The History & Popularity of "Soccer" In North America

In the last decade England's Premier League has become rich from television rights and investors. But while the Premier League has thrived, the England national team hasn't. In major international tournaments such as the World Cup, they have often fallen short of expectations. The problem is that following the Bosman ruling in 1995, Premier League teams have begun spending all of their riches on numerous international stars such as Sergio Ageüro and Paul Pogba. The Bosman ruling allowed players to move freely within the European Union, increasing the amount of footballers playing abroad. These foreign stars have limited the playing time of several homegrown players from England, not allowing them to improve. This lack of improvement has stripped the England national team of its talent and overall quality.

I'm afraid that there might be a similar situation in North America. In 2010 former England star David Beckham moved to AC Milan to the LA Galaxy near the end of his career. The rest of the MLS saw how having an international star with an already defined career could increase the revenue and popularity of a team. As a result, in the next couple years many stars who were coming to the end of their careers came to the MLS such as Didier Drogba and Zlatan Ibrahimović. But similar to in England, the Canadian and American national teams have paid the price. With the US national team not qualifying for the World Cup in 2018 for the first time in 32 years.

In the early 2000's it became clear that the German national team didn't have the talent that they had in the past. In order to put themselves back on top, the German Football Association realized that they had to improve the facilities for the next generation of young players. Using this movement named 'Das Reboot', they won the World Cup in 2014. This type of rebooting process is something North American football is in dire need of and should consider implementing. Former World Cup finalist, Nigel De Jong summed up the MLS' need to reboot best, while speaking about his time in LA with the Galaxy during an interview with FourFourTwo magazine, saying, "Soccer isn’t one of the biggest sports in America so there isn’t the same youth development as in Europe. Bringing in more foreign players doesn’t help. The country needs to focus on youth development and make more children aware of soccer."

Although the first MLS season wasn't until 1996, very few people know that there was professional football in North America before it. The North American Soccer League (NASL) was founded in 1968 but in the early 1980's a lack of interest in the sport led to rapid financial decline for the league. So it was forced to suspend operations after the 1984 season. However in that time the league also had some stars coming to the end of their careers such as Johan Cruyff and Pelé. The league final was called the Soccer Bowl. which is obviously based on the NFL's Super Bowl. The NASL was rebooted in 2011, acting as North America's semi-professional soccer league, under the MLS.

But I think the greatest North American football achievement is the success of Canada and the US in the Women's World Cup. At the time of writing the US have won 3 Women’s World Cups including the inaugural tournament in 1991. At the beginning of 2018, the Canadian women’s national team was ranked 4th in the world by FIFA, while the men’s national team was ranked 90th. So clearly women in North America have found an interest in soccer that men haven’t yet.

When NHL legend, Wayne Gretzky visited White Hart Lane of the Tottenham Hotspurs, he was given a Tottenham kit with 'Gretsky' on the back of it. Showing how European football fans don't know much about North American sporting history either.

Overall, Canada and the United States have a plethora of mainstream sports such as hockey and basketball. So, it's not hard to see why soccer has had such a hard time gaining popularity in North America. But the good news is that as the MLS adds new teams for each city, football's popularity will grow. City by city, until they can come together as a country to win the World Cup. That's the dream anyway.