Abby Wambach, what it means to be an American soccer player, and the truth in her "foreign"
Abby Wambach broke the internet last month. The day was a whirlwind for her; teammate tributes, a final Victory Tour match, a remarkable request that we forget her, all while summarily deleting her social media accounts. It was epic, and the attention was well-deserved.
To the sporting news world, though, that was not the biggest moment.
On Bill Simmon's BS Report, Wambach was asked if she could fix the US Men's National Team, what would that entail. She offered a harsh assessment, calling for the firing of helicopter-commuting head coach Jurgen Klinsmann. Even more controversially, she urged Klinsmann to stop recruiting "foreign" players.
That last bit, calling players "foreign," sparked the firestorm.
In today's climate of identity politics and political correctness, I get the knee-jerk outrage. Admittedly, I am often the first one outraged by seemingly xenophobic statements. Abby's statement is different, bluntly, because she is right.
Jurgen's strategy of importing naturalized players is short-sighted. To build an American national team, we need to build American soccer. Anything else is unsustainable.
The problem with Jurgen's system is not just sustainability. The problem is also identity.
The American Soccer Stars
About Abby's statement, Mix Diskerud (a Norwegian-born US player) fired back with a statement of his own, accusing Wambach of disenfranchisement. Thats a bit dramatic.
Ask the average US soccer fan who their favorite US Men's soccer player is and the answer inevitably comes down to two: Dempsey and Donovan. (Kyle Beckerman’s dreadlocks do deserve an honorable mention).
To be clear, the absence of names like Jermaine Jones, Fabian Johnson, Julian Green, Mix Diskerud, and other naturalized players is not because they are bad people or bad players. It is also not because they are foreign born. Heck, Julian Green was born in Tampa, and University of Akron turned Portland Timbers star Darlington Nagbe made his way to America from Liberia.
American fans love Clint Dempsey because they connect with his story and experience. Few will make it to Dempsey’s level, but plenty have piled into minivans for practice, eaten orange slices at half-time, bought a hot dog from a concession stand, and proudly displayed a soccer trophy in their room.
American fans root for Darlington Nagbe because he represents what is best in us; the American dream.
To American fans, consciously or subconsciously, it is not about where you were born, it is about how you identify.
The (American) Soccer Dream
Unlike other major sports, where the pinnacle is professional championships like the World Series, the NBA Finals and the Super Bowl, a soccer player yearns for one team and one dream: The United States National Team winning the world cup.
Somewhere in America right now, a kid is standing above a ball, pretending to kick the world-cup winning goal for the United States.
It would be hard to imagine the younger version of German-born US National Team players preferring the US side to Germany. Germany is where they live, where they grew up, and where they went to school.
And that is the disconnect Mix Diskerud will probably never understand, but one Abby senses because she was one of those kids dreaming of US world cup success. For Mix, Jermaine, Fabian and Julian, the US squad has always been a second choice.
In the land of the free and home of the brave, there is nothing more foreign than that.
