Former Des Moines Register assistant sports editor Ira Lacher<\/a> writes about the games and business of sports for various newspapers and magazines.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n I have embraced futbol<\/em> \u2014 all right, \u201csoccer\u201d \u2014 from the time I was old enough to kick a ball. Since I could only kick it lousily as a kid, the best I could do was watch it, which there was plenty of in New York City during the Sixties and Seventies.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were the New York Skyliners, actually the Cerro club of Montevideo, Uruguay, one of the entire teams imported lock, stock, and shin guards from Europe and South America to populate the United Soccer Association<\/a> (think of the initials). The rival and homegrown National Professional Soccer League featured the New York Generals playing teams such as the Tampa Bay Rowdies, whose memorable slogan<\/a> was \u201cSoccer is a kick in the grass.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/span>\n\n\n\n Fan interest slacked off after the 1967 season when the two struggling leagues merged to form a single\u00a0 struggling North American Soccer League. But in 1975, the circuit received a power surge when its New York Cosmos signed Brazil\u2019s Pele<\/a>, as well as other iconic internationals. Giants Stadium in New Jersey teemed with upwards of 75,000 futbolistas <\/em>cheering on the all-universe-stars, even though they were well past their playing primes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bad economics killed the NASL<\/a> in 1985. But it had become clear that, given responsible ownership and financial management, a U.S. professional league was viable, enticing Americans to at long last embrace the worldwide sport. And three years later, world soccer\u2019s governing body, known as FIFA, endorsed that proposition by declaring the U.S. would host the world\u2019s premier single-sport event \u2014 the men\u2019s World Cup soccer tournament \u2014\u00a0in 1994. Ol\u00e9, ol\u00e9, ol\u00e9, ol\u00e9!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Five games, and the opening ceremony, were scheduled for Chicago, down the road from Des Moines. How could this longtime futbol <\/em>fan not go?\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Well, I didn\u2019t, for three reasons: my 3-year-old twins, and my responsibility as a parent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, when FIFA announced<\/a> June 13, 2018, that soccer\u2019s quadrennial mega-event would be played in Canada, Mexico, and the U-S-of-A \u2014\u00a0including Kansas City<\/a>, a mere jaunt down I-35! \u2014 and with our twins now married and gainfully employed, my wife and I determinedly decided:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We! Are! Going!<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We. Are. Not. Sure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is because FIFA, individual host city committees, and the Trump administration have combined to do everything to poop a month-and-a-half-long party:\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c[T]he World Cup thrives because soccer is the people\u2019s game \u2014 played around the world, with low barriers to entry. \u2026\u201d sports columnist Jason Gay writes in The Wall Street Journal<\/a>. \u201cThese Cups are massive opportunities to grow the sport, to cultivate new and young fans. Instead this North American one is becoming a plutocrat\u2019s picnic. \u2026\u201d And this is in a newspaper that gleefully wallows in celebrating capitalism.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Predictably, reaction from the left has been harsher. \u201cFor Trump and his administration, the World Cup is an opportunity not so much to launder his unsavory reputation as to embrace it: to take center stage as a global strongman,\u201d Alex Shephard wrote<\/a> in a piece in The New Republic titled \u201cTrump and FIFA Have Already Broken the 2026 World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gratefully, no such stress seems to be coming out of Kansas City, the only host community in the Midwest. And this is probably the last time America will host the World Cup during Lisa\u2019s and my lifetimes. So, at this point?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We! Are! Going!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We have constructed a three-part strategy, which I offer as a public service: <\/p>\n\n\n\n It certainly seems that FIFA, the Trump administration, and some of the host city committees are combining to dump acid rain on one of the world\u2019s premier picnics. But the FIFA Men\u2019s World Cup tournament is without a doubt numero uno <\/em>on the bucket list for every futbol<\/em> fan who has always had to experience the enjoyment from their dens. So:<\/p>\n\n\n\n We! Are! Going!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Probably.<\/p>\n The post America\u2014the world’s party pooper<\/a> appeared first on Bleeding Heartland<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n\n
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Commentary,Sports\r\n
Source link www.bleedingheartland.com<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Des Moines Register assistant sports editor Ira Lacher writes about the games and business of sports for various newspapers and magazines. I have embraced futbol \u2014 all right, \u201csoccer\u201d \u2014 from the time I was old enough to kick a ball. Since I could only kick it lousily as a kid, the best I could do was watch it,…","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":71,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_analytify_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[587,530],"class_list":["post-2159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-commentary","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wokeantifa.org\/topics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}