The World Europe Cup soccer tournament continues today. Portugal, France, Germany, and Italy--four countries within a few hundred miles of one another--battle for supremacy in what really isn't the world's sport, after all. Soccer is Europe's sport, and some Europeans believe, like the song says: "We are the world."

Sure, soccer is played, and watched, just about everywhere. But so is basketball and baseball. In baseball's newly created World Baseball Classic, teams from Latin America, North America, and Asia all had fighting chances to win. But in the World Europe Cup, only teams from Europe and South America were expected to challenge for the title. In fact, since 1930 just seven nations--Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, Italy, France, Germany, and England--have won the soccer tournament. Of the sixty-eight teams that have made it to the World Cup semifinals, just two have been from outside Europe and South America. The tournament itself has been held outside Europe and South America twice.

Perhaps labeling the "World Cup" the "Europe Cup" is unfair to South Americans. But labeling it the "World Cup" is unfair to North Americans. We don't really care all that much about soccer--at least not as much as football, baseball, basketball, hockey, and several other sports.

Is soccer the world sport? The United States of America is in the world, right? In the United States, soccer has not caught on as a professional sport. There is a niche audience of immigrants and people who played the game. But there are few broadcasts on national television, no million-dollar contract, and no sold-out stadiums. The average attendance for MLS games last year was 15,108. Put another away, NFL Europe draws greater numbers than U.S. soccer.

The game is popular among kids, and its simplicity--a ball, a net, your feet--lends itself to accessibility. Thus, any cash-strapped high school can field a team, just as impoverished Africans, Arabs, and Latin Americans can generally start a pick-up game. In that sense, it is universal, and universal in a way that hockey and football can never hope to be. It's a game that requires athleticism, endurance, and skill. I watch it, at least when the Olympics and World Cup roll around. But what's the point of projecting one's personal tastes upon the rest of humanity? Boasts of the "world sport" tell us less about soccer's popularity than they do about the unpopularity of a certain part of the world with the boaster.

Let the soccer fans have the World Cup. Just don't give us baseball fans a hard time when we watch players from around the globe compete in the World Series. It's our world, too.

Soccer is the ultimate metaphor for socialism: Maximum collective input and exertion of energy for little output, yielding minimal results. Players do all that for scores of 1-0? 2-1? Screw all that about Americans just not getting it; we get it. Soccer is just gay.

(A side rant: another reason not to like soccer is the fact that it makes its' way into that sorry list of activities that the "soccer mom" has to drop her sissy kids off to in that Dunkin Donuts commercial: "swimming, soccer, ballet, oboe, and karate." Almost like a list of non-competitive suburban hobbies, all of these activities and "individual sports" all deal in a kind of "outcome-based education" for sports (see leagues that keep no score) that free the little sissies from the anxiety of competition and put them in their own occupied world of femininely-acceptable activities. I guess it's just marketing to capture an audience and reflect the habits of society, but it's still annoying.)

Soccer made for a good movie in Victory (1981), but I am still not a fan.

In more important sporting news, the NBA Summer League begins in Las Vegas on Thursday.

How is soccer any less of a world event than the Olympics? I'm not sure if you are joking or that you just can't see how spectacularly you failed to make your point by stating soccer is European and then excluding all the other countries that get to the World Cup.

1) Watch the episodes of the Unlikely Fan. He is an American in Holland commenting on the game and will convince you of soccer's awesomeness.

2) Watch the Italy vs Germany game at 3.

How is soccer less of a world event than the Olympics? The reason for the first World Cup answers your question. The Olympics had no interest in hosting a soccer tournament in Los Angeles in 1932 because they feared no one would come. Thus, the World Cup was born--born from a lack of truly global interest. There was regional interest, e.g., Europe and South America. But in the host country of the Olympics, the USA, there wasn't interest.

Seattle and Pittsburgh, the two teams that played in the Super Bowl, are further apart geographically than Italy and Germany. Ditto for France and Portugal. It seems a rather parochial attitude for a few countries in Western Europe to imagine themselves as the world.

Like the World Cup, the World Baseball Classic features teams from Europe, and Australia, and South America, and Asia, and North America. But who really cares that the Netherlands sports a baseball team? What matters is not what nations field teams (didn't Jamaica have a bobsled team?). What matters is what nations field teams that can potentially win. This is a handful of nations, geographically concentrated to Western Europe and South America. Sure, they let 32 nations in the Cup tournament. But most of those teams are window dressing to make it appear as though this is truly a world tournament. Perhaps a third of those teams have any hope of making it to the finals, and all of those teams lie in Western Europe and South America. To support this point, the only teams that have made it to the finals in the history of the "World" Cup have been from Western Europe and South America.

The World Cup is cool. But Euro-soccer nerds who diss the World Series as an example of American parochialism might want to examine their own claims regarding soccer as THE global sport. Face reality: the players in the World Series are far more ethnically diverse than the players who will take the field for the World Cup finals.

They didn't let 32 nations into the World Cup, 32 nations qualified for the World Cup. 200 participants are wittled down to 32. When there are 32 teams, that then are the finals. It's a lot more diverse than the "World" Series.

OJ: You're playing word games. "Let"? "Qualify"? Who cares? I'm fully aware, even though I am just an American rube, that teams that are "let" into the 32 team tournament have to "qualify." But that Burma fields a team says about as much about soccer's reach as Jamaica's Winter Olympics team says about bobsledding. Jamaica has no chance of winning, just as every nation outside Western Europe and South America has absolutely no chance of winning the World Cup. Most teams have no chance of qualifying, and most teams that qualify have no chance of winning. The nations that do have a chance to win hail from two very small corners of planet earth. The actual finals, when there are two teams, is in reality a lot less diverse than the World Series, which featured players from Cuba, Venezuela, Japan, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and from all over the United States of America.

The U.S. and Canada are in the world. Soccer isn't very popular there, just as baseball isn't very popular in Europe. Most of the world has an interest in soccer, but just two parts of the world have an intense enough interest in it to field competitive teams. The best athletes in nations outside of Western Europe and South America don't play soccer.

Your mention of 200 teams vying for World Cup slots bolsters my case. Two hundred teams, 75 years of history, but just seven nations have won the Europe/South American Cup.

Let's see how white and undiverse the finalists are (which is what you were implying).

Look at that! The whiteness is almost blinding!

Of course some teams have a better chance than others of qualifying, that is the nature of sports everywhere. By saying the "World" Series is more diverse you are comparing apples and oranges. The World Cup is fought for between different countries, not teams that have no geographic association like the "World" Series. Last time I checked the Red Sox weren't composed solely of players living in the surrounding area.

Four teams, from two times zones, fighting for one "World" Cup. I'm afraid the world I live in is a lot larger than the Western half of one continent. It at least encompasses the United States, and the United States doesn't care about soccer--no matter how many people try to convince us that we should or that we will. Sure, not every World Cup finals feature such a geographically concentrated group of teams. But this year's situation, exaggerated though it is, buttresses the general point: the World Cup is actually a contest between teams from two small corners of the world. There is nominal participation from the rest of the world, and intense fan interest from other parts of the world, but the World Cup, as the past proves and the present semifinals support, is about Western Europe and South America.

There are six billion people on the planet. There will always be people who dream that all six billion of us will be united for some cause--fighting aliens, establishing global communism, watching soccer. But it's just a dream, and we should be glad that it is just that. We are individuals and not some giant "we."

All the American anti-soccer attitude boils down to is a combination of soft bigotry (which is a result of neo-isolationism and American exceptionalism) and the insecurity of the American male since women entered the work force (which results in these stupid shows of machismo).

What if Americans complained that Europe's stubborn refusal to accept baseball was the result of "soft bigotry"?

I don't know the details of Europe's refusal to adopt baseball. Was there a European league that failed to take? If it was soft bigotry and not for well founded criticisms of baseball, I wouldn't have any problem with Americans complaining.

obi

I enjoyed the spirited give and take of your exchange with Dan until you resorted to the low blow of racism. Disappointing.

Sean O'

Let's hear Dan's comments on the Italy vs Germany game.

I watched the whole match. It had moments of excitement but its not about to get me to watch more than a handful of matches every 4 years.

OJ: Incredible game. Watching the match I couldn't help but think that these guys were in the A-league and the previous games I've watched this World Cup have been B-league games. They just seemed that much better. Two, evenly matched, highly-skilled teams going for it without cleating the opposition in the groin. In its greatness, however, the game contained the primary reason why Americans aren't into soccer: 2 hours and no goals. Americans wouldn't sit through a two-hour joke to get to the punchline, so it's not likely they're going to patiently sit through two hours of soccer before getting a goal--even if they have to wait just two minutes to get the next one. Not to get too ana!ytical, but European culture, like soccer, seems more laid back; American culture, like football, seems more aggressive. I enjoyed this game, but one has to be very patient and laid-back to sit through two hours of anything to get the payoff. A great final two minutes. An even better first two hours. I think most Americans would see things in the reverse, though.

I agree completely with the Dan. I watched the Italy-Germany game? match?, anyways, and it was exciting, for a day off and it being on TV. I agree about the the last two minutes/first two hours. But again, I think I'm representative of most Americans when I say it doesn't change my opinion of the sport as not all that interesting/exciting.

Succer err Soccer blows! I say add spiking when the balls in the air aka like volley ball. Now that would be cool!

"I don't know the details of Europe's refusal to adopt baseball. Was there a European league that failed to take? If it was soft bigotry and not for well founded criticisms of baseball, I wouldn't have any problem with Americans complaining." -obi juan

Apparently Obi Juan is Noam Chomsky.

All you need to know about soccer in the U.S. was demonstrated yesterday when most people didn't even know or care that Italy and Germany were playing for a spot in the Finals. With the exception of very small local populations (like the predominantly Italian North End for example) the game was pretty much background noise and viewed casually. 0-0 at the end of regulation says a lot about the game as an entertainment event and unless you're a purist or a complete all around sports junky, it was pretty lame.

On a side note, I don't think I've ever seen a more whining, sensitive and unsportsmanlike group of athletes than most of the soccer players observed in this tournament.

you're grasping at straws here Dan.
The U.S and Canada make up a big chunk of our planet in many respects but the world cup is the most widely viewed sporting event and soccer is the most played sport among earthlings,therefore if one had to(your 'we' argument acknowledged) name the 'world' sport it would be soccer.
You say the best athletes outside Europe and S.America don't play soccer (not true even as a general statement) and that a nations interst intensity reflects their competiveness...If this were completely then Iran,China or Ghana would be world champions but they aren't because genetics and economics are also key elements. That's why are there only Euro teams left in the tourney.
Calling a tournament ,that has nations from all over the world compete in the planets most popular sport, the world cup is far less 'parochial' than referring to a nation's domestic championship game as the world series even if it is the greatest nation on earth.

...insert 'true' between completely and then
(2nd paragraph)

Potato Man, you write: "genetics and economics are also key elements. That's why are there only Euro teams left in the tourney." I'm afraid not, particularly on the genetics point. Where do Europeans finish in Marathons? In the 100-meter dash? What position do Europeans play in basketball? How do they fare in boxing? The answers? In the pack, in the back, on the bench, and on the deck. It's only at soccer, the winter-olympic type sports, and certain strength-reliant sports where they dominate.

In other words, Western Europeans, and South Americans for that matter, get schooled in many athletic events. Soccer is an exception. It's an exception, not because of genes or economics, but because they are obsessed with soccer whereas other countries may be mildly interested. Even the soccer rosters of France and England undermine your argument. Many of the players are obviously not ethnic Frenchmen or Englishmen. If it were about genetics, what are a gang of Tunisians, Algerians, and Morrocans doing on the French national team, and not the genetic Frenchmen?

Soccer is not the most popular sport in China, India, the United States, Russia, or Japan. These countries are larger than England, France, Italy, and Portugal, where soccer is the most popular. Soccer is a global sport. It's played almost everywhere. But its extreme popularity is concentrated in Europe and South America, which is why European and South American teams dominate at soccer, but at little else.

There are many more people in China and Iran that consider soccer there number one sport than in England,Portugal respectfully. This is where economics + genetics are missing,in Ghana it's just economics(the French roster actually reinforces this). My point is Europeans score on all three subjects (obviously no A+ in genetics) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Popularsports.PNG - Russia's most popular sport.

respectively not respectfully :)