified than was the case 20 or 40 years ago.
Soccer's quality is great at all age levels in most parts of the world.
In the U.S., it stinks.

 

[Twoback]

I'm not sure I'd take Jeffrey Toobin as an expert on soccer in America.

 

[Pastor]

 

[85bears]

Twoback, maybe he's not, but that's what made the article interesting. It was a good writer taking on this subject from the outside looking in. I thought he did an excellent job with it - observing, explaining, etc. In a general interest magazine, I'd rather read this piece than something by some soccernik who will be able to break down Bruce Arena's roster selection but can't necessarily write about the big picture.

Toobin's piece was very good. I'm no soccer fan, but I read it in one sitting.

 

[Pastor]

It would be a nice read if it wasn't completely full of ****.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. The more things like this are written, the more the author is exposed.

 

[The Big Ragu]

Blitz, The typical youth soccer practice--and game, for that matter--is not a good cardiovascular workout. It's a lot of standing around. Half the kids don't want to be there and they don't exert themselves.

One reason why soccer became the youth sport de jour is that you can convert any playing field into a soccer field and it's a sport that both boys and girls can play, unlike many others. Adults love it for that reason. Boom was right about what he said about football, although I have experience with this--you can strap pads on 8 year olds and let them bounce off each other, but kids that age aren't really ready to play football.

As for Toobin's article, I haven't read it yet, but the point he makes in the excerpt is something I have been saying to people for several years now, and it is a much broader issue than a soccer issue. I am in my late 30s. I grew up without a ton of organized activities. When we wanted to play a sport, we'd call around to get enough kids, everyone would hop on their bikes and head over to the field or the court. I can't remember when the first time I heard the word "play date," but I know I was an adult, and I am pretty sure I laughed. Kids nowadays live in a much more sheltered world. It's partially that parents are afraid to leave them out there on their own. But most sports activities for a 13 or 14 year old nowadays are over-organized.

The second--related--issue is that somewhere in the PC-ification of America, we lost our competitive instinct. This doesn't just apply to sports. Guys I know in their 20s grew up way differently than I did. When I was a kid, you got a trophy if you won. A decade later, EVERYONE was getting a trophy for "participating." The adults became too hyperaware of labeling kids winners and losers. The only problem is that that isn't how life works. Aside from the lessons you learn from losing--how to lose with dignity, how to use it as motivation to improve, etc.--when you hit the job market, the reality is that generally people who are good get ahead, and those who don't carry their weight don't. My last stop before doing what I do now was a magazine job. What I noticed at the company I was working for was that a lot of the entry-level types--the 24 year olds--had no drive. It was like they had been conditioned that you get a trophy just for showing up, not for excelling. The workplace was a shock to many of their systems. I don't mean to label the whole generation, and I actually feel like a crusty old fart typing what I just did, but it was a general observation that I have been talking about for a few years, and I found it interesting that Toobin basically wrote the same thing.

 

[KJIM]

Kids sports, as we've already discussed on this board, are much more pussified than was the case 20 or 40 years ago.
Soccer's quality is great at all age levels in most parts of the world.
In the U.S., it stinks.

God, I just had a flash to that King of the Hill episode..."that damn lawyer-ball."

 

[PopeDirkBenedict]

It would be a nice read if it wasn't completely full of ****.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. The more things like this are written, the more the author is exposed.

No, the more we talk about soccer, the more your incessant "America loves soccer, it really does!" cheerleading is exposed.

 

[Boom_70]

It would be a nice read if it wasn't completely full of ****.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. The more things like this are written, the more the author is exposed.

Crass what parts of article do you disagree with?

One thing I found interesting from article that I had not realized was the lack of minorities on US World Cup team -- few blacks and no latin americans.  I am surprised that this has not become an issue. Also may account for US lack of success.  

 

[kingcreole]

It would be a nice read if it wasn't completely full of ****.

Sorry, it just doesn't work. The more things like this are written, the more the author is exposed.

Crass what parts of article do you disagree with?

One thing I found interesting from article that I had not realized was the lack of minorities on US World Cup team -- few blacks and no latin americans.  I am surprised that this has not become an issue. Also may account for US lack of success.  

That is the biggest thing holding U.S. soccer back. Back in the late 80s, early 90s, the best USA player was a Latin American named Hugo Perez. I've lived in Hispanic-rich areas before, and I've seen some fabulous talent go unrecognized. I'm talking Division-I/pro talent. I've seen a kid from El Salvador (American citizen) who was the most skilled prep player I've ever seen, and I've been around prep soccer (playing, watching, refereeing, covering) since 1991. But he only got to stay at the local juco to play. Sad.

Another kid from Mexico (American citizen) was one of the best finishers I've ever seen, and right now he's playing at a tiny NAIA school because he never got another look. Youth Latin Americans is an untapped but vital resource to the future of American soccer.

 

[Bob Cook]

Just for argument's sake (and basing it on my own kids' experiences with the early level of youth sports), I'll take it upon myself to refute and/or expand upon some of the statements made on this topic:

1. It's true that soccer has been taken on as every kid's first organized sport. As mentioned earlier, that's because the concept is very easy to explain to even the smallest kid -- take that ball, kick it in the goal in that direction. Watching coaches try to teach five- and six-year-olds baseball, it's like Stephen Hawking explaining quantum physics to the rest of us.

2. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is not so much to protect the kids' fragile egos. Believe me, they know when they've lost. When I coached my son's 6- and 7-year-old coed basketball team a few years' back, it was a no-score-kept league, but somehow my kids always knew what the score was. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is to protect the fragile egos of the kids' parents.

3. Kids sports is not more "pussified." In fact, it's more cutthroat than ever. Maybe coaches can't yell and swear at 7-year-olds anymore, but the whole system is ruthlessly efficient at identifying the best athletes and giving them all the perks. (Don't we have a thread on a 10-year-old basketball player getting adidas money?) We used to laugh at Communist countries for their early-age youth-sports intensive training -- taking them away from parents and spending hours upon hours concentrating on one sport -- but what is the IMG Academies but a free-market version of that? Plus, traveling teams are getting younger, and the whole system demands that if you're good at one sport, you can't do anything else. The three-sport athlete is a dying breed. Heck, my son's Pony League (Mustang -- third- and fourth-graders) kept talking about how this wasn't Pinto (the younger league) anymore, and that it was time to get serious. My son played soccer and baseball in the spring -- the demands of both now dictate he can do only one or the other. With soccer, it's easier to get back into it if he misses a year. If he misses a year of baseball, he may as well announce his retirement.

4. Back to soccer, I would argue that soccer isn't a good cardio workout. For five- to 10-year-old kids, who will be put anywhere and everywhere on the field, it's relentless running. It might not look like much to adults, but they're really working. Baseball, obviously, is the sport that has no cardio value whatsoever.

5. Wrapping it up, I would say this phenomenon is not restricted to sports. From academics to performing arts to whatever other activity you can put your kid in, there's no middle ground, at least in the hegemony of parenting these days -- you're either training your kid relentessly for greatness in something, or your kid is doomed to be a ****-shoveler. That might be part of the reason for giving trophies to everybody -- to assauge parents' fear that their kid is falling behind. If there are kids who take that as participating is enough, that's because their parents are raising them with nothing but positive reinforcement (not that positive reinforcement is bad, but too much of positive or negative is not good).

 

[Twoback]

The U.S. started three African American players out of 11.
That's as large a percentage as you're getting in baseball now.
Fewer African American athletes are playing anything but basketball and football now.

 

[Boom_70]

The U.S. started three African American players out of 11.
That's as large a percentage as you're getting in baseball now.
Fewer African American athletes are playing anything but basketball and football now.

That's true but there was not ever one latin american player on team. The largest minority with perhaps the greatest interest in the sport does not have one player on the team.

 

[The Big Ragu]

2. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is not so much to protect the kids' fragile egos. Believe me, they know when they've lost. When I coached my son's 6- and 7-year-old coed basketball team a few years' back, it was a no-score-kept league, but somehow my kids always knew what the score was. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is to protect the fragile egos of the kids' parents.

Sorry man, but the idea of a "no-score-kept league," in and of itself, makes my earier point. Such a league would have been ridiculous when I was a kid. Why bother with a "no-score-kept league" if you aren't trying to protect your kids from losing? And what message are you sending them? You certainly aren't preparing them for the real world in which there ARE scoreboards in every walk of life, and there ARE winners and losers. And the "everybody gets a trophy" thing may be to protect the fragile egos of the parents, but again, what is the message you are sending the kids? Again, I don't want to label a whole generation. But it was a definite observation I had about the early 20s kids I saw entering jobs at the magazines we were doing. Many of them had no competitive instinct when it came to their work, and many of them really seemed to think all the had to do was show up and they'd get patted on the back and promoted. My bet is that it had a lot to do with those "no-score-kept leagues," and all those "participation" trophies.

 

[Boom_70]

2. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is not so much to protect the kids' fragile egos. Believe me, they know when they've lost. When I coached my son's 6- and 7-year-old coed basketball team a few years' back, it was a no-score-kept league, but somehow my kids always knew what the score was. The "everybody gets a trophy" thing is to protect the fragile egos of the kids' parents.

Sorry man, but the idea of a "no-score-kept league," in and of itself, makes my earier point. Such a league would have been ridiculous when I was a kid. Why bother with a "no-score-kept league" if you aren't trying to protect your kids from losing? And what message are you sending them? You certainly aren't preparing them for the real world in which there ARE scoreboards in every walk of life, and there ARE winners and losers.  And the "everybody gets a trophy" thing may be to protect the fragile egos of the parents, but again, what is the message you are sending the kids? Again, I don't want to label a whole generation. But it was a definite observation I had about the early 20s kids I saw entering jobs at the magazines we were doing. Many of them had no competitive instinct when it came to their work, and many of them really seemed to think all the had to do was show up and they'd get patted on the back and promoted. My bet is that it had a lot to do with those "no-score-kept leagues," and all those "participation" trophies.

Dead on Ragu - its also the point that Toobin makes about US World Cup team - they showed no mettle - which he attributes partly to how they have been conditioned from their youth soccer days.

I wonder if they all received trophies.

Also wonder if Bruce Arena set up a parent snack schedule for the boys after their games and practices.