The Great Dream

You see, what's cool about soccer, in addition to the beautiful play and combination of grace and occasional violence, is the fact that teams get to move up and down the leagues, possibly into the top national league, and then from there into international competition. Dip___ burgs and towns all over the world duke it out with one goal in mind- to win the national championship, and the best part is that it's actually possible. For example in England they have the Premiership, the top league, the Championship League underneath, followed by Leagues 1 and 2 and non league conferences that also allow for promotion, and teams move up and down the scales, from scrub status up to veritable godhood (certainly on a local level- imagine how you'd respect say, the Cheektowaga _____ers). Yes some of the big teams always stay on top, but even the mightiest fall, and a lot of the big teams were at one time small time concerns until they siezed oppurtunity and grew. It's crazy, and the fact that we don't have it in this country is precisely why soccer hasn't really caught on. The key is that it's a local thing, a regional mania that even becomes a neighborhood by neighborhood thing, and that sort of energy breeds serious interest and intense competition, competition which would strengthen our national game and eventually make us a genuine World Cup menace at last. The fact is I think a lot of people would shell out $10 every couple of weeks to see the Buffalo Dip___s duke it out in balls to the wall guts and glory soccer fixtures, and eventually would shell out more if our Dip___s did well and moved on up. We're an international city, we like people; we'd attact European and South American talent, our local boys would represent, and we'd drink a lot of beer just like at Bills games. I could even see people coming out for the North Buffalo Dingleberries or some such thing, a team formed locally that got some investors and got into the Leagues, and did it for North Buffalonians like me. Maybe our boys would even travel the hemisphere, and teams from around the hemisphere would play in North Buffalo; we'd drink beer and eat and we'd all feel North Buffalo and honest to goodness American pride. It'd be a glorious dream.

We've got MLS and the US League, and that's all well and good, but now it's time to get serious.