Take a Chance on the Beautiful Game

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Soccer.  For many years in the United States, the sport associated with the word remained foreign.  It was a European dance, to be sat out, at least by any self-respecting American.  Like many, my first soccer encounter was when the World’s Sport took the World’s Stage for the greatest international competition short of the Olympic Games.  A group of friends and I bought a ball and used an old hockey goal, which we set up in the muddy middle of the high school track.  There we vied for traction and cup supremacy, even though we couldn’t even field a side of eleven. 

Truly, the World Cup was the only time I would encounter the beautiful game virtually or personally until my college years, where the seed that initial encounter with the sport had planted began to show fruit.  I enjoyed watching games at St. Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, IN, both men’s and women’s.  I suspect for many people, especially in Hoosier Country where the hoop and sneakers and the thump of the ball off the hardwood of the basketball court reigns supreme, that soccer encounters are usually of the first kind.  A child in your life is in a youth program, a friend’s high-schooler is playing and she wants you to go with her to the match.  And of course, if you’re curious about soccer at all, you pay some attention to the World Cup when it comes around.

Still, the sport is mysterious for many Americans.  The rules are different than football, the scores are low and the set plays are difficult to identify.  Admittedly, when first watching two sides of eleven men kick a ball around the pitch, it can look like an amorphous blob of chaos, an endless life-sized game of foosball where no one scores and the good plays look similar to the bad ones.  This is especially true of youth matches and U-15 play.  And perhaps that is where people, especially those in the Midwest and who are typically only mildly interested at first, get lost.  The absence of a professional arena, readily accessible, that can display exactly why soccer has been called the beautiful game has caused the sport, at its highest levels, to remain mysterious, European, and distinctly un-American. 

BUT, I am happy to say that trend is waning!  With the rising interest in the MLS, the fortitude, stick-to-it-iveness and passion of the NASL and a more curious and cosmopolitan youth component, soccer in the USA is here to stay!  Indianapolis, which has been the naos of open-wheel Motorsports, is the permanent home of the NCAA, and boasts countless tournaments across myriad sports, is bringing another child into the world!  The Indy Eleven stand to gain traction more quickly that many other clubs.  From the easy of accessibility from points across Indiana, to the active and excitable sports culture that exists in the city, this new club should come on the scene not only proud, but with something to prove.

For you soccer fans anticipating this arrival, you are right to be excited and you will be the catalyst for the growth of the Indy Eleven.  But for the curious, the mistrusting, and the wary, take a chance on soccer; it is a unique thing, a soccer match.  A place where the passion of the supporters and drive the pace of the match, can directly affect the morale of the players, and where if you look away for an instant, you can miss out on incredible skill and be left to feed off of those witnesses around you who are yelling so loud, who are jumping so high, who are shouting so much that you cannot help but shrug and join them.