The United States has pretty much dug in its heels on refusing to acknowledge the sport of football by any other name than soccer. Beneath the thin film of good humor that both sides of this topic try to maintain lurks an unabashed sense of nationalism that is no doubt at the root of countless soccer riots. Excuse me, football riots. The weird thing is that nobody even remembers where the term soccer comes from. The root: soccer hooligans. I mean football hooligans.
