By Cesar Diaz - Harrison, NJ (Sep 28, 2011) US Soccer Players -- With all the coverage that’s invested in various soccer leagues worldwide, it’s easy to forget that the United States has a soccer history of its own. Whether or not many in the audience recognized it, that point was stressed by last week's US Open Cup final. Though the teams playing in Seattle haven't been around as long as the storied names in English club soccer, they were participating in a tournament that's almost a hundred years old.
While our history may not be as illustrious as some of the European and South American leagues and clubs, it’s nevertheless unique and interesting. The American soccer story centers in cities and the large ethnic populations that called them home. St Louis ranks as one of the most important, arguably the most important, and without question once the hotbed for American soccer.
Author and longtime St Louis soccer writer Dave Lange’s Soccer Made in St. Louis: A History of the Game in America’s First Soccer Capital tells that story.
By breaking the 200-plus page book into four eras, Lange was able to explain how socially, intellectually, politically, and economically soccer was shaped in St Louis throughout the decades. With soccer being a global sport that it was, Lange also did a marvelous job in educating the reader of the tactics that some of the clubs used. Remember, we're talking about the city that produced several members of the 1950 World Cup squad, so what was happening with the clubs in St Louis helped determine how that squad played in Brazil.
His intensive research of the rise and cultural impact soccer had in St. Louis was impressive because along with the covering the professional teams, he also discussed how soccer was instrumental in the growth of youth, collegiate, women’s soccer, and the US National Team many of us follows today. Lange meticulous research for the book will even educate the soccer fans who are already familiar with the city's role in American Soccer.
Then there's the trivia. Lange answers the question of which soccer team was the first in the world to wear numbers on their jerseys. Without spoiling it, let's just assume they were from St Louis and it happened five years before an English club would adopt the practice.
We also learn about Tom Cahill, educated in St Louis and the person who organized the United States Football Federation. We know that organization better as the United States Soccer Federation. Though it didn't happen in St Louis, Cahill would be the first coach of the US National Team and the originator of the American Soccer League.
Cahill was also an originator for taking teams on tour, both the National Team and club teams. Those tours were the template for St Louis clubs taking their brand of soccer on the road. That's an important aspect of the St Louis soccer story, with the cities clubs familiar with styles of soccer from all over the world through firsthand experience.
While Lange does an admirable job taking the reader through the history of St Louis soccer, his book is more than about what was. Setting aside any nostalgia for the bygone era in his city, he turns to what soccer in St Louis could be. Considering that history, maybe that's 'should be.' By clearly outlining that St. Louis is no longer the nation’s soccer capital that it once was, Lange does offer some ideas on how the city can make a professional return in soccer.
He believes that the while St. Louis may have been pivotal in the growth of American Soccer, it has failed to learn from other cities such as Kansas City in order to remain a force. Kansas City didn't have an easy road with MLS, drawing sparse crowds in an oversized football stadium and spending time in an independent league baseball stadium before opening a soccer-specific venue this season. St Louis was never given that chance, unable to hold onto a lower division club.
What we're left with is an interesting case study, a once major city seeing reduced population and reduced opportunities for the sport it helped foster. By taking his story into the present and immediate future, Lange has contemporized the story.
If you’re a writer with any aspirations of writing a soccer book about your area, Dave Lange’s book is the model to follow. Through extensive research and interviews, he's created a book that is of general and not just local interest. This isn't because he's universalized the story of soccer in St Louis - far from it. Instead, his synthesis work draws in the reader. Just how much synthesis is evident in the appendixes where the reader is able to track the daunting number of teams and players that factored in St Louis.
Whether St. Louis has a professional club in the near future remains to be seen. If there’s one lesson that Dave Lange’s book teaches us it's that while America’s past may not be a regular topic of discussion, the history is there to be uncovered.
Cesar Diaz is a Columnist for USSoccerPlayers.com. In addition, he covers soccer for LatinoSports.com and 5 Points Press. Easily accessible, you may contact Cesar atcesar@latinosports.com and at Twitter @CoveringSoccer.
