金融时报:亟待变革的美国足球

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2022年01月10日

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亟待变革的美国足球

在美国，足球渐渐从一项小众运动走向了中心舞台，越来越多的美国孩子喜欢踢足球，这项运动在美国正在经历着前所未有的发展良机。但就在这个时候，美国国家队却输给了特立尼达和多巴哥，无缘世界杯决赛圈，这给发展势头正劲的美国足球泼了一盆冷水。

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

scarcely['skeəsli] 几乎不, 简直没有

supplant[sə'plɑːnt] 排挤,取代

aficionado[əˌfɪʃə'nɑːdoʊ] 爱好者

escapist[ɪ'skeɪpɪst] 逃避现实的

materialise[mə'tɪriəlaɪz] 实现,物质化

Testing times for the American soccer revolution（759 words）

By Gary Silverman

The low point came years ago in Secaucus, a New Jersey waterfront town about 10 miles from my own. By the time we arrived for the game, the temperature was scarcely above zero on the Fahrenheit scale, and the wind whipping off the river stung the flesh. Once our boys started playing, they were OK, because they were able to run around. But their parents could only shiver. It was our fate as soccer moms and dads.

There is a lot of money riding on the outcome – for Rupert Murdoch and other media magnates trying to sell advertising, for consumer brands such as Coca-Cola and Nike seeking to spread marketing messages around the globe and for big soccer interests looking to make it in the world's largest economy.

But the hopes of the US soccer bulls have been dashed once again. This month, the US men's national team crashed out of the World Cup, losing 2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago in their final qualifying game. When the global football championship kicks off next year in Russia, the US will not be playing for the first time since 1986.

The timing could hardly have been worse for the sport. If there were ever a moment for soccer to take centre stage in the US, this is it. Room for expansion has been created by the misfortune plaguing American football, which long ago supplanted baseball, a graceful game too leisurely for recent generations, as the national pastime.

The evidence is now overwhelming that American football is damaging the brains of the people who play it. Fans like me, who grew up delighting in the violence of its collisions, are having second thoughts and steering our children away from playing the game.

Adding insult to injury is President Donald Trump, who has called on ticket buyers to leave professional football games where team members have kneeled during the playing of the national anthem to protest at police violence against African-Americans.

Next year's soccer World Cup promised to provide relief for sports aficionados seeking escapist entertainment. But without a US team in the mix, the broadcasts on Murdoch's Fox Sports network will almost certainly struggle to attract viewers. In the 2014 World Cup, the biggest US audiences tended to materialise for US games.

The likely Plan B for Fox is dripping in irony. Its focus will probably shift to what may be the second-most popular team in the US – Mexico, which can expect support from 36 million people of Mexican origin in the country. As a result, we could see Murdoch's network rally around El Tri, as the Mexican side is known, while his friend in the White House, President Trump, tries to build a wall along the US southern border to keep Mexicans out.

Fancy footwork will also be required of corporate sponsors of the World Cup. “Just about everybody was blindsided” by the US failure to qualify, says Luke Bonner, a professional basketball player turned sports marketing consultant. Brands that hoped to tap into “fandom, patriotism and global unity”, he says, will “need to pivot” to new US strategies.

A little soul-searching may be in order for soccer parents, too. The US squad that fell to Trinidad and Tobago, a country of only 1.4 million people, was on the old side, with plenty of familiar names in their thirties. With millions of young people in the US playing organised soccer, it prompts the question of why the country has so few rising male stars in the sport (lest we forget, the US women are reigning world champions).

There is certainly plenty of blame to go around. It could be that Bruce Arena, who quit as national coach after the loss, had erred in his selections and strategy. Perhaps it was wrong for the US to emphasise developing players in its own national league rather than sending them to the proper football finishing schools in England, Germany, Italy and Spain. The post-mortems will undoubtedly persist until the US team rights itself.

I just wonder whether soccer parents like myself could have done things differently. Maybe we could have done more to help poor children play in youth leagues. Maybe we should have given our own kids more room to discover their sports passions. When I was a boy, I would hang my baseball glove on the handlebars of my Stingray bicycle, climb aboard the banana seat and look for action. My children lacked similar latitude.

Looking back on it, I suspect I made mistakes. My only excuse – as I kept telling myself on that cold sideline in Secaucus – was that I was doing it out of love.

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1.US men's soccer team failed to qualify for the World Cup after losing to ____.

A.Saint Kitts and Nevis.

B.Trinidad and Tobago.

C.Sao Tome and Principe.

D.Antigua and Barbuda.

答案(1)

2.Which of following statements about US men's soccer is true ?

A.They lost their final qualifying game in Secaucus, New Jersey.

B.US had never succeeded in qualifying for the World Cup before 1986.

C.Trump has called on Americans to leave professional soccer games.

D.The US squad's members are growing old but they lack young successors.