Is it Football or is it Soccer? Unraveling the Origins and Cultural Clash

Join us on this episode of the Footy Museum Podcast as we dive deep into the age-old question: is it soccer or football? Justin and Maria explore the history of the terms, their origins in England, and how they've evolved in the United States. Discover why this seemingly simple debate has sparked such passionate discussions. From the early days of the sport to the modern-day MLS, we uncover the cultural and historical factors that have shaped the way Americans perceive and embrace the beautiful game.

Timestamps:

1:00 - The Terms "Soccer" and "Football"

2:30 - Origins of Soccer

6:30 - Cuju Football in China

8:00 - Indigenous Football in North America

11:00 - The Soccer vs. Football Debate

16:00 - The Evolution of Soccer in the US, and the changing perception of soccer in the US and the shift towards a more European-style design approach

40:00 - Final Thoughts

Keywords:

soccer, football, history, sports, terminology, cultural differences, MLS, US soccer, England, Europe, American culture, global sports, football vs. soccer debate

Transcript:

Justin: Welcome to the Footy Museum and the Footy Museum podcast. I am co-director of the Footy Museum, Justin Witte. And the person to whom I throw my soccer ball in the back of their head after scoring a goal. Fellow co-director Maria VanDyken Li. Maria, Welcome back.

Maria: Thank you. Justin. Happy to be here.

Justin: Yeah, we both did a little Covid detour the last two weeks. It was fun.

Maria: Same with the rest of the city. throwback.

Justin: So retro, Oh, so this week we are talking about the age old discussion in this country of is it soccer or is it football? Obviously we are the footy museum and we used the term football.

Maria: That's just because we love…feet.

Justin: I do have to say there are some confused threads out there and footy threads. Every so often you see some, no, we it's not a foot fetish podcast, but I think we understand and appreciate that that is a logical name for the sport, but we also use it interchangeably with soccer. We have no problem. Yeah, calling it soccer, but some people some people get really bad there. Like they're like, it's called football. Now, we thought it might be good to spend an episode talking about that, phenomenon and why people are still so caught up on soccer versus football.

Maria: Just different names for the same thing.

Justin: Like they say, say. Well, there's a number of different reasons we've identified for it being, such a big issue. But first, just a refresher on the terms. So the term soccer is I feel like this is brought up by everyone all the time. Oh, whenever someone's like it's called football, it is actually a British term.

Maria: I was sent a reel by, how many people of these two British women discussing this and discovering that it was a British term?

Justin: Were they angry?

Maria: They were shocked, or one of them was telling the other and she was absolutely flabbergasted. Oh, like you forget where you've come from.

Justin: So, soccer, comes from early on in the sport, there were a number of sports that were loosely called football, right, because they were developing in the 1800s, in England. And when the first rules, official rules of, of what we know now as football or soccer were written down, it was referred to as association football. And along the same times there was the development of rugby football. And later in the US there was gridiron football, which we know is in the US as football. Well, in England, as a young college, people like to do at the colleges, they came up with cool little abbreviation for it. You know, it made it easier for social media. So they would call a rugby, rugby football ruggers, and Association soccer. First a-sock, which.

Maria: That's tough to say.

Justin: So you can see why that would then bring break down to soccer sometimes with c k and it was just the abbreviation and the terms were kind of interchangeable. It's like a nickname for teenagers today.

Maria: if kids were to name soccer, football, soccer. Yes. What do you think they would come up with a.

Justin: Name in the sport. So if they were to name it today.

Maria: You're more in touch with the kids slang than I am.

Justin: Yeah. Well, you know, being the parent of two teen animals, it would probably be something not related at all. Yeah. Give me. Yeah.

Yeah, it would be girls give it to do. I'd be called, like, a gremlin nostril or something like that. Oh. Based on some influence or, like, getting kicked in the nose while playing or something. Like

Yeah. So anyway, that's how soccer the term began, right? So it's a British term. And then that term spread to a lot of the English speaking world. So obviously in the US, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and then actually also in Scotland because they had another form of football as well. That was also confusing.

So they started to use soccer as well. Yeah. And you can see that in these early newspaper clippings, these even here from the US, I love the one on the left because it's called, it's soccer football. And what that really points to is how they even understood that soccer was a abbreviation for social association. Yeah. So association football for Dallas.

So that is just a reminder where this term came from. It's a British term, but the idea even further that somehow football is the God ordained term for this sports or that it's the only kind of version of a foot related sport, is kind of crazy, because it just grew out of a lot of different histories of foot sports.

And I think before broadcast rights or capitalism, people would be like, oh, they're playing with a ball and using their feet. So there was like millions of versions of kickball or football. I mean, and you talked about something else this week or wrote about some of those this week.

Maria: Yeah. Like but even before the college boys were playing soccer in England, it had become as like a folk game that different villages would play in their different versions of it. Since the like eighth century. Right. So, like, people figure out how to turn a pig's bladder into a ball.

Justin: Like kicking something.

Maria: And kicking.

Justin: Yeah.

Maria: Like to kick things. Yeah.

Justin: That's what kids would call today, by the way. Pig bladder.

Maria: Bladder ball.

Justin: Bladder ball. Flatten out on. So bladder.

Maria: So but, the even FIFA designates the earliest form of kicking game up to, the year 200 BC in China, which is much, much earlier than, eighth century. It was.

Justin: Called football, right?

Maria: It was called kickball. Oh my gosh, my Chinese is really terrible. But cuju.

Justin: You know.

Maria: Something like that? Yeah, I forgot to ask Jeremy before I left the house.

Maria: But.

Justin: Since Jeremy, your husband speaks Chinese, he does? Yes. Okay. Yeah, just a quick. I was going to Google it before. I didn't know, like, because when you say, like, I forgot, that's Jeremy. It's like, well, what does that like Steve's like, what is that?

Maria: Yeah. This is a really popular website where is.

Justin: Exclusive precursor to Google.

Maria: You access it by texting my husband, so before Christ, Chinese people were playing a version of football that involved a ball.

Justin: Yes.

Maria: Kicking it through a goal.

Justin: Wow. Right. Yeah.

Maria: Teams. It was a little bit different from association football. Okay. But basic premise is the same.

Justin: You're on a field, you're kicking.

Maria: A ball, you're on a field kicking a ball. A lot of things about it a little bit different. Like, it began as a military training exercise. Oh, wow. But like, how fun. And.

Justin: I want to know what that military did when they actually thought it.

Maria: Was, like, a.

Justin: Way to stay this way. Run.

Maria: Stay fit. Build camaraderie, all these things. And, they I feel like with martial arts, there's, like, the fighting side, and then there's the performance side. And also with.

Justin: You feel that way to left and that's like, that's. Yeah, I wake up in the morning. That's the first time. Yeah. I often think about it. Justin there's two parts of martial arts the fighting and the butt soccer. Yes, yes. Oh sorry. Go ahead.

Maria: Should you for them was kind of the same.

Justin: You sure that pronunciation. No. You should. That's Jeremy I okay,

Maria: So that there were different versions that different types of people would play. The military side, the men more would play this competitive version that was more of a game versus teams. And then women and children or like performers would do a performance version that was all based on form and beauty and entertainment. So but in that way it could spread to all parts of society.

Maria: So it wasn't limited to soldiers, it wasn't limited to aristocrats. It was played by everyone at every level of society, from peasants to emperors, playing this game. So it was huge. Yeah. Even for the.

Justin: That's the part of the reason the sport catches on everywhere. Because you don't need much. You just need that pig's bladder and like a field. And you're good to go.

Maria: Exactly. Yeah. it's really interesting because just like, associate Asian football, soccer, there's was subject to bans as well. I'm specifically talking about how women were banned from playing association football. But there it kind of dwindled out of style. After many dynasties, after like over a thousand years of people playing the sport and developing it in different ways, it died out because the emperor felt that, it was competing with people. No, he was like, you're being distracted from work. And so it was very, Yeah. I just think he probably wasn't very good at playing it, and he was jealous of everybody else. But, yeah, I and there's so much art and poetry that talk about this game and so it was able to be revived through those historical documents, which is really interesting. So the Chinese historians and archeologists have been doing a lot of work to, like, unearth its history. And people are playing it again, which is really cool.

Justin: Which is why so many Chinese fans often chant that it's coming home.

Maria: Yeah, and they said, it's called cuju.

Justin: But, you wrote a great post on the website for the museum, dot com this week, not just talking about that history, but how it developed similar sports, developed it.

Maria: A lot of. Yeah. So, Europeans, we don't have a lot of information about North American football, but we do know that the indigenous people of North America were playing it before Europeans arrived. So the first writings about it, happened in the 1600s, from just, like explorers, young guys who would come and write about their experiences or people who are actually trying to market, North America to European settlers, potential immigrants.

Justin: And garbage carvers.

Maria: Yeah. They're like, come here. So they they wrote about it. We don't know how accurate their descriptions were because they were, I mean, once like, maybe they were being shown a version that wasn't the true version because they were outsiders. Maybe their writing was geared towards trying to find some similarities between the English style. But they were like, hey, this is this is a game that's a lot like ours.

Maria: There's leather ball people playing, trying to play. There, keep away or score goals, all these things, interesting versions, the birds Similarities to kind of a rugby style, even like a version, where men would play with just their feet and women could run and hold the ball. Okay. And there was a little bit of like, tackling and keep away. It was kind of interesting in that sense that they're playing together. Yeah. And then there's this really beautiful version from Greenland that I really love, where they would play a type of, football where you had to reach a barrier on other side. So it wasn't goals. You had to get to the end with the ball. Two teams versus and, this had a spiritual aspect because they, their story was that when you died, your soul could go up to the sky. And yeah, it would manifest as a, you would play football in the sky and would manifest as the Northern Lights. Oh, wow. Which if you kind of think about like the way up north, very far, the northern lights run like a river above your head.

Justin: Oh, it's beautiful.

Maria: Beautiful, beautiful. And then the thought of like, oh, yeah, people dribbling past each other to try and reach a barrier. It makes a lot of sense.

Justin: Well, that's also the myth behind goalie wars in U.S. soccer, so you should definitely check out. And there's a lot more.

Maria: There's also talk about the mind game, which is a little bit different. It's called hit ball. These are hips.

Justin: Yeah. But yeah they're just a ball game sometimes referred to as so you know football was not even that meant there was all these things sprouting up. So one it's a British term. Two, it's just a term to differentiate. Three there are a lot of different footballs going on. And then also the term in England specifically, since that seems to be where a lot of the animosity about the term soccer comes from.

Justin: Now, was used kind of interchangeably. Really up until the 80s, as it was the kind of known as the nickname or the secondary name for the sport. Here's an example, from kind of a horrible tragedy, actually. This is from the, Munich disaster, where Manchester United lost seven players in a plane crash. But the Daily Herald elicited soccer horror pictures of the the similarity and the words for a little bit of alliteration.

Justin: But it was understandable what that sport was. And it was it was used in different ways. So what happened between that point, you know, up until so this was, the 50s, but it was like I said, up until the 80s. Well, I think in my, in my mind, you have to start thinking about what the view of the US started to be in England and especially Europe, and how that started to change after that point.

So here we have a Pew poll, recent Pew poll, Pew Research and countries overall favorable or unfavorable views of the United States. So in the top part of this graph, you see, European countries and with the exception of Poland, who is very pro US, it is almost 5050. And you look at England, other major Western European countries, and you have to imagine if you took the same poll, maybe, right after World War two or in the, in the 50s, that it would be slanted much more on the favorable side because the US was kind of this idea of there was something alluring about it.

There was, it was very trendsetting, obviously, in the wake of the war, as Europe was rebuilding the US was this shiny, metallic capitalist, what's the term I'm looking for? Like magical city on the horizon, right?

Maria: Chrome plated Paradise.

Justin: Chrome plated Paradise. Well, so, you just you just have everything right in the tip of your tongue today. So I think that started to shift, and that probably started to shift with some US policy start to get a little more convoluted. But also, I think that something starts to happen that's continuing to happen today. As as that U.S culture grew, it started to impede on other countries culture.

So all of a sudden America may seem great, but those and when you go to McDonald's in your neighborhood and it starts to push out the local restaurants and it's not really tied into your culture or when new owners come in to your soccer club and they happen to be Americans. And they don't have any tie to your community or your history, maybe there starts to be a little shift.

And in that protection of your own culture, you start to have a negative view of American culture. It's possible. And if you think about today, ten Premier League teams have some level of American ownership, if not 100%, some major ownership level ten. And I'm not I'm not totally sure. I think there are only 11 teams. So that's like just over half of the teams in the league.

Right. And then if you keep going down the table, eight championship teams, including your beloved Leeds United, Niners, eight League One teams, obviously most famously with Wrexham, so I think there is part of it, this cultural push back against kind of the cannibalistic nature of American culture, ever present nature that really fed through the world, not just through the prosperity of the country in the 20th century, but because it controlled the entertainment industry.

So the pictures being sold everywhere. So I think there starts to be this resistance, and especially in a sport that was not associated with that country. Right. So then if you want to try to take part of our sport, which is football, we're going to see anything you do that negatively. And if you call it soccer, all of a sudden that becomes a negative term.

Maria: Respect the game. I can empathize with that. Maybe that makes sense. Also.

Justin: It seems very like newly gentrified neighborhood watch.

Maria: Yeah that's a very that does I think that's spot on.

Justin: We only use you know pore over football is like the pour over

Maria: I think, my feeling of how others perceive Americans in general, is that we Americans,

Maria: move through the world like bulldozers and are unwilling to adapt to other cultural norms.

Justin: Right, and expect things to adapt around us.

Maria: And so if we even though we're not the best soccer we're real underdogs, we really look up to English leagues. We come in with our goofy little name, you know, that they came up with and forgot about it. But because of everything else, like you said, like we are bulldozer cultural bulldozers. And so if they if they have their guard up, then they. Yeah, would feel attacked by.

Justin: Something that we rightfully so. You know, maybe because you could argue that in terms of this ownership question, it is contributing to the, the sport in Europe, in England, but but across of Europe growing to such a large level where it is entering kind of Super league, hyper capitalist level where it's really at the risk of leaving its regional support and communities behind in favor of, just profit at all expense. Like if you look at the new format for the Champions League, right, which is now further expanded, and I've made an argument this week that not a lot of people agreed with, but were interested in is that it does the champ new Champions League structure very much oddly reflects kind of a US sports structure where it's a very big league. A lot of the games, it the first round don't really matter that much because the bar for moving out is so low. So you have a lot of games don't matter just for getting those kind of chance for your team to play Manchester City or Barcelona to make some money. The teams don't directly play all of the other teams.

It's just based on your record within that tournament. So it's not based on head to head and then they move on. I think there's 189 games in this year's version overwhelming. And they're flying all over the continent, you know, so if you're a fan who wants to follow your team all the way through, that becomes really difficult.

So, you know, I think that it's not without reason. There's some pushback on this, but I think there's another aspect to the whole soccer thing that is also developed that others see and react to, but is also kind of behind why that conflict and the term and mentality also exists in this country as well. Because I think there are just as many US fans are like, it's called football or it's soccer.

But here I think it's much more tied to how the sport developed in the country. So we've talked a lot in the past about that, the development, the early growth of leagues based on either company teams or ethnic groups. And then it was really a lot of really drawn, direct to recent immigrants. And it was tied into a history that existed.

But then when you look at modern leagues in the US, let's say starting with the NASL, the idea is they thought they could we could come in and do the soccer thing better than they do it in Europe. Right. We're just going to pay the most money, get the biggest star. Who's the biggest star? Pele okay. We're going to get we got it.

We got. Yeah we got Pele. All right. That means we're the best. We don't have to build new stadiums. We can fit into a baseball field. Hey, we have this astroturf. It's fine.

Maria: AstroTurf. Nothing bad ever happened with turf or nothing.

Justin: And then we'll just around. These stars will fill in some. Whoever we can get, we can pull up. Yeah. And so and so.

Maria: And let's make the shorts so short.

Justin: Well, that was that was everywhere. You can't tell me you don't appreciate it. Let's be honest. You know, we've seen Pele Pele's Pele's Pele. So that starts right in the 70s. And the league is kind of doomed to fail because they are tied in with very expensive famous players. Beckenbauer or Pele. And they haven't really developed a full audience yet who first came to the spectacle they wanted to see.

Justin: Oh, this is the most famous player.

Maria: For this obscure sport, this.

Justin: Obscure sport. And the meantime, they're scrambling to put together these teams. So I had to have a love for the graphics and names of some of these teams you had, like the LA Aztecs, which you jokingly call.

Maria

This the LA orange slices.

Justin: Lazio. Really orange slices. Chicago Sting. Love it, love it, love it. Winners of the soccer Bowl. Rochester Lancers, the darts. But you had something that was happening that has become kind of a hallmark of the sport in this country is that it decided it could do away with how the sport was played in the rest of the world, both structurally in league structure and also know pro Rel and RSL also decide we're not going to take part in the Open Cup.

We're going to be our own and close corporate entity. And we're going to do things like have an All-Star game. Yeah, have a soccer ball.

Maria: So American.

Justin: So this idea that they could do it better. Yeah. But it didn't really catch on. So then it became gimmicky to try to get people to come to games with with like the early DP's. There's new players like play with different events at the games. Yeah. What would you say.

Maria: Is almost as if with this, the term soccer takes on a new meaning, a new definition. If before it was just different names for the same thing, now it's NASL soccer.

Justin: Yeah, it's almost like the US take what started as just a convenient name. They're starting to define in a way and how they're presenting it because it's unique to how it's played in the rest of the world. Yeah I would agree with that. Yeah. And I think visually it's very much tied in when with these images. But then also after in a cell folded, the only really big league for a while was the Indoor Soccer League.

Maria: I love the lasers.

Justin: Like I said, it's lasers.

Maria: Go back and check out our episode on the laser.

Justin: Yes, it's a fascinating team. But then this it furthers that obviously not a very popular league, but for a long time, the top really the top league in the country was an indoor league. Yeah. So not only saying like, we're going to change all these other things, but guess what? We're gonna have less players. We're going to play inside an artificial turf in our in our in our imagined history of the, footy museum, there's a whole section about that as well. So you get this. And I agree with what you're saying it. This starts to define what soccer is.

Maria: This is the new soccer. This is this is the new definition of soccer.

Justin: Yeah. And then that comes to a head with the world strongly again in 1994 when we have the 1994 World Cup in the US, and we have a team made up of players like from England, John Harkes, who have played briefly overseas, or college players or future Fox News analysts. Like there you see Lalas, and they're kind of in between all those definitions.

They've come up through systems that were originally tied with the American Soccer League, with, you know, ethnic teams, things like that. But also grew up in the time of NASL, of college sports, and are being marketed and pushed by people have very similar ideas of those previous sports, as evidenced by these phenomenal jerseys that they wore to that World Cup.

The denim top inspired in part by Andre Agassi's denim tennis shorts. It's in the Navy, the wavy red stripe match.

Maria: This is an argument for soccer right here.

Justin: I think this this is both like the pinnacle of the idea but also like its best form is like unapologetic, right? And this team kind of did way better than anticipated.

Justin: they had some upsets, most famously against Colombia, which led to eventually the murder of one of the Colombian players because of their loss.

Maria: So we should talk about that sometimes.

Justin: We should talk about that. There's a great 30 for 30 documentary about that. So this is kind of the peak. And the World Cup was also the launching part launching pad for the new attempt at the top League in the country. And that was, of course, Major League Soccer. And at this point, this idea of soccer, as you outlined, is very kind of defined in the country, as its unique thing. And when MLS started, it really leaned into that real American version.

Maria: Just really want to call it the Dallas Burn.

Justin: Yes. You feel the burn. That is one of the best dressed to the robotic demon horse. So yeah. Colorado Rapids, Dallas burn Kansas City wins LA Galaxy. The San Jose Clash, I believe it was Columbus Crew, DC United, New England Revolution, New York Metro stars And the Mustiny. here we see definitely in the style kind of the, the holdover from those early days. Look at these amazing kits. These have really come full circle. People love these. I love there's some heavy.

Maria: I was going to point out the Dallas burn again on the end there, where the Demon Horns is on the whole front of the thing. I also love that these are these throwback kits. Are these original?

Justin: These are the originals. This is from the Lodge.

Maria: They have the team name on the front of the kit.

Justin: Yes. This was when MLS started. It did not. It's it not only was leaning into this idea of American soccer that was seen in the design, but also the games themselves. Right? There was penalty. Shootouts were different where you had the player start at midfield and run towards the goalie. Love it. There were different aspects.

Maria: And back bring it.

Justin: Back. And that was every game they when they first started, you could not have ties there. Like that's not an American thing right. They had All-Star game. They had the you know the MLS Cup. It was very much in the form of U.S sports. You had the look. It was kind of saying, again, we can do this better than the rest of the world.

And when it kicked off out of novelty, at first there was a lot of interest, but quickly it kind of faded. Right. And within a few years they were playing in a lot of empty stadiums, and it was kind of viewed as this minor side league. And I think it's best seen with the story of the Kansas City with why are they called the Kansas City Ways?

Maria: Because Kansas City is a magical place.

Justin: Yeah. Wizard of Oz. Yeah. We're not in Kansas anymore.

Maria: I put that together right as I was saying it.

Justin: So, yeah, it's too late. They to the Wizard of Oz. They were actually initially named The Wiz, but they were sued by the electronic company The Wiz. Oh, and they had to change it to the Wizards. To this day, it makes more sense why their supporter section is called the cauldron. If you think about that. For Wizards, makes more sense.

But they started they had these bright, outlandish, uniforms. Here they are. Pictured it with some sort of silly game day promotion where they were all wearing these wigs, maybe to emulate someone. But it was kind of not taken seriously. And they played in the massive NFL Arrowhead Stadium, which is built for like 70,000, and they would draw like 8000. So it would seem kind of empty. And this is what a lot of MLS teams are doing. And it just wasn't working. So now not only was soccer, I think, associated with this kind of uniquely American approach, but kind of something that's not very cool or working. Right. So then if you were a fan of the sport in the US, you're like, no, I don't I'm not a soccer fan. Yeah. You know, at this time I'm going to get my VHS tapes of Manchester United because I'm a football fan and you really start to identify with that.

Maria: Like to I mean, the argument is often often made like, the level of play isn't as high, right?

Justin: But which is.

Maria: True? It's true. It is kind of an investment of your time and attention.

Justin: Which is still based in the idea that they can do it different because the way they cap salaries, it limits how many quality players can actually be.

Maria: There. So true. Yeah. Us.

Justin: Yeah. We we agree. Yeah. There's two Chicago Fire people trying really hard to be Chicago Fire fans. We know all about it. So but then something happened. So in 2010,

Justin: the team was bought a couple years prior, bought from Lamar Hunt, who was actually one of the major, early innovators of the sport in the country. The US Open Cup is named after him, Lamar Hunt. A new ownership was in Kansas City, came in, and they wanted to completely change the view of the club. So they invested in building a new soccer specific stadium. They wanted to change the branding, the colors, everything to kind of get a reintroduction. And the owner decided, we're going to call it Sporting Kansas City.

And there were other people like, I don't know, maybe we should call Exploring Soccer Club. It's the Midwest. There was a lot of people opposed to it, but he unanimously was like, no, we're going to call it Sporting Kansas City, there are some famous clubs in the world named sporting. And oftentimes.

Maria: It was my understanding that those clubs are called that because they came out of like a sports club.

Justin: Yeah. Like in Europe where they have, a lot of teams like Barcelona have everything. They don't just have a soccer team or a football team. They have basketball. It's it's like a, a whole network for sports.

Maria: And then eventually like, oh the soccer team took took off.

Justin: Yeah. Sorry. The football team. So it didn't quite make sense. And they came up with this, this new crest. So it's Kansas City but you have SC for sporting club I guess or soccer club I don't know, it's confusing but it's very like early 2000s and like it's, it's clean this I say air quote wise.

Maria: Should we note that it's on a shield.

Justin: It's on a shield. That's right. So it is also not only is the name now replicating more a global sport, but it's also on a shield replicating kind of how it's presented more internationally. And then they built a soccer specific part park which was initially named Livestrong. Oh yeah. Where is now Children's Mercy Park? It's still a great venue. They intentionally built with, roof over the the stands, not only to protect the fans, but to really make it the sound stay in the stadium. It's not a huge statement. It's only like 8000 seats. But for what they need, it's what they need. So they could fill it, right? Yeah. New color, new identity. And it really worked.

The team took off and they ended up, their first season wasn't great, but they didn't start to win. And they have become one of the regular top performing teams, which is impressive, because if it's a it's a smaller market. Right. And then you saw a lot of of American MLS teams emulate that model. So you got a lot of rebrands where people were changing their name to, reflect more European style.

And yet new teams coming in the league. So how many United's are there? And so there's, there's Atlanta United, there is Minnesota United. Is there any other United the DC.

Maria: They started as DC United.

Justin: Which is crazy because United does he don't know. He means when two clubs merge they call them United. So if there were two teams that were from the same city and they came together,

Maria: the only way that works is if they did merge all of the lower clubs in their communities, but they're not buying a USL team and then making it an MLS.

Justin: But and then you have teams like, that start to go by football. So, Lafc comes into the league.

Maria: I feel like I feel like that makes sense because of the, like Latino influence. Yeah. And I possibly. But it's not football.

Justin: Football. But in but in LA they already had, extremely popular teams. Galaxy. Yeah. And I don't know I think that it's an eye towards global branding is really part of it, you know, and then you have, Inter Miami Inter.

Justin: Inter Miami. So, so anyway, they Kansas City really started this new move which was a huge shift. So if you look all the way back to NASL, there's the definition of what soccer is now we have to separate ourselves from that negative connotation, and we're going to try.

Maria: The negative Americanized kind of.

Justin: Right. But and I think that that had that did usher in a new era. Right. I think there is a new era, but ultimately it doesn't quite ring authentic for some of the reasons we we mentioned. And I think a lot of people outside of the league, in the country and also internationally, kind of poked fun of that fact because it's still there's a still a lot of idiosyncratic aspects to the sport here and there.

Justin: Now, they went 180 from, we're going to build something that ignores the rest of the world to we're just going to take the names and symbols of the rest of world, not gonna necessarily change what we do. But I think that's the point. It's that now is that people are saying, well, this is kind of a plastic coach, right? It's not you don't really own this history. And I think in reaction, what you're starting to see, ironically, is more appreciation and nostalgia for some aspects of that deeply soccer period.

Maria

Yeah, they're very American. I think there's also I don't it's it's nostalgic. But also are people a little bit less concerned with being cool in a specific kind of way now,

or kind of.

Justin: I don't know. Or or is that as irony and coolness so intertwined? It's like, what is it? You know, did.

Maria: The hipsters of the 20 teens break culture?

Justin: No, we did not.

so what we're looking at here is part of the recent MLS retro kits releases was rerelease of the Kansas City Wizards. And there is a large following for for their old branding and style. And they've kind of adapted it in a way. And I do think there's that whole like, it's so bad, it's good aspect to it and it's so far away.

But I also think it does point to the continual lack of identity of the sport in the country, because this attempt to partially reflect a European model ultimately ring kind of hollow, because it's not. It's still trying to be completely manufactured at once. Yeah. So then a desire to maybe go back to attempts to make this totally American version that didn't work because they weren't really set up in a way to succeed, right?

Yeah. So it just it points to how we're still in this area. So I think that's why even in the US, you have football fans. And now because of television and streaming, if you are a football fan, you can watch soccer every day of the week and never watch an American team. Right? You can see more Premier League games here than you can in England.

It's easier. You can watch all of Syria, La Liga championship, you name it. So they have football fans and there's a lot of them. They outnumber the soccer fans. So yeah. And then and then there's the soccer fans who I think, I think what, what a local. They want a local attachment or there's fans like me who kind of came up in that era

So yeah, there's there's more probably football fans in this country than soccer fans. But I think you get it. So I think that shows how that reflection of the two terms is also or how that distinction and kind of stereotypes of the two terms exists here as well.

And I also think people from outside the country see that as well now, because they also have access to watch Major League Soccer, things like that.

Maria: There has been more interest in it for in the last two years. I don't know why in MLS.

Justin: Yeah, I don't know. Yeah.

Maria: It's almost like why.

Justin: The best player in the world came to retire. I mean, play here for part of the season. So it's let's just recap. Okay. Soccer is a British term. Two. It caught on in the US because it just made sense. There was a popular gridiron football. And you had to make a distinguish. You had to distinguish the two sports or you couldn't talk.

Maria: About it just like they did in the first place.

Justin: Absolutely. Just makes sense. Yeah. Now, I think you can recognize that soccer has, in a large part of the world, grown to mean the American version of the sport, and that there are some distinct aspects to that history. That maybe make people feel negative about it. Right.

Maria: We're trying so hard.

Justin: Trying so hard.

Maria: Trying so hard, guys, we just want to.

Justin; Play and then the last thing I'd say is that that that there's people who use both terms in the country as well. And then finally, I would just say on behalf of the footy museum that tells the story of soccer, just chill out, use both terms. We could just use both terms.

Maria: We have our wonderful tagline.

Justin: That's right. Just use both terms and please, if you see a post of ours and we use the word soccer, don't feel the need to say it's called football.

Maria: It's also called soccer.

Justin: We know, we know, we know. This whole podcast is just to tell you, we know.

So. Real. Real. That truly was the story of football.

Maria: The soccer kind.

Justin: That's right.

Okay. Thank you so much. Check out, the Footy museum.com to read various piece about different kicking sports and their evolution, and to catch up on our podcast and everything we are doing. Wow. Okay. I'm exhausted.

Maria: That's fun though.

Justin: It was fun. All right. Bye. Go, go Burn!