The NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Championship is in full swing and, as usual, is capturing attention across the country. It certainly deserves this attention, as every year, the event nicknamed March Madness throws a new surprise at us.
However, thousands of miles away, there’s another major annual competition that is capturing the minds of all of Europe: the UEFA Champions League.
Touted as the world’s greatest soccer tournament outside of FIFA’s World Cup held every four years, the Champions League brings the best club sides in Europe together in an epic tournament that runs from September to May. A field of 32 will slowly but surely get whittled down to two, and the last teams standing will converge on London’s Wembley Stadium for a thrilling cup final.
Yet somehow, this momentous tournament, one which captivates an entire continent and beyond, goes relatively unnoticed in the United States. How is that even possible?
There are a number of factors in play here. The first, most obvious factor is that the average American sports fan has neutral or negative feelings towards soccer, a sport known to most of the world as football. Of course, we Americans are so ingrained in what we call football — the kind with helmets and pads and very little actual usage of feet — that we don’t want something invading our traditions.
Then there’s the idea of people not liking soccer for the way it’s played, which is a ridiculous notion in its own right.
Search through social media during a big game and see a non-soccer fan ridicule the network broadcasting it, going on about how the game is boring or about how players dive at every opportunity and every game ends 0-0. They’d rather watch their toenails grow than watch soccer. Well, let them be, while the rest of us bask in “the beautiful game”.
Soccer is by no means boring. When some clubs, like Spanish giants Barcelona, try to control possession of the ball, calculating the right passing lanes and striking when the moment is right, maybe it comes off as such. But it’s not really boring as much as it is a thinking man’s game. Until, of course, the fouls start flying and, inevitably, the players follow.
Diving is certainly a problem, but it’s not quite as frequent as some people think. And besides, I’m sure most of these complainers would do the same in the players’ positions, trying to gain favorable calls. Going to ground under little contact is part of the game. Referees call what they see; if it looks like a foul, then it’s probably a foul.
Yes, the more blatant incidents are tough to watch, even if the offender does get shown a yellow card, as is often the case. In the end, that’s just the players going out of their way to help their team win.
The biggest factor, I feel, is the fact that the U.S. hasn’t exactly had a hotbed of success in the sport. Our national team has made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup just once since passing that point in the inaugural competition, way back in 1930. Major League Soccer was an offspring of hosting the World Cup in 1994, in which the United States finished eighth, but the league hasn’t quite blown up as it was supposed to.
Only recently has the league gained a lot of publicity, if only for the fact that in 2007, former England international star David Beckham showed up to play in Los Angeles amidst much hype. Admittedly, the quality of play is somewhat lower in the MLS than in Europe’s biggest leagues, where players are groomed nearly from birth to become world-class players.
In the U.S., we just don’t seem to have that sort of interest in the sport, seeing as how games created within our borders have been our traditions for generations. But if we can get invested in a global phenomenon like the Champions League, it could set the path for parents raising their kids to enjoy soccer, which in turn could give us a generation of kids invested in the game enough to make our country a soccer powerhouse.
In a football-driven world, we’re lagging behind. And that needs to change, and watching the best is the perfect place to start.
