American Ex-cup-tionalism

Thanks to strong defense from American goalie Tim Howard and a fumble by his English counterpart, Robert Green, America did not lose its first game in this year’s World Cup. Instead, the match in South Africa’s Royal Bafokeng Stadium was a draw: 1–1. And as ESPN’s Jemele Hill put it, “The draw was a gift.”

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Does this mean Joe the Plumber will soon be getting out his vuvuzela to cheer on Bob Bradley and the team? Not really. Americans enjoy playing the game we call soccer (and everyone else calls futbol), but it’s definitely not part of our “hegemonic sports culture.” According to political scientist Andrei Markovits, we save our love for the “Big Three and One-Half”: baseball, football (our kind), basketball, and ice hockey.

Why is that? One reason, offered by sports journalist Stefan Fatsis, is that until the late 19th century, Americans played two versions of “the kicking game” — one hands-on, one hands-off. But then in 1875, Harvard led Princeton, Yale, Columbia, and Rutgers down the path of hands-on football (heavy armor to follow), and the hands-off style of playing faded away.

Another reason highlighted in Markovits’s books is that futbol was spread by the British Empire, along with the Queen’s English and the custom of wearing ratty-looking wigs in courtrooms. If you’ve ever watched a cricket match in India, this point will need no further elaboration.

Decidedly not part of the Empire, we Yanks took a hard nativist line, turning British rounders and rugby into baseball and football, and dubbing our own national competitions “World Series” and “World Championships.” Spend five minutes talking about sports with a foreigner, and you’ll get an earful about how solipsistic this looks to others.

I have my own theory about America’s lack of interest in futbol: too much of the action takes place overseas, and as everyone knows, Americans tend to be ignorant about — and worse, indifferent to — the world beyond our water’s edge.

In America’s defense, it should be noted that this is a huge country, with more than enough regional and cultural diversity for Joe the Plumber to sort out — who has time to sort out all those other countries, too? One could also say, America is insular compared to what? Are there a lot of other countries out there as big and varied as America, where ordinary people take a lively interest in the world beyond their borders? I can’t think of any.

Still, it’s a pity more Americans don’t pay attention to the “beautiful game” beloved by the 95 percent of humanity who are not Americans. Maybe this will change if the World Cup comes to our shores in 2018 or 2022. This decision will be made in December by FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association. (Now, if only we could get them to translate that into English ... )

Photo by Clive Davis, Cookham, England