The US fan maintains a simple and refined approach to showing team support.
A great debate has been visited on America. Will Team USA perform to its highest potential in the World Cup? Has soccer finally captured America’s attention? Does the increased popularity of soccer in the United States portend the collapse of Western civilization?
I expect the answer to each of these questions is “no.” Soccer is the world’s game, but it likely won’t become America’s game because, well, it wasn’t invented here. And Americans are, frankly, a bit provincial about sports (some folks would argue we’re provincial about lots of things, but that is a discussion for another time).
Sports that are popular in the United States tend to have a great many rules. Perhaps this is because we are such a “legalistic” society that suffers from an overpopulation of lawyers. Perhaps it is simply because Americans don’t like ambiguity.
The official major league baseball rule book has 240 pages.
The official professional football rule book has 223 pages.
The official rules of soccer have 152 pages.
Rugby rules take 96 pages.
While I can hardly pretend to know all the rules Americans would have added to soccer had we invented it, there are some that are obvious:
• Instead of three officials on the field, there would be at least seven.
• The clock would stop each time the ball goes out of bounds.
• The referee would have to present the ball to the player before it is thrown in on an out-of-bounds throw.
• The clock would stop whenever a goal kick is called and would not start until the goalie kicked the ball, which would be placed on a tee before kicking.
• Whenever there is a goal kick, the team not kicking would be allowed to substitute up to six players (of course, substitutions would be unlimited for the game).
• Play would stop every four minutes to allow television to run four minutes of advertisements.
• Players would be required to wear helmets, knee pads, shoulder pads, elbow pads, mouth guards and protective eye glasses.
• Any player who flops in agony will have to leave the game for 10 minutes unless he is back on his feet within 10 seconds of his alleged injury. (Soccer has lots of pretend tragedies.) Stoppage time is eliminated.
• In addition to the on-field officials, a team of an additional five referees will monitor the game via strategically placed cameras and will stop play if they have any doubt about anything and would like to watch replays for a few minutes.
• There will be no ties. If the regular 90 minutes end in a tie, an additional 15-minute-period will be played. If the score is still tied, the outcome will be decided by penalty kicks – but you have to win by two.
• Halftime will be twice as long to allow for a marching band.
• Each team will add cheerleaders, a dance team and a mascot.
Of course, I hope nothing like this ever happens to soccer, which clearly is a lot more exciting to watch than baseball or American football. And if soccer ever is “Americanized” I’ll start watching Irish Hurling. That is a game with lots of excitement – and very few rules.
