1. Heavily agreed. The phenomenon can also be observed in our decadence in tennis and the Olympics.

Even in basketball our team needed a huge overhaul in focus after receiving bronze in 2004. While we undoubtedly had the best basketball players on our team, but there was a lack of necessary respect towards the tournament to win it. Likewise our opposition was poorly scouted, and it surprised many viewers across the US.

I’m afraid the US lives in an insular cage when it comes to international sports, and some of the pigheadedness against soccer comes from a misguided sentiment that “our sports have to be better than the world’s”, as if one can rank the merit of entirely different sports in such a manner at all.

2. While this is something which many anti-soccer US sports fans will express, I’m not convinced that it is entirely accurate.

Baseball can be fairly low-scoring, and its moments of action are far more dispersed than any sport I know. Likewise a 14-7 NFL score (2 touchdowns to 1) will not be looked at with as much of a frown as a 2-1 soccer match.

I think the main thing Americans have trouble grappling with in soccer is that (especially on a lower level) possession can be lost much too easily, before an attack even reaches the final third. It makes the exercise feel futile to many sports fans, and it is a concept which is absent from our major sports (baseball, basketball, NFL).

Anyways these views are mainly from my own experience with friends and fans here and from comments from other message boards.

Hope that helped.

It is great that “Soccer” is getting a following in the US, and i think this will only grow, but I dont think it will ever compete with the big sports there for spectators. The reason is 2 fold:

1. Culturally americans dont generally have much knowledge outside the US so are not so interested in sports covering the globe, just whats going on in their back yard.
2. There is a need for constant scoring or goals or points… so for a game to have 0 or 1 goal wouldnt be exciting enough. Also games can end in draws which it seems americans arent too keen on….

Please correct me if i am wrong on these 2 points, but that is the impression I, and most Englishman I know, have about US sports fans…. I am however glad that there are a growing number of exceptions, like yourself.

Loved that bit.

I think that so many American kids, me included, having had such rich memories playing the game reflects how uncompromisingly soccer spread in other countries where there were no other pre-dominant sports.

Now that the sporting crowd here are much more open-minded and informed, we can really become a force on the international stage.