Soccer in the United States
Football , known as association football or soccer in the United States , is a very popular sport there . However, professional football is much less popular than in other countries such as Brazil , England or Germany . In the past, football in the United States was often viewed as a youth sport played only by boys and girls under the age of twelve.
Until a few years ago, soccer was only a regional phenomenon, confined to a few centers in New Jersey , St. Louis, or Southern California . Football was, and still is, the most popular sport in immigrant areas, especially since most immigrants come from countries with a high enthusiasm for football. At the turn of the millennium , however, the image of football in the USA changed significantly.
The introduction of youth programs and the Major League Soccer professional league, in particular, made the sport more popular in the United States . The successes of the national team also contributed.
History of football in the USA
The first football club in the United States was Oneida Football Club in Boston , Massachusetts . It was founded in 1862 before the British FA was founded. It is no longer known exactly which rules were used, but according to the Encyclopædia Britannica the club is often referred to as the initiator of the " Boston Game ", a variant in which the ball is played with the foot, but also in the hand can be worn. It could therefore have been a variant of the Irish sport of Gaelic Football .
The first FA rules football game was played between the Princeton University and Rutgers University teams in 1869. The game was still very hard and each team consisted of 20 players. Many other universities initially followed suit, but switched to rugby in the 1870s and became early centers of American football . For details, see History of American Football .
In the 1920s, the American Soccer League, the country's first popular soccer league , was founded, with its strongholds mainly in the cities of the east coast. However, the ASL came into conflict with the national football association USSF , which is supported by FIFA , because both claimed the highest authority in the organization of US football for themselves. The conflict that became known as the Soccer War caused lasting damage to soccer in the USA and - combined with the effects of the global economic crisis - led to the decline of the ASL, whereupon soccer was relegated to the status of a marginal sport for decades.
With the victory of the English national team at the Soccer World Cup in 1966 , interest in soccer increased again in America. 1967 two professional leagues were founded, which later merged to form the North American Soccer League (NASL). Due to the commitment of international football greats (including Franz Beckenbauer , Johan Cruyff and Pelé ), the number of spectators was very high, but the high costs caused many clubs to face financial difficulties. The NASL was disbanded in 1984 and for a decade it was played mostly indoors. The highest league at that time was the Major Indoor Soccer League .
Origin of the term soccer
In 1863 the English football association set the name association football (German: Verbandsfußball) as the official name. The word soccer is a neologism from the university area: originated from the abbreviation Assoc with subsequent slang-like transformation to socca (1889), then socker (1891, included in the first Concise Oxford Dictionary 1911) and finally soccer (1895). The abbreviation is said to go back to Charles Wreford-Brown, a student at Oxford University.
Football associations and leagues were founded several times, including the American Football Association (1884), the American Amateur Football Association (1893), the American League of Professional Football (1894), the National Association Foot Ball League (1895), and of the Southern New England Football League (1914). Initially, the term football was used, but over time the term soccer became established to distinguish it from American football . The St. Louis Soccer League was the first league in the United States to use the term in 1907. Today's American Football Association, the United States Soccer Federation , was founded in 1913 as the US Football Association . In 1945 the name was added to the US Soccer Football Association , and in 1974 the term football disappeared from the name of the association.
present
As a requirement for the 1994 World Cup in the USA, FIFA required the introduction of a professional football league. This league, Major League Soccer , was founded in 1993 and is enjoying steadily growing popularity today. The interest in football also increased the success of the national team at the 2002 World Cup and especially the women's national team with the world championship titles in 1991 , 1999 , 2015 and 2019 as well as the Olympic gold medals in 1996 , 2004 , 2008 and 2012 .
A professional league for women, the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), was later founded, but had to be closed again in 2003 due to a lack of money. Another professional league, the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league, started playing in 2009. After three seasons, this league ended in 2011. In 2013, the National Women's Soccer League was the third attempt to establish a national professional women's league. The eight founding members continue to exist and in 2017 the fifth season of the league started with 10 teams. No professional women's league has ever been able to achieve this.
Today there is a multitude of soccer leagues and organizations in the USA, of which Major League Soccer is the best known, but still ranks behind the Primera División de México and the FA Premier League in England in American soccer popularity . Across all sports, football is still only a marginal sport after American football , baseball , NASCAR , basketball , ice hockey , golf and tennis .
In the last few years the MLS has been continuously increased. There were several expansions , as a result of which in 2007 a Canadian franchise was included for the first time with Toronto FC and the attendance figures in Seattle and Philadelphia were very high. In fact , every home game was sold out in Seattle Sounders FC's inaugural season. In the meantime (2017 season) 22 teams are playing in the MLS, three of which are from Canada.
The advantage that exists in football is the opportunity to grow in the audience's favor. The audience quota for the 2006 World Cup finals was around 16.9 million, roughly comparable to the audience figures for the Major League Baseball World Series .
The cost of the Spanish language broadcasting rights for the 2010 and 2014 World Cups is three times higher than the English broadcasting rights.
League structure
The league structure in America is very different from the structures in other countries, as, for example, teams cannot be promoted or relegated. But it corresponds to the general understanding of sport among Americans. The licenses for the individual franchises are owned by the respective league association and are awarded to the franchises. As a result, it can happen that franchises and their entire structure move to other cities; a system that is largely unknown in predominantly club-based football Europe.
Men
The American football association, the United States Soccer Federation, divides the professional area into three leagues. The USSF Division I is represented by the Major League Soccer, the USL Championship has the status of USSF Division II and the USL League One and the National Independent Soccer Association the status of USSF Division III.
Under this structure, the United States Adult Soccer Association organizes the amateur section with several leagues.
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Level |
league |
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1 |
Major League Soccer |
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2 |
USL Championship |
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3 |
USL League One |
National Independent Soccer Association |
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Women
After starting operations in 2013, the National Women's Soccer League (NWSL) is the top division in American women's football.
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Level |
league |
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1 |
National Women's Soccer League |
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2 |
United Women's Soccer |
Women's Premier Soccer League |
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3 |
United States Adult Soccer Association (USASA) |
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Popularity of football in the US
Many authors have pondered the low popularity of football in the United States. Theories range from the saturated market that existed when football became popular; about football as a “un-American” or “foreign game”; that Americans don't dominate the game; that there are too many ties; that too few goals are scored.
Another reason for the low popularity among adults is the system of youth sports in the USA. Many children only play soccer until they are twelve years old. For the older teenagers the question then arises as to which sport they play in high school , soccer or American football. You can only play one of these sports at the start of the school year in autumn. So it came about that generations of Americans grew up without football.
Only in the last decade have the youth organizations changed their program. Most of the time this change was made for financial reasons, as fewer referees are needed for football and less equipment has to be bought for the individual players. In addition, the risk of injury in soccer is lower than in American football. At the same time, schools began to offer more courses in football.
Because of these factors, more and more Americans who played soccer in their youth are becoming the spectators and players today. Football is particularly popular in the northeast, south ( Florida ) and California . These are also the areas where many Latin Americans keep interest in football high.
American Football Associations
- United States Soccer Federation
- United States Adult Soccer Association
- United States Youth Soccer Association
- National Intercollegiate Soccer Officials Association
- National Soccer Coaches Association of America
- Major Indoor Soccer League
- American Youth Soccer Organization
American teams
The following American outlying areas also have their own national soccer teams:
literature
- Andrei S. Markovits , Steven Hellerman : Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism , Princeton 2001; German: In the offside - football in American sports culture , Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-930908-78-6
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Football Lexicon , accessed on September 17, 2013.
- ^ Wortbedeutung.info, accessed on September 17, 2013
- ↑ Steve Sailer: One World Cup.Retrieved October 27, 2012
- ↑ "American Exceptionalism: Soccer and American Football" by Ivan Waddington and Martin Roderick, University of Leicester (PDF; 76 kB)
- ^ "Why America hates football" by Michael Mandelbaum, The Observer , August 1, 2004
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Other: Greenland
Football in other continental associations:
Africa ( CAF ) |
Asia ( AFC ) |
Europe ( UEFA ) |
South America ( CONMEBOL ) |
Oceania ( OFC )