America's still not on the ball

David Smith13 April 2012

World Cup commentary, American-style: "He's got a red! It's hastalavista, baby!" More Arnie than Motty, it pelts the ear with all the subtlety of a clattering tackle by Gabriel Batistuta.

The temptation is to sneer at the efforts being made by our distant cousins to embrace the beautiful game. After all, 52 years have passed since Joe Gaetjen glanced home the goal that humbled Billy Wright's mighty England. It is reasonable, therefore, to assume that the game they insist on pronouncing "succour" might have caught on by now.

The reality is that soccer is still treated with suspicion on this side of the Atlantic. So much so that it goes on trial tomorrow when the United States play for the win or the draw against Poland in Daejeon that would take Bruce Arena's side through to the round of 16.

The point is made by senior columnist John Smallwood of the Philadelphia Daily News who wrote: "The sport is at a crossroads here.

"If soccer ever wants to be more than just a great youth activity in which Americans lose interest once they become adults, the US team must have an impressive performance."

A shock 3-2 victory over Portugal in the United State's opening game of Group D was not enough to erase the memories of a pitiful performance in France '98. Then, the team representing the most powerful country on earth could only finish 32nd and last.

For a nation that prides itself on being a winner at everything it undertakes, that was too much to bear especially since one of the preliminary group defeats was against Iran in an encounter that was always going to be about more than simply sport. After hopes that the game would finally establish itself here when the United States hosted the World Cup in 1994, the fall-out from the misadventure in France has been considerable.

Major League Soccer, the seven-year-old equivalent of our Premiership, responded to losses of up to £214 million by cutting two teams before the start of this season.

That reduces the number of nationwide franchises from 12 to 10. Six of those remaining teams are, in part, being kept financially afloat by the giant Anschutz entertainment organisation, owners of the London Knights ice hockey team who now have a significant interest in developing London's Millennium Dome into a sports arena.

It is the same in the new women's professional league, run by the Women's United Soccer Association. The WUSA is reported to have lost nearly £30m in 2001, it's first year of operation. Despite the United States being the reigning women's world champions, average attendances are down 14 per cent from 8,104 a year ago to 7,164 this summer.

The image of women's soccer was not helped by a recent scandal in which an Atlanta newspaper made a claim that the WUSA would be happy for players of the stature of Mia Hamm, the world's most recognised-female soccer star, to appear in Playboy magazine as a ploy to gaining more publicity for the sport.

The MLS have fared better. Average gates are up from 14,961 in 2001 to 16,228 after 48 games this season. In Washington, DC United averaged more than 20,000 fans, a figure that many First Division clubs in England would gladly accept.

Yet Kevin Payne, managing director of soccer for Anschutz, admitted: "We still have a difficult task ahead to convert masses of people into fans of the professional game. We basically-have to create a whole new culture-a habit of supporting teams." Symptomatic of those difficulties was a situation in which the 2002 World Cup was set to be televised in the United States only by the Spanish-language Univision station until the MLS stepped in and secured a deal for games to be broadcast on the two ESPN channels and the ABC network.

The conundrum is that 19 million Americans play soccer, which means the sport trails only basketball in terms of team participation. But a recent Gallup poll undertaken on behalf of USA Today newspaper reported that 90 per cent of American adults profess little or no interest in attending soccer matches.

But there is hope. The opening game of the World Cup, in which France was surprised by Senegal, was watched by just 485,600 households in the US even though it was broadcast live at the reasonable time of 7.30am on the east coast.

Yet the United States' most recent 1-1 draw against World Cup co-hosts South Korea was seen live by 1.36 million households even though it kicked off at an unearthly 2.30am on the east coast. That was a viewing record for soccer on ESPN2.

The message, that can be enforced by the right result against Poland, may finally be getting across - although not everyone would appear to be receptive.

Tiger Woods, the world's best golfer who is competing in this week's US Open, was asked yesterday if he had been following the World Cup. He shrugged and replied: "You've got the wrong country."

Poland v USA
12.30pm, tomorrow, Daejeon

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