Soccer: Understanding the World's Most Popular Game
by Billy Wolfrum

For eons, the average American sports fan has cringed at soccer's 1-0 scores. Over the past decade, however, American soccer players have finally started to receive respect on the international soccer scene. This article will help simplify international soccer to help you understand why so many people are so crazy for soccer.

As the world prepares for the 2006 World Cup of soccer in Germany, Americans seem to be finally catching "football fever." What's everybody cheering about?

The Basics

Known more commonly as "football" throughout the world, professional soccer rules require 11 players per team, 10 playing the field and one goalkeeper. Games are played in two 45-minute halves, with the referee adding "extra time" to the halves based on time being wasted or play being stopped during the original 45 minutes. Normally, the extra time will be between one-to-three minutes.

Depending on the type of game being played, a tie score following the full time of 90 minutes (plus any added time) can either be the end of the game, or (in a deciding game of a tournament, for example) lead into overtime with a tie following an allotted time of extra play leading to penalty kicks. With penalty kicks, each team is given five attempts to score on the opposing goalkeeper, with the highest score being given the victory for the game.

Other basics:

• Only the goalkeeper can use his hands, and this is within the confines of the marked-off area surrounding the goal. When a player aside from the goal keeper uses their hands on a ball, the opposing team gets a free kick from the spot of the infraction.
• Players are penalized for rough or unfair play through the use of cards. When a referee gives a player a yellow card, it is considered a stern warning. A serious infraction, such as an act of violence of some type on the field, will earn a player a red card. A red card signifies the player has been ejected from the game and cannot be replaced, meaning the player's team has to play with less players. Also, two yellow cards for one player equals one red card.
• An offensive player must keep one player between himself and the goalkeeper prior to having the ball directed toward him or her. An infraction is called an "offsides" and the opposing team gets a free kick from the spot of the infraction. Offsides can seem tricky at first, but televised games will normally give excellent replays showing exactly how a player erred in positioning.
• In tournaments such as the World Cup, teams are generally allowed only three substitutions per game. This rule, however, can fluctuate wildly depending on the type of game being played.
• FIFA (Federation International Football Association) is the soccer world’s governing body.

You Have to Love This Game

It was late in the second half of a Brazilian Series B (read: minor-league) soccer match between America-Minas Gerais and Botofogo in 2004. After a particularly rough play involving a Botofogo striker and the America keeper, heated words were exchanged between the keeper and the referee, culminating in the referee giving the keeper a yellow card with a macho flair.

Then all hell broke loose. The keeper attacked the referee, firing wild punches that would make a professional basketball player proud, but a professional prizefighter cringe. Despite attempts by his teammates, the America keeper began chasing the referee around the goalposts as mass chaos ensued on the field. Eventually, uniformed police led the keeper off the field in handcuffs. To put it in common sports’ vernacular – it was freaking’ great.

How can it be that the United States struggles to appreciate this game? Witty and pithy Yankee sportswriters like to extol on the dullness of the world’s favorite game, casually mentioning how the game would better appeal to Americans if there were monster trucks, land mines and automatic weaponry involved.

A Child Shall Lead Them?

That could all change with the emergence of one 15-year old, however. Freddie Adu, magically talented and supernaturally composed, made his debut in the United States’ Major League Soccer in April 2004 at the age of 14. Thus far, the youngster has shown the charisma and ability to possibly become the Tiger Woods of U.S. soccer.

Not that the U.S. is hurting for soccer talent. Landon Donovan, the nation’s previous teen-age sensation, is arguably the best currently playing in North America, while other U.S. stars are thriving in Europe, with DeMarcus Beasley playing Holland, Brian McBride and goaltenders Kasey Keller, Tim Howard and Brad Freidel all having success in England.

The U.S. soccer league is known as “Major League Soccer.” The MLS has been around since 1996 and has shown a persistence normally not known for American professional soccer leagues.

Regardless of the growing interest in soccer in the U.S., Yanks still lag well behind the rest of the world, who take a uniformly fanatical approach to the game.

The World’s Great Love

When David Beckham went from the English Premier League’s Manchester United to Spain’s Real Madrid in 2003, it set off such a furor that Beckham’s first workout with Real Madrid was televised on pay-per-view. Put it this way, had the Pope been caught that day making out with Britney Spears in a New York synagogue where Osama Bin Laden was openly tithing, it would have been lost on page three of most European newspapers.

Such is magnitude of Beckham in Europe. Combine Brad Pitt’s looks with a brilliant right leg and wrap it up with a marriage to Posh Spice, and all of Europe and Asia becomes screaming teen-agers.

“When I was 7, I wanted to be a footballer, but when I was 14, I wanted to be a model. Look where it's put me now,” Beckham has famously said.

That Beckham likely doesn’t rank in the Top-50 of the top players in the world is a testament to the ongoing popularity of soccer in Europe. If anything, the game is continuing to grow with the insurgence of mass media and the Internet. A web search for Real Madrid will bring nearly 3,000,000 results.

Leagues Around the Globe

Of course, one look at the Spanish team’s roster will show why it has become the most popular, if not the most successful, team in Europe. Fielding a soccer fantasy team has become Real Madrid’s goal it appears. Brazil’s Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, France’s Zinedine Zidane, Spain’s Raul, Italy’s Luis Figo and England’s Beckham and Michael Owen provide the offense, while no one in particular supplies the defense. This make’s 4-3 scores the norm for Real Madrid, and only adds to the excitement.

Barcelona, led by Brazilian Ronaldinho Gaucho (who was named as the No.-1 player in Europe by FIFA) won the Spanish League title in 2005.

The English Premier League continues to enjoy unprecedented success, even with the recent lackluster play of Manchester United. Arsenal and Chelsea have become the teams to watch, with Arsenal’s Thierry Henry taking his spot as the EPL’s top player.

The German Bundesliga has kept alive its reputation as the roughest league in the world. A red card or ejection can normally only be earned in a normal Bundesliga game only if a decapitation is somehow involved. Top leagues in Holland, Italy and Scotland are continuing to thrive as well.

In the Americas, Mexico’s national league consistently draws jaw-dropping numbers of fans, while in South America, there’s no way to accurately describe the importance of soccer on society. Perhaps former Spanish soccer star Luis Suarez put it best: “In Latin America the border between soccer and politics is vague. There is a long list of governments that have fallen or been overthrown after the defeat of the national team.”

Leagues in Brazil and Argentina keep the fans happy, though many of the best players in South America end up playing in the more wealthy European leagues.

Tournaments

In the U.S., the season for a professional sport is very cut-and-dried. For example, in the NBA a team will play an 82-game regular season. If the team’s record is good enough, it will advance to a playoff tournament to decide the NBA champion.

While the same concept holds true in soccer leagues around the globe, the one main difference is that there are normally several tournaments a club can be involved in, which run separate and simultaneous to the regular season.

An example is the UEFA Champions League tournament. Top teams from all the European leagues (based on the previous year’s standings) battle in a tournament that takes several months to decide. The results of these games have no bearing on a clubs ordinary league schedule or standings.

Other tournaments include the UEFA Cup, England’s FA Cup and South America’s Liberation Cup. Many of the large regional tournament winners will go on to play in a final “World Club Championship.”

Nations Come Together

Every four years, nations will put their best players together for International competition, with the ultimate soccer trophy on the line: The World Cup.

The World Cup is normally a two-year process with nations playing within their geographical regions to qualify for the month-long soccer-orgy that is the World Cup.

In the 2002 World Cup, a soccer-loving globe was nearly faced with a South Korea-United States finale. Such is the growth of soccer in Asia, where Japan, China and South Korea have all made significant strides on the international front. Africa has slowly been gaining internationally for the past decade, as Cameroon, Nigeria, Turkey and Senegal have all been imposing figures.

While the individual leagues of Europe outdistance those of South America on average (Argentina may beg to differ), there can be no argument that the best national team in the world is from South America’s biggest country – Brazil. Fielding a team with the aforementioned Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, as well as Ronaldinho, Cafu, Kaka and Gilberto Silva, the nation that has won a record five World Cups doesn’t rebuild as much as it reloads.

Brazil will try to make it six titles in the 2006 World Cup in Germany. Having lost 2-0 in the 2002 World Cup Final to Brazil, Germany will look to add its fourth title on its homeland.

Of American fans have been happily surprised in recent years, as the national team, lead by Donovan and Beasley has steadily become a force to be recognized on the world stage. The 2002 U.S. team advanced to the quarterfinals of the World Cup, earning victories over Portugal and Mexico.

With the rise in play throughout the world, however, and the continued prominence of nations like France, Italy, Spain and Argentina, the 2006 World Cup looks to be the apex of what has been a great run for the world’s most popular game.