Soccer’s lingering post-World Cup problem, the new and ugly era of Brady-Belichick, and other thoughts
For all the beauty we saw on the soccer pitch during the World Cup, there's still one critical element holding the game back in the U.S.
First and final thoughts …
By the standards of hospitality, enthusiasm, atmosphere, and drama, the 2026 World Cup was a smashing success throughout the United States. Anyone who was at or in the vicinity of Lincoln Financial Field for any of the six matches there picked up on the magnitude of the event for the 48 participating teams, their fans, and the tournament’s other host cities. As meaningful as it is to cheer on a team from your hometown or home state, that power can’t compare to being invested in a club that represents your home country.
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Now, in the aftermath of Spain’s 1-0 extra-time victory Sunday over Argentina in the championship match, come the inevitable questions: Will this World Cup help soccer gain a greater foothold (no pun intended) in the U.S.? Will it inspire the sport’s leaders here to improve the grass-roots training and development of coaches and players? Will it allow soccer to penetrate the bubble of conversation among casual sports fans in the way that the NFL and, to a lesser extent, Major League Baseball, the NBA, and (once every two years) the Olympics have? Will talk-show hosts start ranting about it? Will certain markets become true hotbeds for Major League Soccer? Late June through mid-July is a relative dead zone in the major-sports calendar here; will people tune in when they have other, more traditional options?
» READ MORE: Want to win a World Cup, America? Start doing better by the kids. And their parents, too.
It’s certainly possible that soccer is finally having its moment in the United States and that its popularity, as women’s basketball’s has in the last several years, will soon surge. But there’s a reason to doubt that it will, or at least a reason to think it will struggle to attract and keep fans, and the reason is about as basic as it gets.
Flopping.
Yes, criticizing soccer players for embellishing injuries lapsed into cliché long ago. The thing about clichés, though, is that they tend to be true, and the cold reality is that flopping’s place in soccer makes the sport less attractive to those who don’t already love it. For all the cracking down that FIFA has done on flopping, a player who bounces up immediately after being taken down on a slide tackle is less likely to draw a foul than one who writhes on the ground as if his opponent had just gone full Kathy Bates-in-Misery on him. Fouls lead to free kicks and set plays, and free kicks and set plays sometimes lead to goals, so any semblance of contact often leads to the kind of overacting that only Nicolas Cage could appreciate. The potential payoff of flopping incentivizes players to do it.
“When it is beneficial,” a 2016 study published in Frontiers of Psychology concluded, “soccer players can and do successfully feign injury to stop the game. Consequently it is possible that others might also successfully feign injury, pain or disease when motivated to do so.”
This aspect of soccer’s culture cuts against one of the strongest attractions people have toward sports: They are witnessing, and want to witness, athletes display physical courage. (It’s worth noting, lest anyone lapse into any insulting gender stereotypes, that female soccer players flop far less often than their male counterparts.) Pelé called soccer “the beautiful game,” and the sport’s experts and aficionados fall back on that phrase often, and it can apply. As evidence, go watch a replay of the gorgeous header pass from Nico Williams that set up Ferran Torres’ World Cup-winning goal. But it’s rare that a soccer team earns praise for its toughness or grit, for the factor that so many fans of football, hockey, and other sports prize in their players.
The quarterback who hangs in the pocket to deliver a deep downfield strike ... the wide receiver who goes over the middle to catch that pass ... the Conn Smythe Trophy winner who can’t lift the Stanley Cup because he separated his shoulder three weeks earlier ... the guard who slashes into the paint and takes an elbow to his or her face from a center 6 inches taller and 40 pounds heavier ... the tired starting pitcher who still wants the ball in the eighth inning ... the figure skater who risks tumbling to the ice for the sake of a triple Salchow — competition is more compelling and the athletes more admired for these qualities and circumstances. Look at the backlash around the NBA against the Oklahoma City Thunder’s foul-hunting style of play, consider Carli Lloyd’s criticism of Christian Pulisic, and you understand the collective-action problem that soccer has to overcome before it will be fully embraced here.
Grow up, GOATs
One is fiddling around with pro wrestling publicity stunts. The other has been fiddling around with a romantic partner 49 years his junior. All this time, everyone thought that Tom Brady and Bill Belichick’s greatest achievement was the six Super Bowls they won together. Turns out, their greatest achievement was that each apparently kept the other from falling into a humiliating midlife crisis.
Domo delivers
Shoutout to longtime Daily News/Inquirer scribe Paul Domowitch, whose new book, Just Give Me a Chance to Fail: The Life of NFL Hall of Fame Linebacker Sam Mills, hits stores next week. If it’s anything like the rest of Domo’s football journalism, the book will be smart, thorough, and impossible to put down.
