Steve Christilaw: World Cup shows Americans making strides on Beautiful Game
It turned out to be a trick question back in the day.
I’d applied for my first full-time job as a sports writer and the newspaper had applicants take a quiz on a wide variety of sports. The last of the 10 questions was: Please explain the offside rule in soccer.
I wrote an extensive explanation of the rule. I hadn’t covered much soccer at that point in my career, but I’d watched a few Seattle Sounders games here and there and tuned into any televised game involving Pele and the New York Cosmos.
During the interview the sports editor read over my answers. “You got the last one wrong,” he said with a big grin. “Nobody understands the offsides rule in soccer.”
Three decades later soccer has blossomed as a hugely popular youth sport. As such there are a plethora of parents who not only understand the offside rule, they’re happy to explain it to the nearest linesman who might dare to invoke it on their child.
But even with that homegrown foundation, soccer doesn’t enjoy anything close to the international passion it engenders around the world. Even during the World Cup.
Don’t get me wrong – it’s great to see crowds gathering to watch games and overhear fans discussing opening-round games that don’t involve the United States men’s national team.
Every four years feels like the springboard to a wider appeal for the Beautiful Game in this country. And every four years it falls short of full blossom. But at the same time, every four years feels like one more step forward.
We play a very good game of soccer in our backyard. Central Valley won its first girls state Class 4A title last fall and Spokane Valley area soccer programs have regularly reached the state playoffs.
It helps that we have strong Pacific Northwest ties to top-level soccer – but the Northwest has a long history supporting high quality, starting with the original Seattle Sounders and Portland Timbers of the North American Soccer League.
Both clubs have strong followings now – with Seattle landing the huge coup last year with the addition of Clint Dempsey.
But what the rest of the world experiences with soccer is something you must see to believe, and comprehend.
I had the good fortune to be in Madrid the week before a La Liga match between Real Madrid and Barcelona and a faceoff between the two players many consider the best in the world: Real Madrid’s Cristiano Renaldo and Barca’s Lionel Messi.
At the time Messi was a two-time world player of the year award winner en route to winning a third straight. Renaldo was settled in after leaving Manchester United and, while Madrid loved him for his creative abilities on the pitch, the rest of the world reviled him for some of his tactics.
Throughout Europe, Africa, Central and South American and Asia, a match-up between these two billboard players (and Renaldo billboards are everywhere advertising his personal line of underwear) would be an event well worth watching. In the United States? Most fans don’t even know who they are.
It was amazing, even as a non-Spanish speaker, to watch the buildup to the match. There was a buzz in the air as you stopped off at a neighborhood café or tapas bar for a bite and a beer. It was as if the people of the city were so excited about the match that they vibrated.
And during the World Cup, that level of excitement goes up tenfold or more. It’s like a monthlong Super Bowl party.
And we miss out on that kind of national pride and international camaraderie.