OP-ED: Soccer’s storied past in the U.S.
The World Cup is being played in the United States, Canada, and Mexico this summer. The rest of the world calls it football, which makes sense, since it is primarily played with your feet and a ball. We call it soccer to distinguish it from (American) football. Other countries sometimes make fun of us for calling it soccer, but that term was actually invented by the English (from Association Football), to distinguish it from rugby football. In England, where the sport was invented in the early 1800s, its history was intertwined with rugby until 1863, when the Football Association codified the rules. In England, the boys in the public schools (which is what prestigious fee-paying private schools like Eaton and Harrow are called) played rugby while the lower classes played soccer; it was said that “Football is a gentleman’s game played by hooligans, while rugby was a hooligan’s game played by gentlemen.”
As an empire, the British took the game with them around the globe (Argentina was an early adopter). During the 1920s, the U.S. had one of the most well-attended professional leagues in the world. Interestingly, Western Pennsylvania was an early hotbed of soccer, with the game being popular with the working-class ethnic communities around the mills and the mines. The Pittsburgh Gallatin won the national championship (the U.S. Open Cup) in 1942; Morgan Strasser (Bridgeville) won in 1949, and the Harmarville Hurricanes won it in 1952 and 1956. Beadling, which is still a prominent youth club in the South Hills, won the National Amateur Cup in 1954. Soccer lost favor in the region as the children of immigrants took up American football to better assimilate.
The North American Soccer League (NASL, 1968-84) tried to replicate the success of the NFL in the 1960s and 1970s, paying talented foreign players (with Pele being the most famous) and playing in massive stadiums. The first professional soccer game I watched (on TV) was the Philadelphia Atoms v. the Dallas Tornado in the 1973 final. The Tornado had Kyle Rote Jr., who was the only U.S.-born player to lead the league in scoring and won the Superstars competition in 1974, ’75 and ’77, beating NFL and MLB players and earning some respect for soccer players as competitive athletes. While there was a lot of interest, the country was not quite ready to support such an expensive league, and it folded in 1984.
College soccer (and indoor soccer, a uniquely American version played on an ice hockey rink with astroturf) carried the torch in the 1980s (the Pittsburgh Spirit was an original team in the Major Indoor Soccer League). The Major Soccer League (outdoor soccer) was founded in 1993, as part of the U.S. bid to host the World Cup.
After last playing in the World Cup in 1950, the U.S. had qualified for the World Cup in 1990, and while we held the host (and eventual winner) Italy to a 1-0 win, critics thought that was a fluke. As the host in 1994 we did not need to qualify, so there were concerns that we had essentially bought our way to the finals and would be embarrassed on the field. When the U.S. team played at home, we usually played in front of crowds that were cheering for our opponents (because of the many immigrant communities in the U.S.). At the time, the U.S. Soccer Federation was trying to maximize its revenue so it would schedule games where many immigrants from the country we were playing lived to fill the stadiums.
The 1994 World Cup in the U.S. was quite successful, holding the record for attendance until 2022 (when the field was expanded to 32 teams). FIFA, always looking to increase revenue, expanded the field again for this tournament (to 48 teams). I think this was a bad move for many reasons. It used to be very difficult to get to the World Cup, so every game in the two years of qualifying mattered, and major powers sometimes didn’t make it. It also meant that at the finals, almost every game was competitive. There were few weak teams. Now there are some soccer minnows (Curacao, Haiti, Cape Verde, Uzbekistan) that will likely struggle in most of their games. In most of the four-team groups, three teams will advance, so the first-round games are much less important than they were.
Another interesting aspect of this year’s World Cup is that FIFA is using dynamic pricing, which means the cost of the tickets is determined by demand. The idea is that instead of having a set price that sells out quickly, which allows secondary sellers to reap the high prices people are willing to pay, FIFA will get the economic benefits. As I write this, the nosebleed section for the U.S. game against Paraguay is priced at over $900 apiece (the other U.S. games are sold out). I’ll be watching on TV.
The U.S. team is made up of many players in their prime, and they are playing consistently at some of the best clubs in the world. U.S. players used to struggle to even get on weak teams in Europe, so there are high expectations, though the team’s performance has been inconsistent. The U.S. is in a group that could be challenging; there is no world power, but no minnows either, so there will be no easy games. But that’s to be expected; after all, it’s the World Cup. Theoretically, we should get out of the group and win the first knock-out game. After that, who knows … go USA!
Kent James, of East Washington, has a doctorate in history and policy from Carnegie Mellon University.