I’ve been watching quite a bit of World Cup soccer the last few days, and I have a very well-chewed bone to pick. The quality of play is high, which obviates a refrain that familiarly rebuts most American soccer criticism: “Well it’s not like that in good soccer.” And indeed, that excuse may yet hold water, considering the widening gulf between the talent of national teams and that of the hyper-capitalist-nightmare behemoths of the Champions League’s upper echelons. But it’s good enough, and my main problem—shared by most Americans watching this June—has been a hallowed tradition of futbol for as long as there have been three referees and only one that mattered. The F word: faking. I have had enough.
To assimilate soccer into a sports-enjoyment lexicon full of football, basketball, baseball, and hockey, the American Sports Fan (ASF) requires a plugin to make it compatible. Before each game, or, God help us, proudly asserted Soccer Observation, the ASF must run a worldly, cultured magnet over his or her brain to polarize all its sports leisure ions toward the Beautiful Game. This reorients the need for constant scoring toward the existentialist desire to see creative passing culminate in nothing necessarily tangible. We put on our patient hats and learn to appreciate the movement of the ball—more idiosyncratic and alive than the balls of American sports—and allow tension to build naturally, to be viscerally released with every goal. We also gain a sort of zen appreciation for frustration. Goal-line stands, missed field goals, rebounds, and clutch strikeouts all have something very American in common: a change of possession. I take control by virtue of your failure. In soccer, there is no such judgment. With goals so difficult to come by, an attempt at achieving one is almost always a positive, with little more regret than a rueful look back at missed opportunity. These new aesthetics must be adopted by the American soccer viewer to enjoy the game he already understands. But magnetization is not always perfect, and the most glaringly difficult thing for us to watch is the diving and faking.
Is this a bad thing? Is this mean old Americans being ignorant of the wider world? Hell no! I intend no hyperbole in saying that it is fully disgusting to watch a man who represents literally millions of compatriots feel no shame in feigning injury. The squeeze of the eyes, the spent and defeated collapse, the tragic grab of the leg, and act on the blood-stained grass to illustrate the injustice of a prime physical specimen, ruined. The bared teeth and the covered-face lament, as if to say, “Something beautiful has died today—but don’t we all?” Immediately followed by a jaunty post-whistle jog and swift, full recovery. A world-class athlete cheated, destroyed, and resurrected in the span of forty seconds. Maybe with the help of a stretcher, even. I can’t stand it. I’m not saying that the player would not have been knocked to the ground, or that his momentum was not thrown off, or that a foul wasn’t committed. I am saying that he should be ashamed of himself, and the soccer world should be ashamed for embracing this.
Only the athlete’s code of honor can change this. It cannot be legislated away. Diving is a compulsory yellow card already, and although there is no FIFA regulation about spending time writhing on the ground, it would likely be difficult to enforce without calling the player a histrionic liar. This is something that, I feel, we Americans got right. A football player gets up after a hit; if he can physically muster it, even quicker after a bone-crushing hit. The idea is, don’t give them the satisfaction. World Cup players should want to appear as strong as possible. The World Cup is very much a nationalistic flotsam downstream from centuries of European infighting; it is a replacement for blood. This isn’t the model U.N. People really care about these 90 minutes, and the glory you are able to bring to your country through your talent. And they choose to respond by playing up the severity of an injury for a mere set piece opportunity.
Referees base their calls almost entirely on that moment of contact. The drama afterwards is at first concerning, then afterwards, annoying. If a player gets fouled, especially if they are thrown to the ground, they could get the call and get back up. Essentially, whatever the actual benefit of playing raped is, it’s not worth the concession of dignity. You already got the call. You already get the ball. What possesses players to, at this point, not even show weakness, but invent a weakness to display? I will never understand this. And American sports fans will never like it.
These guys are going hard. I understand that. They’re running miles per game and sprinting into challenges and fifty-fifty balls that every instinct of the brain advises against. But such is the stage of the competition, and my American sentiments say that the stage should dictate how players comport themselves. In the park, with your friends, taking a breather to languish on the ground is different than having a flag on your chest and cameras on your agonized face. The language that the world uses to describe soccer on the international level is replete with “passion,” “pride,” “battle,” etc. Getting carried off on a stretcher and returning to full form not a minute later—a common sight in 2006—would suggest that the second one of those grandiosities needs a bit of exercise.
Of course, the world will not take my advice. Players will continue to flop and squiggle on the ground with O-faces until they feel like doing their goddamn job again for probably as long as they’re paid obscene amounts to do it. There is a bright side to this, though.
The idea of rooting for the United States through and through seems like kind of a funny idea in the soccer world. American fans abound, but until recently, most rooted for another country, one that held soccer close to its heart and stood a reasonable chance of success. This might change, however, if the U.S. national team were to embrace the American aesthetic of toughness, strength, and mental focus. This country is already on the precipice of fully accepting soccer. Wouldn’t it be great if all of us American soccer fans could root for our home country knowing that we were the one team that played the style we like to see: tough, fast, skillful, sans flopping and theatrics? If we fielded a team that keeps in line with the ideals of American sports, and avoided the hysterics just to get a referee’s favor?
I want soccer to be accepted in this country, but the truth is that I somewhat agree with some “ignorant” criticisms. The fact of the matter is that the reason the United States has avoided embracing soccer is primarily that the way the rest of the world plays it does not appeal to our conceptions of masculinity. We value skill and endurance, sure. We do not value being a bitch. But the United States doesn’t have to play soccer that way! We can do it the way we want to do it; we can establish the American style as one that does not shy away from challenges and which plays physically. Most of all, we can show the world that they would be best served if they spent less time falling down than they did getting up.
And Clint Dempsey: cut it out.
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