Soccer Socialism

It is not common for a left wing European to admit his admiration for anything American, especially its “Soccer” team which has been much derided as minority sport in the USA. However, I am delighted that real football is growing in North America and the possibility of it coinciding with a shift to progressive thinking over the pond.

Much has been made of the United States' two previous World Cup matches breaking viewing records. The victory over Ghana attracted the biggest US television audience for a football match - 16m people. The draw with Portugal smashed that record with an average of 24.7m viewers. And the match against Germany in Recife is expected to surpass even that. To put this into perspective this is higher than the finals of the NBA and the Major League Baseball's hallowed World Series.

The right wing commentator and representative of the old dying America Ann Coulter has comically stated that: "Any growing interest in soccer can only be a sign of the nation's moral decay. The same people trying to push soccer on Americans are the ones demanding that we love HBO's Girls, light-rail, Beyonce and Hillary Clinton."

Even though the very premise is absolutely ludicrous, it is clear to me that Football is in no doubt an internationalist sport and if it is adopted as a sport of liberal America it can be a good thing in broadening the often too inward looking USA. This can only be helped by the internationalist nature of the national team which mirrors the USA in general which has seen a decline in power of the old traditional “conservative white order”.

Unlike the country as a whole the USA is more influenced by Europe rather than the growing Latin American population within USA (I am sure this community which loves football will become more influential in the national team in the near future). United States manager Jurgen Klinsmann is famously from Germany but he is not the only member of the American squad with links to the European nation. In total five US players were either born to American families in Germany or moved there as children. Including Jermiane Jones the former Blackburn Rovers player (another reason why I have soft spot for the USA team).

There has also been a growth in progressive analysis of football in America including by Dave Zirin at Edge of Sports, the Howler Radio Podcast and the academic Dr Tim Walters who founded the “Occupy Football” movement.

However, it should not go unnoticed that the US system of sport (such as the NFL, MBA and baseball) despite being more nationalistic and inward looking in nature, is certainly more socialistic compared to football in the way it is run due to the draft system, wage caps and strong player unions. 

Only time will tell whether the popularity of football will remain when/if they get  knocked out of the World Cup, and whether or not it will  be seen as part of a broader shift in social values in the country. This is an area I will be following closely.