United States might be becoming a soccer loving country. Our neighbors to the South worship the sport, but for some reason in the United States soccer just hasn’t made a big enough impression.
Some may say that soccer isn’t a “contact sport,” these people obviously haven’t noticed the lack of padding and protective gear on soccer players, nor the myriad of headers scored in this years World Cup. Helmets? I don’t hunk so. One of the most annoying reasons for disliking soccer is that the game is slow paced. Especially when coming from a baseball or football fan — America’s favorite pass-time has an average of eight-minutes of actual play time per game. But the absolute worst excuse for not liking soccer is that it’s a girls sport. The United States has some of the best female soccer players in the world — you’d think this would make the sport more popular — instead it has given it a feminine stigma, you have to be some sort of fairy to play soccer, right? Thankfully, all of the negative misconceptions about soccer are changing.
Behold, the 2014 World Cup in Brazil — according to Huffington Post more than 200,000 tickets for the games were sold to Americans, making Americans second in number of attendees.
Suddenly, soccer has become something to get excited about. Perhaps it’s because the games are being played in Brazil which is in a time-zone only three hours ahead of us, which means people don’t have to wakeup in the middle of the night to watch the games, certainly makes the whole thing more approachable. Or maybe it’s our love for Brazilian super-models and all else Brazilian. The FIFA effect has caused a love for soccer to spread through cities across the nation, including our very own San Jose.
Here, the completion of the Levi’s stadium, which will be home to both the Earthquakes and the 49ers, has added to the hype. Being an ethnically diverse area, the South Bay has always had its pockets of soccer fans. But today, these pockets joined together into one glorious group of fans. The United States vs. Portugal game gathered a crowd of over one thousand people in St. James Park.
The match was spectacular, even though it unfortunately ended in a tie. The first half of the game was marked by a goal for Portugal, but also some incredible saves by U.S. goalie Tim Howard. The second half of the match was pure excitement. U.S. scored two goals in the first twenty minutes of the second half — first by Jermaine Jones and then by Clint Dempsey. But in a moment of annoyingly excellent sportsmanship Portugal scored a goal in the last thirty-seconds of the game thanks to a strategic pass by, one of the most controversial players in the sport, Christiano Ronaldo to Silvestre Varela who then scored with his noggin.
When the game ended, ambivalence lingered in the air as people were torn and confused, not knowing wether to feel excitement for the games, or disappointment for the loss of a victory that should have been ours. Maya S. who was watching the game said, “I was disappointed. I thought we should have won that game. We were more aggressive, we played better and we had more control.” Maybe we’ll have better luck next time Maya, either way there will sure be a big ol’ crowd watching it all go down.
Penned by Alina K. A. 