A National Health Service. A welfare state. Letting 18 year olds get legally bevvied.  Not bombing countries that haven’t attacked you. There’s a lot of things which are quite popular around the world which the United States hasn’t quite got into yet. But the biggest international phenomenon to go straight over the heads of Americans right now is the World Cup. It’s not exactly surprising given that Americans don’t even call football by it’s right name; they call it “Soccer” cos they already nicked the word football for their own version, which has nothing to do with actual football, kind of like how their Republican Party has fuck all to do with actual Republicanism.

Still each to their own, it’s not like many/any other countries are interested in American Football is it? Surely we can just leave it at that, and enjoy the relaxing and unending serenade of the vuvuzuela while Americans try to make sense of their own insane, overhyped, Michael Bay-directed, body-armour version of football? Unfortunately, some US nutters -- as previously featured in Leftfield -- go beyond leaving it at a simple sporting disagreement. They’ve  seen the true nature of “Soccer” --  another part of the World Socialist Conspiracy to dominate  and undermine traditional American sporting events. Check this guy out,

You can see that Barack Osama Homo Bin Laden, to give him his full Presidential title, managed to get the United States into the World Cup because he wants to discourage Americans from using their arms, as you obviously can’t use your hands in football (unless you’re part of the French/Uruguayan team).

Is it possible for this man to be any more awesome?

And it’s not just mentals on youtube who have declared war on football -- other people on the Right in the US media have attacked it as a “poor man’s sport” and said “baseball fans don’t riot”. Fair point but then again 13 year old Brazilian kids are unlikely to methodically mow down their fellow classmates in school with an M-16 assault rifle either.

A lot of American disinterest in football is because it’s quite different from other US sports like American football, baseball, basketball etc in that there is much less ’scoring’. The last US Superbowl result was 31 -- 17 to the New Orleans Colts over the Indianapolis Colts, while the last World Cup Final result was a 1-1 draw between Italy and France which Italy won 5 -- 3 on penalties.

Other opposition to football is based on the structure of the sport being less advertising friendly than mainstream US sports. The Superbowl in the United States is notorious for being among if not the most expensive television spot in the world -- a 30 second TV ad during this years superbowl will cost in the region of $2.6 million.

In football however you can’t squeeze a lot of adverts in 90 minutes with only a short break after 45 minutes (and even then a lot of that space is taken up by Alan Hansen desperately trying to find some way to kill himself with his own shoelaces in despair at the England squad). The last time the USA hosted the World Cup in 1994 they tried to break the game into quarters to make it more advertiser friendly, before being told to fuck off by FIFA.

There is a nastier edge to some opposition to football in the US though, which has it’s base in racism and prejudice against the working people throughout the world who support it. Conservatives in  the US have attacked football as being part of the “browning” of America due to it’s widespread support among hispanics in the states, along with accusing football of being founded by Indians who used a head as a ball. There is also an association of football with Europe, which US conservatives believe is hell because it has a welfare state, Labour parties and nationalised healthcare.  Also the riots associated with football are not as widespread as in US sports, which gives some right-wingers the opportunity to smear football as being intrinsically associated with hooliganism and criminality.

You get some of those arguments in the UK as well which go on to this day, over the Hillsborough Disaster, where a Tory minister repeated the slur that it was due to Liverpool’s predominantly working class support acting as hooligans that led to the deaths, and not incompetent police.

The reason why some Conservatives in the US dislike and slander football is because of the nature of the game -- anyone can play it if you have the skill for it.  You don’t need expensive gear and equipment for it -- as one of the nutters in an earlier video said, it’s a sport poor people can enjoy, all you need is 11 folk and a ball and not lots of athletic equipment. You don’t need to have a knowledge of extensive regulations (bar the offisde rule). And you don’t even need to have a lot of space for the basics of it. You can master the basics of football in a school playground, then take it to a stadium. Put simply football is one of the easiest sports for people around the world who aren’t rich to pick up and enjoy.

HAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

You can see that when you look at the results of which teams have won the World Cup in it’s history -- 7 teams have picked up the trophy, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, Italy, France, West Germany and England (and even then the English cheated). While 4 out of the 7 countries that have picked up the trophy are developed Western countries, the other 3 are teams from the poorer global south. Brazil has picked up the trophy more times than any other country in the world despite the money the west has available to spend on education and sport.  And anti-imperialist Chavez supporter Maradonna is correctly recognised as one of the best football players in the history of the sport, for his stunning, magnificent and inspired handball against England followed by an acceptable second goal later on which unfortunately was still well within the technical rules of the game. Socialist intellectual and popstar John Barnes is bang on when he says that England will not win the World Cup until they adopt Socialism -- just compare the individualistic, Thatcherite millionaires of the Premier League with the austere, cooperative and hardworking German football team. No contest.

You can’t buy the skills to be good at football. You can’t be at an advantage from having a western diet that allows you to bulk up and ram through your opposing team or from have the money to buy the helmets or education you need to understand it all. It’s instinctive, demands self-sacrifice, commitment, vision and hope when you’re losing, and teamwork. That’s why football is socialist and the nutter right-wingers in the USA are right to hate it!

Here are some of the best moments in football Socialists have enjoyed over the years,

Scotland’s national sweetheart Diego Maradonna strikes a blow against English Imperialism.

James McFadden knocks one past the Zodiac-obsessed Domenech’s handballing cheats.

St Mirren’s Germanic destruction of Celtic.

Oh what could have been.

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