Last week the soccer website Four Four Two posted a clickbaity article titled “Trying Way Too Hard: 10 of the Silliest American Soccer Team Names Ever.” With its first paragraph, the article praised the overly boring “United FCs” of the world and launched into shaming mostly minor league clubs and indoor teams from the past. While I’m not going to defend the Austin Sockadillos or the forever ridiculed Caribous of Colorado, I’m going to defend their history and importance to the history of soccer in the United States.
Certainly we can agree that sometimes teams have very silly names, but most American sports names appear off in the larger world soccer landscape.