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Originally Posted by Melanie68
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Interesting indeed.
Apparently some people tried to establish a professional league at the end of the 19th centure already (
). It's also interesting to read about the high popularity of indoor soccer, something that never made it that big over here, as far as I know. Until a couple of years ago it was mostly a pasttime during the winter break of the Bundesliga. Unlike, for example the English Premiere League, the German Bundesliga stops playing for about mid December 'til end of January. That's when official indoor tournaments had been held with participants mostly from Germany's 1. Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga (and some amateur teams).
I also used to play football for a while, and we played indoors for fun during winter. It is fun, after all. But the "real" game had always been the outdoor thing to me.
I think there's some truth to be found in all of your posts. But take a look at this (from Mel's link):
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The game was continually hampered by sociological forces-- Baseball was seen as the American past-time, and many immigrants would attempt to Americanize themselves to assimilate, often switching to baseball from soccer which was seen increasingly as a sport only played by foreigners.
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Clearly the seeds of the (relatively) low popularity of football in the US were planted in the 19th century already. Unfortunately the text doesn't give any reasons why it was seen as a "sport only played by foreigners", or why it got "hampered by sociological forces"...
One of the reasons of football's worldwide success is indeed because it can be played by everybody. You don't need expensive equipment, all you need is a couple of guys, and some kind of ball-like thingamob. Ever seen Brazilian or Angolan kids playing in the streets? As such, it's (in a way) the poor man's game, accessible to everyone. Saying this seems ironic, what with the better professionals in the most important European leagues earning millions of Euros a season nowadays. With the US being a rather wealthy country and all, maybe that's another reason why it never took of as spectacular as everywhere else...
I've always been fond of some US boys playing in Bundesliga, from Eric Wynalda and Joe Max Moore, who used to play for a club about 30 miles away from me, to Lalas and Meola or Tom Dooley (US soccer player of the year 1992 or 1993, or was it 1994!?), who even coached said club for a short while. Dooley was born in Germany as the son of an Army soldier, I think.
