A couple notes before I truly begin:
- Being an American fan, I will be calling our dear sport “soccer” throughout my response. I hope this does not turn off any readers across the pond.
- Then again, I cover Major League Soccer so you’re probably not following our “inferior” league anyway.
- Jonathan Clegg is a snob. Here is his article, in which he attacks American soccer culture as appropriating European soccer culture while simultaneously saying Americans deviate too far from the game’s linguistic conventions and practices.
In this editorial, I seek to expose a highly hypocritical attack on the United States’ developing soccer culture. Our culture one which is still in its infancy and has yet to fully form, and may never be fully cohesive as full cohesion would be rather un-American in a larger cultural context. This is where Clegg most glaringly shows us his ignorance as to the culture about which he rants; this country has never had one cohesive culture. I suppose that’s difficult for Anglo-Saxons to understand seeing as their cultural heritage was attained by wiping out many, many other competing cultures in the British isles.
What is American Soccer Culture
American soccer culture is currently more of a goal than a reality, albeit one in the process of coming to fruition as Major League Soccer, the U.S. national team, and their respective supporters come to develop a distinctly American style. What started out as an import-based league and fan culture has slowly begun to take on a character of its own; this is perhaps the biggest hurdle before the sport can reach the level of popularity of the big three American professional leagues (Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, and the National Football League).
Historically, American culture has developed as immigrant groups settled in cities throughout the country. Over time, the lines between the many cultures living in close geographical proximity to one another began to blend. American soccer culture is most certainly influenced by South and Central America, just as it is influenced by European soccer culture and Carribbean and African soccer culture. The English insist that the beautiful game is theirs, but their game has become the World’s game. In the United States, you don’t have to wait four years for a World Cup to see soccer cultures compete. We don’t even have to wait until the Champions’ League matches. Every week, every match, every day we see the World’s game played out on a small scale. This is why our future is bright.
Origins of the Euro Snob: A DO NOT Guide for American Soccer Fans
Perhaps what makes American soccer culture so offensive to Clegg is precisely what makes it American: it is a mosaic of fan cultures spread unevenly throughout a huge country. One needs to only compare various MLS clubs’ supporter groups to see the cultural influences of immigrant groups on fan culture. Washington, D.C., for example, has a large community of immigrants from South and Central America. They formed La Barra Brava as a Latin American-style supporter group with a reputation as being among the most passionate (or crazy if you prefer) fans in MLS.
This rant is at several points the literal equivalent to getting frustrated with someone for wearing a sweater because you’re not cold; a manifesto of aspects of fan culture that Americans MUST and MUST NOT copy from Mother England and others. He begins by attacking the much-maligned Euro snob–“an American who is a soccer fan but refuses to support either the U.S. National Team or Major League Soccer, instead cheering for European teams they have no personal connections to, based on the perceived superiority of said teams (Urban Dictionary).” Meanwhile, Clegg is either ignorant to the development of fan culture within MLS dating back to the league’s inception or just ignores that most fans are first- and second-generation descendants of Latino, European, African, and Asian immigrants.
I do not mean to defend so-called Euro Snobs, mind you–they hurt the image of American soccer and are treasonous in their dismissal of the very league that needs to succeed, develop, and grow to help the American national team compete every four years. Still, it’s more than a little ironic that Clegg claims the United States needs to develop it’s own soccer culture by adopting language that Clegg criticizes earlier on in the piece. I mean, for God’s sake, do you really care that much that we call them PKs every now and again?! But I digress…
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