The popularity of soccer is perfectly healthy in the US, if
you look at it a certain way. Forget the
World Cup ratings, you know a sport can sustain itself when glorified
exhibition games featuring teams from across the ocean can fill up stadiums
with engaged, screaming fans. On
Saturday, the University of Michigan's hallowed football arena hosted the most
attended soccer game ever held in the US between Manchester United and Real
Madrid.
I
myself had the pleasure of attending a similar friendly at Yankee Stadium
between Liverpool FC and Manchester City last Wednesday. That crowd may not have matched the one in
Michigan by numbers but based on my experience they more than matched them in
intensity. Manchester City, relatively
new to success, hasn't really attracted a huge devoted following as of
yet. Liverpool fans made up for that,
bringing but a small fraction of the passion routine to matches played in their
home stadium that still filled the air.
I can guarantee that there was more excitement from the fans, and a
higher level of effort from the players, then you will see at any NFL preseason
game this August.
Stadium
staff made a nice touch by playing unofficial-but-ubiquitous Liverpool theme
song "You'll Never Walk Alone" before the match, a song whose lyrics
everyone seemed to know except for me. I
had to make do sort of mumbling and following everyone's lead. But the greatest passion was reserved for the
club's captain and local legend Steven Gerrard.
He may be as beloved in Liverpool as Yankees legend Derek Jeter is in
New York, but a more fitting analogy may be to past Yankee captain Don
Mattingly.
Mattingly, like Gerrard, is one of the best
and most iconic players ever to suit up for his team but tragically failed to
win the World Series for the team that can hardly ever do anything but win the World
Series. Liverpool have won the second
most English top division titles after Manchester United, but have thus far
failed to do so during Gerrard's storied career. They came close this year, as close as
they've been in more than 25 years. But
an untimely slip (not a slip in play, a literal slip-and-fall) from Gerrard
himself cost Liverpool a match against Chelsea which would have all but sealed
the title. A blown three goal lead
against middling Crystal Palace and it was gone. The title was taken by their opponent at
Yankees Stadium, Manchester City, and their offensive centerpiece and dental
assault extraordinaire Luis Suarez was bought by Barcelona.
Suarez
was the best player in English football last season; despite employing talented
young attackers Daniel Sturridge and Rasheed Sterling, replacing Suarez's
production won't be easy. That being
said, there were positive signs from Liverpool's offense: they frequently
created good attacking chances and scored two well-executed goals in the second
half. They offset this somewhat by
allowing two incredibly sloppy goals in the same half, one of which came
courtesy of another bad slip by Gerrard.
That didn't matter to the faithful though. He got the biggest cheer of the night when he
was subbed out later in the match.
Of
course, some of that excitement probably owes itself to the fleeting nature of
the event. These fans are mostly British
ex-patriots taking a rare opportunity to see the team they love in person, like
an old high school friend who lives halfway across the country in
adulthood. Others are the children of
such ex-patriots, never quite knowing the full measure of Liverpool fandom but
experiencing some part of it by attending this friendly.
"Oh
wait, that's me." I thought to myself as I made these observations at the
stadium. My dad, with whom I attended
the game, is originally from Scotland, a place with its own distinct soccer
culture but which holds deep ties to English clubs like Liverpool. Liverpool's premiere striker during their
great dynasties of the 70s and 80s was Kenny Dalglish, a fixture on the
Scottish national team who had cut his teeth playing for my dad's hometown
Glasgow Celtic club during his early years.
Dalglish retired from the game years before I was born, and my dad had
lived in the States for years even before that.
But I still felt a connection that day, something that US-based soccer
can't yet generate. Interest is not the
same thing as a culture built around the game.
Still need to learn those damn song lyrics though.
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