Club America and Pachuca won’t be there.

Two of Mexico’s prominent club teams canceled a July 7th friendly at the University of Phoenix stadium in response to Arizona’s immigration bill signed into law last month.

The decision by the Mexican clubs means that the football stadium loses a crucial summer revenue opportunity. In 2007, 62,000 fans showed up to the stadium for a meaningless “friendly” between the United States and Mexico. For Club America and Pachuca, you might have seen a similar number.

This news event highlights both the challenges facing soccer/futbol in the United States and it’s probable success. I know Franklin Foer said this already, but Soccer in the USA is on the side of the “modernity project.” In a recent paper, Pippa Norris and Ron Ingelhardt identify five key elements of the modernity project:

more secular
more tolerant sexual attitudes
less nationalistic
more politically engaged
more accepting of “free market” values

This modernity project is tied to what are commonly and simplistically described as Western values: openness, tolerance, embrace of diversity, an embrace of neo-liberal capitalism, democratic governance, etc. They find that the nations of the “developed West” are moving rapidly towards this model.

Often, these values cut across local norms and traditions. They are indifferent to borders. With respect to immigration, if an undocumented immigrant can do the job for less than a US citizen with little risk of sanction for breaking the law on the part of the employer, then the market produces strong incentives to hire that worker. As it relates to soccer, if 62,000 people want to watch a “foreign” game, then there are strong incentives to put that game on.

Say what you want about how “nobody cares about soccer in the US,” but look at the list of European and South American teams visiting the United States to play “friendlies” against Major League Soccer (USA league) sides.

Matches & Scores:

-Wed May 19
New England Revolution v Benfica (Portugal)
Venue: Gillette Stadium in Foxborough MA

-May 19-22
Sister Cities International Cup
-Wed May 19
Chicago Fire v Paris Saint-Germain (France)
Legia Warsaw (Poland) v Red Star Belgrade(Serbia)
-Sat May 22
2 Winners play for cup
2 Losers play for pride
Venue: Toyota Park – Bridgeview IL

-Sun May 23
New York Red Bulls v Juventus (Italy)
Venue: Red Bull Arena
Los Angeles Galaxy v Boca Juniors (Argentina)
Venue: Home Depot Center – Carson CA

-Wed May 26
DC United v AC Milan (Italy)
Venue: RFK Stadium
Seattle Sounders v Boca Juniors (Argentina)
Venue: Qwest Field – Seattle WA

-Sun May 30
Chicago Fire v AC Milan (Italy)
Venue: Toyota Park

-Sat Jun 12
Sacramento Cup
Chivas USA v San Jose Earthquakes
Venue: Raley Field – West Sacramento CA

-Sun Jun 13
New England Revolution v Cruzeiro (Brazil)
Venue: Gillette Stadium – Foxborough MA

-Sat Jun 19
DC United v El Salvador (national team)
Venue: RFK Stadium – Washington DC

???June ???
New York Red Bulls v Cruzeiro (Brazil)
Venue: Red Bull Arena

-Wed Jul 14
Philadelphia Union v Glasgow Celtic (Scotland)
Venue: PPL Park – Chester PA

-Fri Jul 16
Celtic v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Rogers Center – Toronto ON

-Sat Jul 17
San Jose Earthquakes v Tottenham (England)
Venue: Buck Shaw Stadium

-Sun Jul 18
Seattle Sounders v Celtic (Scotland)
Venue: Qwest Field – Seattle WA

-Wed Jul 21
Philadelphia Union v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Lincoln Financial Field – Philadelphia PA
Toronto FC v Bolton (England)
Venue: BMO Field – Toronto ON

-July 22-25
New York Football Challenge
New York Red Bulls
Manchester City (England)
Tottenham (England)
Sporting Lisbon (Portugal)
Venue: Red Bull Arena

-Sun Jul 25
Kansas City Wizards v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Arrowhead Stadium – Kansas City MO

-Wed Jul 28
MLS All-Star Game
MLS All Stars v Manchester United (England)
Venue: Reliant Stadium – Houston TX

The increased flows of people, ideas, and technologies has made it easier for people to move across borders, but more importantly it has made it easier for the games those people love to follow them. This fluidity makes it harder for individuals to maintain and preserve “culture” and tradition. To the extent that sport is a reflection of parochial interests, “foreign” games pose a threat to those deeply held traditions. I put foreign in quotes because soccer has a tradition in the United States that as old as football and basketball but it never made the crossover into mainstream fandom (see Andrei Markovitz for why this is).

I think that both Arizona’s (an the nation’s) response to immigration and some people’s hatred of soccer in the U.S. are largely cut from a similar cloth…. a discomfort with the modernity project. One response might be that this is all high-falutin’ professor speak and that soccer is simply too slow and boring. Possible, but no other sport produces the vitriol that soccer does among sports writers and commentators on blogs. Heck, there’s even an entire website devoted to “saving the world” from the game.

Hyperbolic hatred of this sport in the USA, I think, is the result of in perceived intrusion upon a group’s desire to create their own cultural norms. The decision to go watch “the footy” on a summer Saturday is a direct rejection of a time honored tradition of watching the “ball game.” In the same way that some are offended by undocumented immigration because it curtails a group’s ability to define who is a member and who is not.

In both cases, however, the weight of the modernity project is strong. Ingelhardt and Norris find that modernity does not replace local culture, but it modifies it. They caution that “Sweden is not in the process of becoming America, nor is the U.S. becoming Sweden.” It doesn’t eliminate local culture, but it forces societies to reckon with it.

The USA will accept soccer, but will give it its own provincial touches. We’ll have an “MLS Cup” cause’ that’s how we roll! We have a “draft” where teams select college players, because that’s what the NFL does. We have an “Eastern” and “Western” conference, dammit! And absolutely, positively, no promotion and relegation!!

HT to Chuck D for the title