I’m stepping in and taking over today’s Boston Chic blog from my wife. I felt the need to write a short sports blog for all the sports fans out there, in order to add another dynamic to this already great site….shameless plug.
The sport of futball or football or soccer (Christ why are the so many names) has captivated the American public over the past month during this World Cup and as an avid sports enthusiast, I can only hope that it continues to grow here in the U.S. (I need something to fill the lull between NHL playoffs and the start of “American football”. And why shouldn’t it? It has all the key elements that make all sports great. Great rivalries? Check. Exceptional athletes. Check. Deep competitiveness. Check Overpaid primadonas? Double check. Said primadonas bitching about all their calls? Triple Check (Ronaldo), and last but not least…..flopping. I mean let’s be serious for a minute, some of these Nancy’s looked like they got sniped by a bee outta nowhere before they were touched by the opponent and then rolled around on the ground like it was fifth grade and the fire department was teaching the stop drop and roll routine. Just a pitiful display of sportsmanship. But………in the world of soccer or whatever you want to call it, it works. let’s be straight I am only talking about the rest of the world when I make these snide comments. The US made me proud and kept tha BS to an absolute minimum, and played a tournament they should be proud of.
So what is stopping soccer from catching on like the other big 4 sports? It can’t be the egregious flopping, we have that in extreme prevalence in the NBA (lebron) and in the NHL (all of Montreal……god I hate them) and both those sports are dominating in the US market. I thought it was lack of the superstar, jordanesqe status of the MLS players but Beckham proved that wasn’t the case either. This is a stumper.
I don’t know what it is, and welcome an open discussion in the comment section, but if the MLS can put out the kind of product I witnessed in the World Cup with all the competitiveness, blood, sweat, and tears. Sign me up. I had a great time watching our boys play on the world stage and even more so, Tim Howard putting on a clinic on what it is to carry your team on your back and put yourself in the record books at the same time. Bravo. Well done to the entire team. I can only hope MLS can now step up sustain this buzz because it would be a shame to let it go another four years to see some great soccer. Happy Fourth of July folks, while we didn’t win it all, it always good to be an American. God bless
BOSTON CHIC 
A lot of it has to do with being well established – in the UK and so many other places, “football” has been around for many generations, and kids grew up idolizing their well-established local teams and the footballers that played for them. For a lot of kids in rough neighborhoods, football was their ticket to a better way of life.
In the US, baseball and American football have all the history, generations of fans, and rags-to-riches stories. They’re engrained in society, and it’s really tough for anything to come in and get ahead of that. Football’s still relatively new in the US, and will always have that handicap compared to other American sports.
I’m trying to think of any other sports that were introduced after a well-established sport and then drew anything close to the same level of support, in any country. Must be some sport somewhere that did that?