Soccer slowly, but surely, catching on

Not that long ago, I wondered whether soccer would ever catch on as popular spectator sport in the U.S.

It’s true that, for a while, soccer was the most glaring example of a professional sport that lived up to the late comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s favorite complaint: It got no respect.

Growing up playing soccer, I used to hear the “soccer is boring” comments from friends. If soccer is boring, there must be an awful lot of really boring people in the world. Last time I checked, soccer was the most popular spectator sport on the planet, with billions of people tuning in for the quadrennial World Cup.

For years, I longed for the excitement of the early 1980s, when Alan Hinton’s Seattle Sounders of the old North American Soccer League played to packed stadiums. The soccer quality wasn’t that great and most of the players were British imports, but who cared? It was an event and those players made for great “football” ambassadors.

I heard the predictions about how the arrival of foreign players like the legendary Pele and Franz Beckenbauer would spark interest that would lead to the rise of soccer as a spectator sport here.

Sure, the U.S. men’s team made some World Cup appearances. And the women’s national team became dominant in the world, receiving far too little attention. Overall, however, nothing really seemed to change. Soccer still got no respect.

Something seems to be changing now, and it’s not just because English superstar David Beckham has joined the L.A. Galaxy of Major League Soccer or Ghanian-born American Freddy Adu, said to be soccer’s next big thing, is likely to play for the U.S. National Team very soon.

More American boys and girls play soccer today than ever before.

Even the smallest high schools field girls and boys soccer teams. This is where the real growth in U.S. soccer has occurred. Along with that youth interest has come an increase in the number of youth club teams, where many high school players hone their skills year ‘round.

That’s why I don’t get too worked up about the fact that the Seattle Sounders got virtually no media attention after winning the USL championship game on Saturday, Sept. 29, before about 5,000 at the Starfire Sports Complex in Tukwila, which really isn’t hard to find if you have a Thomas Guide and have been there before. For those of you who don’t follow soccer, the Sounders are a professional soccer team playing in U.S. soccer’s second-tier. There is talk, however, that Seattle may soon be home to its own Major League Soccer (MSL) team.

Interest in soccer seems to be building slowly but steadily. It’s still far less popular in the U.S. than in virtually every other country but it’s more popular than it used to be. The MLS had record attendance in 2007.

There’s something nice about the fact that all that 1970s and ’80s media attention had less impact on soccer’s increased popularity than have soccer moms and youth programs.

Because when you talk to people from other countries, they’ll tell you that their interest in soccer started when they were kids. Their fathers played the game; their uncles played the game. There was a tradition.

That tradition is growing, albeit slowly. And maybe that’s really the best way for soccer to come into its own here — by developing its own tradition.