Reading Internet comments feels a little like watching a tabloid talk show. At first it seems that there might be a valid point to the proceedings, that as adults we can maybe come together and have a reasonable discussion. But soon it descends into a battle of bigoted crazy talk. With the unaccountability of anonymity, and egged on by the general tone of other comments, people don’t hold anything back. Initially this can be a little amusing, until your mind starts to ache from the pure stupidity of it all.

Last week, after reading an interesting online column about the recent boom in television exposure of soccer in the United States, I kept reading and plowed headlong into the comments section below. Pretty soon a war had evolved; soccer fans making outlandishly ill-informed declarations about football, and very much vice-versa, too. A small band of peacemakers had bravely tried to bridge the ideological chasm, but their balanced and reasonable observations were lost under a flood of abuse.

When I first set foot in Cardinal territory, I didn’t just have zero interest in American sports—I was stubbornly opposed to it. Even after turning my hand to writing about sports for The Daily, where I was surrounded by passionate American sports fans, it took time to both like and understand these foreign games. Meeting my fellow beat writer for the 2009-10 women’s basketball season for the first time, he asked me how familiar I already was with the team. I think he was at least a little taken aback by my admission that I wasn’t even that sure about most of the rules.

I know I’ve written some pretty critical articles over the years about U.S. sports—and received my fair share of abuse from readers—but over time my opinions have mellowed, and I even might have become a little Americanized. Last week a friend accused me of developing a bit of a U.S. twang in my voice, and when I recently went out to buy a soccer ball, I came back with a football, too.

Don’t get me wrong. However cool it may feel to hold a football in my hand, my fingers spread out, gripping the laces, getting ready to attempt a spiraling throw, it’ll never quite match the feeling of having a soccer ball at my feet. And standing shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow soccer supporters easily beats doing the same with football fans. My cultural connections to British sports will always run deeper than those to American ones. From the family rivalry when my soccer team plays my brother’s to teasing my Welsh friend when England beats his home country—though Wales somehow won the most recent encounter—to sitting down with my dad to watch some international cricket, those experiences can’t be beat.

But I can still enjoy a dazzling play in football or basketball, and I am still willing to give baseball and hockey a chance. In fact, call it a sport and you’ve already got my attention. Maybe this is what it’s like to be a real sports fan.

The complaints that both sides have are often real; neither sport achieves athletic perfection. During the four hours it takes to play a football game, there is relatively little action on the field, and I can’t imagine many fans in the stadium would complain if a few seconds were shaved off each pause. Likewise, soccer games are generally low scoring affairs, and few supporters would be against their club playing a more attacking style.

But both football and soccer are products of these characteristics. The breaks in action allow football players to recover and the plays to be far more explosive than they would otherwise be, and the fact that goals are difficult to score in soccer is not a negative thing. Simply scoring more points doesn’t make a sport more worthy, or all baseball fans would be flocking to watch cricket.

Cheating, the area in which soccer usually draws the most critics, is relative, too. Yes, soccer players do dive, and even the most hardened fan feels some embarrassment when they do. But, as the New Orleans Saints showed, football teams break the rules as well. And what is worse, pretending you got injured or deliberately attempting to hurt someone? Neither strikes me as particularly courageous or honorable.

There is a lot to get worked up about in the world of sports, from the highs of great games and championship finals to the lows of cheating and corruption, but we shouldn’t be fighting each other tooth and nail in some sort of xenophobic defense of our national pastimes. A great pass, be it from a quarterback’s hand or a midfielder’s foot, should impress us all, no matter our backgrounds.

 

Just give Tom Taylor the Nobel Peace Prize already. The award can be shipped to tom.taylor “at” stanford.edu