Injury Holmes and Matt pence wrote only goal the inside story of how the U.S. men's national team missed the World Cup The actual own goal doomed the United States and twenty eight team becomes a metaphor for bad mismanagement poor development and infighting that doomed the U.S. men's bid to qualify in the World Cup. That analysis and reporting is and it hits at the big problems with American soccer today
but the U.S. Soccer problem goes back a lot further than that this chart shows the U.S. men's national team's World Cup record at the top or the best finishes the highest its third place at the bottom sixteenth place in all these dots these are the times the third most populous country with the largest global wealth failed to even qualify. This is bigger than an own goal. Proved American suck at the game they call soccer but they're also the best in the world these are the U.S. Women's World Cup performances since play started. Chants Shame Shame it's not about American culture it's about the American men's game when you stop looking at the present and start looking to the past you find a lost golden age of American soccer you also find the reason it's been doing for almost a hundred years. In one thousand nine hundred six forty six thousand
Americans crowded into a Manhattan stadium to see how an all star your own soccer team lose two Americans. In the paper that same day a season high Yankees baseball game that four thousand fewer people went to see the one nine hundred twenty S. was American soccer's golden age but to understand it you have to go even further back in the eight hundred sixty S. soccer and rugby existed on a bit of a continuum people played a little bit of everything in one thousand nine hundred sixty three rules were finally established in Britain to construct an amusement that played more like the soccer we know. The U.S. separated from the English soccer match with the primary Harvard Yale football game which would rapidly transform into American football until the point that then Ivy League schools had played a more soccer like gain the Harvard challenge to Yale to a rugby style game they'd learned from McGill in Canada that game was a hit and I.V.'s like Princeton quickly picked it up that was the principal split among European and American football culture. By nine hundred five soccer was still being tested in America as college football took all but the tragedy of World War One slowed down European sports culture in the twenty's America started catching up in soccer in one nine hundred twenty five for example when
Cincinnati built a new stadium they seemed to baseball and soccer would both be part of the mix of Americans even stole British and Scottish talent in Thai seen players for the coming international sport. English stadiums had the biggest crowds but the U.S. was part of the growing international audience for the sport the twenty saw a formidable soccer presence in the U.S. with big attendance numbers. That development helped America score a third place finish in the World Cup in one thousand nine hundred. But that was the beginning of the end American soccer always had a weird structure within a league the A.S.L. or American Soccer League and a governing Association the U.S. F.A. or United States Football Association the U.S. F.A. was American soccer's liaison to Fifi in the international community. The U.S. F.A. and E.S.L. had a long feud that was resolved one day only to pick up again the next the A.S.L. wanted to change soccer rules and add ideas that were uniquely American at the time like substitution and a penalty box the U.S. F.A. didn't not clear enough simply take a gander at the names these two associations couldn't concede to what to call the diversion and this is the thing that happens when acronyms take over your sport. Fevers at the top they threaten to kick out the US have a because the A.F.L. was recruiting those European players didn't like that at all us F.A. agreed to sing A.S.L. got mad and pulled out of a big US F.A. tournaments three A.S.L. teams went over and played anyway which got them kicked out by the A.S.L. they wanted the US F.A. which kicked out the A.S.L. so then the S.L. played without us F.A. approval so the US F.A. made another group with their own groups Yeah. All this acronym infighting split soccer teams players and fans in half civil wars they are not fun they patch things up again in one thousand nine hundred nine but it was too late the Great Depression hit the financial system in tombs were already weakened the depression forced many of them to fold. The United States in or the soccer Dark Ages while Europe and South. Steadily build these sophisticated leagues that people wish America had today short lived American leagues have had cash but the mass enthusiasm was
stuck in the one nine hundred twenty S. for ladies a little fan base and absence of private advancement wasn't an issue improvement of the ladies' amusement was behind the men's diversion over the world in the absence of a significant league business federal programs like Title nine in America effectively mandated a women's team in schools wherever there was a men's team but for men you can rightly talk about development and bad coaching. But when you see a pilot like this you don't blame the crust or the apple orchard or the textured aluminum rock you blame the thing that smashed. The soccer wars put the United States on the sidelines during a crucial half century in which global sports acquired fans talent in cash. Can American men catch up today maybe. It's a long shot.