I started playing in a village league in Germany, essentially the members of different age groups in one village would play other villages. It was a no pressure good time and cheap. Most US sports cost a lot of money for equipment, while all you really need is a ball for “fussball”.

I had a neighbor locally who was a youth league referee and he talked about being threatened over calls by parents. He moved up to college games as it was safer.

If I went to a World Cup I would spend all of my time watching the fans, as they are totally bizarre.

Soccer became popular here in about my high school years. Shortly after that, knock-down fights among soccer parents became popular. It was never established whether people came to the games to watch their kids play or to watch the parents get involved in anything from fisticuffs to murder. Personally I felt it detracted from the game… what do they think this is, anyway? MLB? the NHL? the NFL?

Houston finally has enough broadcast TV channels to offer us cable-less folk perhaps a dozen Spanish-language channels and hence a lot more soccer on the air. I enjoy soccer for some of the same reasons I enjoy watching college or pro basketball: constant action and motion in which I don’t have to participate personally. 😆