USA - The Sleeping Giant Awakens?

We have a wonderfully high number of American readers here at The Lone Striker. With your exciting late winner against Ghana last week, we thought we'd give you a little treat before your next one against Ronaldo's Portugal. This is a guest article written by Jonathan Rawson, enjoy and Go USA!

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." A poignant turn of phrase commonly attributed to the Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto following the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour by the forces of Japan. A sentiment of dread and fear that was to prove quite prescient for the sleeping giant, once woken from its slumber, became an unstoppable juggernaut that would claim its place as the strongest country in the world.

In the context of the Beautiful Game, this statement may yet be applicable to the USA.

For Europeans like me, who have grown up on a steady diet of Football permeating every aspect of our lives, the USA had always been an easy source of ridicule when it comes to this game that we love. For example, Major League Soccer, the premier club competition in the United States, was always treated with either indifference or outright mockery. 

The United States' starting XI for their World Cup 2014 opener, against Ghana.

A fair attitude? Not really, but then we have always looked upon our trans-Atlantic cousins with scorn for the sheer audacity to not love the game like we do. It comes easy for us to dismiss their achievements and history in the game partly because in a world that is so dominated by the great hegemonic superpower, this is one part of it that remains elusive to them. The narrative has always been that Americans don’t care about football, that they just don’t get the game and this is their loss.

The reality, as partly shown by the victory against Ghana, is that the USA is a country on the ascendancy in the game. It is far too easy to make grand, sweeping statements like Admiral Yamamoto following a victory and indeed, the mood following the victory within US soccer circles is a very jubilant one. Over this past year I have been able to witness first hand that my "Eurosnobbery" (a term coined by football enthusiasts in the USA) had no basis in reality. Watching the game last night, the narrative seems to have evolved. Where once the USA would be outright dismissed as contenders, there seems to be a new script; one that talks about a “football explosion” in the country. This is a half-truth that doesn’t take into account the full picture...

The full picture is a long one. The rise of the sport in the country is actually building upon a long history of football within the USA. That the pace of development has suddenly shifted into overdrive over the past few decades is not standalone phenomenon, but rather the culmination of a long and coloured past that has been built upon the labour of enthusiasts that outright refused to let the sport die in their country. As the victory over Ghana shows, the USA is a country of dogged determination and tenacity that never gives up and refuses to say die. It is this attitude that kept the sport alive in the country through its various setbacks throughout history.

It may be hard to believe, but football was actually the second most popular sport in the USA in the 20’s, behind only Major League Baseball, and was growing ever stronger. What proved to be its fatal blow was the emergence of the “Soccer Wars” between the United States Football Association and the American Soccer League which crippled the sport as a united entity which caused its financial collapse during the Great Depression. With the folding of the ASL, the sport went into a decline that led to a USA team going from a 3rd place finish in the 1930 World Cup to a disunited and struggling team.

However, the sport survived by retreating to local hotbeds. Without a national league football became a decentralised sport, with various “forts” around the nation keeping the game alive. The most famous of these is the city of St Louis - birthplace of five of the starting eleven players who delivered the famous 1-0 defeat of England in the 1950 World Cup. 

Landon Donovan - the legendary American talisman was
surprisingly left out of the World Cup squad by coach Jürgen Klinsmann

Eventually, a national league re-emerged within the USA, in the form of the North American Soccer League in 1968. This league received a tremendous boost in popularity when the New York Cosmos signed Pele in 1975 - which was only the start of high profile big names such as Beckenbauer and Carlos Alberta moving stateside. The US fell in love with the game again, and at its peak the NASL was drawing crowds of over 70,000. However, explosive growth is meaningless without long term stability to serve as its foundation, and the NASL peaked too quickly. These big names, whilst popular, proved financially destructive to the league. The finances imploded and the NASL died.

The sport however, did not die with it. These set-backs only served to radicalise the passion that fans in the US had for the game, yet without a national outdoor league (indoor football leagues continued to flourish), footballs future prospects again looked grim. Step forward, Paul Caligiuri. In 1989, Caligiuri scored against Trinidad and Tobago - a goal that would later be called “the shot heard around the world.” It was this goal that sent the USA to the 1990 World Cup, their first World Cup in 40 years. This had a crucial impact in FIFA awarding the 1994 Finals to the USA, which came on the provision that they create a new national league, the eventual Major League Soccer.

Major League Soccer had a bleak early history and at one point had to contract its Miami and Tampa Bay franchises to remain alive. Yet it has since created a very stable and continuously growing league. Do not underrate that last point. Ten years ago I went for a holiday to the USA, and my Eurosnobbery saw what was then a struggling league that was experimenting with rules to try and appeal to a an American market that just really didn’t care. I dismissed it pretty quickly. Now skip to ten years later, where I was to spend the summer with my American fiancée working in New Jersey with her - I was shocked by just how much MLS had grown in the USA. A pleasant shock I must add, for I have grown to love MLS.

You see, because the league did not follow the same mistakes as the old NASL, its growth was not as immediately explosive. What it has been, is sustained. The league is seriously one that I cannot even recognise, as thanks to a continued across the board growth, the league is set to thrive in ways the the old NASL never could.

This sustainability was partly achieved by a strict salary cap. This ensured that no club would spend irresponsibly, in order to pursue short term success, and encouraged squad development as a whole, as opposed to relying on star power. It is a policy that is starting to pay off. 

David Beckham unveiled by the LA Galaxy, back in 2007.

So what about David Beckham you may ask? Well, in order to bring David Beckham to the US, they changed the rules so that an MLS team may have three “designated players” outside of the salary cap. This has opened the doors to the signings of Thierry Henry, Clint Dempsey, Michael Bradley, Jermain Defoe, Alessandro Nesta, and many more who would have normally become impossible to entice to the league. It has brought star power that has made the American people take notice more and more each year. The most recent reward has been a brand new TV contract that has tripled the TV money that MLS will receive which will in turn, allow MLS to further raise the salary cap and attract even higher quality players. See what I mean about sustainability?

However, the all-important Dollar is all well and good, but the true advances have been made in culture and infrastructure. When MLS first began in 1996 they had no stadia to actually call their own. They had to share stadiums with NFL teams, whose 60,000 seater stadiums created a cavernous environment, ill-suited for the smaller attendances of MLS. 

Today, 13 out of 19 teams play in what are known as “soccer specific stadiums”. As the name implies, these are stadiums built specifically to host MLS teams, they are around 15,000-30,000 state of the art new stadiums that help create a much more intimate atmosphere for the game and have proved a financially and cultural success in helping the US to create its own domestic football culture.

Columbus built the first "soccer specific stadium", opened in 1999.
Home of the Columbus Crew.

Let it not be dismissed, football has managed to establish itself outside of a niche culture. This has been partly driven by the popularity of the game amongst the American youth. As of 2006, over 24 million Americans play football. There are 4.2 million players (2.5 million men and 1.7 million women) registered with U.S. Soccer. Thirty percent of American households contain someone playing football, a figure second only to baseball (Americas national pastime). A 2011 ESPN sports poll ranked soccer as the second most popular sport in the country for 12-24 year-olds. Key to the youth conversion to the game has been a successful community outreach by MLS clubs, that is now starting to pay off.

Alex Morgan - star of the USWNT.
We have a bit of a crush on Alex.

I would be remiss in discussing US Football without also addressing the fantastic achievements of the women. For the womans game, the successful inroads of the sport have been even more noticeable. Two World Cup wins, four Olympic gold medals and victory in nine of the last fourteen Algarve Cup tournaments. The United States loves winners, and the ladies representing Uncle Sam have been fully embraced and recognised for their dominance. They have been remarkable beneficiaries of US policy of equal governmental sports funding between genders which hints at the greater acceptance and respect that female sports receive in the United States. 90,000 fans attended the 1999 Women's World Cup Final in Pasadena and witnessed Brandi Chastain remove her shirt in jubilation following her winning penalty kick. Contrast this with the most recent champions, Japan. Despite winning the World Cup, the Women's team had to fly coach even though the male team get to fly first class despite having no equal achievements to their name.

Increasing numbers of Latin immigrants and their descendants have also played a huge role in the explosive growth of the game in the past few years. This is part of a larger trend of globalisation that has benefitted the game. The world is more closely linked together than ever before, there is a large consumption of foreign leagues on American television which have become ratings successes. Combine this with the continuing successes of the United States on the international level, 
and you have a recipe for them to cause some serious shockwaves in the coming years.

America is rich. With a growing culture comes growing access to these riches and with the riches comes power. In today's increasingly money-centric game, America has the potential to compete in a way that very few nations will be able to challenge. "When America sneezes, the world catches a cold" is the old saying. Well, the USA is catching the soccer-bug and the world may never be the same again.

Jürgen - The New Kaiser

On the international level, the United States is under the guidance Jürgen Klinsmann. One of the greats of the game as a player, he has gave himself the mission to transform the culture of the US and the way it plays Football. However, dogged tenacity will only get you so far, Klinsmann aims to dictate. His ruthless guidance has transformed the team into a very powerful attacking force, capable of dictating terms to any opponents, big or small. There have been tremendous improvements for the USMNT under Herr Klinsmann, including a 1-0 victory in Italy, a historic first time win away against long time rivals Mexico in the Estadio Azteca, a twelve game winning streak that started with a 4-3 defeat of Germany and included a successful Gold Cup victory. In fact, coming into this World Cup the USMNT has won 19 out of their past 24 games. Klinsmann has the sheer, audacious hoden to make the tough call and the controversial decisions and for the most part he has provided the results to back it up. One such decision was the dropping of the veteran talisman Landon Donovan from the World Cup team, an incredibly bold declaration of faith in his own system and abilities. Despite the controversy of this decision, the United States Soccer establishment has made a commitment to back their man, recently granting him a contract extension that runs until 2018. The USA favours the bold, the audacious and the daring and in Klinsmann they have all three. Add in a healthy dose of great results and the USA flock has no greater shepherd to guide them during these transformational times.

Brandi Chastain removes her shirt after scoring the winning
penalty in the Womens World Cup Final of 1999.

The United States face Portugal tomorrow, a team that they have defeated in the World Cup once before. I believe that they are capable of bringing the game to Portugal and gaining a result. This team will be no pushover to whoever plays them, and a key strength that will play in their favour will be their underestimation by their opponents. After all, these American wannabes don't care about football right? Surely there is no need to take them seriously? Guaranteed victory surely? This kind of attitude has the potential to cause some serious shockwaves, not just in their Portuguese opponents but in all of us. The days of mockery and dismissal are numbered.
 

Is this the dawning of a new age of American dominance? I would not go that far. However, what I have seen, is that the United States is finally beginning to shake its reputation from the Eurosnobs. It is beginning to take its place in the world brotherhood of football. This may not be fully achieved within this generation, but as a game built upon the successes of the past, I am excited for the next one.