A Team By Any Other Name Would Play As Shit
by Benjamin Massey on Jul 29, 2010 4:23 PM PDT
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PrintBeen a heck of a week for Canadian soccer. The Whitecaps finally - finally! - forgot to concede a late equalizer against the Montreal Impact in spite of their best efforts and actually beat the turds. The Toronto FC finally - finally! - outplayed and outscored a Central American team in the CONCACAF Champions League. Simeon Jackson's big transfer was made official. Dwayne De Rosario scored against Manchester United, which hasn't got the same ring as "Gabe Gala scored against Real Madrid" but ought not to be ignored.
So I'm going to talk about the Kansas City Wizards for a bit.
You've probably heard that the Wizards are considering rebranding their team. "Kansas City Wizards" has always been a bit of a silly soccer-mom name (better than the old Kansas City Wiz, but oh wooow), and the magical men from Missouri may be seeking a new name to go along with their new stadium. Given MLS's well-known boner for faux-European names, I immediately trotted out old standards "Inter Kansas City" and "Borussia Monchenkansascity", although Sam Bazzarelli wins the title with his suggestion of Kansas City City playing out of City of Kansas City Stadium. But even a bogus European-derived name (Atlético Kansas City? Nah, St. Louis will want that one.) would have to be better than the little-tykes-merchandise-peddling moniker like the Kansas City Wizards, right? Right?
You know what? No.
It's long been a pet peeve of mine that North American soccer culture is too derivative of European football culture. This reflects itself in many MLS fans' pants-crapping worship of the first-class European leagues. It's shown off flagrantly every time someone insists it's called football or that the players put on their kits and run onto the pitch for the match that will be a nil-nil clean sheet draw. You can hear it whenever a crowd in Canada demands to know "who ate all the pies?" when you'd need some sort of satellite network to find a soccer stadium in this country that actually sells them. Every time the goalkeeper is a bastard and the referee's a wanker and the opposing supporters are tossers. Every time.
Above all, above everything else, we see this ravenous inferiority complex in the names of North American soccer teams. Not just Real Salt Lake, but Toronto FC? This is Canada, and Toronto's football club is the Argonauts. Same to you, Vancouver Whitecaps FC, which seems determined to mesh both naming paradigms into a wholly unsatisfying mélange (thank god "Whitecaps" has stuck). D.C. United? FC Dallas? Do we have none of our own traditions whatsoever? Thank goodness for brave souls like the New England Revolution and the Philadelphia Union and yes, even those jokey, comic-book Wizards.
In this country, we waste valuable ink and breath wondering why so many of our native sons go to play for the national teams of England or the Czech Republic or Bosnia or the Netherlands (well, maybe not the Netherlands). Has it occurred to us that the reason Canadians seem to think in droves that European teams and traditions are better than ours is that a significant portion of North American soccer culture is predicated on exactly that? That if a Voyageur in the stands with five or six buddies sang something other than warmed-over EPL chants with "Canada" awkwardly spliced in, that if we were enthusiastic about how English we weren't, and above all if we stopped getting worked up every time a soccer team was given the same sort of nickname as every other sporting club in this country, it might contribute to that elusive "national pride" we're too often seen lacking?
But, sure, you bunch of traditionalists, forget about it. Name your team "Sporting Kansas City" and bellow whatever invective would seem at home in the cheapest, dingiest Liverpool pubs. We were a British colony once, right? Nothing stopping us from being one again, leaping on whatever shards of European culture drift over the ocean, and embracing our role as Europe's farm team.
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In fairness, North American naming conventions are terrible. We used to have a similar system to what went on in Europe – the Canadiens take their name from their official name, Club de Hockey Canadien. A lot of old baseball teams, their names came about organically, rather than through some process whereby the team was given a name. I kind of like the European and English system.
As far as the culture of the games itself goes, shouldn’t you object to anything other than sitting passively while music blares, stirring ourselves only for goals? That’s how we do it in North America. The Euro traditions and such will be brought to the game and, in time, adapted by the Canadian fans who are present. I can’t see how it’s a bad thing or how it would make guys reject playing here. I’ve been to the last three TFC games and I enjoy the atmosphere. Who gives a shit whether it’s Toronto FC or Toronto SC?
by Tyler on Jul 29, 2010 4:34 PM PDT reply actions
The old Ottawa Senators weren’t formally the Senators until a couple of years before they died. Even “Silver Seven” was always a press and fan nickname, not a legal part of the team’s identity. From 1883 until (I believe) 1931, they were the Ottawa Hockey Club or Ottawa HC, known interchangeably at various points as the Ottawas, the Silver Seven, and the Senators.
The modern Sens, of course, are a totally different story.
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Soccer fans are different from hockey fans, who are different from football fans, who are different from baseball fans. That’s not a “Europe v. North America” thing, that’s a different sports thing.
I’m not denying that picking and choosing things the Europeans do right is a good idea. But what we have right now isn’t adaptation, it’s a raging inferiority complex that will motivate people to think we’re inferior.
by Lord Bob on Jul 29, 2010 4:41 PM PDT reply actions
Borussia Mochenkansascity, YES! But seriously though, why not just name the team Kansas city. I mean, yeah, there’s some teams that have a moniker, like United, but that’s just to tell them apart from City. The reality is that most football or soccer teams are just named after where they are.
by chrsfrsn on Jul 29, 2010 6:30 PM PDT reply actions
After this many years, I don’t see them actually dropping the name Wizards. They’ll have some contest where fans can rename them if they really want to (albeit only taken partially into consideration once the actual process starts) and in the end everyone will vote for Wizards anyway because they have some sort of Mickey Mouse affection for the godawful name.
Serious LB, are you trying to tell us that Kansas City FC or Sporting Kansas would somehow be worse than Kansas City WIZARDS??! Give your feckin head a shake, or I will if you make it to the Peru match…
by Tuscan on Jul 30, 2010 6:24 PM PDT reply actions
“Serious LB, are you trying to tell us that Kansas City FC or Sporting Kansas would somehow be worse than Kansas City WIZARDS??! "
Yup. Sporting Kansas is just ludicrously awful; I’d be fine with Kansas City SC, since trying to tie the name “football” to the soccer team IN FREAKING KANSAS CITY OF ALL PLACES – you know, the town with the most devoted NFL fans in the league outside Green Bay – is just feeding the inferiority complex not only towards Europe, but towards other sports.
They’re the Wizards. Nothing weird about that name.
(If you want to change it – Kansas City Bullets.)
by Stephen on Aug 5, 2010 7:59 AM PDT reply actions
It's called 'Soccer' here
Never understood why the inferiority complex about our oddball name for this sport in the northern part of North America. We call it ‘soccer’ here for perfectly reasonable reasons. As a Sounders fan I don’t get the ‘FC’ and think it’s pretension or insecurity or both.
Once we get some more critical mass, I see lots of clubs dropping the ‘FC.’ It’s embarrassing now. Let us have our colloquialism, or whatever it is that it is, it’s ‘soccer.’ We need to accept that.
No I think you are wrong because
it’s called soccer in lots of places. I believe that is a term that originated in Brazil. North American’s have picked up that term and call it soccer to differentiate from American “Football” which is a sport that very rarely uses feet to play the ball. I call it Football because my dad is English and I am a dual citizen and that is what we have always called it. I won’t change that to bow down to a ridiculous American sport that should be called Throwball. To me it shows inferiority to call it soccer because it means you don’t think if you say Football people will know what you are talking about. North American clubs are trying to make Football take root in society and to do that they are trying to replicate some of the aspects of the game in other parts of the world that have made it so successful and so popular. That sounds like a pretty good way to do business to me. What in the world is embarrassing about Toronto FC for example? Toronto Football Club. That’s the name of the city and the name of the sport. My GOD. That is embarrassing. The sport is called Football. If you started a baseball team in Brazil would you call the sport baseball or rounders? You would call the sport by it’s name. That’s not embarrassing or insecure or pretentious. It’s just accurate.
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by Section 312 on Aug 11, 2010 4:37 PM PDT up reply actions
Term originated in Merry Olde England. A shortening of “association,” as in “association football,” the full formal name of the sport. They’ve moved away from it over the last 50 or so years, but prior to that, the two terms were used interchangeably.
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I’ll admit Real Salt Lake is a bit far, but other than that, I’ll defend the “faux-Euro” team names. As chrsfrsn pointed out, a lot of soccer teams are just named after what they are, with the “FC” or “United” merely indicating that they’re a soccer team. The North American tradition of adding arbitrary mascots to the end of the city name is unfortunate, and it doesn’t have to continue with MLS.
I don’t think D.C. United is a great name because I love Manchester United—I hate Man U. I think D.C. United is a great name because that’s what it is. It’s DC’s soccer team. And regardless of whether you think it should be Toronto FC or Toronto SC, you have to admit even TFC is a better name than “the Toronto Reds” or whatever they’d be by North American convention. We may borrow European-style names for soccer teams, but they’re good names not because of our raging Euroboners. They’re good names because they are what they are.
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But why do we think they’re good names?
I think we call them good names because we see the Euro-ness of them and it somehow strikes as “chic” and right.
I’m not going to defend really, really awful North American names (the Utah Jazz! the NSC Minnesota Stars!) as tasteful and amazing, but there have been so many great naming choices by MLS teams that we know they can do it. Again, “Philadelphia Union”? I love that!
by Benjamin Massey on Aug 11, 2010 10:07 AM PDT up reply actions
It works both ways
Some of the names are great. Galaxy, Cosmos, Union, Revolution, Fire. Some awkard: Red Bulls, Wizards. Some terrible: Timbers.
Eurostyle is nice because of it’s simplicity. RSL, DCU, TFC, etc. Nicknames for those teams will probably be generated organically (the reds?). I will say that I do not like FC Dallas, that one just sticks out as worse than the rest.
And the mixes can work well. I like Sounders FC and Whitecaps FC.
Rebranding can also work well. Earthquakes —> Dynamo seems like it was a good move for the franchise. I am not a huge fan of the name “wizards,” but I agree that a move to a euro-style name would be worse. Unless it is Borussia Mochenkansascity. That would be awesome.
I am also thinking the soccer v. football debate will continue for awhile, but soccer will win out in the end. Using FC seems to be driven by the desire to emulate european success, and once it is successful as an North American sport in a North American style, that desire will fade.
It’s like European hockey teams taking the North American style of name, and giving us stuff like the Hamburg Freezers. That sounds like what my mom would call the deep freeze. (She’s from Montreal, and drops the “-er” on “hamburger” for whatever reason. My dad and I used to make fun of her for it all the time.) It’s a disaster.
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