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This was inspired by this question on Steve Roger's list of things to watch. There are a few versions of the list, to please fans in different countries with cultural items from their country.

Some items are obvious (Beatles in the UK version, Moon landing in the US version,...), some are fun cultural must-knowns from an American point of view (the Fifth Element in the French list?)

One thing that strikes me is that many lists include soccer-related events. For example:

  1. France 98 in the French version

  2. The World Cup final in 1966 in the UK version

  3. Italian victories at World Cup (1982, 2006) in the Italian list

  4. World Cup 2002 in the Korean list

  5. Park Ji-sung, a famous Korean player in the Korean list.

This is surprising to me since soccer isn't a big thing in the USA. There is a national team that participated in a few World Cups but soccer is not as popular as, say, basketball or baseball.

Is it just bad fan service for European and Korean audiences, or is Steve Rogers known to be a soccer aficionado in the comics?

TheLethalCarrot
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Taladris
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    You mean, a sport that involves an object bouncing off of various surfaces at high speeds? – Adamant Jun 25 '19 at 02:02
  • @Adamant: I meant I thought that Steve was a more a frisbee type of guy :) – Taladris Jun 25 '19 at 02:07
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    In the MCU at least I think there are only references to him being a baseball and American football fan. – TheLethalCarrot Jun 25 '19 at 08:29
  • @TheLethalCarrot: I don't think there is an answer in the MCU. That's why I am asking about the comics. – Taladris Jun 25 '19 at 09:02
  • “Is it just bad fan service” — it’s great fan-service! – Paul D. Waite Jun 25 '19 at 10:35
  • It makes about as much sense for him to be a soccer fan as any other of the localized list items would make sense for Captain America. The very concept of localizing this list in that way is already beyond any relation to his character, which makes the question's entire premise largely moot. It doesn't matter a bit to the list if Cap or the US like soccer. The only thing that matters for this list is if the target audience does. – TARS Jun 25 '19 at 11:37
  • There are also two references to Formula One (Ferrari and Ayrton Senna) and one to tennis (Rafael Nadal). – F1Krazy Jun 25 '19 at 11:42
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    Missing the point. The list is to get him familiar with things he doesn't know about. (And, obviously, to pander to the tastes of the audience) – DJClayworth Jun 25 '19 at 14:40

1 Answers1

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As always it is hard to prove a negative but I can find no reference to Steve liking soccer in any comic. In fact the only reference I can find to Steve and soccer is from the Marvel Avengers Academy freemium mobile game in Earth-TRN562 where apparently:

Steve wanted to organize soccer and football teams for the school.

Marvel Database, Steven Rogers (Earth-TRN562)

Like yourself I would imagine that Steve would be more into baseball than any other sport and that does appear to be the case as in the MCU he had gone to games before. The game Steve is on about below was actually a real baseball game in our world where the events described happened as described I am led to believe.

Steve Rogers: The game, it’s from May, nineteen forty one. I know, cause I was there.

Captain America: The First Avenger

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