Daniel deRoos

Professor Arnold
UWRT 1101
December 7, 2015
Ethnography Final Draft
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 (A Brief History of 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 in soccer, are made
between others in various 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 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 longer. 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.
The media has exploded around the world when a famous soccer player is
playing and focuses on that one player. This one player is thought to be what
soccer is all about but what most people watching soccer dont know, is that
the famous soccer players like Cristiano Ronaldo is getting paid handsomely
to fall down and receive a foul based on acting. 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.

One of my favorite soccer players of all times would have to be Lionel

Messi. I watched a documentary of the beginning of his career which took off
right after he scored his first goal for Barcelona. Messi started to play

professional soccer for Barcelona when he was 17 years old. In his first 5
years of playing for Barcelona, Messi had scored 50 goals, and by the next
two years, he had scored 65 more. To me, Lionel Messi is how soccer should
be played. He is a very aggressive and physical player who is willing to
compete for every ball that comes near him. He has won the golden Boot, a
highly prestigious award for professional soccer and the Ballon DOr, 4 years
in a row. This award is the same as being the MVP of the entire NFL or
league. Messi is why I play and strive to be like when I play soccer. He is a
very smart player and does not go down or seek out fouls by acting. Lionel is
a role model for soccer fans to look up to.

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. The act of getting outside
or inside and having some sort of physical exercise is what makes soccer
such a great sport where chemistry can be created with friends and family.
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 miniscule
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.
Soccer may not be for everyone around the world, but should not be
judged without knowledge of the game. All of the crowd and fans are very
similar across all sports in the world. The fans root for the team and hope
they win. Some sports may not be as popular as others, but most sports
cannot be compared due to the various ways to play each sport. Through
great chemistry with teammates and coaches, soccer can be thought of as a
harder sport and should be. The physicality of the sport cannot be compared
to football, but should not be thought of as a weak sport as most people
could not play the game well and as physical as it was designed to be.

"A Brief History of Soccer." A Brief History of Soccer. N.p., n.d. Web. 13. Nov. 2015.