Infighting: Do we Root for the Home Team?
Should progressives support America in international sports?
By Asheesh Siddique, Princeton University and Tim Fernholz, Georgetown University
June 27-30, 2006
Day 4: International cooperation is our goooooooooooooal!
By Timothy Fernholz, Georgetown University
June 30, 2006
Well, I think we’ve reached an impasse, probably for the better, since this rejoinder is the end of the line. Asheesh, if I can characterize your argument, I’d say it’s this: Americans don’t like soccer very much, so we don’t invest much energy or resources in the sport, therefore it doesn’t make sense for us to root for our team when other teams, like the Ghanaians, care so much more about the game. It’s compelling, given that Americans, on the whole, don’t care about soccer — though the number of soccer fans is on the rise. But this debate — Should progressives support America in international sports? — gives me free range to wander off into the normative and argue for why we ought to support our team, unpopularity or no: because it shows our commitment to internationalism.
I’ll accept your criticism of my perhaps overwrought analogy between the World Cup and electoral politics, though I still think that one can support meritocracy as an ideal and root for those who aren’t very meritorious. I still think the Ghanaian team was stronger from the get go than the U.S. But I was disappointed that you didn’t respond more fully to my (admittedly vague) idea of athletic internationalism.
You argue that supporting our team has no “social reward” and “no benefits.” But I disagree. As I wrote in my previous installment, the U.S. doesn’t seem to take international cooperation seriously on any level: trade, treaties, international security or sports. It’s because of an arrogant strain of culture in the United States that you rightly point out has created “detrimental anti-American sentiments.” This is in part caused by our willful unilateralism and overwrought rhetoric on the political stage, but also because we don’t reach out well culturally, failing to take seriously things like, oh, international sports that rest of the world loves.
But if we take soccer seriously and support our team, that gesture will not only be appreciated internationally but will also, I think, be replicated nationally with a commitment towards other international efforts. Sure, if we dominate international soccer — especially with our current international reputation — we might not be very popular (although Brazil somehow manages to pull it off). But we’re unlikely to dominate any time soon, given our current ability, and if we ever do, it will be after years of effort in the international trenches. Given a choice between two attitudes — the current, we’re-too-good-for-soccer outlook or the potential we-take-the-most-international-sport-seriously perspective, I think most people around the world will choose the latter, and I think Americans, especially progressives, should, too.
At one point, you write that supporting other teams shows we favor “cooperative co-existence.” But isn’t rooting for another country’s team, especially countries with a history of living under colonialism, when we can’t be bothered to care about our own, somewhat paternalistic and condescending? In my mind, it would be better to engage with other countries as equals on the field and off. It’s hardly cultural protectionism to support our soccer team; if anything, it’s cultural outreach: trying to make something foreign part of the American experience. It’s the kind of humility that the U.S. rarely shows but ought to. With sports being one of the few pursuits where the U.S. doesn’t gain automatic domination through wealth or military might, it seems churlish of us to shrug off this competition simply because we’ll lose, especially when we have so much lost ground to make up in international opinion.
And this applies beyond sports where we lack talent. Athletics, in the spirit of the Olympics, have the power to bridge national gaps and bring people together. Failing to treat them seriously just makes us look churlish and has cultural repercussions in our country and others. So, count me as a member of Uncle Sam’s Army in 2010. Not just cause I love soccer (and America), but because I love internationalism.
Day 3: Can Rooting For the Underdog Heal our Wounded Reputation?
By Asheesh Siddique, Princeton University
June 29, 2006
Tim, I’m glad to hear that you don’t have anything in particular against the Ghanaian team; similarly, I don’t have anything against the United States’ team. There’s one area of overlap. But I’m still not convinced that it’s really always progressive to cheer on American teams in international competition.
I don’t buy your analogy between the persistence of progressive belief in the rightness of our cause despite election losses and the need for American fans to continue to support our soccer team even though it tanks on the field. We need to continue to support the politics you and I share because progressivism is the best and only hope for continuing the historical trajectory America has been following toward a more just and democratic society. Obviously, there is a dire cost to not supporting progressive politics: just consider how much worse America has become since January 20, 2001.
That same sense of urgency hardly exists with the U.S. men’s soccer team. If they lose, America loses very little because it does not have much to defend. We lack a contemporary legacy of playing great soccer (like Italy), and we do not have truly major titles to defend (like Brazil). Moreover, because Americans don’t invest much in soccer anyway, the nation wasn’t really disappointed or let down when we lost.
Even when our team does well, there isn’t much of a social reward. After the U.S. team’s June 17 draw with Italy, a historical soccer powerhouse (clearly the highlight of our play in this year’s tournament and a milestone in our soccer history), neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post deemed it an important enough achievement to merit a front page story, probably because it wouldn’t have sold copies — a pretty good indication of how little the American consumer cares about soccer in the first place. If tying Italy doesn’t excite Americans about the “beautiful game,” then probably nothing can. As I noted, Ghana, by contrast, declared a half-day national holiday just so folks could watch the match against our team.
The Ghanaian side may be better trained, and even better funded than the American one, but those footballers had a more difficult time, and worse chance of, becoming world-class stars. The players clearly had to demonstrate considerable talent, ability, and promise in order to receive the prize money if they won. And they had to do all that without any international help in the first place.
On the flip side, if the United States wanted to, it could very easily devote far more funding to developing a truly world-class soccer team than Ghana ever could, even with what foreign aid they receive; we’ve got barrels more money at our disposal and don’t need foreign dollars. We haven’t taken that step because we really don’t care about soccer in general, which doesn’t reflect very well on our seriousness or dedication to the sport.
You might argue in response that the reason we haven’t is because the U.S. team hasn’t done well at World Cups. But before Ghana got their grants, had they done particularly well in international competition? No — in fact, this is the first time they’ve even qualified for the World Cup finals; in contrast, the United States team came into this tournament ranked fifth in the world, right on the heels of Brazil and Mexico, having played in eight previous competitions since the very first World Cup in 1930. Prior success need not motivate countries to take soccer seriously, so there’s no reason to believe that Americans would suddenly do the same if they supported their own team.
Why should we engage in cultural protectionism by supporting our bad soccer team when it has no benefits for us but might deprive a nation with little going for it anyway of some social hope? Wouldn’t our dominance of international soccer only reinforce detrimental anti-American sentiments from the world, since our pursuit of global political hegemony has done precisely that? By reaching out and supporting great soccer teams even if they aren’t our own, especially given our team’s general badness, we demonstrate that we favor cooperative co-existence over chauvinistic and backlash-inducing dominance. That could have positive repercussions for international diplomacy and our standing in the eyes of other countries.
Day 2: America: Soccer’s Red Sox
By Tim Fernholz, Georgetown University
June 28, 2006
Despite the ignominy of the American loss last week, progressive American soccer fans, take heart: If you were rooting for the old U.S. of A, you were doing the right thing. Although Asheesh makes some compelling arguments, I must disagree: American progressives ought to be rooting for their own teams in international competition.
Asheesh, you argue that we ought to support teams that are better than us (Ghana, for instance) simply because they are better than us: Progressivism is about meritocracy and may the better achiever win. Well, that part is right. We should support meritocracy, and simply by buying into the World Cup system, where talent is measured, winners advance and losers go home, we already do. But we also buy into democracy, where majority rule is measured by campaigns and elections; lately, progressives have had about as much success winning those as the U.S. has had scoring goals. But you don’t see us out waving signs for the conservatives come voting day. Similarly, just because we believe that the best players should win doesn’t mean we shouldn’t root for our less-than-awesome team or hope that they will someday be the best. Our love of meritocracy shouldn’t stop us from supporting our teams — it should only embarrass us when we lose. And while it’s not always pleasant to support a losing team, I can say as a lifelong Red Sox fan that it’s worth the suffering when your eventual triumph comes around. (Asheesh, if you turn out to be a Yankees fan, we’re going to see some real infighting around here.)
But isn’t Ghana, well, an American story? Underdeveloped but plucky, their first-time-at-the-Cup team beats some tough opponents (and us, of course) to contend with powerhouse Brazil for a slot in the quarter finals! Well, their country may be underdeveloped compared to ours, but their team certainly isn’t. Boasting many players seasoned (and salaried) in European football leagues — while American stars like Landon Donovan can’t cut the mustard on the continent and must content themselves with U.S. Major League Soccer — an experienced foreign coach and a FIFA football development grant, despite the fact that their team has been in fewer World Cups than ours, they certainly weren’t the underdog. In fact, the lackluster U.S. team was the real underdog in our group.
You tell us that the only argument for supporting our crappy (but plucky) team is athletic nationalism? That’s all well and good. But, as you also point out, athletic nationalism only really works when we love the sport, and only a minority of Americans love the sport: "It’s a sport we don’t watch, don’t understand, and don’t care about." But there’s a better argument for progressives (and all Americans, who, in an ideal world, would be progressive) to root for — and watch — football: athletic internationalism.
Lately, America has been getting its ass kicked in international sports. Football, of course, but also baseball (the American pastime, for Christ’s sake!) and basketball — our best basketball players didn’t even bother to join our national team, meanwhile, we promote our national championships as if they were universal athletic finals. Why? Because we don’t take international competition seriously. This athletic egoism is reflected in our lack of international political cooperation, on issues from international security to development to environment to health. If progressives want Americans to take seriously international political work, we need to signify that we take internationalism seriously, and that includes that most international of sports, football. That means watching, rooting for, and maybe someday fielding, a solid U.S. team. It’s a first step towards a national cultural change that will let us root for other, more important, things, like the U.N. or the Kyoto Treaty.
On a final note, I’ll say I bear no ill will towards our Ghanaian football betters. One hopes that their soccer victory and passion will improve their national self-esteem, even if it won’t improve their development all that much. (if Ghana had not been eliminated and went on to win the whole tournament, it would have received $21.5 million, and for qualifying, a minimum of $5.9 million. But the United States gives Ghana almost $58 million in aid every year in development aid already.)
P.S. We could also root for U.S. soccer out of sheer belligerence — conservatives hate it!
Day 1: Why this American was Cheering for Ghana
By Asheesh Siddique, Princeton University
June 27, 2006
Should progressives support American teams in international competitions? It depends. This month, citizens in almost every country around the world have their attention focused on the World Cup, the international soccer competition going on in Germany. The United States qualified for the 2006 World Cup last year with spectacular victories over Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, Costa Rica, Panama, and Mexico, but they were eliminated in the actual competition this June after losing to the Czech Republic (0-3) on June 12 and Ghana (1-2) on June 22, in spite of playing to a stunning 1-1 tie with longtime “football” powerhouse (and three-time World Cup champions) Italy, a team clearly distracted from playing its best by a gambling scandal at home.
The core progressive principle of meritocracy compels us to root for other teams if they’re really so much better than we are — and America’s performance in this World Cup shows that there are plenty of these teams out there. Progressives believe that people should attain success based on their individual talents, efforts, and performance on as even a playing field as possible. Of course, when it comes to sports, this sort of equal chance at success exists only in theory — it’s a simple economic truth that rich countries have more money to devote to training their soccer teams, while poor countries have much less. Simply put, soccer points to the real poverty millions around the world must cope with daily.
It’s all the more noteworthy, then, that a country like Ghana — with a human development index (measuring the capacity of individuals to “develop their full potential and lead productive, creative lives in accord with their needs and interests” in a given country) rating of 0.520 (ranking 138 out of 177, just ahead of Bangladesh, Sudan, and the Congo, and behind Cambodia, Mongolia, and Pakistan) — should be able to beat the United States, a nation that ranks in the top 10 of all countries with an HDI of 0.944. Clearly, Ghana has developed a world-class soccer team with much less money and resources, and in a much worse environment for human development, than the United States. That indicates that they are the better team (if it wasn’t already evident on the pitch) because of the talent, hard work, and determination of their players. Shouldn’t the progressive value of achievement through one’s own efforts (a category where Ghana clearly outdid the United States) prompt us to cheer when a team triumphs over its poor national origins to play great football? Moreover, doesn’t the prospect of individuals overcoming overwhelming odds like chronic poverty and underdevelopment make for a compelling, and strikingly American, story?
The only possible competing imperative against the argument I’ve put forth is athletic nationalism: the idea that one should support one’s own sports teams in international competitions because they are your national teams. Unlike some old school liberals, I’m all for progressives being more explicitly nationalistic in making political appeals to the American electorate. But nationalism only works if people care about something enough to support it through thick and thin — like American democracy, our institutions of government, and our way of life. In contrast, most Americans couldn’t even be bothered to watch our soccer team play against Ghana — the game drew a Nielsen rating of only 2.4, meaning 2.4% of America’s of the approximately 110 million television households in America tuned in By contrast, Game 5 of the NBA Finals ( Dallas at Miami) this month garnered 14.3 million viewers.. The nationalist argument that it’s imperative to support the U.S. men’s soccer team falls apart because Americans don’t care about them anyway. Soccer here isn’t a political issue; it’s a sport we don’t watch, don’t understand, and don’t care about.
While Americans were apathetic about their team’s prospects against the African nation, Ghana’s government declared a national half-day holiday just so people could watch the match against the U.S. In that small West African nation, soccer is clearly a source of profound social hope and national pride in the midst of obscene levels of poverty and underdevelopment. There’s something deeply progressive, and even American, about supporting that. Next time let’s do so.
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Comments
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Based on this logic, we all should be rooting for White Sox’s or the Oakland A’s when it comes to baseball. After all, both teams spend less money then the Yankees or the Red Sox. They both also come from poorer cities.
As much as I love the intrigue of developing contries beating the rich ones—or colonizers getting beat by a former colony, I still have to say that I’m rooting for the USA.
— Ben Waxman - Jun 28, 11:16 AM - #Doesn’t American exceptionalism still matter? We’ve never really wanted to be like the rest of the world, which in many ways has been one of our biggest strengths. I like soccer, but it doesn’t exactly embody America’s treasured sense of uniqueness. Unlike other countries, we send our best athletes to several uniquely American sports. If Dwayne Wade was our striker and Ray Lewis our center back, you can bet the U.S. public would be more invested in the World Cup.
— Pete Backof - Jun 28, 11:33 AM - #In response to Pete Backof’s statement:
The problem with the American “exceptionalism” argument is that it conforms too closely to the American “egotism” argument. “Treasured sense of uniqueness?!” The exceptionalism argument: “we’re ‘unique’ because we have our own sports (American football), BUT if we sent our BEST athletes (Wade and Lewis among them), we’d kick ass in everything. We’re too busy with our own sports though.”
If America got rid of all their sports besides soccer, devoted all their resources to developing soccer players, and instituted a MLS that rivaled England’s Premier League or any of a number or corresponding European elite associations, America STILL would not be as good as Brazil or France. It would take years, generations to foster the appropriate soccer culture. Only when America actually started succeeding (2002’s QF run in the World Cup) would people pay attention and start showing some passion.
Soccer is the world’s sport; numerous nations (like America) devote resources and personnel in order to gain success. Yet how many national teams do you see at the top? A handful at most. To the nations at the apex of soccer’s hierarchy, soccer is part of their culture, part of their lifestyle. That is why teams like Brazil and France and England and Italy always do well; the sport is ingrained in society. David Beckham is England’s Michael Jordan. They (namely Britain among others) have riots over REGULAR SEASON matches. The players’ and fans’ passion are unmatched.
The “success as sports-culture” can help explain America’s lack of success in soccer. But what about more “mainstream” sports? America failed to advance to the semis in a tournament of its own national pasttime (the World Baseball Classic) and could not garner player support for a sport that Michael Jordan helped popularize throughout the entire world. America created and fostered growth in both sports, yet other nations continue to beat them at their own game. American fans are still passionate about baseball and basketball, so what gives? The key here: international athletes take more pride than American athletes. Think about it – you don’t see Manu Ginobli struggling over whether or not he’s going to play for the Argentinian national team. You don’t see Yao Ming taking time off so he can rehab from the 82-game beating he takes during the NBA basketball season. The Olympic Dream Teams of the early 90s showcased not only the best athletes in the basketball world, but also the most passionate athletes; these superstars who were already paid millions of dollars wanted to represent the U.S. With this year’s World Baseball Classic, the athletes on teams like Japan and Korea and the Dominican and even politically-estranged Cuba want to be there (without the millions of dollars American athletes are so lucratively paid).
The “exceptionalism” rule is a shabby excuse American fans and athletes can use to justify a lack of effort whenever America 1) doesn’t succeed or 2) doesn’t participate. “We would kick ass if only we tried harder” or “if only we sent our best athletes” does not work. Success in sports is a mix of player effort and fan participation. American soccer has neither right now, yet continues to justify their lack of success with the “exceptionalism” excuse. America hides behind their own veil of insecurity and refuses to acknowledge the strength and zeal of other nations (where have I heard this before?) There used to be a time when competing in the international realm meant something for American athletes (see Jesse Owens, Miracle on Ice). Not anymore.
— Kevin - Jun 29, 04:12 PM - #In response to Kevin-
— Corey Ponder - Jun 29, 06:13 PM - #I could not agree more. I feel that America’s apathy toward soccer is fueled by its lackluster performance in it. I think that we do not want to admit that we cannot just come in and dominate a sport which was not popularized by us. With soccer, we cannot even begin to compete on the level of some of these seasoned international teams, because soccer is not exactly the sport EVERYONE plays growing up as a child in the streets or on playgrounds in America. When we suck in soccer, we blame it on our other American sports being the real display of athletic superiority, when in actuality, we just do not have it in our culture to compete in soccer, which is a truly international venture. We are like the jocks in school who, rather than admitting there is actually a sport they are just not good at, we would rather say “that sport is for sissies or isn’t as important or skillfully demanding.” The money put into soccer in the US alone is an indicator to me how serious we take the athletics of soccer. Does Freddie Adu in MLS receive a 20 million dollar salary a year because of his marketable skill and talent?
In response to Siddique’s “Day 1” commentary…
“it’s a simple economic truth that rich countries have more money to devote to training their soccer teams, while poor countries have much less”
I just finished reading Eduardo Galeano’s “Soccer in Sun and Shadow.” In it, this famous Uruguayan writer – he also wrote “Memory of Fire,” a history of Latin America – repeatedly makes the point that the best players in the world have been black players from the slums. The best thing about this sport, Siddique, is its ability to overcome economic inequality. Pele and Garrincha, arguably the two best players in the history of the sport, both grew up playing football with rags in the back alleys of Brazil. As I am currently at work (procrastinating) I don’t have the book with me, but teams from the Americas have won, I believe, 9 World Cups compared to Europe’s 8. Keep in mind, though, that most of the Cups played since the first one in 1930 feature roughly double the number of European teams as teams from the Americas. Brazil has five of those 9 titles, Uruguay two, and Argentina two. By contrast, France has one title, Italy three, Germany three, and England one. The poor countries of the world have been much more successful on the world stage than the rich countries.
The idea, then, that Ghana was some kind of underdog in their match against the US is a function only of economics – a far too limited lens for football analysis. For years now, Africa has cultivated a football culture that will culminate in South Africa’s hosting of the Cup in 2010. Economics matter very little on the pitch at the World Cup. What does matter is how much a country cares about the sport. The half-day holiday fact is further evidence that anyone interested in an underdog should have been on the Americans’ side.
Anyone who has grown up playing soccer – or football, whatever – in the United States knows the struggle American players have gone through to join the world in its favorite sport. America’s ugly performance in 06 is not “America getting what it deserves,” as this blog seems to suggest, but rather America continuing to be out of step with the rest of the world. America performing successfully could only mean this country is finally figuring out what it means to be a citizen of a global community.
This summer I’m in Thailand doing some relief work on the Thai-Burma border. I cheered hard for the US, as did my fellow Americans here. But it wasn’t only Americans cheering on the red, white, and blue. The French guy from Aide Medicale Internationale was for the US, too, as were the other French from Medizin Sans Frontieres (please excuse my spelling errors). Even my fellow Burmese were cheering for the US!!! No, supporting the United States team is not a question of hegemonic imposition or an attempt at further colonizing the world’s peoples. People love the US team because it is a team with something to gain – and you don’t have to be an American to understand that.
— Geoff - Jun 29, 10:38 PM - #I’m a progressive, or even a dreaded “liberal,” and a huge sports fan too. I can’t claim to be a huge futbol fan, but I love the World Cup and follow the game year round to some degree. I am not here to troll—and if you have doubts, I’ll be happy to provide you with more background on myself—and I’m not here to rain on anyone’s parade. So with those disclaimers out of the way, let me just say that this is perhaps the dumbest debate I have been witness to in a long time.
“Why should we engage in cultural protectionism by supporting our bad soccer team when it has no benefits for us but might deprive a nation with little going for it anyway of some social hope?”
Sheesh, Asheesh. Sheesh.
Following up on the other commenters baseball analogies, why should Yankee fans root for the Yankees? Isn’t that reactionary? Would it be more progressive fror a New Yorker to root for the Mets? Or the Philllies? Or maybe the D-Rays?
Maybe Yankee fans root for the Yankees because they do. And if a New Yorker wants to like a team from another city, that’s probably okay too.
Soccer is a tremendously important cultural force in the world, but—at the risk of over-simplifying things – this is sports. If this navel-gazing discussion is the best channel you can find to channel your progressivism, may I respectfully suggest you look a little harder?
— Matt - Jun 30, 01:26 AM - #p.s. I don’t mean to denigrate the commenters’ contributions. I think Geoff, Ben, and Kevin had some interesting things to say. And so did our main authors here. But my godness, what a tempest in a teapot the main essays make this!
— Matt - Jun 30, 01:30 AM - #Matt –
I definitely agree. To some extent, football is “just a sport” – and rightly so. It wouldn’t be the world’s game if it were truly fraught with the political implications politicians try so hard to attribute to it. One possible reason why, as I noted before, poor countries have done significantly better on the world stage than rich countries, is that a poor slum-dweller in Brazil is much more likely to spend time kicking semi-spherical objects in allies than well-fed, wealthy Europeans. The former flees reality and dreams big via ball, but the latter has no need for fantasy.
And to Asheesh –
You commented that if the Americans’ match against Italy is not enough to inspire love for the game in America, nothing will. You forget 2002 – the year America proved they can compete on an international scale by fighting their way to the quarterfinals where a bad call against Germany barred their way to the semi’s. More kids play (non-American) football than any other sport. 2010 will help us understand, then, which year is the anomaly. 2002 or 2006? Even if it is 2002 that is the aberration from an ugly tradition, still 2006 far exceeds 1998.
— Geoff - Jun 30, 05:33 AM - #It seems to me that the whole premise of these posts and comments gets to a pretty fundamental question of where national identity fits into progressive politics. Is it a bad thing, as an American, to prefer America, especially in something as harmless as sports? I don’t think it’s a bad thing at all. Certainly it’s a tricky thing to navigate in today’s political climate, with all the jingoistic rhetoric being thrown around by the right. But when progressives articulate their vision for a better country and a better world, we make a claim to better realized American values. After all, I think progressivism at its root is trying to fully realize the phrase “All men are created equal.” That’s ultimately a universal statement that ideally should apply internationally. But it’s also our American statement, not Ghanian or German or whatever. I don’t think that means America is a perfect country or that we’ve somehow crossed a democracy finish line that entitles us to dictate policies to the rest of the world. But the fact that we have that concept as part of our national character does make me proud of my country. In terms of soccer, I can appreciate the underdog and I can appreciate the geopolitical satisfaction of a developing country beating an industrialized powerhouse. But in sports, when it comes to any country vs. the USA, I want the USA to win, and I think it’s progressive to say so.
— Pete Backof - Jun 30, 10:13 AM - #Asheesh, Molly’s going to Ghana—that’s why we rooted for them.
Please contact us.
— Mauimom - Jul 3, 09:08 AM - #