Let's just get this over with and call 2010 "The Year of American Soccer History". Between club and country, things will all come together to bring about the revival of some old soccer memories, memories that make up a large portion of the history this country has with the beautiful game.
If you had told me six months ago that the two biggest things to happen to soccer in this backwater of the footballing world, the 1950 US upset of England and the heyday of big time club soccer in America, the North American Soccer League, would be cropping up again and at exactly the same time, I would have guffawed mightily. Sure, the US could somehow draw England in the World Cup, setting off mass hysteria among the American turncoats, English media, and the American public (both fan and non-fan) alike, but to think that someone would bring back a name that unfortunately represents an era of failed dreams and ephemeral relevancy, that would be too much. For both to happen in the shadow of a new year, a year with both a World Cup and the launch of the new league, that would be ridiculous.
And yet here we are. The United States has drawn England, just a few short weeks after a breakaway group of second division club owners announced that the NASL will return, albeit in a significantly different guise. Americans will no doubt be inundated with images, names, and stories from the sixties, seventies, and eighties, all in the name of remembering when North American club soccer meant something outside the borders of the US and Canada. The Cosmos name still resonates, years after Pele and Chinaglia hung up their spikes and a shady character named Peppe Pinton stole away with the team's trademark secured firmly between his greedy hands. Going back even further, we'll be swimming in the memories and lore of 1950, sure to be trotted out in the wake of the World Cup draw, when the greatest upset in the history of international soccer stunned the world. Plucky American kids from New York, St. Louis, and Philadelphia stepped onto the field with (most of) the best players that big, bad England had to offer, and stared them down to a 1-0 victory.
Two distinct memories, all dredged up in 2010. It's an American soccer renaissance of sorts, when millions of people for whom soccer has never mattered will learn for the first time that soccer does have a history here, even if it occurred in unfortunate fits and starts.
It's likely that all of it happened before you were either born or aware of the magic of the game, and for those of you that do remember the high tide of the NASL, you'll be calling on memories distinctly faded by the passage of time. That time doesn't diminish the importance of those memories, however, and first-hand (NASL) or not (1950), it's all a part of the fabric of the American game.
Bring it on. I'm ready. An avowed history buff, I'm excited to learn so much more than I already know. I'm excited for the interviews and retrospectives that will inevitably come, and I'm hopeful that new aspects, minutiae almost forgotten because no one thought we would care, will be unearthed for all all of use to enjoy.
The confluence of events that bring us to this point is almost too perfect to comprehend. It was a frustrated second-division club owner making a phone call to one of his colleagues, setting off a snowball of dissatisfaction that led to rebellion. It was a ping-pong ball containing a slip of paper reading "United States" on it grabbed out of a bowl at the exactly right time, when the USA's former colonial master was waiting to learn its opponents. It's the global community preparing for the greatest sporting event in the world, a nice round sixty years after the US humbled England, while two countries with a complicated relationship bubble over with anticipation. It's the need for a "new" league moniker at a critical time in the history of second division soccer, when time is short and instant profile needed.
It's two circumstances, completely unrelated save for their connections to the past, happening in the waning days of 2009, months ahead of the events they portend; months that can be used to revive the past they to which they hearken back.
So if you don't know as much about American soccer history as you would like, or you're like me and just have a voracious appetite for more, 2010 should be a wonderful lesson.
If you're not into history, too bad; you're about to get a crash course. Appreciate as an American what we have, because while it's not as much as that of some other nations, it's rich in color, drama, and intrigue. And that's the foundation on which the future of soccer in the United States will be built.
