Daniel deRoos

Professor Arnold
UWRT 1101
November 16, 2015
Ethnography Zero Draft Report
Over the course of many years, the sport of futbol, or soccer, has
grown rapidly in a numerous amount of countries around the world.
Beginning in Asia about 3000 years ago, different version of soccer formed to
become what we now know as modern soccer. As the most watched and
played sport in the world, soccer is a way for players, coaches, fans, and
anyone interested to enjoy some entertainment. The physicality of the sport,
combined with the technical skills needed is the difference between good
and great players. Connections are made between others in forms of
friendships or enemies/rivals. Only by watching, playing, or following the
sport can someone be able to understand the greatness that comes from this
great sport.

I have been playing soccer for the past 14 years of my life. Growing up
with family and friends who also played the sport allowed me to excel and
become very good due to my massive desire for competition. A downfall
towards playing soccer is playing it growing up in the United States because

it not nearly as popular as baseball or American football. Therefore, soccer

does not get the respect that it deserves when compared to other sports
which are more physical or have been there for so much more. Most people
that I have had conversations with about soccer that do not play soccer say
that it is a gay sport, and that everyone is so weak because they fall over
after be touched and flop or fall. Soccer is much bigger than what they say.
My response is dont say that everyone does this just because they watched
a professional game and saw someone fall just to try and receive and call.
The physicality of the sport has drifted from the eyes of the viewers and now,
soccer is known as a weak sport amongst people I have talked with about it.
Homogeneity cannot be stated for something so large such as a sport
because not everyone plays, views, or likes the game the same way as
others. The difference in styles of play is what makes soccer a great sport to
watched and be entertained with, and play.

In the present time, soccer is played almost everywhere in the world,

whether a soccer ball is used, or tightly wrapped plastic bags, people enjoy
having fun while kicking a ball with other people. When playing, players tend
to think as themselves, different from their teammates and coaches, but at
the same time, think as a team and cooperate with others to make a team
sport. A friend of mine, Hall McPherson, played soccer for his high school
soccer team, Bandys high school in North Carolina, and said, Soccer is not
just a sport where there are 11 different people that play on the same team,

but a team where 11 players work together as one with great chemistry to
excel in any game that they play. He went on to talk about how if chemistry
between your teammates and yourself is not present, then you are truly not
a team. Once chemistry is formed, then a team is found and molded by other
people such as fans, coaches, and other players to work as one.

Soccer is often compared and matched up against American football.

On the physicality part, strength part, memory part, and overall athletic
abilities part, many believe that American football is the winner for each of
these. I think that it is very hard to compare these two sports to begin with
as one is many plays planned out carefully and start from a line, while one is
fast thinking and happens constantly for 90 minutes straight with no
timeouts. True, football players are usually stronger than soccer players, but
they also wear much more gear and pads than soccer players. Football
players can tackle the ball carrier head on and a full tackle, while soccer
players can only tackle a player with the ball in a way where they end up
with the ball and do not use their hands while tackling a player. A tackle from
the side, a body check, is the most common form of tackle for soccer, which
pushes the opponent off of the ball allowing you to steal it for yourself. These
forms of tackling cannot be compared to one another, implying that one
sport cannot be compared to another due to the fact that they are all so
vastly different in many ways from each other. People who do not play soccer
tend to think that it is a weak sport because they are uncertain of the rules

and gameplay and compare American football to it. Also, from the outside
audience who do not know much about soccer, only shin guards are worn as
protection for the body. A tackle will hurt really bad due to this meniscal
amount of padding, provided it was a good tackle.
While we cannot compare football to soccer as a whole sport, they do
have similarities such as scoring more points than the opposing team to win,
work as a team, and a sport many people can get behind. The audience, the
essence of the game and what gives most of the energy to the players to
play their hardest and best. Without an audience or fans to cheer on their
teams, players will lack motivation and not strive to be the best that they
can be. For soccer, the fans say and sing chants and scream words of
encouragement to their team, or words or disgust towards the opposing
team. Among the fans is a very large and diverse set of people. Ranging from
kids at times who love to run around the bleachers or sidelines and not even
watch the game, to older more mature people who either watch and enjoy
the game or talk with other people who go to games just like a cocktail hour.
I observed a soccer game for both the mens and womens soccer team at
the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, but mainly focused my
attention on the fans and crowd that came to see the college athletes play.
For the womens game, they were playing the gamecocks from the University
of South Carolina, and the Mens team played Radford College. For the
womens game, there were about three times as many Charlotte fans than
there were USC fans.

Amongst most of the visiting fans, many were parents of the players
for USC, while there were also some college kids who drove to cheer on their
team in person and created a little student section. The particular student
section would laugh, cheer, and scream chants for their schools team while
the parents would watch the game mostly with an occasional chiming in on
the chants. The fathers generally watched the game for every second that
the ball was active while the mothers generally socialized and gossiped the
latest news with each other about what they heard since the last time they
saw each other. I didnt sit close enough to these ladies to hear exactly what
they were talking about but could hear the occasional laugh and No way!.
For the Charlotte fans, there were many more people than USC due to
the fact that it was a home game and our spirit was much greater than
USCs. Just like the USC fans, many of Charlotte fans were parents and
college students who came out to support their school and athletes. Also,
there were more kids that ran around, racing each other up the steps to see
who was the fastest. There rarely turned to watch the game that was going
on behind them. The parents were the same as the parents at USC, and the
student section was too, just greater numbers. The similarities that really
stood out to me about soccer fans were how if someone on the field did a
good play or something was called poorly, the fans would either be very
proud and happy or mad at how bad of a call the referee just made. The men
were the loudest when this happened, while the women were not as loud
because they missed what was happening due to them chatting it up with

one another. Just like every sport, fans are wild and super protective of the
team that they are there for. The mens team was the same as the womens
but more attendance because the mens games are usually faster pace and
more physical and to me, more entertaining to watch compared to womens.