Many British folk don’t like it when those silly Americans tamper with ‘our’ way of doing things.
It’s certainly the case with our language where we find it irritating that words such as ‘bin’ have been swapped for ‘trash can’, or that ‘pavement’ becomes a ‘sidewalk’, or even that a full stop could become known as a ‘period’ Period
But giving a punctuation mark the same name as the menstrual cycle is seemingly nowhere near as annoying as when our American friends put their own spin on our beloved national sport of football (soccer).
Steven Gerrard will soon board a plane bound for Los Angeles while Frank Lampard has been waiting in Manchester for his connecting flight to New York for the best part of a year. With both set to see out the twilight years of their careers in the US, Major League Soccer is finally back on our radar.
Although kick-off times don’t always sit too well with UK viewers, Sky Sports have paid big money (bucks) to screen MLS fixtures over here this season. Although a sign that there’s increasing interest in the developing game across the pond, the idea that it could one day rival Premier League is still laughable to most of us.
Forgetting for a moment that there are currently no British sides left in European competition, we’re very good at conning ourselves into believing the Premier League remains ‘the best league in the world’ – and always will be. Undoubtedly, it’s extremely well-marketed, but probably not as good as many of us think.
America’s equivalent obviously has a long way to go before it generates the same kind of global appeal as England’s top flight, but UK football fans shouldn’t be so quick to rule out an eventual power shift.
When (if) Lampard ever arrives in New York, he’ll be lining up alongside David Villa, while further down the East Coast (and inland a bit) Orlando City have Kaka. Yes, these are players that have seen better days, but the fact that they’ve been enticed to play in the US – and are being paid handsomely to do so – is certain to attract more players to MLS in the near future.
To supplement the stars from overseas, there are now plenty of Americans lacing up their soccer cleats instead of pursuing the country’s more traditional sports. Having always been pushed down the pecking order by NFL, baseball and basketball, there are now more people playing football in America than ever before.
Last summer’s World Cup should have convinced us that the US can more than look after themselves at international level, while the nation’s grassroots game grows at a quicker rate than the FA is solving England’s problems.
If we weren’t aware of it already, footage of American supporters crammed into bars and at packed open-air screenings whooping and hollering their team along showed the world that there’s far more of an appetite for the game there than previously assumed.
While it still remains fashionable over here to mock how inferior Americans are when it comes to football, the fact is they’re not that far behind at all.
The MLS season runs throughout the summer months and is therefore largely unchallenged when it comes to finding your summer fix of live football. Whatever your stance on it, you’re going to be hearing plenty of it in the coming months and it might just change a few preconceptions. Period.
