Mac Aljancic: No matter its shape, there is football (or futbol) fun to be had
The long Thanksgiving weekend gives us a full feast of not only food (stuffing easily ranks No. 1 on my ballot), but also football. We got a three-game NFL marathon on Thursday, great college rivalry games on Friday and Saturday (headlined, of course, by Ohio State-Michigan), and another stacked slate of professional pigskin on Sunday. If sports fans aren’t already stuffed, they can also snack on some early-season NBA, NHL, and college basketball.
The year 2022 has brought us significant addition to our traditional holiday sports menu. An international, out-of-season dish that is vying for viewers’ appetites: The FIFA World Cup.
Soccer’s presence in the hearts of American sports fans has grown exponentially since I was growing up in the 1970s and 1980s. In those days, the world’s favorite sport drew only sporadic attention here in the States. Pele was the one and only player most of us knew. The North American Soccer League had a brief moment in the sun. Indoor soccer caught fire here in Northeast Ohio during the mid-80s, with the Cleveland Force often outdrawing the struggling Cavaliers, and the Canton Invaders packing the downtown Civic Center.
Back then, I was a huge sports junkie who consumed the "Wide World of Sports" well beyond the traditional American diet of football, basketball and baseball. That being said, my awareness of the World Cup was limited to maybe a page or two of Sports Illustrated coverage.
Soccer truly took hold in America when our nation hosted the World Cup in 1994. The enormous attention and enthusiasm generated during that summer fueled the start of Major League Soccer two years later. While MLS had a shaky 10-team start, its strategic, steady perseverance has gradually grown the league to 28 clubs that include many strong-rooted franchises like our nearby Columbus Crew. Soccer’s U.S. fan base has also been greatly enhanced during these years by the explosion of youth soccer participation, the popular FIFA video game series, and easy-to-access internet coverage, which connects millions to the prominent European clubs.
Still, many sports enthusiasts like myself pretty much limit our soccer snacking to the four-year cycle of the World Cup. The event’s ability to draw in casual American sports fans has been greatly aided by its usual summer location, which has pretty lightweight competition in terms of sports viewership: baseball, golf, NASCAR, and Wimbledon. But this year’s Middle East location — a first for the World Cup — has forced a shift in the calendar, creating a much more difficult viewing match-up for the event: Futbol vs. football. As a casual viewer, I am way more likely to choose a Saturday afternoon World Cup match over a random PGA tour event than say, Alabama-Auburn.
Soccer has its share of detractors in our country, primarily due to its low-scoring nature. Of the first 20 World Cup matches played through Friday, five matches had just two goals scored, three matches saw only one goal and five more matches were 0-0 draws. That’s a huge contrast from the point production of football and basketball. You could equate soccer to a tension-filled, low-scoring MLB pitcher’s duel. But with baseball, there is always the chance of scoring with just one swing of the bat. A soccer match can go through long droughts of even threatening to score. The 95 minutes of Friday’s 0-0 draw between the U.S. and England had a combined 18 shots on goal which required just four combined saves by the goalkeepers.
Still, as a very casual, uneducated soccer viewer, I can appreciate some of the beauty of the sport. The ball movement can be fascinating, like a well-executed Princeton offense on the basketball court. The give-and-go action is reminiscent of Bob Cousy’s Boston Celtics, and legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson can probably see his triangle offense in the passing patterns of soccer.
America loves the pageantry and tradition of college football. Here in the Buckeye State, we know our Ohio State fight songs word-for-word, savor the beauty of the OSU band’s execution of Script Ohio, and know just when to shout out “O-H-I-O” when we hear "Hang On Sloopy" being played. That goes hand-in-hand with the melodic enthusiasm within a soccer stadium. Do an internet search, and you can fill a jukebox play list with numerous songs and chants of varying soccer fan bases throughout the world. Attending an English Premiere League match and hearing tens of thousands of fans sing in unison has to be a real goose-bump generating treat.
So whether your ball is round or oblong, enjoy the next month of high-stakes, fun-filled football.
This article originally appeared on The Times-Reporter: Mac Aljancic shares his thoughts while watching the World Cup
