Call it the World Cup of arguments: whether the sport is properly called “soccer” or “football.”
On Monday in Brazil, the United States men’s soccer team will kick off against Ghana. But already the mere word we Americans use to describe this sport is raising accusations of Yankee imperialism.
The idea is that America should get with the program and call it “football” like most of the rest of the world.
There’s even a professor to back it up.
Just in time for the World Cup, the University of Michigan’s Stefan Szymanski released a paper in which he describes world reaction to our use of the word “soccer” this way: “Many seek to associate American use of the word with alleged American imperialism and cultural hegemony.”
This is richly ironic. For one thing, as the good professor points out, the word “soccer” originated in Britain. For another, insisting on “football” doesn’t get you away from imperialism.
“Foot” and “ball” are English — and “futbol” is merely bastardized English.
Indeed, simply by calling itself the Fédération Française de Football, the nation of Joan of Arc and Charles de Gaulle is surrendering to the language of the Anglo-Saxon.
We have a solution, borrowed from Down Under. There, they have two different kinds of football — what we Americans call soccer, and footy, or “Australian rules” football.
So we’re willing to give up “soccer.”
Provided the world agrees to call what the NFL plays “America Rules” — and what they play at the World Cup “UN Rules.”