USA USA... Oh wait soccer's over

Let me tell you a story about a 14 year old kid and his dad. You see, this kid loved his dad and looked up to him. Both father and son are big sports fans. The son always talked to his dad about sports and obviously liked the same teams his dad did. Baseball, football, some hockey and a little big of basketball. It was great. There was one thing that the son never understood. How could his father love SOCCER more than any of those sports?!?!  It's slow, it's boring, the rules are a little complicated and I don't understand why the clock never stops?!?  But looking up to his dad, the son wanted to learn why he loved it so much. So when his dad asked him to go to a World Cup game at Giants stadium that year, he was happy to go. Upon entering Giant stadium that day he saw 2 groups of fans that loved their countries and teams, he saw passion that was unmatched from any sporting event he had ever been too, he saw competitiveness but comratery. But what he saw that touched him most of all was has Dad, a person he looked up too for his entire life, watching a sport he loved so much with a look in his eye like a little kid. At that moment, that 14 year old boy was hooked on soccer, and especially the World Cup. 

That 14 year old boy was me many moons ago. Even though I may never have the love for soccer my dad did (mine will always be baseball), I went on to learn, love and play soccer. Learning this wonderful game is not easy but in doing so I have some insite on why Americans can not embrace this wonderful game because I needed to come to grips with a few things to do so. Below you will find the list  

1. There is no clock:  Americans are so used to structure, clocks stopping, out of bounds, time outs incomplete passes and whatever else that will stop a game clock. It's something we can control, use and even minipulate if we want to (kneeling down at te end of a game). With soccer you don't have that. A clock runs but it's not official. There is only one person that has the official clock and that's the ref on the field. Everything else is an estimation and a guess. You can't stop the clock when it goes out of bounds,  when a goal scores, to call a time out, at a 2 minute warning, or when someone "injures" themselves. You need to except that not only is the clock not your friend, it's your enemy and there is no way you can stop it, speed it up or minipulate it. Except the ref will stop play when the time is up in his watch and that he will not call a "play dead" and end a game in the middle of a chance to score if his time runs out. Play will only ever stop at a neutral point not in the middle of someone trying to score.  

2. 1-0 games and 0-0 games are the norm:  Soccer is not built to be a high flying lots of scoring type of game. It's a game a skill and finesse that needs to have a perfect situation for a scoring play. As Americans, we hate this. 90% of people hate pitchers dules, don't like the defensive football games with low scoring, if a basketball team plays good defense first before scoring it's not an enjoyable game and low scoring is the reason no one really likes hockey. Unfortanetlaly we are trained to expect action to be entertained. We need to except/appreciate the skill over the action

3. MOST IMPORTANT... We are not the best in the world:  Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey, even Tennis, Golf and the Olympics. We expect excellence out of all of these sports. The top leagues play here (for the most part), more importantly, even if the best players aren't American, the goal is to get to America to play here, make the most money, and showcase your ability. With soccer, this will never happen. The best players/league is set up in Europe. This game is older than us.  We can play it here but we will not get the top players until they are done with the leagues over in Europe. MLS is like the retirement league that helps older players extend their playing carrer. We need to except this and not be upset with players from

America that go to these European teams to play. They are just doing what foreign players have done for so many years by coming here to play in the NBA, NHL, MLB, and NFL. 

4. Soccer Players are sissys:  Listen, just because players are diving like they just got shot in the leg ever time someone touches them doesn't make them a sissy. It makes them an actor. They are trying to draw a penalty (falsely) to get a free kick in order to put their team in a better position to score and win a game. Anyone that basically is running for 90 minutes strait is not a sissy. Get that sissy thing out of your head. 

Once you understand all of this and except this as fact, you can start appreciating this game that has been played before our time and that the entire world embraces. Alas I know the answer to this. 90% of America can't get past the fact we are not the best at something, the rules are not what we are used to, and no one is willing to "change things" to appease us.  Watching my dad's passion for a sport, since he is from Italy and has played soccer there as well as here in the US, was one of the greatest things I remember as a young teenager. I learned and played, wanting to make him proud. Hope I did. I leave you with this. Give soccer a chance. Open up your mind and except it's rules, with and without its flaws and you will see an amazing sport, with amazing passion. #JustSayin