Customer Reviews

Soccer in a Football World: The Story of America's Forgotten Game (Sporting)

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This book provides a great look into the history of the American game. Other books (Soccerhead being one of the better examples) have provided short outlines of pre-NASL soccer, but Wangerin is successful at seeking out the distant past of American soccer and provides as indepth a history as anyone will probably ever do. One of his main arguments, that while soccer may never be big in America, it's never been a better time for American soccer, is well proved throughout the book's tales of organizational infighting and inexplicable decisions by almost everyone involved in the sport at its highest levels in the US. This book winds up serving not only as a recounting of the past, but also a warning for the future so that American soccer never falls back into the depths of despair it has in the past.

The few issues I have with the book are that little attention is given to the women's game (roughly 12 pages in the 300+ page book), and it feels that Wangerin rushes through the post-1994 history, only hitting some major talking points of the 1998 and 2002 World Cups and some brief history of MLS. Also, very little is mentioned about the US Youth National Teams. I would also like to suggest that eventually this book be updated, since it ends around 2005. The back of the book mentions David Beckham's move to the US with the LA Galaxy, but the book ends its look at the sport in America before Beckham arrival.

With that being said, anyone interested in soccer in America should definitely check this out.

Many people think that the history of soccer in the United States dates back to around the time that Pele arrived in New York in 1975. This magnificent book very firmly refutes that idea, giving a full account of the sport's history in this country dating back to its 19th-century origins.
---Roger Allaway, Historian, National Soccer Hall of Fame

If you are a fan of the US National Team or MLS, you honestly owe it to yourself to read this.

This book is about our American game. Now, the Canadians likewise and others call it soccer, the National Team of Australia are the Socceroos so we aren't exactly alone in calling it soccer. I feel more like calling it soccer after reading this book. Soccer!

The author David Wangerin does his homework on the long and often patchy history of soccer in the US. My favorite part of the book was in the evolution of the game in the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, soccer was vying to be one of the top sports in the US, along with American football ("gridiron" as the author and much of the world call it) and baseball. The depression hurt soccer's attempts to become as big as these other sports back then but within pockets of the US, there was acceptance. Wangerin enumerates on the teams and leagues of the past and we are able to look it up and find out more. Amazingly, besides some very poorly attended games sometimes, a few of the old pro games even saw pitch invasions and near riots, here in the Land of the Free, would you have imagined that? Wangerin seems to often quote attendances as a barometer of the popularity of the sport, maybe an over reliance on that too, it appears to be from a large part of his research that is taken from reading newspaper articles and spending long hours in the library.

Many of the assertions and stories by the author are in fact, concepts we vaguely knew about such as St. Louis being a hotbed for real red-blooded American "Yank" soccer back in the day. He clarifies the history. Though I do believe the author does his homework, when history reaches this far back, we often accept his word but I don't think it hurts to do one's own research on the subject.

His observations are very astute. As an example, he does talk about how the NFL has sought to expand itself into the European market with a European league that has basically flopped twice. What is the problem with this? It seems to be that the fans in places like London would indeed rather watch our top American NFL teams like New England or Dallas or whomever is at the top rather than watch a Euro team that is not going to be close to the quality of those in the USA. Aren't many American soccer fans the same way in being fans of Liverpool or Real Madrid or AC Milan or whichever squad versus cheering for the homegrown LA Galaxy or Columbus Crew type American teams? Yes. So here in this book, we see in some ways, how the old adage is true, "the more things change, the more things stay the same" meaning that we've had a whole series of soccer leagues going back to at least the 1910s but rarely having long term success. The MLS, set up partially in regards to the 1994 World Cup held in the USA (this was done to placate FIFA) has had a gradual growth from careful planning. Still, make no mistake about it, the MLS, Major League Soccer does have struggles it endures as a professional sport.

The woman's game is indeed treated very well, with it's own chapter considering basically history starting with that gender's world cup in the 1990s. Indeed, history in the woman's game before this could have been examined but his coverage is still rather detailed except for that.

A bit on the same note of coverage, the college game is talked about time and again in this book, while not covering it in depth.

The history of our National Team is basically well covered in it's highs such as the 1950 Belo Horizonte game in Brazil along with the low points and that seemed to be the rule rather than exception over the years prior to 1990. It is amazing, that at times, the history of our National team has rag tag records where maybe all games they have played are not even properly recorded anywhere. Pan Am games in 1958 anyone? Admirably, for a long time, the USSF, US Soccer Federation was it's own autonomous organization without government funding or other aid.

What more can I say?? I'm going to support MLS and other American leagues even more so now. I always thought it was a good brand of soccer but I am even more convinced to support these teams. It's important too in the long run and is Americanized versus what the NASL largely was with it's foreign stars.

In short and in my experience of reading some dozens of books on soccer/football, this one stands out and surely should be read by every fan of the American game. It's coverage is comprehensive including other items such as the origins of the US game and the annual Open Cup in the US. Every detail you can imagine is covered.

At first glance this looks to be just another text on the history of soccer. There are many on the market today, but none delivers the message of this book. Soccer is an American game, one with deep roots in North America. It is not un-American or a game played by communists. David Wangerin takes on these old, worn-out arguments and shows why it is a game we can call our own.

Much of his research and discussion had never been seen before. Many soccer fans know about "The Miracle" at the 1950 World Cup. A hodgepodge of unknown American players were able to take down the mighty England, the birthplace of "the beautiful game". The general public did not know this had ever happened until a movie was released in 2005. It was a far from a blockbuster, but at least it was out in the mainstream.

Wangerin tells us the story of the many heroes of American soccer. Without them, soccer may not have survived. Without Wangerin, we may never have heard their stories of triumph and disappointment.

Most people know of Giorgio Chinaglia, David Beckham, and Pele. But it was Archie Stark, who was the first star of soccer in the U.S. Stark scored over 250 goals in the fledgling ASL. He would later give way to Billy Gonsalves, who played in the league that was clearly past its prime. Gonsalves also played in the first two World Cups.

It was clear that American soccer, particularly the U.S. National Team and Major League Soccer, exists only because a strong foundation was built in the past. It is not always a distant past. Even Tab Ramos, Peter Vermes, Tony Meola, and Eric Wynalda have done their part to make their own impact on the game.

Thomas Cahill could be called the "Father of American Soccer" as his dream created several firsts: the first soccer federation, the first professional league, and the first steps in a national team system. He nurtured the game and prevented it from falling into extinction. He did this not once, but many times as Cahill would be called upon when disaster struck. For soccer, a disaster was a common occurrence.

It was strong leaders like Lamar Hunt, who took American soccer on their shoulders, that ensured that there would be a future for soccer and it would be a bright one. His Crew Stadium would be the first of its kind here in the States: a true soccer-specific facility. And he funded it almost entirely with his own money.

Events had even more of an impact on the game as we now know it. Wangerin calls November 19, 1989 "a defining moment in American soccer history" as the U.S. qualified for the World Cup in Italy. Unfortunately, this monumental moment went unnoticed by many. This happened to be the trend for the sport. It has taken too long for people to notice the game and give it the coverage, and more importantly, the respect it deserves.

The author has a daunting challenge: telling stories and providing research at the same time. Wangerin does it flawlessly, seamlessly integrating facts and statistics with great stories of monumental success and devastating failure. This book has factual value, but it is the stories of our game that sets it apart from all others.

First, let me say, if you are a fan of American soccer then you should buy this book. David did an amazing job of researching and documenting the unique twists and turns of the sport in North America.

That being said, at times the author gets too caught up in the nuts & bolts, jumping from historical anecdote to historical anecdote, to truly paint a coherent picture. There are lots of wonderful brush strokes, but no truly in depth picture of American soccer pioneers emerges. Obviously, the focus of the book was not autobiographies of a handful of soccer pioneers, but a bit more ink on the life of Lamar Hunt would have illuminated one of the biggest recurring problems - a professional sport needs owners to survive, but soccer only attracted quirky billionaires who viewed themselves more as prophets than franchisees.

Still, some of the historical tidbits are as funny as they are embarrassing - a good read.