As I’ve been traveling the last couple of weeks, World Cup fever is everywhere.\u00a0 In restaurants, in hotel lobbies, in airports, people are craning to see the latest action, the newest updates on standings.<\/p>\n
We actually care that the American team got ripped off by bad reffing in their come-back stand against Slovenia.<\/p>\n
And a lot of American beer will be tipped down a lot of American throats as we go up against Algeria on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
So what does it all mean?\u00a0 How is this most New-World-Orderish of sports (no hitting?\u00a0 no tackling?\u00a0 no touching the ball with your hands?) making its way into the hearts and minds of America?<\/p>\n
I still remember my first glimpse of European soccer. I was a kid and cable TV had just come to my town and ESPN — desperate for content, I guess – -was broadcasting Manchester United games at 2 am.<\/p>\n
The chanting, sing-song cheers of the fans were impossible to ignore and soon I was caught up by the action on the field.\u00a0 I loved the pace of play, the stretches of strategic wandering and drifting followed by sudden strikes on goal.<\/p>\n
But most Americans didn’t seem to care much, and our sports diets were already sated by truly home-grown passions:\u00a0 basketball, baseball, and (king of kings) football.<\/p>\n
So how did we reach this moment in 2010, with the World Cup roar of vuvuzelas creeping not-so-slyly into our consciousness?<\/p>\n
The answer, of course, is those wily kids.\u00a0 For a generation now, soccer has been the most popular school sport in the U.S., far outstripping our traditional pass-times.<\/p>\n
Ask your average 20-something about the ins and outs of baseball and you’ll draw a blank stare.\u00a0 But they know soccer intimately.<\/p>\n
One other factor is immigration.\u00a0 Latin America is, demographically speaking, the latest big thing to hit American shores, and all those newcomers are bringing their sports passions with them.<\/p>\n
So does this new globalism in our sports diet reflect a shift in our culture writ large?\u00a0 The answer is Yes, but a qualified Yes.<\/p>\n
The truth is, Americans have always been what I think of as grudging globalists.<\/p>\n
We happily hoover up the cultural products (and yes, the political ideas) that come from other parts of the world.But then we insist that they are ours.<\/p>\n
From the Beatles to James Bond to Mexican food, from Starbucks coffee to SONY electronics and reality TV, we’re game for just about anything — so long as we can pretend to own it.<\/p>\n
Americans aren’t isolationists, we’re assimilationists.<\/p>\n
My guess is that soccer feels much the same to most young people who play it and watch it.\u00a0 It doesn’t have that same exotic flavor that it had when I was watching Manchester in the 1980s.<\/p>\n
It’s as American as the foreign-made shoes on our feet and the foreign-made music on our Ipods.<\/p>\n
Which means that when we go up against Algeria, nothing needs be said except Go USA!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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