June 16, 2006 9:52AM 

# America & Soccer 

By [Jerry Taylor](https://www.cato.org/people/jerry-taylor) 

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The “Lexington” column in this week’s *Economist* features a [now-standard riff](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/069107447X/002-8212977-0436069?v=glance&n=283155) about how curious and revealing it is that America eschews the world’s pastime. The twist: The world resents the hell out of us for this.

But would “the world” really be happier if America took this game seriously and, as a consequence, cut through their footballers like a hot knife through butter? I doubt it. The only way to make “the world” happy would be if we cared a lot about soccer and lost a lot at soccer. Anything else would simply feed the insatiable anti-America hate machine.

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