The United States is moving up in the world. That\’s a little hard to believe, I guess, since we do pretty well in so many areas. But there are plenty of things we could be doing better.

Soccer is one of them. 30 years ago, soccer occupied the same place in the American consciousness that curling does now. U.S. soccer programs – the few that existed – were considered to be among the worst in the world.

But then we started trying. A big turn-around came in 1994 when the United States hosted the World Cup for the first time. Still, it was rumored that if we hadn\’t automatically been allowed to play in the tournament (the host country always qualifies), our team wouldn\’t have made it out of the qualifying rounds. Regardless, we were eliminated rapidly, losing in the second round.

Since then things have steadily improved. The U.S. women\’s soccer program is probably the best in the world. And the men were just ranked 8th. That\’s a pretty big accomplishment, for a country that still doesn\’t regularly televise soccer on broadcast channels.

But apparently, our accomplishment is rubbing some people the wrong way. At a U.S.-Mexico game in February in Guadalajara, the fans chanted \”OSAMA, OSAMA!\” at the American players.

Frank Deford, a writer I respect greatly for his style and substance, commented on NPR this week that this is part of a greater trend. He said our dominance in most sports, combined with our uncanny ability to excel even at sports we don\’t really care about (think cycling) is only adding to the rest of the world\’s contempt for us.

He said our foreign policy and diplomatic style are political examples of the same idea: we\’re on top, and we like to flaunt it.

Deford\’s suggestion, then, to U.S. fans and athletes going to the Olympic Games this summer, was to win graciously. In other words, don\’t rub it in. Don\’t chant U.S.A. at sporting events, don\’t drape American flags on anything.

He stopped short of advising us to throw a match here and there, and he did seem to acceed to our playing the national anthem, when appropriate.

But what he never mentioned, and seemed to overlook, was how completely disgusting it was that Mexican soccer fans would even consider chanting the name of a man who orchestrated the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans.

We\’re not talking about Mexican fans chanting \”MEXICO!\” That wouldn\’t offend anybody here in the U.S. It wouldn\’t be considered rubbing it in, even if in soccer, we are inferior to our southern neighbors (they\’re ranked 6th).

But somehow, it\’s OK for other countries to cheer for terrorists, while we can\’t even say our own name?

And what\’s the cause for this self-imposed restraint? Have we done something really terrible like attacking other countries\’ Olympic teams?

Not at all. We\’re just good at soccer. And cycling, and tennis, and running, and swimming, and just about everything else.

And why are we good at those things? Oh, well, it must be because of the Bush Administration\’s unilateralist foreign policy. Or because we squandered the world\’s goodwill after 9-11. Or maybe we keep winning gold medals because of our support for Israel?

No, the fact is, we\’re good at sports for the same reasons we\’re good at other things. Because we live in a country where people are free to do what they\’re good at, and encouraged to get better at it.

There are a lot of other reasons too (economic factors, immigration, a large population), but none of them justify a Mexican crowd, or anyone else, chanting \”OSAMA!\” at us. And none of them justify telling our fans not to cheer on their athletes with a frank, rhythmic intonation of our country\’s initials.

What DeFord is missing here is that the Mexican crowd wasn\’t chanting \”OSAMA!\” at us because we\’re winning, but because they\’re not.

And that\’s as much their responsibility as it is ours.

In that sense, DeFord is right; when we chant \”USA!\”, it shouldn\’t be because the other team is losing, but because we\’re winning.

Because if we ever start seeing other countries\’ losses – in sports or at the hands of terrorists – as reasons to cheer, we will have stooped to the level of those fans in Guadalajara.

And that will truly be a step down in the rankings.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 21st, 2004 at 7:03 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.