Your Natterer has a soccer pedigree that dates back to the late 1970’s, when my father and I used to watch the Public Broadcasting System program “Soccer Made in Germany,” hosted by the inimitable Toby Charles. The show took 90-minute games played in the German Bundesliga and made them into 60-minute expanded highlight shows.

This was during the time when Franz Beckenbauer was inventing the modern sweeper position for Bayern Munich and ‘Der Kaiser’ was earning recognition as the best German soccer player of all time. Charles, an Englishman, defined the role of outspoken soccer announcer that is still prevalent today. Errant shots or poor plays were followed by Charles saying, “Ooh, that was a bad one.” Charles also made sweeping generalizations such as “All Austrian goalkeepers tend to stray too far from goal,” which my father and I laughed about for years. Soccer at that point was equal parts admiration of great athletes and something to do on a quiet Saturday night.

In the early 1980’s soccer became an integral part of my professional life as assistant athletic director at St. Louis University. Our head soccer coach was Harry Keough, now 82 years old and still going strong, and a legend in the sport. Keough was a member of the 1950 World Cup Team that defeated England 1-0 and by the time I met him, had won five NCAA Division I Soccer titles as head coach of the SLU Billikens. If you are interested, a Billiken is a mythical elf-like character that represents the way things ought to be. I couldn’t make that up.

I had been on the job for about three weeks when Keough stopped by the office and gave me an hour long primer on the rules of soccer. We covered the offside rule and the offside trap among other technical elements of the game, concepts which I still recall when I cover Coronado High School soccer games.

Keough was unique among big-time coaches at the collegiate level. He simply recruited the sons of the men he played soccer with from the St. Louis area. As such, the program didn’t have a recruiting budget. Harry would also play any team, anywhere to help assist in the promotion of their program and the sport of soccer. Harry, a two-time Olympian and a member of the Soccer Hall of Fame, was still playing indoor soccer in a couple of leagues in St. Louis when he was in his late 50’s.

While watching St. Louis University soccer, I learned how frustrating the sport can be on occasion. One night we hosted a team from Cleveland State, and despite having better players, controlling the ball 80 percent of the time and having shots hit each upright and crossbar on both ends of the field, SLU lost the game 1-0.

It was that level of frustration that came flooding back last week while watching the U.S. squad battle bravely during the World Cup in South Africa. I watched every game the Americans played and parts of a few other games, including all 90 minutes of Brazil vs. Portugal. I served considerable time with the ubiquitous vuvuzelas (South African air horn) and lived to tell about it, an experience only slightly less annoying that listening to Maria Sharapova shriek every time she strikes a tennis ball at Wimbledon.

At the outset, let’s take America out of the equation and talk about the game in general, using the game featuring No. 1 Brazil vs. No. 3 Portugal as our starting point. In the first half of play, the referees yellow-carded (warned for rough play) Portugal seven times and Brazil three. Portugal kept six players in the box to thwart any chance Brazil had to score, while Portuguese forward Cristiano Ronaldo countered with solo runs downfield as their lone offensive component.  

The score at the end of the game was 0-0, because that result allowed both teams to advance to the knock out round. For the last several minutes of the game Brazil passed the ball lethargically among themselves in the midfield, playing keep away from the Portuguese, who didn’t really care. I felt cheated and wanted the last two hours of my life back. How would you like to have paid to see that in person?

Regarding the announcers in the games I watched, often they were the most entertaining part of the broadcast, following closely in the Toby Charles tradition. One announcer called a player ‘effervescent.’ I’m still assessing that word choice. A different announcer, after two shots were attempted on goal about 10 seconds apart shouted, “They’re raining shots on goal.” I guess all things are relative. A third announcer, a Scottish color analyst, had a brogue so thick that he was incomprehensible. I went the entire game understanding every other word he said.

Here are a couple of semi-comic soccer thoughts, before relaying a couple of semi-serious ones. First, the gloves now in vogue for goalies to wear during games are so large, they remind me of the mitts worn by Mickey Mouse. Second, I know one-name only athletes are in vogue in Brazil, but the dude with ‘Juan’ on his uniform doesn’t separate him much from the crowd in the Spanish, or in his case Portuguese, speaking world.  

Third, soccer needs to either add an additional referee, much the way the National Hockey League has done, or allow instant replay. In Sunday’s World Cup play, one referee missed a goal by England and another spectacularly misjudged an offside call that resulted in a goal for Argentina in their win over Mexico. FIFA, the governing body of soccer, essentially said that mistakes are part of the game and didn’t plan to change anything.  

Now for a couple of serious soccer thoughts. The U.S. simply doesn’t have the offensive talent to compete at the very top of international play. The on-ball skills of our offensive players trail the rest of the world. At critical times the Americans hesitate oh so slightly before a attempting a critical pass or taking a shot on goal. That fraction of a second allows the defender to interrupt the play or permits the goalie to block the shot. Our forwards can’t create their own shots and that is a huge minus for the U.S.

It appears to me that the skills of the international-level defensive players exceed those of the offensive players with a few exceptions. The extremely offensive gifted players such as Kaka and Ronaldinho of Brazil, Keisuke Honda of Japan, Lionel Messi and Carlos Tevez of Argentina, or the aforementioned Cristiano Ronaldo, can beat a defender off the dribble and create offensive chances for themselves and their teammates. Landon Donovan appears to be the most skilled of the Americans, but passing is his forte, not on-ball skills.

The U.S. has athletes who are soccer players. The leading soccer-playing nations have soccer players who have been playing the game for most of their waking hours since they were able to walk. Our players probably have a greater capacity to be well-adjusted members of society. Theirs are just better soccer players.

There are two soccer rules changes that I would like to see instituted. The first, once the ball crosses the mid-field line in possession of the offense, it can’t be passed back over the midfield line or the offense would lose the ball. Think of it as the same concept as the ‘over-and-back call’ in basketball. This would eliminate the time-wasting business on display in the Brazil vs. Portugal contest.

The second would be to do away with the offside rule and open up the game for more scoring. My first rule change suggestion would benefit the defense, while the abolition of offside would open the game up considerably offensively. In most of the recent World Cup games which don’t feature the great players or the great teams, and there were several, the defense is light years ahead of the offense. This would also benefit the match referees at all levels, who are consistent in their inconsistency in calling this rule.

While doing research for this column, I came across an article dated April 13, 2010, by Jonathan Wilson from England’s “Manchester Guardian” entitled, ‘The Question: Why is the modern offside law a work of genius?’ We may be bucking too many years of soccer tradition to make that change happen soon, but it still needs to be considered. Hockey opened up their game when the center red line was no longer used to determine a two-line pass. Change is sometimes beneficial in the world of sports.

As for the future of the game in America, since the 1970’s people have been investing money in professional soccer leagues that flamed and died. The rationale was, ‘With so many kids playing soccer, we’ll have a market for the game in the U.S.’ Apparently kids playing soccer doesn’t translate into adults paying to watch soccer. San Diego led all major U.S. television markets in the number of people watching the Americans play in the World Cup. Watching free television coverage every four years also doesn’t equate to paying to watch soccer in person.

Until American soccer has its version of Michael Jordan, someone every soccer playing kid can look up to for his magical touch on the ball and will sell t-shirts and posters by the millions, permanent soccer interest will be hard to sustain. And while he’s at it, he must lift his World Cup team into legitimate contention and compete on the Kaka, Messi, and Ronaldo rarified skill level. Until that happens, and I suspect that it eventually will, we’ll have periodic spikes of interest in the ‘beautiful game,’ but nothing that can be sustained.

We may have already had our one-in-every-two generation female player in Mia Hamm (now Garciaparra). Hamm, as great a player as she was, wasn’t able to permanently advance her game to new heights or sustain a women’s professional league.

I know when the breakout player that leads American soccer finally emerges, Harry Keough will be proud. Hopefully that player won’t have to learn the offside rule.