Does Mainstream America Still Hate Soccer? If So, Why?

This thought first came into my head some months ago when I saw The Onion's sarcastic preview of an 'English soccer game', spotted by Brian Phillips over at the excellent Run of Play:

English Soccer Game - ESPN2 2pm EDT/1pm CDT You're just trying to look smart. Wait, are you wearing a scarf indoors? Ooooohh Heineken, ooooohhh. Pr*ck.

Now I realise The Onion is based on satire but the cynical undercurrent is obvious, bordering resentment.

Then, more recently, came the ESPN poll on the back of USA's historic 2-0 triumph against Spain in the Confederations Cup semi-finals. It asked Americans what is presumably the most pertinent question whenever soccer rises from the fringes of US sport up into wider national consciousness: 'Do you even care?'

Whilst considering whether The Onion's jibe was merely a harmless dig or in fact indicative of a wider reaching hostility towards the game of football/soccer from a considerable proportion of American society, I decided to delve deeper. It didn't take long before I found this article: How Soccer is Ruining America - the views of a philosophy and religion professor on why this 'pitiful sport' is undermining 'American energy, drive and competitiveness...to the point of no return.'

Professor Webb's piece, published on a 'journal of religion, culture and public life' puts forward four main arguments as to why football is the anti-christ of human development:

1) Using your feet is bad, uncouth even. 'Have you ever seen a deaf person trying to talk with their feet?' (Hey?) 'Did Jesus wash his disciples’ hands at the Last Supper? No, hands are divine, while feet are in need of redemption.' Webb reasons. I found it hard not to laugh reading that but maybe it's just me.

2) Sport should be about breaking down a person's resolve, about character building. It should be about the spectacle of public failure. Like baseball, apparently. Football, in Webb's mind, does not do enough to humiliate and lacks the capacity to crush the spirit. Without even stepping into the debate about why something so recreational and carefree as sport should 'break kids down', did this guy even see John Terry after that penalty?

3) Football was invented by dirty foreigners, ergo it is wholly un-American and impure. 'Soccer is a foreign invasion... a European sport because it is all about death and despair.' This seems completely at odds with point 2 (first he criticises football's inability to humiliate, then he chastises the 'despair' it creates).

In point 3 he also trots out the classic party line of your average anti-footballista; that it 'typically ends with a penalty kick out... As if the audience needs to be put out of its misery.' Mind you, if he is referring to the Ukraine vs Switzerland game at the 2006 World Cup its a fair point.

4) Finally, Webb argues that soccer, quite simply, is a game for girls. 'As a display of nearly death-defying stamina, soccer mimics the paradigmatic feminine experience of childbirth more than the masculine business of destroying your opponent with insurmountable power.' Tough to know where to begin on this one, so I'll just leave it out there.

So from Professor Webb we can gather that football, to some in the States, is a horrible, feckless, non-character building, unholy, dirty feet-oriented, foreign game for girls. And this was written on a 'religiously informed public philosophy' website!

Many other cultural outlets have in the past taken a dig at football. The Simpsons for example in their classic Mexico vs Portugal sketch, which while admittedly hilarious does contain all the bugbears Americans hold up against the sport - low scores, boredom-inducing passages of play, supposedly irrelevant nations, hooliganism.

Just deserts

And so the debate pops up again after USA's victory against Spain. In the immediate aftermath of arguably the greatest achievement in US soccer history, aside from celebrating the feat, debate raged over football's status across the pond. Gary Schmitt at The American argued that USA's 2-0 win despite Spain's dominance of play offered further proof that football can and should never be mainstream:

"I can say unquestionably that it is the sport in which the team that dominates loses more often than any other major sport I know of. Or, to put it more bluntly, the team that deserves to win doesn’t. For some soccer-loving friends, this is perfectly okay. Indeed, they will argue that it’s a healthy, conservative reminder of how justice does not always prevail in life. Well, hooey on that. And, thankfully, Americans are not buying it.

My suspicion is that the so-called “beautiful game” is not so beautiful to American sensibilities. We like, as good small “d” democrats, our underdogs for sure but we also still expect folks in the end to get their just desert. And, in sports, that means excellence should prevail. Of course, the fact that is often not the case when it comes to soccer may be precisely the reason the sport is so popular in the countries of Latin America and Europe."

The Spectator's retort pretty much nails it in terms of counter-argument. As Alex Massie mentions, does 'excellence' really prevail in sporting industries that, far from reward the best, actually handicap them with all manner of financial restraints? Massie's article also raises an important observation: in America, football bashing does tend to be more the popular pastime of authoritarian, right-leaning neoconservatives than any other sector of society.

With all that in mind, really my question is - why? And to what extent is football in America hated, or if not hated then observed with such profound suspicion and mistrust? Because it is boring? Because of the perpetually trotted out hooligan element? Because of some nationalistic disapproval of a 'foreign' dominated sport?

I'd be very interested to hear people's thoughts on this, particularly readers in the States with greater insight into the subject than I.