Soccer truly is a beautiful game. And at the World Cup it is even more beautiful. With its expansive green “pitch,” or field; its lack of commercials; its unfamiliar and colorful uniforms; its many ethnicities with their different appearances and names; its display of remarkable athletic skill; its powerful crowd noise in the background – with all this, soccer is a great, truly global sport. Only the Olympics come as close as the World Cup to being a truly worldwide event.

Although the U.S. is now out of the tournament, I’ve greatly enjoyed the few games that I’ve seen. I look forward to seeing how the rest of this sporting drama unfolds.

As I write this, I wish I could call soccer “football” without confusion, as the rest of the world does. That word is so much more appropriate for this game, in which the foot strikes the ball so much more often than it does in our own North American football.

I’m a relative newcomer to soccer, as I expect many North Americans are. I think I’ve followed only the last three World Cups. Soccer was not so popular here when I was growing up, and I played in youth baseball, hockey, basketball, and football leagues. I also played tennis for fun. But I never played soccer outside of gym class.

Many people in the U.S., including many sportswriters, are a little uneasy about this game that is increasingly popular in our own country. I know that my dad has not warmed to soccer, and he fears that it may be displacing baseball. I fear that a little as well, though with less anxiety than he does. I’d be happier if it displaced our own football, which has a lot of baggage – violence, steroid-induced size, commercialism – that I’ve grown increasingly tired of, as much as I still enjoy following my own team.

Pehaps a change is afoot (pun intended). When I drive by the soccer fields here in my hometown in Minnesota, they’re teeming with children. The fields themselves seem to be much more numerous than baseball and football fields. Surely this is a booming sport, and perhaps it will bring us into the community of nations in a new way.

Those in the U.S. who have watched this 2006 World Cup have already sampled something of that vibrant international community. We, an imperial power who will not have a military equal for some time yet, have been humbled, reminded that we are but one nation among many, with much to learn from the rest of the world – and much to contribute as well.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 23rd, 2006 at 11:31 am and is filed under Sports.