by Ethan Johnson
July 2, 2008

I have been re-discovering the local library system. Normally, I'd go to Half Price Books and buy whatever interested me relatively cheaply. But the library has better selection in some cases, and is "free". The down side is having to remember which books are due back when to which library. Plus I have to stay focused on the library books since they are transient. The books I buy aren't going anywhere - well, I hope not. Anyway, thanks to the magic of the local library system, I have two more soccer-themed books to share:

Soccerhead: An Accidental Journey into the Heart of the American Game by Jim Haner

Remember how I was crowing over The Beautiful Game, saying it was the soccer-themed book I had been craving? Yeah, well, I meant to say that about this book.

Haner is thrust in the role of more than Soccer Dad, but coach to his young son and other kids in an area youth group. He has no coaching experience, and knows even less about soccer. After some cajoling and arm-twisting, he accepts the volunteer position, and in short order "drinks the Kool-Aid".

Unlike similar books, this isn't a Bad News Bears sort of book where hapless kids become state champions in nine months or whatever. Haner's coaching highs and lows do get a fair hearing, but the history of soccer in the USA is the real meat and potatoes. As I have been wont to say these days, there is no history anymore, and therefore we can all be forgiven for not just forgetting that soccer once thrived here as early as the early 1900s, but is to some extent an indigenous sport. Betcha didn't know that. The Native Americans played a game which the European settlers recognized as what is now soccer. England usually gets the credit for inventing soccer, but apparently the geographic location of its inception was incidental.

Haner does an excellent job of explaining the cultural resistance to soccer in the US sports landscape, but also points up how soccer is slowly but steadily absorbing interest to the exclusion of more "traditional" sports like American football or baseball. And it's worth reading to learn about what the political bloc that came to be known as "soccer moms" really wanted more than anything else. I'll never look at rec league soccer the same way again. This also explains why the local park system has become so restrictive about "unscheduled" park usage. I thought my tax dollars were reservation enough, but no.

Anyway, above all other soccer-themed books, I recommend this book to anyone who is wanting to learn more about soccer in the USA but were afraid to ask. Yes, there are other books of a more international flavor, but if you want the domestic street-level scoop, it's right here for ya.

How Soccer Explains the World: An Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer

When I saw the title, I snapped up the book immediately, assuming that it was going to fill in the gaps of a pet theory of mine: Soccer, I think, provides cues into a given country's foreign policy. This is an unfinished thought, so I'll stop there. Sadly, Foer's treatise is hardly about globalization, let alone foreign policy.

The book is broken up into short vignettes about a given aspect of world soccer: Why Celtic and Rangers hate each other, why FC Barcelona is a liberal's wet dream, and why Brazil can't retain any home-grown talent. Some of the vignettes are interesting and insightful (certainly the Celtic/Rangers overview), but Foer's writing has an unsettling quality that makes one question the accuracy of the account. Of course, the reviews at Amazon.com vary widely but the negative reviews help flesh out the nagging aspects of the work. According to the critics (and the author, for that matter), Foer made something of a whirlwind trip around the world to touch on these various aspects and work them into a central thesis. Whatever fit that thesis made the cut, and whatever didn't, didn't.

My larger complaint about the book is that while that central thesis (per the book title) seemed compelling, Foer really doesn't take the necessary steps to prove it up. Soccer is a global game, so one might expect that lessons about globalization might be gleaned. Instead, the vignette-y approach shortchanges the subject matter, and has the added misfortune that I read Jim Haner's book beforehand. Haner speaks to "the Jewish Question" in much greater detail than Foer. I don't quite know what that has to do with globalization, but between the two authors Haner was more informative.

Foer also paints an unabashedly rosy picture of FC Barcelona. As a semi-interested third party, FCBs history as told by Foer was edifying but reminiscent of people who like ONE rock band and can't imagine why anyone would want to listen to anything else. I got the impression that much of the book was pretext for Foer's true mission: Evangelizing for FCB. I'm sure they appreciate the effort.

As for globalization, I'll have to learn more about it elsewhere.

I'm done reading soccer books for the moment, but if I find any more I'll pass along my review as warranted. <EM>

(Sports? Why, sure! The ethmar.com sports archive may be found here.)