“I say “soccer.” My European friends say “fútbol.” Whether it’s soccer or fútbol, no one will be saying “Chicago Bears.” It will be the “Arlington Heights Bears.” Good riddance, I say.” (Laura Washington/Column: Forget the Bears. Soccer is Chicago’s future. (chicagotribune.com)
I am a recovered Bears fan. I am slowly recovering from being a “professional” football fan. The hindrance to my full recovery? I keep rooting for whatever team plays the Bears. I have a Jones to see those Ken Dolls soundly defeated every week.
On Sundays, I must put up with screaming, brain-dead zombie Bears fans at my local saloon. We need to bring back asylums to house and medicate these people. Getting the bartender to put on a soccer game is nearly impossible when football is on television. Golf, yeah. Soccer no.
I picked up an interest in soccer a while back. After watching the World Cup, especially the game between the USA vs. Saudi Arabia, I am hooked. I realized watching that game and others that soccer players are true athletes, sometimes with gymnastic abilities, like the image above. Not one professional football player can make that flying kick. That takes skill, artistry, and athleticism.
Not one “player” in the NFL could last 90 minutes on a soccer pitch. Soccer players run from one end of the field to the other and back throughout the game. There is contact. The players do not wear equipment or helmets. Just shorts, jerseys, and thin shin guards under their stockings.
Football is as fake as “Professional wrestling.” There is no elegance, intricacy, or art to the game. It is a staged and choreographed act. The winners are the team that can out-fake their opponents in stuntman form.
Soccer players use their feet, legs, knees, chests, and heads to move the ball. Only the goalie can use their hands. The footwork can be as intricate as a dancer when watched close up. Soccer is as much an art form as a sport.
Soccer was dubbed the beautiful game in the late 1950s. Two British reporters are credited with coining the phrase. Famed soccer player Pele made the phrase synonymous with the game and used it in the title of his autobiography.
No one ever called the game of football beautiful. It was a game of brutes played by mindless sides of beef. Back in the day, football players could have been loan shark collectors, a job requiring only brutishness and mindlessness.
Now, Ken Dolls play football, pretending to be brutes. No one ever claimed football was a beautiful game. It has no grace or style. One Brit presenter called soccer “Feet with brains.” No one ever referred to football players as even having brains.
As Laura Washington points out in her column, soccer is the most popular sport in the world. On any weekend day, drive through Chicago, and you will see people playing soccer in many of the larger parks, even on the lakefront. There are many ethnic soccer clubs in Chicago and the suburbs. Soccer is popular in high schools and colleges, with male and female teams. Some teams are mixed.
Soccer is n international sport. Football is confined to the states. Probably because other people are not as stupid as the average American football fan. You know, people who think fast food is haute cuisine and Olive Garden, is real Italian food.
Soccer is so popular with the young that “Soccer Mom” entered the lexicon. Soccer drove the sale of mini-vans so “soccer moms” could haul their children, their teams, food, and equipment to games all over the area. There is no such thing as a “Football Mom” and football never drove the sale of specific vehicles.
America needs to wean itself from football and support professional soccer. Put butts in the stadium seats, watch the games, and demand more televised games and sports media coverage. Soccer should supersede football as one of America’s favorite past times. It could and should put the NFL- National Fake League- out of business.
City Hall should dump the Bears and throw their full support to the Chicago Fire. Their recent owner, Joe Mansueto, has two exceptional qualities. He has money and is not afraid to spend it. He has a deep passion for the sport. The only qualities the McCaskeys have is how cheap and chiseling they are and embarrassing our great city with their passion for mediocrity. Bears fans should abandon the team. All they provide is heartbreak year after year.
With municipal support and fan building, Chicago could become the center of professional soccer in the country. The Bears can waste away whenever they move to Arlington Heights.