Football or "soccer" as we call it in the United States is and has been the most participated in youth sport in the country. Until recently it just didn't become very popular and some would still say that MLS is the least popular professional sports organization in America. I know that I live in a city that has all professional sports teams and I have never really even considered going to an MLS game.
This is coming from a guy that excelled at soccer/football and at one point was considered to be one of the best players in my state and got a division-1 scholarship because of that. It didn't occur to me at the time but the only reason why the university in question offered me this scholarship was because they were forced to. I think it is called Title IX and this is where universities have to offer athletic scholarships for all sports, not just the ones that traditionally make the university money such as basketball and American football.
Whatever, I got to go to college for free. Who cares that nobody other than girlfriends and parents ever attended our games. :P
Before I get too off topic I want to talk about the very first time I had a good coach in my life. I was a freshman in high school and the talent I had naturally was already recognized by my parents and other people that were involved in the sport. I had reached a point where I was "uncoachable" by the usual type of coaches that a person can expect to receive as a youth in USA - meaning that a vast majority of the coaches don't have any idea how the sport actually works, they are just adult volunteers and well, I guess that is nice of them to donate their time even though they don't have any idea what the hell they are doing.
I don't remember the coach's full name but he was "Coach Hans" and he was from Germany. This was the first time in my life that I ever had a coach that truly understood the game and he taught us about all of the game, including the dirtier side of the game that unfortunately is a very real part of the game. Americans were always at a disadvantage because we are brought up believing that strict adherence to the rules is the only way to play. Well, in football of the soccer variety this is not really true, and I learned so much from Coach Hans that made me better at the game in the long run.
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I absolutely HATE that this is part of the game but it is what it is and this is especially true in the United States youth leagues where chances are, the referees probably read a "soccer for dummies" book and bought a black shirt and this is the entirety of their qualifications. Diving is something that you can get away with like crazy in US football of the soccer variety and it wasn't something I had even considered doing up to the point that I met Coach Hans. Up to that point in my life, we were brought up in an American football sort of environment and taking blatant kicks to the legs or even torso was just something that you brushed off. After learning from coach Hans, myself and the others that were selected for that squad learned that you base your reaction on the position of the official.
Now in USA, this backfired on me multiple times and no, it wasn't the official realizing that I was diving and carding me, it was officials that probably thought they were refereeing American football and would basically not call anything other than handballs and who got the throw ins. Half of the time I think they were just guessing on the throw ins.
Well in one particular game a midfielder that had been assigned to mark me took a swipe and just barely touched my shin. Now this is still a foul but I played it up as though he had just broken my ankle and fell down on the ground. This was in advantageous position near the box but outside of it, a perfect place to get a call of this sort if you had a competent official. We did not have a competent official and not only did I not get the call but the referee thought I was seriously injured and wouldn't allow me to continue in the game. Coach Hans went so far as to get the FIFA rulebook out and show the official that it isn't up to him who is physically capable of continuing, that is up to the coaching staff and the player themselves. This referee was a bully and a blowhard though, and he stuck to his guns and refused to allow me to continue in the game because of a potential serious injury that both me and my coach knew I had faked. At that time I was one of the best players in the league and on my team so not having me on the field was a huge blow to my team and we lost that game 2-1. Coach Hans later petitioned the governing body and that referee was reprimanded in some sort of ceremonial fashion. Whatever, it was one game.
Diving is just part of what Coach Hans taught me. He also taught me methods of getting other players sent off and that was to seriously aggravate whoever is marking you when the ref's back is turned. Pulling on shirts, hanging onto their shorts, intentionally running into them and other such things sometimes which involved slapping of the crotch would get the person marking you into a rage and then they would be really rough back towards you when the ref was looking. This would get them sent off and all the while you, the person who actually created this situation in the first place just acts all innocent like you don't understand why the other person is being so mean to you. It is a terrible and dirty tactic but man did it ever work. I used this a lot and one time the opposing team's coach got so worked up about the fact that I was doing this that the coach went after me as well and the coach also shouted at the ref. The coach got shown red that game as well as the player that attacked me.
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Now again, I wish the sport wasn't like this but it IS like this and unfortunately if you are someone that plays entirely by the rules, you are at a distinct disadvantage against players like me that know how to do this.
Obviously a lot of this has been eliminated by VAR tech but we didn't have any of that back in the 80's and early 90's when I was playing at my peak. Coach Hans taught me so much about the dirty side of the game and I'm not gonna lie, it was instrumental in getting me to the level where colleges were wanting to talk to me about coming to play for them. Without that tutelage from Coach Hans I likely would have continued to play by the rules and wouldn't have ever been noticed. I certainly would have had significantly less free kicks.
Coach Hans seriously did his homework on the games too because he investigated all the referees in the league and knew basically how all of them were going to call a game. He knew how to "work the refs" and would tell us what style to play accordingly. Never in my sporting life had I had a coach that did so much to make certain that his team was going to win. Coach Hans was also the first coach I ever had in my life that was actually being paid to do the job as well so that probably has a lot to do with it.
I never found out what happened to Coach Hans, I hope he went on to coach a college or even a professional team at some point but hell, I was a teenager and thought only about myself. I went looking for him but since I don't even know the man's surname and the internet was in its infancy when he was my coach, I wouldn't even know where to start to look. There are a lot of people named Hans in the world after all.
I have a lot of people to thank for the level of football of the soccer variety that I got to play in my life but honestly, I think that it was Coach Hans that made the most difference. It wasn't just that he taught us how the game is "really played" vs. how it is supposed to be played, but he was also a brilliant tactician that could read defense and set us up accordingly. This man was truly knowledgeable about the sport and while I hope that has changed since those days, someone of that level was extremely rare in the USA at the time.