For a nation that has troops stationed all over the world, it seems like the USA is really missing out on some truly enriching international culture. Let’s start with music, for example. As it is we hardly get any international music on major radio stations, while European stations play American music along with Arabic music and multilingual European hits. Huge cineplexes all over Europe play Hollywood films, but if Americans want to see an international film we have to first, be considered a “film person”, and second, find the one independent theatre that is playing our selection, IF we are lucky enough to live in Manhattan, or a city like it where there even ARE independent theatres.

Which brings me to my most urgent and burning question of the moment: Why doesn’t the US love soccer like the rest of the world? Why can’t we just join the global community and participate in this one multicultural activity, as opposed to isolating ourselves even further from the rest of the world both culturally and socially?

I never played sports in high school. I didn’t actually give a crap about sports. I didn’t really see myself going to a “football school” where the social scene revolved around the big games. My high school boyfriend played hockey, which I did enjoy watching from time to time- it was so fast (!) and when the team was playing well they were really fun to watch. I even watched a few games on TV when I was on vacation snowboarding in Canada, where they were of course showing hockey on almost every channel. But even hockey didn’t really get me hooked. The teams didn’t draw me in to them, something about the sport just wasn’t compelling enough.

It wasn’t until I found myself in Germany during the 2006 World Cup that I felt really moved by a sport. Of course, the energy was amazing in Munich at that time, and it would have been hard not to feel the thrill of it all. I was traveling with my friend Genevieve, and she and I watched almost every game in the Fanpark which hosted something like 10,000 people who couldn’t afford tickets to the real game. I couldn’t help but feel a kind of solidarity with the other fans, even those of different teams (I had come to really love watching the German team succeed, and really put my all into rooting for them). Then it dawned on me, this was the WORLD championship. Bigger than school pride, bigger than state pride, even bigger than national pride (If your country loses you don’t just STOP watching). The WHOLE world! Soccer is just on a totally different scale.  What’s more, the sports’ supporters don’t necessarily fall into the category of “sports fans”, because EVERYONE watches. 

For this years Eurocup, I have watched most games in a bar in Kempten, Germany, and when I arrived late yesterday for the (pathetic) Germany/Austria game, not a sole was to be seen on the street. In the usually bustling city square, I could hear the rain pattering on the trees. This is because I was late for something that every person in Kempten, German or Austrian or Turkish or Croatian, had arrived on time for (in typical German fashion, no less) – the cultural bonding experience that almost every European takes part in: Soccer. 

As I anxiously await tonight’s game, (my 2nd favorite team and my bet for champion), Netherlands, against Romania, a part of me is sad that in just a few days I will be leaving Europe. No doubt I can find a bar lined with a couple creepers in Manhattan where I can watch the games in the middle of the day, but would I even want to?

No. I wouldn’t. I couldn’t! It’s just not the same. It would be lonely. Because unlike the rest of the world… Americans don’t love soccer.