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The TIAS Diary Project returns.

While mainstream America media fawns over the game for the next month (not that there is anything wrong with that), I thought it important to return to the people who are always there, no matter no four-year cycle.

First up teenager Shaj Mathew, who found himself not so much questioning his national team after attending the final home game in Philadelphia with some friends, but the environment that surrounds the team in the run-up to its biggest test.

Shaj’s essay begins after the jump. Got a story to tell? Send your Diary Project submissions to thisisamericansoccer@gmail.com.

why do we care what they think?

by Shaj Mathew

On the three-hour trek home to Maryland following the USA’s 2-1 win over Turkey, I caught myself asking my friend Chris what he thought about the game several times, in various iterations of the same question.  Impressed? What do you think of American soccer? Did the game change your opinion?

Of the four of us making the day trip, Chris is the archetypal American sports fan.  He cares little for soccer but has a soft spot for FIFA 10, acquired thanks to many hours productively spent playing the video game with his slightly “Euro-snobbish” friends. That would be the rest of our group: Justin, Brannon, and myself.

Despite the American second half surge, it was readily apparent to Chris that Arda Turan assaulted our back line with impunity, and that Jonathan Spector, well, let’s just say Chris thought he had a rough first half.  I felt disappointed in our performance, but his disappointment upset me more. The atmosphere, magnified under the lens of nationalism (and alcohol) did leave him impressed though, but that was a small consolation.

But why did I care what Chris thought in the first place?

Granted, his FIFA skills are decent, but his knowledge of soccer is limited to clueless 30-second SportsCenter clips. And if he took us to a Redskins game, he wouldn’t feel bad if the team played poorly (like always). Perhaps at the core of every American soccer fan’s existence is a certain need for affirmation. American soccer fans care too much about what everyone from the average American to the global football expert thinks of us.

We’re improving. No one takes us lightly anymore. A slowly budding soccer power.

Those are the things we want to believe.

This sort of insecurity gives birth to headlines like, “How Did the English Press Rate Landon Donovan’s Everton Debut?” and “Media Reaction to Landon Donovan vs. Chelsea.” We exulted in Landon Donovan’s overwhelmingly positive display in Toffee blue—just check out the comments sections in those articles—because Donovan, the emblem of American soccer, earned the praise of those whose opinions, in our minds, matter more than our own.

Very recently, Ives Galarcep posted CBS’s portrait of Donovan, manufactured for the American masses, on his popular blog.  He admits that “die-hards won’t learn anything [from the interview],” but notes that “it’s still interesting to see these profiles that are clearly made for folks who have yet to catch on to the growing soccer craze in this country.” Ives calls it a curiosity, but the fact of the matter is that we are acutely aware of CBS’s—and our country’s—perception of the state of American soccer, as if the opinion of our less-informed countrymen, rather than the quality of our play, determines the success of our team.

The CBS interviewer, Jeff Glor, states, “For serious soccer fans [read: us], what got Donovan the most attention was his highly successful stint this winter playing for Everton of the ultra-competitive and ultra-exclusive English Premier League.”  He’s dead on. But why?

Donovan’s foray abroad represented a rare instance—the success of Brian McBride and Clint Dempsey at Fulham notwithstanding—in which there was “a real energy and respect between the fans and [the American player].” Or, as President Obama likes to say, Donovan’s time in England illustrated a foreign policy of “mutual interest and mutual respect.”

Glor continues, spot on, remarking that “fans who are…predisposed to not like American players, by the end of it, they’re chanting—in the vein of USA—You Must Stay!” Donovan calls earning that respect “incredible.” Our appetite for affirmation whetted, American outlets universally hailed his loan a wild success.

We indulge in the praise our players receive from coaches or foreign journalists, but we take any criticism as a personal affront. Our motto is “Don’t Tread on Me,” a symbol of the American independence struggle. Plain and simple, we are an aggrieved people. After the Turkey game, The Washington Post’s Steve Goff excerpted a contentious bit from English paper The Telegraph on his blog:

“Donovan and Dempsey can be a handful up front if given encouragement. Behind them, America is a land of opportunity for England.”

Cue righteous indignation in the comments section.

TIAS itself used to feature a column called The Barometer—a recurring piece used to gauge American soccer’s progress. But for American soccer fans, every little thing is a barometer. The size of the crowd is a barometer. American media attention swooning over the World Cup  is a barometer.  What Chris thought of the game is a barometer.

And that’s the problem: We need to stop fretting about assessing where we are so much and divert our energies into figuring out ways to improve the standard of our play. In turn, this better performance on the pitch leads to more approval from the audience we seek to impress. I am, by no means, calling for the end of rigorous analysis of the future of American soccer; however, I simply reject any notion that the perception of others—from home or abroad—should play more than an ancillary role in our self-evaluation.

After all, the one-word chant we hear inside the stadium—and in Justin’s basement after a particularly heated FIFA session—is what matters most: “Scoreboard.”

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