I'm apparently not the only one who feels this way.
"In America, soccer is essentially a stultifyingly safe and politically correct suburban past-time. As a New York Times writer recently bemoaned, 'The game in the U.S. has become shorthand for happy families. A typical ad, which once might have taken baseball as a symbol of upper-middle-class values, now features a beaming child kicking a ball, with a text that begins: 'While Jessica takes an afternoon off to focus on scoring goals, her parents' Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch focuses on meeting her family's goals.' The American game has come to be seen as a protective mother's heaven: nonviolent, suitable for children and female-friendly.' It's perhaps no wonder that the next generation of ambitious young male American athletes would rather pick up a baseball bat or watch the superbowl. Even golf is more macho than soccer." --- Andrew Sullivan, Sunday Times
"I think the flirtation that prosperous yuppie parents are presently having with soccer fits in with the rest of this execrable phenomenon of political correctness. Politically correct Americans today positively love scourging their own flesh with guilt over all the success our country has enjoyed on the global political stage, and all the rowdy fun we've had at home. So instead of taking Junior to a Little League baseball game and teaching him how to chew tobacco, spit, and then wash his mouth out with cold beer after the game, Dad packs the lad in the minivan, drives him to a soccer game, tells him afterward that it's not about winning, it's about teamwork and aerobics, and takes him to the salad bar at Wendy's on the way home. We can only pray that this aberration will soon pass.." --- Jeff Smith, Tuscon Weekly
And, although he doesn't use the term 'politically correct', it's what he's thinking:
"No other activity in life requires so much effort for so little reward. Ninety-nine per cent of the action has virtually no bearing on the outcome of the game. Herein may lie the explanation for why so many of my government-bureaucrat neighbors in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., have a love affair with soccer.
In soccer, every mother's child is above average. There's no shame in losing and a tie is the likely outcome. The game's egalitarian philosophy extends to the absurdity of giving every kid a trophy at the end of the season.
I am convinced that the ordeal of soccer teaches our kids all the wrong lessons in life. Soccer is the Marxist concept of the labor theory of value applied to sports -- which may explain why socialist nations dominate in the World Cup. The purpose of a capitalist economy is to produce the maximum output for the least amount of exertion. Soccer requires huge volumes of effort but produces no output. " --- Stephen Moore, National Review
