Soccer in the States is pretty much the poor step-sibling of American football, basketball and baseball. So when you first arrive, its a bit hard to understand why everyone here (and in the rest of the world) loves it so much.
Journey into a pub during a Saturday afternoon and you'll find yourself surrounded by passionate (read: drunk & rowdy) football fans clad in their favorite team's colors shouting incoherently at the telly. It might be a bit overwhelming the first time you witness football fandom. But once you've picked a team, preferably the same one everyone else in the pub is rooting for, the games become more fun. They also begin to remind you of American football fanaticism - minus the threat of being stabbed for supporting the wrong team.
But if you somehow managed to visit your local and still haven't joined the football cult, a footie match is sure to change that. Live and in person, the little men running around on the TV don't seem so boring. You'll find yourself caught up in the hysteria of it all and may actually find yourself liking the game. By the end of the match, you'll know all the words to the team's song (well, at least the ones that you could decipher!) and will have given the ref and a few of the away players a two-finger salute.
Once you leave football world, you may never watch a match again due to the shame of knowing that for a few hours you will actually have loved soccer and understand what all of the fuss is about. Its alright. Football fandom happens.
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