The American Experience In Football: The Odd Case Of U.S And Football
In this series, I will dive into the American influence on football (Soccer). This introduction post will aim to answer mainly one question: What makes a country better at football than another?
There are three things in general that determine a country's superiority in any sport in general and football in specific:
Population.
The average income.
Gained experience from facing top teams.
Of course, there are exceptions. These reasons are merely factors. Simply put, the richer and more populated the country, the more likely it is for that country to excel in football. You're probably already thinking of exceptions to this rule. But, the reason for any of those exceptions not to excel in football is actually non-football-related.
Where This Applies The Most
Western Europe countries and countries adjacent to them are where this applies the most. Rich countries with a large population and a likelihood to face other top teams regularly allow you to be ahead.
Having money allows the country to organize and hold top tournaments for its population. As well as bring in experience from outside the country, leaving no reason for the country not to get near the top.
Let's Go Back To the USA
The USA will rank either 1st, 2nd, or at worst among the top highest-income nations in the world depending on what metric you're using. The population speaks for itself with almost 330 million people there. This leads us to confirm that the reason is actually non-football-related.
Football's Popularity In The U.S
That might be the first go-to reason for anyone. Football is simply not popular in the USA. Here is where we come across the first surprise: Football is actually quite popular in the USA in terms of the number of people playing it.
In 2012, The Wall Street Journal conducted a study about the number of people participating in sports across the country, aged between 6 and 18.
Basketball came as number 1 with 6.95 million and football was right behind it with 6.61 million. Football or soccer is actually more than twice as popular as American football, which is 4th with 3.08 million.
in 2008 that number was even higher with 7.11 million. But, that's an issue of younger generations being not as interested in sports in general. That applies to all countries, not the U.S only.
The Numbers
Percentage-wise, the U.S has a relatively low percentage of people playing football. However, the actual number of players, it's actually higher than most if not all the countries that are competing in the world cup.
You could actually the effect that has in women's football as no country seems even close to matching the US women's team. That's the result of actually focusing on women's football.
Change Of Mood
It can be attributed to Mexico hosting the World Cup where the games were played at a time when people in the United States were able to watch them. However, the biggest factor can be related to millennials in the age of the internet.
Those the millennials who are interested in sport were more connected to the rest of the world where football is most popular. Therefore, they were more interested in it than baseball and twice as much as American football.
It's Not Only About The World Cup
Yes, in 2014, Americans broke a record in watching the World Cup. But, also in 2014, the number of Americans watching the Premier League doubled. Ever since the number of people watching football in America gets higher.
In Conclusion
Numbers-wise, people who play and watch football in the USA exceed the number of those in World Cup-winning nations. By all football-related factors, the United States of America should be competing to win the World Cup not struggling to qualify.
I will dive more into those non-football-related reasons in the next part.
I think that one of the fundamental factors for a country to be truly competitive is the domestic league, there is a directly proportional relationship between the competitiveness of a league and the development of native players with good conditions. In this sense, it seems to me that the USA is heading in the right direction since in the last few years the MLS has expanded a lot and currently has a level that it never had before, even bringing in top level stars. For me it is a question of time for the USA to start having better performances, currently we can see that their star players all belong to top level teams in Europe and I believe that with time we will see the results!
That's actually the end result of my research but I feel compelled to take it step by step and go through why it's not doing all the things it should be doing. It was a fun research for me and I believe it will show in the end result.
Great ! Hope to see the second part soon. Greetings !
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It is happening just very slow, Amir. We have a much larger Hispanic population that is helping to bring more awareness to the sport. It is very hard to pit it against American Football. (you know, REAL Football)😅
As much as i love Gridiron (go Saints!), I have to disagree with you on the "real" football aspect. Association Football (soccer) was after all created before American Football (some sources quote the earliest recognised format was around 255 BC in China - they seem to have a hand (or foot) in everything 😁, and is actually played with the feet. I am glad, however, that USA are moving in the right direction to becoming better placed in the world game, and who knows may eventually be able to call themselves world champions in a sport that is actually played all over the world 😁.
football (soccer) is the most widely-participated in sport with youth in USA, or so that has been my experience growing up. Very small risk of injury combined with a low equipment investment is part of the reason for this.
One of the major problems for developing talent in the USA is the fact that most of the coaching staff, the refs, and the players themselves don't actually understand how the game works. I remember having my legs taken completely out from under me with no contact made on the ball by a defender and not getting a foul. I can still hear the completely oblivious ref saying "play on!" I also recall refs using the American football signals for offsides when they would call it. My high school coach was also my trigonometry teacher and when I was in his class I saw a book on his desk that was about "how to coach soccer." He knew nothing about the game, had never played it, yet he is supposed to lead us?
If you want good instruction in the US in regards to football(soccer) you have to seek it out and spend a lot of money on it. The talent pool is there and so is the interest, but the coaching aspect of it at a youth level is abysmal.
USA '94 was the best World Cup I've seen. So much happening on and off the pitch.
I would have thought that a bigger factor in its growing popularity is related to migration from areas that already have established bases of support. Up until the pandemic about half a million people from Central and South America migrated to the US every year
Soccer is becoming more popular in the US but slowly. The US women's team has probably had the biggest effect.
In Europe little boys grow up on soccer, there are hardly any alternatives that are widely accepted as a boy sport. I see the boys play soccer every day from my balcony, but nobody plays basketball or baseball for example. And that is the same in Spain, Germany and The Netherlands.... there is hardly any alternative.
Let's not forget that culture plays a huge part in a country's success in soccer. Like you did say, there are exceptions especially the U.S as they're not a traditional soccer nation. In addition to population, income and experience, one of the biggest factors is grassroots.
My country Australia has every single one of those factors but we are absolutely hopeless on the world stage and even in the AFC because of our utter failure with grassroots soccer.
I am actually in the process of finishing part 2 of the American one and find it fascinating. It will be posted soon.
I would absolutely LOVE it if you would expand on that in a post. I find it surprising how many football-related questions are actually answered in economy or culture rather than football itself. So I am always interested in knowing more.