Why soccer will never make it in the US
the bone-crushing hits in football, and the knockout punch fights in hockey, game after game. In soccer, players are actually singled out and warned with embarrassing “yellow cards” for acts of violence that would be smiled at in most American sports other than tennis and golf.
Third, it is just too difficult to score in soccer. America loves its football games with scores like 49 to 35 and a pro basketball game with scores below 100 is called a defensive bore. In soccer, scores like 2 to 1, even 1 to 0, are normal; games that are scoreless at the end of regulation happen all the time. If there is no winner at the end of overtime, the teams go to a sudden death shootout that has more to do with luck than soccer skills.
It seems unlikely that Americans will ever fully comprehend or appreciate a sport in which players are not allowed to use their hands or arms. Although the footwork of soccer players is a very hard skill to hold, most American fans are baffled that a soccer player cannot “pick up the damn ball and run with it!” Another confusing thing to Americans is how you can’t substitute a player unless he/she is injured or lying dead on the field, unlike in basketball, baseball, and American football where there are constantly substitutes.
Lastly, the field in soccer in enormous. A good bit larger than an American football field, the soccer field could hold at least a dozen basketball courts. Americans like their action in a small field of vision – ten enormous people bouncing off one another and moving rapidly through a space the size of a large bedroom, 22 even larger people in huge uniforms coming together on a small, odd shaped ball. In soccer, there is a need to spread out so that complex foot passing is possible. Americans, again do not like this spreading out.
Soccer is a great sport and definitely deserves more attention and popularity in America. But, again, because it does not go well with television, it will never make it big in the United States the way other sports have, not until it changes some of its basic strategies.