So I will be too busy this week to get my weekly Shakespeare read in. I could probably find the time to do it, but with how much of my spare time will be eaten up by other things, I really don’t want to spend another 2 to 3 hours for the weekly read. But, at least I’m remembering my monday musing about competition in sports. This week I’ll be talking about Soccer, which is well timed due to the FIFA World Cup that has started this week.
Now don’t get upset at me for calling it Soccer first of all. Remember, I am from the US, and we call it Soccer here. To me Football is a completely unrelated sport, so show a little tolerance to differences between cultures, it’s just the way terminology works here in North America. Soccer is huge in the rest of the world, but here Soccer is pretty much a lesser sport. It’s no less of a game, it just doesn’t have much of a following. Now interest has been increasing over the past decade or so, but it is still far from reaching the level of the big four. Heck, I’d say professional Lacrosse is more popular still.
On a competitive level Soccer is somewhat leveled out by the lack of it being a popular sport in the US. Much like Lacrosse, Soccer doesn’t have the big money and huge payrolls that tend to be the center of the imbalance in the other big sports. The MLS has only a handful of teams, most of which have yet to become profitable, and other professional soccer teams below the Major League level don’t even pay high enough to allow their players to use it as their full-time job.
Still, the sport isn’t perfect, likely due to legacy teams and the smaller payrolls allowing a team with a slightly higher payroll to buy up better players with a modest increase. Less than half of the clubs the MLS has had have ever won the series’ cup, which definitely paints in imbalanced picture unfortunately. I do think some of this is due to legacy though, as players not only want more money, but they also want to go to the teams that have a better history and a more loyal fanbase. I might be way off base there, but I personally believe that is a factor, similar to how I believe it factors in to the NBA as well.
Now while Soccer isn’t huge in the US (which I hope changes someday), it is the most popular sport in the world. The world stage is definitely not balanced, but is still surprisingly more balanced than you’d think. Much like the Olympics, many larger nations have a distinct advantage simply as a result of having a greater talent pool from which to draw its players from. Economic conditions also play a role since nations with a better infrastructure will be more capable in training their athletes due to better facilities and more money to grant them to spend more time playing and less time working jobs to support themselves and their families.
In spite of this a lot of smaller nations still manage to not only contend, but to also win the World Cup as well. I think part of this is because smaller nations are devoted completely to Soccer, but larger and developed nations like the US, Canada, and Russia, tend to focus on other sports. In the US there are probably tons of Soccer players that would dominate but never had the chance because they went on to practice and play more lucrative sports. Smaller countries have a much more singular focus on this one sport, which allows them to keep pace with the larger countries on the world stage.
Still, even amongst the smaller countries you have giants. Brazil, for instance, is pretty large and economically stable for a smaller nation, and it’s no surprise that they have been a very dominant force in the sport. Unlike the larger powers on the globe, Brazil is very devoted to the sport of Soccer. Still, they’re never the single dominant front runner, which speaks volumes to the sports competitive value.
Personally, I hope someday the US wakes up and joins the rest of the world in their love of this game. It’s a great game, and unfortunately we’re so stubbornly latched on to our other major sports that we seem to think there’s no room for another. Honestly, there’s plenty of room for more sports, and we could only benefit from it in my opinion. Still, I do somewhat also believe that the rest of the world kind of enjoys the fact that the US doesn’t pursue Soccer as rigorously as it gives them an arena in which to better us, and one where our size and power is not brought against them. In a way, the lack of focus from the US and other major countries keeps this sport more competitive.
© 2010, Keonyn. All rights reserved.
Tags: Monday Musings, Sports
