An American Soccer Fan

"I think Americans like sports where they fabricate (generate) a lot of scoring. Soccer, you have to approach it more as the chess game that is continuously going and inevitably you hope will lead to a goal."-- Kenneth Tebo, American soccer fan.

Kenneth Tebo is frustrated that soccer has not become as big a sport in the United States as it is in most other parts of the world.

That hasn’t held him back from expressing his own passion for the game, as an enthusiastic soccer memorabilia collector, sports critic and spectator.

Among his collections are dozens of bobble heads, scarves, soccer balls, and magazines.

Like many soccer fans in the United States, Tebo played the game as a child. But unlike most Americans, he grew into a devoted fan of the sport he now calls, as others do, "the beautiful game."

Soccer is the main sport almost everywhere in the world, but in the United States, it ranks far behind traditional American sports such as basketball, football and baseball.

Tebo has plenty of opinions as to why this is this case. He cites, for instance, Americans’ notorious appetite for high fructose corn syrup in its food, and its impatience with soccer’s frequent 0-0 scores.

Another reason he says soccer has not yet reached so-called prime time in the United States is that there aren't any breaks in play for advertisers to run their commercials on television. And Tebo also laments what he calls Euro-snobs who he says prefer to follow European teams over the ones in the United States.

This video shows Tebo attending a game of the Real Maryland team, and then, adding to his impressive collection of memorabilia.