Columnist Dean Juipe: Appeal of soccer broad and limited

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, June 19, 2002 | 9:44 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

There's a reason soccer is the most popular sport in the world and it has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

It's basic, elementary economics: Soccer is a sport that requires nothing more than a ball, and in many parts of the world scrounging up a ball is a challenge that can be met.

It's also a sport in which the most rudimentary of physical attributes -- stamina and the ability to run being foremost among them -- is, potentially at least, shared by a majority of a populace.

When it comes to soccer there's no significant advantage in being tall, in being muscular or in having superhuman hand-eye coordination. If you can jog and are willing to occasionally let the ball rattle off your head, you, too, have what it takes to play soccer.

Not that I dislike soccer. When UNLV has a decent team, I've been known to take in a game.

But I'm not buying into this World Cup hoopla, even if nine-tenths of the globe is awash in it.

Besides, how legitimate can a tournament be when a team -- such as the U.S. -- can actually advance to the quarterfinals with a loss? The U.S. went 1-1-1 in the Group D preliminaries, losing the finale of that series to Poland, yet was rewarded with a berth in the second round at a time when banishment seemed more apropos.

The Americans then beat Mexico and will next face Germany on Friday. They're a long shot to get any further, unless the curious practice of losing and advancing comes back into play -- which, we trust, it won't.

Yet the media is infatuated with this country's supposed -- and sudden -- interest in the sport, and it's an unavoidable subject no matter how you get your fix. Nonetheless, I'll predict a return to normalcy once the U.S. team is eliminated.

Soccer captivates millions of people the world over, there's no doubt about it. But these are people who, in many cases, don't have the money to afford bats and gloves for baseball; stanchions and hoops for basketball; gloves and pads for hockey; or even wickets for cricket or mallets for croquet.

Yet no matter how strapped you are for cash or some sort of bartering collateral, you and your colleagues can probably find something to suffice as a soccer ball. Heck, in Afghanistan they use a donkey's head or something, and I guess that's all you really need.

Hence, the world's most popular sport was born.

But soccer will never be too much bigger in this country than it presently is today, simply because Americans have experienced better. I mean, soccer will always be a good way to keep the kids occupied on a Saturday, and for that parents will be forever grateful.

But where's the strategy? The intrigue? I know soccer experts say it's there, but all I see are a bunch of guys knocking a ball around the middle of a field and, with apologies to Senegal's supposedly daring team, only rarely imposing much of a scoring threat on their equally passive opposition.

Simplicity is the key to soccer's success and simplicity is its downfall as well. I'd recommend accepting and appreciating it for what it is without whipping yourself into a furor or a public frenzy.

But don't think or believe soccer is The Next Big Thing. It's a game that appealed to cavemen and, with all due respect, it always will.