The United States of America vs Soccer

Note: I wrote this essay as one of the final papers for a college history course. Thought it was a good read, got a good grade on it too, so I thought might as well share it with the world.

The imperial system, playoffs, month before date. One might wonder what all of these have in common, the answer, they are all products of American exceptionalism. The United States of America operates on its own terms as the world has seen over the years. The idea of this exceptionalism perhaps arose from the uniqueness of the history of the United States. This ideology shaped the American sporting culture and hence, led to American sporting exceptionalism. Moreover, this sporting exceptionalism in turn caused soccer, the most popular game in the world, to not flourish as others thought it would.

As noticed by Eric Hobsbawm, association football or soccer was the game the world made its own, a simple game unhampered by complex rules or a lot of equipment, made its way around the world on its own merits (198). Soccer was being adopted unanimously by the citizens of every country the British empire set foot on, but for the USA. A lot has been speculated as to why, and the answers vary but they share a common theme, the concept of American sporting exceptionalism. The inception of such an ideology was influenced by the American sporting culture and vice versa. American…