These blazer-donning gentlemen who watch football from underneath kitschy neck ties are truly spectacular salesmen of our game. They have the courage to hawk a product that is regularly characterized as foreign in a cultural ecosystem that unfairly pins negative connotations to that very word: foreign. And despite the crumbling barriers of American Exceptionalism that still retard the growth of this sport in the United States, they’ve had the scheming smarts to slowly steal market share in favor of the green rectangle and the silver bullet. For this, I am grateful of Rog and Davo.

As a reformed GFOP who no longer considers the Men In Blazers to be their cup of coffee, I recognize that American soccer is still in a phase where “a rising tide lifts all boats” remains an idiom of primary focus. This pair of effervescent Englishmen, who themselves prove that isn’t an oxymoron, have contributed to the growth of soccer in the United States more than most ever will.

And despite the dragging of heels, they’ve helped me and countless others grow as soccer fans, indirectly helping us grapple with the infinitely complex conundrum of fandom and what it means to support a team. It’s a conundrum that will be argued about until the end of time, but most vociferously in growth markets like the United States. There is no one-size-fits-all answer, and we’re becoming comfortable with that.

This is from a recent BuzzFeed feature called Can The Men In Blazers Finally Make Soccer The Sport Of America’s Future?:

Bennett and Davies secretly love those who antagonize the sport. “At the golf club I play at the kids are all into soccer and the dads loathe it,” Davies says from behind the wheel of the Mini. “They actually use the word hate. People don’t ever walk around saying ‘I hate bowling’ or ‘I hate archery.’ But the people who don’t like it hate it. And that is, I think, fantastic. But also, sometimes they have a point: The soccer Americans were sold for years and years was total crap.”

I have a lot in common with these blazer brothers, and if you’re reading this you probably do too. After all, we’re on the same side of what we consider the good fight. We both are sadistically delighted by those who antagonize the sport; there’s no higher comedy than the slapstick of people stumbling around with soccer-induced cognitive dissonance. And I agree that the variety of soccer Americans were sold for years and years was total crap. And it remains not so great. The majority of teams in Major League Soccer would struggle with the grind of the English Championship.

But the quality of the soccer isn’t the problem, and these stewards of soccer should know better. As the self-appointed diplomats of soccer culture to the United States, shouldn’t our blazer-clad brethren recognize that an overwhelming majority of football is played at an eye-bleedingly suboptimal level no matter which side of the pond you’re on?

It’s disingenuous to indirectly promote English football by casting domestic American soccer aside when a large percentage of their audience couldn’t discern the gulf in quality that separates the Premier League from MLS. Their podcasts offer little explanation of the tactical and technical nuances that separate top leagues from others found around the world. Instead they offer comedic cultural anecdotes that are remarkably league agnostic. It’s condescending at best, and manipulative at worst.

The pinnacle of English football is sharp because football is ubiquitous in England, not the other way around. The “chicken-or-the-egg” paradox does not apply here. It’s the grassroots integration of football into English culture that we should aspire too, and the Men in Blazers are off sprinkling red, white, and blue infill on the synthetic turf like an American soccer Johnny Appleseed. And to my frustration, it’s growing lots of green.

The success of this blazer-and-euro-centric marketing campaign relies upon significant biases in the American soccer viewing demographic. And the Men in Blazers have done an exceptional job preying upon these. And perpetuating them.

It would be unfair to criticize their astro-turfing effort without at least acknowledging that MLS is familiar with the same dark arts. The concept behind NYCFC, both on-field and off, relies on targeting a deeply similar demographic. It’s no coincidence that demographic is integral to the growth of American soccer.

I exclusively watched English soccer until my early 20’s because it was the best I could find. And while confirming to myself that English soccer was indeed fantastic and (still) is entirely worth watching, I slowly realized my reasons for watching it were a bit more nuanced and perhaps nefariously ingrained.

When elite professional football of European ilk was the only variety of soccer readily accessible on American television, I can’t blame us for developing our patent soccer inferiority complex. However, the members of the American soccer community deserve criticism for not having shaken it off. Escaping this complex is the next big hurdle for American soccer, and it’s importance cannot be understated. The longer we remain under its spell, the more we allow it to govern our future.

American soccer is now big enough that it will forever attract cultural diplomats, but we can no longer afford to treat them as saviors. American soccer has already been saved. Instead we should be asking their advice on how to convince the soccer-watching community just how critical it is to support local soccer. Not because it’s the best soccer, not because it mimics European football, but because it’s truly ours. Just like their football is truly theirs. Once we reach Lalas-levels of unapologetically proud of our game, we may actually attain levels that even Klinsmann couldn’t hypothesize.

It’s the responsibility of any growing soccer nation to cultivate its own unique soccer culture. We’re way overdue for conversations about the state of our soccer culture, and what it should aspire to become. The growing pains rippling across the ranks of the American Outlaws is evidence enough. I hoped that it would develop organically, but we’ve proven that we can be lead astray by clever astro-turfing entertainers. Because of this, we desperately need a congress on American soccer culture to poke us in the right direction. We don’t have time for a convention.