A UEFA Championship and the Americanizing of Futbol

The 2014 UEFA Champions League Championship was a well-played match.  Only Manchester United rivals Real Madrid for worldwide acclaim.  Atletico Madrid does not have the same panache associated with it but played a gritty match that pushed Real Madrid to the brink.  Real Madrid’s overwhelming athleticism wore down Atletico Madrid and resulted in a lopsided score, 4-1, that belies the intensity of the battle on the pitch.

Atletico Madrid used sent the ball into the box and crashed the goal to keep the keeper off balance.  This worked for a time but Real Madrid used set piece plays, particularly corner kicks, to swing the flow of the game.  Eventually, the preponderance of the match was on Atletico’s side of the pitch.  Real Madrid’s goal in the 93^rd minute knotted the game at 1-1 and sent it to extra time.  The first half of extra time remained deadlocked but during the second half Real Madrid blew the game open.  This scoring explosion sealed the club’s 10^th UEFA Championship.

This same stretch of play should have opened the eyes of U.S. sports fans.  Soccer is the most popular game in the world.  American sports fans are often led to believe that the U.S. should immerse itself in the beautiful game because of soccer’s popularity.  The truth of the matter is that soccer will never capture the American imagination to the same degree that baseball did, football has, and basketball will capture it.

 

Fox Sports has enlisted Gus Johnson, the master of breathless melodramatic play by play, to Americanize soccer telecasts.  Johnson was his usual energetic self but soccer’s rhythm is slower than basketball, which occasionally left Johnson’s calls feeling drawn out.  Johnson is at his best when he fires at machine gun rate not semi-automatic.  Johnson will improve over time but Fox Sports does not need to Americanize soccer.

U.S. fans will immediately recognize many elements that the UEFA Championship contained.  Atletico Madrid’s manager Diego Simeone rivals Jim Harbaugh on the intensity scale albeit he dresses far better.  Likewise, Cristiano Ronaldo preens more than Yasiel Puig has over his year and a half in the Major Leagues.  Scoring a goal is difficult but Ronaldo was over the top with his celebration.  The game was over.  Real Madrid could not blow have blown their 3-1 lead with a matter of minutes left.  Doffing your shirt after a meaningless penalty kick is not channeling Bobby Orr's Flying Goal to win the Stanley Cup, it is mirroring Alex Rodriguez’s vanity.

           However, that goal was noteworthy in one regard.  It was celebrated with the same soundtrack, as Real Madrid’s other goals, Seven Nation Army by the White Stripes.  Using the White Stripes is notably because they originated from the Detroit music scene.  As European futbol fans rejoiced or agonized, a champion was crowned with American music thumping through the stadium.  Perhaps the issue is not if U.S. fans will grow to love soccer.  Instead, it may be a matter of time until futbol’s atmosphere is Americanized.