Viva La Revolucion!

New England's pro soccer team is winning its games, but how can it get people to care? The new approach: Speak Spanish

by Michelle Chihara

From Rio to London, soccer brings millions upon millions of people to paroxysms of joy and despair. It's the most popular of all games -- everywhere except here. In the United States, the word "soccer" evokes 11-year-olds and mini-vans. "Soccer is a sport in America," says Fernando Clavijo. "In Central and South America, in Europe, soccer is life."

Clavijo was hired last November as coach of the New England Revolution, which is really two jobs: one, to turn around a struggling professional soccer team; and two, to help Major League Soccer infect America with the fútbol bug.

Americans have so far proved highly resistant. The last professional soccer league in the US went belly-up in 1984. The current league, MLS, was launched amid great fanfare after the 1994 World Cup -- and although its sponsors are still optimistic, the league is looking at stagnant attendance and more than $90 million in total losses. Despite a less-than-stellar record in their first few seasons, the New England Revolution maintained the highest average attendance figures in the league until last year, when attendance dropped from more than 20,000 per game to 16,735. This year, it's been hovering under 15,000. If New England, which is widely accepted as having one of the biggest
soccer-savvy fan bases in America, can't hack it, then the whole league worries.

So the Revolution are taking an approach that's unusual, at least in major-league American sports: they're turning Hispanic. Clavijo has already recruited a young Costa Rican forward and a Bolivian midfielder, and he's giving his Colombian forward more time on the field. Six players, out of a roster of 22, speak Spanish as a first language. A team that began with a distinctly Irish or British flavor has now, unequivocally, gone south of the border.

The front office has kept pace by reaching out to the Hispanic community. The team kicked off its season with a Latin American business night. It's started a series of weekly interviews with players on Hispanic radio stations. And it's launched a Spanish-language Internet radio show, with color commentator Joel Pava. Almost a dozen Hispanic reporters now regularly show up in Foxboro Stadium's press box, compared to the four who covered the team's first season. As of this year, the Revolution's official sponsor is not Nike or Adidas but the Mexican sportswear giant Atletica.

The world over, it often seems that "globalization" is a euphemism for the colonization of the planet by American culture. But in this one corner of professional sports, globalization means trying to inject America with a little style and passion from the rest of the world.

WHEN SOCCER buffs talk about the international game, they make it sound like a fine art, with teams and countries exhibiting distinct styles of play. The English are known for a direct, attacking game. The Italian style is heavy on defense. The South American game means more dribbling and more improvisation from the players.

Fans and sportswriters agree that before Clavijo arrived, the Revolution's primary shortcoming, for serious soccer fans, was a lack of any one unified style. Now, the team's style is South American, which means that "the creativity of the player is valued," says Jurgen Mainka, the team's media-relations person and translator, who grew up in Mexico City. "It's a fan-friendlier game. It gives creative space."

South and Central American soccer involves more passing, more side-to-side movement, and fewer long passes down the field. It's more about grace than power. It was the Brazilian soccer superstar Pelé who dubbed soccer "the beautiful game," el juego bonito.

When MLS was first launched, the league didn't think North American fans would appreciate that beauty. To make the televised game more ad-friendly, and to speed the sport up for impatient Americans, Major League Soccer was played under a new set of rules. The rules allowed games to be resolved quickly with "sudden death" shootout kicks; they also took control of the clock away from the referee.

But the changes backfired: they alienated existing soccer fans, who were accustomed to international rules. Under new leadership since last August, MLS is now returning to the international rules, as part of a policy of pleasing what it calls its "core fans."

And to MLS, "core fans" often means Hispanic fans. Nationwide, according to marketing research, more than half of the Hispanic population tuned in to at least one televised MLS game last year, compared to only 29 percent of the non-Hispanic white population.

The potential for soccer mania is a known fact in New England. In Rhode Island, soccer-loving communities from south of the border -- Colombians, Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, Guatemalans, and Mexicans -- are among the fastest-growing populations. International exhibition games that appeal to local international communities regularly sell more than 30,000 tickets.

"Our new campaign is, `It's your game,' " says Mark Noonan, the league's new executive vice-president of marketing. "We've heard the core fans loud and clear. We're not apologizing for what makes soccer the world's most popular game. We're going to embrace it. To a Hispanic fan, the message is `Es tu juego,' and the message there is: we know it's your game. It's not just your game, it's part of your culture, and the respect is for your culture as well as for your sport.

"We just hired a director of Hispanic media relations, two months ago. Our first and only ethnic media person. And we recently hired a woman to work with all the sponsors on their ethnic campaigns. And we're in the process of interviewing a high-level marketing person to be our vice-
president of Hispanic marketing."

The league tried tailoring the game to North American sensibilities. Now, it's trying instead to woo the fans who already love soccer, in hopes that their enthusiasm will work its way into the culture's bloodstream.

"We're only the top of the pyramid," says team executive Brian O'Donovan. "For the sport to succeed, there's got to be almost this primordial soup. We're trying to create the imagery for the young fans to look up to."

AT THE same time, the plan is not to re-create the Latin and European atmosphere entirely. Players from other countries see a definite upside to the American fan. William Sunsing, a 23-year-old player just recruited from Costa Rica, says, with Mainka translating: "Here, even if we're down by a goal, the fans are always cheering. There's no aggression from the stands. They don't yell to get out of the match."

Mainka adds, "Yeah, they're not throwing bottles onto the field."

In Central and South America, fans yell, curse, and generally act out when their team is down -- and that's on a good day, when violence doesn't erupt. Elsewhere in the world, it's just as bad if not worse. The term "soccer hooligan" was coined for British fans, who are infamous for two decades of sometimes life-threatening violence. Reuters is now reporting that fan violence has become the scourge of Russian soccer.

"The main difference," says Clavijo, "is that when you lose in South America, you suffer -- for a week! Here, they lose, and then they go out for a beer." But even as coach, Clavijo himself has brought a little of the South American passion to the field: he was just fined $2000 for chasing after a ref in a game against the Miami Fusion.

The man who perhaps best embodies the Revolution's new Latin flair is midfielder Leonel Alvarez, who was fined $250 for chasing after the ref alongside Clavijo. A lion of a man, Alvarez is immediately recognizable by the shock of black hair that cascades in ringlets around his face and fills out into a mane down his back. He wears a thick gold chain and a light mustache. He plays soccer with his entire being. When calls are contested, Alvarez argues. When something goes wrong, Alvarez yells (in Spanish). When, in a recent game against the San Jose Earthquakes, he collided with a defender near the goal, Alvarez rolled around in exquisitely theatrical pain.

Off the field, Alvarez exudes an almost world-weary wisdom. Sitting at the edge of the team's indoor AstroTurf field, he holds one knee pensively and speaks of sharing his experience with a fledgling league as if he were describing his efforts to teach children. He has played in the Spanish league, one of the top three leagues in the world. He made more than a hundred appearances with the Colombian national team.

That Colombian team was the backdrop for one of the most extreme, and tragic, examples of fanaticism in the history of soccer. In 1994, Colombia was the favorite to win the World Cup; the team had even beaten powerful
Argentina 5-0, an almost unheard-of score, in the qualifiers. In the first round of the World Cup, with the hopes and dreams of a nation on their shoulders, the Colombians played the United States -- and lost, in their first game, after defender Andres Escobar accidentally scored against his own team.

A week later, back in Medellín, Escobar was shot through the heart.

"America is not a soccer country," Alvarez says, in Spanish. "It's not like in Colombia, where I couldn't walk down the street in peace."

IN SOUTH and Central America, gangs of soccer fans are called "barras," or "barras bravas."

In Foxborough, the Revolution's die-hard fans are called the Midnight Riders. They hold open tailgates before the game, they have a Web site (www.midnightriders.com), and they sit in the "fort" at Foxboro Stadium, a block of seats behind the goal where they bang on drums and wear tricorner hats and Revolution jerseys. The Midnight Riders are as close to a barra as American soccer has.

During the game against the San Jose Earthquakes on May 17, the fort holds about a hundred people. Seven of those are an extended family from Honduras. "We've been Revolution fans for five years! We've been here every game!" they say, between rounds of deafening drumming and chants of "Olé Olé Olé Olé!" "The fans here, they're more respectful," says Jose Benitez, 39, straightening a flag tied Superman-style around his shoulders.

The other concentration of fans with drums is crushed up in the first row of the fort, led by two Fall River teenagers, Mike Almeida and Matt Cote.

Almeida is of Portuguese descent. He grew up in Fall River, but his grandfather played for São Miguel's team. Soccer has been in his blood from the start, and he says he follows the international leagues. But he's an American kid, and his heart now belongs to an American team. And the enthusiasm he shares with Cote is hard to resist. When the Revolution score one of their two goals of the game -- when Colombian-born Johnny Torres skids on his knees, arms flung wide, to bask in the screaming adoration while the drums go wild -- it's hard to imagine that a few soccer converts aren't made.

But still, there are only about 15,000 fans here. Just before this article went to press, the Revolution were expecting an exhibition game between Colombia and the Portuguese team Benfica to draw more than 30,000 fans.

True soccer mania means even more than that. It means 60,000 fans erupting into deafening noise -- a "fort" that extends the length of Foxboro Stadium. Soccer, in this country, is still waiting to tip -- to reach critical mass, break into the mainstream, and shatter its suburban image.

AS THE league grows, and as teams like the Revolution struggle to establish their own game and their own style, some soccer writers say that the game is waiting for its defining moment -- the event, or the hero, that will galvanize the country.

"The NFL can trace its beginnings to a single game between the Giants and the Colts," says Brian O'Donovan, referring to the thrilling 1958 NFL League Championship game that started a boom in football's popularity. "And basketball in the '60s and '70s had Magic Johnson and Larry Bird." America needs its own Pelé -- a superstar with enough charisma to win new American fans and enough skill to impress the South American fans who still think American soccer is child's play.

When the Revolution players leave the locker rooms and head out into "autograph alley," the (young, female) fans scream loudest not for any of the Latin stars, but for Brian Dunseth. A strong defender and the captain of the US Olympic team, Dunseth seems mildly uncomfortable with the high-pitched hysteria. Perhaps he knows that the screaming has a little bit to do with his dashing, all-American good looks. As good as Dunseth might be, soccer needs a player who can generate that kind of devotion from fans of both genders and all ages based on his talent alone.

Given the history of this game, there's a good chance that when that hero comes, he'll be either an immigrant or a first-generation American. The predominance of international players is a sensitive issue for today's MLS, with its caps on foreigners and its fledgling feeder system for American players. But the glory of sport's unforgiving meritocracy is that winning trumps all chauvinism. Pedro Martinez may be a hero to the local Dominican community, but he's a hero to the rest of Red Sox Nation as well -- he's charming, he's phenomenally good, and the Sox win when he plays.

And marketing efforts aside, the Revs are focused simply on winning. So far this season, Clavijo's team looks promising. Although they lost their last home game, they beat the Chicago Fire on Saturday, May 20; 1-0. As of press time, they're still tied for first in the Eastern Conference with the Miami Fusion: four wins, three losses, four ties.

First place is great, but there is still a long way to go. Being first in the Eastern Conference doesn't mean all that much. "If the MLS put all three conferences into a single table, the four teams in the East would be at the bottom," says Jesse Hertzberg, founder of Bigsoccer.com, the Web's biggest community of MLS soccer fans. "But you can't turn it around in one year. And they're definitely on the right track."

Can soccer find a place in America's crowded sports pantheon? "Sure," says Brian O'Donovan. We may already have four other major-league sports, but, he points out, there are more than 270 million Americans. Soccer only needs a tiny percentage of those millions in its stadiums. The American soccer world seems confident that it's just a matter of time before the league improves and soccer catches on -- that ultimately, good soccer will sell itself, across national and ethnic and socioeconomic boundaries.

Meanwhile, Clavijo, Alvarez, and their international squad are going to keep on playing soccer the only way they know how, with body and soul -- and keep on waiting for North America to care.