[ This article is meant to balance my other recent soccer article: “Why Americans Don’t Embrace Soccer” ]

Soccer is called “the beautiful game” and “the simplest game” and reminds me of what boxing, my other favorite sport, has been callled: “the sweet science of bruising”. In fact, soccer and boxing have a lot in common and are both starkly different from what are often considered the major professional sports in the United States: (American) football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, and tennis, in that order. Boxing was for much of the 20th Century the most popular spectator sport in America. Soccer has never been, but is by far and away the most popular spectator sport in the world, and its profile in the United States is finally growing. As it should.

What soccer and boxing have in common for spectators is that they are tension sports. The other sports that are popular in America are sports Continue reading →