Soccer

So, I'm curious, why is it that Americans are often depicted as unsophisticated and provincial because they don't like soccer? Because, the way I see it, soccer is a remarkably unsophisticated and provincial sport.

The sport itself is probably the least complicated major team sport out there - essentially two teams kicking a ball back and forth, each trying to get the ball in the other's goal while defending their own. Now, I know there are a bunch of rules, but the fact is that an alien (of the little green variety) could probably sit down at a soccer match and figure out the basics of the game pretty swiftly. Compared to baseball or American football, which are ridiculously complicated, understanding soccer is child's play. Which, after all, is a big reason why the sport is so popular - anyone can play it, you can play it anywhere, and there's little learning curve. But that doesn't explain why Americans are unsophisticated for not liking it. If anything, it's the rest of the world that's unsophisticated for not loving baseball (or cricket).

But I think the real argument is just that Americans stubbornly refuse to embrace a sport that everyone else likes, and this is taken as further evidence of our arrogant nature (right up there with vetoing the Kyoto Accords). This, however, ignores that fact that soccer is hardly a sport that brings the world together. If anything, it tears people apart - soccer fans are notoriously nationalistic and provincial, not to mention thuggish. Are American sports fans terribly civilized? No, but at least we rarely see riots between fans from different places. "Hooligan" is thankfully not a word often associated with baseball fans.