The New York Times Agrees: American Soccer Is Too Suburban

The Times today features a top of the front-page story on the making of soccer players in Brazil, from the slums of Rio—”the unpaved road to excellence.” Combine this with Henry Kissinger’s critique that American players are too suburban and middle class, and you have the conventional wisdom solidifying in the wake of the U.S. disaster in Germany. Of course, people have been trying to change U.S. soccer culture for years. Will the daytime broadcast of the ’06 World Cup, said to be up 28 percent up over ’02, change things?