Instant Soccer Fan? Why?

It seemed like the instant Landon Donovan scored the last-minute, game-winning goal in the United States vs. Algeria World Cup match this week, rabid soccer fans started coming out of the woodwork, including friends I didn’t even know liked sports. These are the same friends who, prior to this World Cup, couldn’t name any professional soccer players besides David Beckham. And that’s just because he’s married to a Spice Girl.

As someone who is completely missing the care-about-sports gene, I don’t get why soccer fever is sweeping the United States. Why is our generally soccer-apathetic country jumping on the futbol bandwagon? To answer this question I turned to Amanda Visek, a sports psychologist at George Washington University.

Visek says a couple of different things are happening.  First and foremost, the World Cup draws out a sense of national pride. That’s pretty cut and dried and makes total sense. Secondly, sports are socially tied to American culture; major sporting events give people an excuse to celebrate.  This global soccer event gives us a reason to get together and party and cheer for the home team. That's not so bad.
 
But most interestingly, Visek's third point is this: When a team is successful, everyone wants a piece of the action. There’s a term for this attachment that social psychologists call CORFing.

CORFing stands for Cutting Off of Reflective Failure, and it basically means that people, like my friends, attach to a team when they are winning and dissociate from teams when they are losing. Visek says if you ask a soccer fan how the U.S. soccer team did after a win, you’re likely to hear a "we won" response. But, if the U.S. team loses their next match, most people will subconsciously dissociate from the team with a "they lost" response.

Even the most intense sports fan -- say, a Ravens follower who goes to every single game -- will CORF. Visek says it's common, the majority of us unknowingly CORF.

I'll have to take note of this after the United States' Saturday game against Ghana. How the U.S. team performs in Saturday’s game will give a better indication if my friends are really soccer fans, win or lose, or if they only want to be associated with winners.