“When I go to a bar or a coffee shop to watch a sports match for one of my favorite teams, I expect to go home happy when my team wins, or sad when I lose it. I don’t understand what a tie means; do I lose feeling and reaction? In basketball, baseball or football games we don’t know a draw, always. There is a winner and a loser, which makes me wonder: Why don't the rules of soccer change to become more exciting and more goals?" These were the words of an American friend in justifying the lack of high popularity of football among Americans, as is the case in the rest of the world!

The lack of popularity of football is linked to mainly American cultural and societal reasons, with what we can call an American exception, at a time when football is the most popular game ever in most countries of the world in its various continents and regions.

The US national soccer team occupies the 16th place in the FIFA rankings, and the team qualified for the second round in the ongoing World Cup in Qatar, and it is expected to do well in what comes next.

However, football is not as popular as football, baseball, or basketball.

And a poll conducted by the "Morning Consult" found that a third of Americans count themselves as football fans, but this proportion rises much to nearly two-thirds among Hispanic Americans.

The lack of popularity of football is linked to mainly American cultural and societal reasons, with what we can call an American exception, at a time when football is the most popular game ever in most countries of the world in its various continents and regions.

To begin with, Americans do not call "Football" as it is called around the world, but rather "Soccer".

Americans have an obsession with being on top, with the vast majority of them believing their country is the country that has fought all its life to be the number one superpower in the world, which it is now.

The American school of thought believes that the "America" ​​of the idea and the "story" is inherently great.

Most Americans believe that they fought in World War I and World War II to obtain complete global domination, and the important point here is that American culture always wants to control everything, and to make sure that it is at the top of the pyramid.

With sports, the matter is not much different. The three most popular sports in the United States are football, baseball, and basketball, and America is the best in the world in each of them.

The United States participated in 18 Olympic Games in which it won 15 gold medals in basketball. The other two sports are not well known to the world, and interest in them may be limited to Americans.

This is how American culture always pushes to be the best in everything, and since they cannot be the best in football, this is probably a good reason for the decline in the popularity of this sport.

Another thing that may seem marginal is evidenced by the size and weight of the players of the most popular sports, and many do not understand the lack of physical determinants above the usual determinants that determine and contribute to the player's efficiency.

There are excellent players of short stature like Argentine Lionel Messi, and there are tall players like Poland's Robert Lewandowski.

Basketball, football, and baseball players have bodies that approach giants in relation to ordinary humans.

Another reason for the unpopularity of soccer in the United States is the depth of American capitalism's greed, and its great control over sports in a different way.

Companies want to get as much money as possible from behind sports, practicing and watching them, and advertising and material sponsorship control sports events greatly, and the main source of income when broadcasting sports events is advertising.

This means that they prefer the sports most suitable for broadcasting ads, and it is no coincidence that these sports are baseball, football and basketball.

The laws of these sports allow them to stop for periods that allow hundreds of commercial breaks to be shown during the broadcast of these matches.

In contrast, soccer only has one half-match break between half-time, and this makes the sport unsuitable for large advertising, which means that the big TV networks will not prioritize it when making broadcast choices.

Many Americans do not like the idea of ​​watching an entire soccer game only to end up goalless.

There has to be a winner, if not then watching the game isn't worth it and losing your time, they say it looks like both teams lost.

One of the most important cultural factors influencing soccer's popularity among Americans is how many view it as a women's sport.

America is one of the major powers in women's soccer, winning the World Cup 3 times, and reaching the final match many times, and this has contributed to making soccer one of the favorite sports for American women to play in the country.

I have been playing football with American friends for the past two decades, so I confirm from personal experience that continues to this day that there is an increase in interest in football, which can double its popularity and social and cultural acceptance.

Fortunately, American culture is constantly changing and non-stop, and fortunately also the large number of immigrants to the United States from football-loving South American countries and from the rest of the world, and we all watched the player Timothy Weah, the son of former international George Weah, the current president of Liberia, score the first America's goals in this World Cup.

I imagine that the children of my immigrants today will give football its due attention and proficiency, especially with the availability of material capabilities and assistance in terms of stadiums, tools, training and fitness, which allows us to expect to see the American team in the final rounds of the next World Cup, and the start will be with the 2026 World Cup, which will be organized by America In partnership with Canada and Mexico.