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The History of American Soccer

It doesn't take many years in order for something to have an interesting history. This is the case in American soccer, something that is only been around for a very short period of time. It's interesting, though, how the entire sport evolved. Here is a brief history about the sport and how it came to be an additional major league activity in the United States.

Major league soccer was originally formed in December of 1993 but it did not actually begin official play until 1996. At first, the league only had 10 teams but it has, since that time, grown to 14. Unfortunately, in its early stages, Major League Soccer was not very respected among sports fans. In fact, after the first year whenever attendance began to drop off dramatically, the history of the sport was really put into question. It wasn't until several years later that the sport actually began to catch on.

In 2002, the United States had a surprise appearance at the FIFA World Cup games. Even though Major league soccer does not necessarily have anything to do with the World Cup, it still brought some additional life into the game. Other efforts have been made in the past several years in order to internationalize the rules of the game and to try and get it to catch on.

Major league soccer still has a long way to go until it is in the same category as the National Football League or National Baseball League but it is on its way. As time continues to go on and more and more people become interested in the sport, it should have a snowball effect and it may be propelled to a higher level of popularity.