Has the US finally fallen in love with football?

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:08Today, how Americans fell in love with football, even if they still insist on calling it soccer.

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1:00For a long time now, most Americans have not really got the world's most popular game. Guess what starts tomorrow? The World Cup? You excited? Not really. Hey, Dad, how come you never taken us to see a soccer game? I don't know. The Camonet of Soccer Association is coming to Springfield. It's all here. Fast kicking, low scoring, and ties. You bet. Let's just be honest. The reality is when the World Cup is over, soccer's not going to be a dominant sport in the United States. Boring! Come on, you snorers! Do something! But with a home World Cup in full swing, some Americans at least are being infused with the spirit of football.

1:47People love soccer, they just don't know it yet. And the thing is, we have good players now. We didn't even know we had good players! OK, their chants need a little work. Because we support the US, the US, the US. And that's the way we like it, we like it, we love it. But finally, it seems, the USA is waking up to the majesty of the beautiful game. But for the United States of America, the dream continues. Their World Cup ambitions very much alive.

2:30From The Guardian, I'm Helen Pitt. Today in Focus. Ole, ole, ole, ole, USA.

2:44Jeff Rueter:Jeff Reuter, welcome to Today in Focus. Hi, Helen. Thanks for having me. So you're a reporter at The Guardian and your official title is a soccer correspondent, which of course for us Brits is football correspondent. Can you just start by telling me, when did your love for the beautiful game begin? I'm very fortunate to have grown up in a rare sort of 1990s American soccer family. My aunt was a goalkeeper who would often advance deep into state tournaments in Minnesota, but usually would run into shootouts and lose to Brianna Scurry, who went on to be the starting goalkeeper at the 1999 Women's World Cup.

3:17Oh, wow. Good shot! Save Scurry! And at that point, I vividly remember faces painted and everyone cheering for my aunt's old rival, who obviously then becomes a national and frankly international hero in her own right for her exploits against China in the shootout. So just stuck with it from there and kind of harbored an interest, was able to follow along with the sparse sightings of Ferguson's United and Wenger's Arsenal throughout the 2000s, a little bit of Champions League. And then Major League Soccer picks up in earnest after David Beckham arrives. And it's a little easier to find something closer to home.

3:49Jeff Rueter:And you grew up in the magnificently named St. Cloud in Minnesota. I confess I've never been, but I'm imagining it wasn't a major footballing hub when you were growing up. What did your friends think of you? Were they like, yeah, he's got this like sort of weird esoteric hobby. We don't get why he's into it. You know, I actually, it's funny. I was more interested in the arts, the performing arts, the written arts. And that was not part of my grades pack of interest. Everyone was kind of disparate, but no one was really going into theater speech, writing, all these sorts of things. So I was already a little bit on the periphery.

4:25And then when you throw in soccer, it's just like, OK, I'm just bad. I don't even know where to begin with this guy. So it's very funny now, you know, reconnecting with classmates, to your point. And they're just like, you can do that. That's the whole job is you just write about soccer and that's all you do. And they just they still can't quite conceptualize.

4:40Jeff Rueter:Yeah. What was the state of football in the US at that point in time? Ramshackle would be an understatement, I think I would say. There was a point in the mid-aughts where it did feel like Major League Soccer was going to crater. There wasn't terrible public interest after its initial launch in 1996. But soccer really benefited from the American broadcast expansion into streaming with greater diversity of cable channels as well, where eventually live programming. You've got baseball, basketball, football. Those are always the most expensive broadcast rights in the United States. But soccer was something that was on midday because of the time difference with Europe.

5:13It was something where there were so many different pockets of it. there would be a natural audience for it in a nation of immigrants, right? And so I think that it just grew and grew its foothold on the back of broadcasting.

5:24Jeff Rueter:And what is it about football, our football, that Americans don't quite get? That's a really good question. And I think that it's more to do with the sports that they grow up with. Like, you know, Mauricio Pochettino has always said this thing where, you know, in Argentina, in England, around the world, most of the place, the first place that a young person, a child will feel a ball is at their feet, right? Well, in America, it's in your hands, right? And so you're very used to, all right, baseball, you throw it, football, volleyball, you bump it over the net, whatever the case may be. And so there's that component of it.

5:58It's just a very different style of sport. There's also the continuous play model, which is now being hampered with the hydration breaks at this World Cup.

6:04Jeff Rueter:Yeah, well, we're going to get to that, actually. We should. They like being kind of cued in to say this is a big moment. This is third down in American football and this is bigger. The bottom of the ninth in baseball is the fourth quarter of this game. Whatever. We have these sort of like stage setting moments in our games. Whereas in soccer, once you know the sport, they're there. They're there a plenty. But for the average consumer, you just see the clock continue to go and go and go until it stops at 45 plus something, right? Or 90 plus something. So I think that that makes it a little more of a barrier for entry possibly.

6:34Jeff Rueter:And I've also heard Americans complaining about matches that end nil-nil, which is basically impossible, right, in American football or in baseball. Yeah, in baseball, they'll just keep playing until every player has tried to throw a ball. And then they'll make up new rules so that the manager has to go out because they just refuse to let ties happen, right? And hockey, there's a shootout, so you at least award a point. Football, to your point, you play overtime, and there's maybe one tie a year at most in the entirety of the NFL. So that's a foreign concept to them. And I think that they don't understand the scoring structures.

7:07But I will say, I think that it's getting a lot more sophisticated over time. The exposure to soccer now, like I said, since the 2000s, you have generations, plural, that have actually grown up with it being seen as a viable sort of fifth sport, if you will, for major professional sportsmen's or women's in the United States.

7:29Jeff Rueter:so the world cup began in june against a very contentious political backdrop that we will get to in a minute but on a level of one to ten how pumped were americans about this world cup or was it more of like a shrug it really depended who you talked to right and i think that by and large there's just too much entertainment in the united states in particular to really focus on any one thing until it's actually happening. Right. For example, the NBA finals was still ongoing when Mexico and South Africa kicked off the tournament. And even when the United States opened its tournament against Paraguay, there was a lot of the country that was still really focused on whether or not the New York Knicks would win for the first time in a quarter century, for example.

8:09Right. And so the general sports public shifted over after the Knicks won that championship and it became a much bigger deal. I think that there was also some reluctance because Because a lot of Americans knew, yes, Lionel Messi and Argentina would be big. England would make a run. Spain, Portugal, France arrived in good form. But the United States, very few people knew what to expect. When you hear the U.S. men's national team hasn't advanced beyond the quarterfinal since 2002. They haven't advanced beyond the quarterfinal since 1930. They haven't. All these sorts of facts. It's just, OK, well, they'll have a couple of games and then they'll lose.

8:41And then I'll just tune in for the final. So there might have been a little reluctance to join before that. But I think they've really gotten there since then. And the referee has brought the match to a conclusion. USA 4, Paraguay 1. The United States of America, the dream continues. Their World Cup ambitions very much alive. USA 2, Bosnia and Herzegovina 0. And this time they are through to the final 16. They face Belgium tonight. What has been behind their success? Midway through the World Cup cycle in 2024, the US made a coaching change. They fired the predecessor, Greg Berhalter, who had led them in Qatar in 2022, and then replaced him with Maurizio Pochettino, who is an Argentinian who previously had coached Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea, Espanyol.

9:28Jeff Rueter:So a big fish. Yeah, yeah. A big fish, certainly. And somebody that would be expected to get this team to play to a higher standard than it had before. And is there a standout player in Team USA? Like, do you guys have a Harry Kane or a Lionel Messi? Neither nor. There certainly isn't yet. And there is a desperation for it. He does say that's one of the questions he gets most when he goes to dinner with people who maybe invest in the program, let's say. And they'll say, why don't we have a Lionel Messi? As if that's something that every other country isn't asking themselves right now. And a favorite relatively new pastime of English football fans is to make fun of the American chants.

10:06I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win. I believe that we will win.

10:11Jeff Rueter:What's the deal there? Why are they so rubbish? it's uh look i to be fair i think it's it's a little precious just to get caught up in chance right i i think that it's it's a thing where it's very easy to just get a whole stadium to say usa usa usa as very you know benign and basic as it may seem um it's effective it's something that'll get people involved in it if they don't go to the sport you know we're not necessarily trying to change the lyrics of Christmas songs over here. I think that we're very fine keeping that part of our songbook to just the months of late November and December. So I think that's also a little bit.

10:49There are other parts of the culture. I think I wish that the songbook of the American Soccer Supporter emulated more than England's, if I'm completely honest. I think it's much more of the humming and hypnotic sort of South American flair, the Latin verb of the drum beats and the woe woe woe woe. There's an ale, ale, ale. I think that goes around the world. The Norwegian Viking boats. Maybe a little more fun. The Viking boats is fun.

11:18These things, I think, feel more organic, right? And I think that ultimately, this is a culture that's looking for something organic that they can relate to and really embrace. And all that we've got so far is USA, USA, USA. say. But when you have 60, 70 ,000 people chanting that while they are down a man trying to protect a one goal lead against Bosnia, you really do appreciate this is the moment these players have been training for. And you can just see how much it means to players like Christian Pulisic and Weston McKinney, who make sure to applaud every corner of the stadium whenever they exit during this tournament, right?

11:49You see it with McKinney and Sebastian Berhalter going to sing Take Me Home Country Roads with the fans and lead them and waving their arms and that sort of thing, right?

12:04I think that there's finally an acceptance in America that we don't just have to copy what England does and we can still have a lot of success doing it.

12:11Jeff Rueter:And are you willing to defend hydration breaks? Nope. That's an American invention, isn't it? It's a FIFA invention. I want to clarify that right away. That is a FIFA invention that was agnostic of it being in the United States, but it was the return of a summer World Cup after they had moved it out of the summer months for Qatar. And so the idea was if we are going to have to return this to June and July, climate change is unmissable. And so in theory, there is a necessity to keep the whistles whetted. I do understand that, but I think where it gets difficult is the mandatory three minutes. They're going to say it's for the good of the competition.

12:45I think that you and I and everyone watching knows it's for the good of the bankroll, right? To be able to sell these adverts if you want to, and be able to bring in a very different sort of, I don't know, stream of revenue that FIFA I hadn't previously had available to it before because the game wasn't split. But I will say in stadium, this doesn't always come through the broadcast because FIFA's gotten awfully quick with the mute button on the crowd. The boos are getting louder and louder at every game. I've been at eight matches thus far in this World Cup, and every single one, the hydration breaks have been greeted with boos that are louder and louder.

13:18That is the first hydration break. Goalless. It is so unpopular. But that's one where, unfortunately, I'm sure that FIFA will keep it because the World Cup will continue to be held in the summer and they will continue to hold it in warm climates. Next year, it's going to be very close to the equator and then portions of it in South America. But yeah, I understand that it's easy to look and say, oh, those Americans, this is not an American concept. This is fully on FIFA.

13:44Jeff Rueter:Yeah. OK, shade on Gianni Infantino then. You're here. Yeah. Yeah. Another thing to give him a stern look about.

13:56Jeff Rueter:Let's talk about how the US has been welcoming the fans and the teams, because I've really enjoyed hearing about this. Yeah, I mean, I think that you start with Scotland and Boston.

14:12Soccer fans are flooding Foxborough tonight ahead of Boston's first match of the World Cup. It's like they overnighted Scotland flags. All these bars are like, hey, Scotland, go around Amazon, get Scottish flags, put them up. People of Boston have been so welcoming to us. Everyone's so friendly. Everyone's like, congrats on the game. No Scotland, no parties. There's no party if we're not there. They're excellent stories of a lot of bars in Boston, which are known to be some of the best stock bars in the country, running out of kegs of beer because of all the Scottish fans. So that's excellent.

14:42I also think about Algeria getting to train in Lawrence, Kansas. Team Algeria, welcome to Lawrence, Kansas. Which is a college town. It is like a basketball town through and through. They're called the Jayhawks, and they have a chant that's Rock Chalk Jayhawk. And eventually there were signs all over town that were Rock Chalk Algeria. I want to say thank you to Team Algeria for choosing our hometown, Lawrence, Kansas, to come here. And so welcome. And this great welcoming to the point where the Algerian fans for their final group stage match, which they did end up advancing from the group, but they did put thank you, Lawrence, you know, in front because they had felt so welcome in a home away from home.

15:24And then you just look and it's little things like Brazilian fans and American neutrals alike trying to join Japan and their postgame custom of cleaning up the stands afterwards to leave the spot better than they found it. And you find a lot of camaraderie, you know, the locker might be overpriced, but the number of times that I've seen, you know, fans in rival jerseys toasting and trying to chat about it, it's really refreshing when you look at what has become, you know, the era of Trumpism has really been one of isolation. It has been one that has been trying to make it easier to target with advertising, with influencing political views if you are alone and staring at your screen.

15:57And I think that there has been this, like, just intoxicating sort of community around a World Cup where it will be very interesting to see how many people who did experience any portion of it, again, whether you're in Lawrence, Kansas, or you're at the stadium for the final, how will you be able to go back to that sort of isolatory, I don't understand my neighbor sort of complex. And I think that it's been a very refreshing thing. You know, again, I'm from Minnesota. I live in St. Paul. I was there when ICE was running its raids in Operation Metro Surge in January. And I was out watching for my neighbors, right?

16:28And you see this inverse of it, where you go from being targeted for who you are, from being embraced because of who you are. And this is more of the America I recognize. This is more the United States that a lot of us grew up being told this country was supposed to be.

16:42Jeff Rueter:I find it very moving to hear you describe it as such. And I'm not ashamed to admit, I teared up the other day watching a video from Lawrence in Kansas. And I don't know if it was the college state band or something that they'd learned the Algerian national anthem. And oh, I've got the signs in French to welcome them. Yeah, like it's the personal touches and details, right? And it's this idea of making them feel like home. And I wish I could say all 48 teams had that experience. But Iran has had such a different tournament that that will be a stain on this tournament. And its record in history is the idea that they were forced to leave, play all their games in the United States, but couldn't train in the United States.

17:22They would have to fly in with kind of a skeletal squad. They couldn't bring press officers, their full medical staff because of the Trump's policies on the Trump administration's policies on their immigration visas and the tourist visas and the working visas. And so they, two, three hours after the whistle, would immediately have to get back on a plane to go to Mexico. Do you know if you have to go back to Tijuana tonight? Yeah, we have to back. We're always complaining about those things since the beginning.

17:53It's a disaster World Cup. We love people of the Mexic. We love Tijuana. It's so good. They are so humble people. We love them. but as a professional player, professional competition, it's not right.