Why Soccer Could Really Use a Tim Tebow Right Now

Across the pond here in rainy England, where tea is taken at 3 p.m., everyone's a football hooligan and we all talk like Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins, it takes something a little bit special for an NFL star to enter the public consciousness.

The first to achieve it was William "The Refrigerator" Perry, whose best years coincided with the launch of NFL coverage in the UK in the mid-1980s. It's an enduring stereotype that everything in the U.S. is super-sized, and The Fridge indulged it like an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Perry bulldozed his way through the first American Bowl in 1986, as fans packed Wembley Stadium in London to see his Chicago Bears defeat the Dallas Cowboys 17-6. This was the man who had "deflowered the end zone like a hot dog down a drinking straw" in Super Bowl XX, and we, the newly initiated, embraced him like a footballing Elvis—albeit the doughnut-era one.

Next up were Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, serving up your more traditional all-American quarterback and wide-receiver fare, and converting San Francisco 49ers fans by the thousands. Dan Marino also became a familiar name, though a generation probably still knows him best for his inspired turn in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (yes, there really is a "Dan Marino should die of gonorrhea and rot in hell" Facebook group).

O.J. Simpson's fame over here had nothing to do with football and everything to do with a white Bronco, small leather gloves and the most sensationalized court case in history. How the TV networks must have wished he was young enough to get back on the field afterwards.

Since O.J., however, there's been a noticeable void. Supremely talented athletes like Tom Brady and the Manning brothers are well known to the keener sports fans in England, but for some reason nobody since Simpson has truly crossed over from your shores to ours.

Nobody until now, that is.

Unwittingly, American sport has appointed a new global ambassador. His name is Tim Tebow, he's the quarterback for the Denver Broncos and he's the most captivating sports personality on the planet right now.

If you're reading this article at 3:16 p.m. and your name is John, you've just added to his legend. If you've no idea what I'm talking about, it's only a matter of time. In the meantime, read this.

It strikes me Tebow would have seemed far-fetched as a fictional character in Jerry Maguire, Friday Night Lights or Any Given Sunday. That he's actually a quarterback, on a real team and about to face off against Tom Brady in the AFC divisional playoffs is the stuff of sportswriter fantasy. And it's rocket fuel for a debate that's igniting American living rooms all across the country.

I'm no expert, but my initial Tebow research tells me this: Half of you love the guy, and the other half of you can't stand him. He's at the same time one of the best players in the NFL and one of the worst. He's both well-meaning and on a calculated power trip that will probably culminate with a run at the White House. He's the ultimate sporting missionary to some and the epitome of everything that's wrong with Christian right-wing America to others.

I haven't made up my mind yet, but my message to every NFL fan in America is this—love him or loathe him, you are seriously lucky to have Tebow in your lives right now. Sports personalities who divide and captivate a nation are few and far between, and you never know how many you'll see in a lifetime. You don't have to like him or rate him as an athlete. Just know that there are 10,000 bland, predictable lumps of muscle waiting for your attention when Tebow exits stage left.

In fact, Tebow is precisely the kind of personality soccer is crying out for right now. Talent-wise we've got things covered—Lionel Messi is already among the best three players of all time (Pele and Diego Maradona being the other two) and still just 24, while Pep Guardiola's Barcelona is arguably the best team ever assembled. In years to come we'll look back at a golden age for the game, and from our rocking chairs we'll tell the next generation, "Things ain't what they used to be."

But while soccer itself is in rude health, the personalities who once colored it are nowhere to be seen. Not since Zinedine Zidane lent us his genius have we been graced by a true maverick spirit. The Premier League has been wanting since the reign of Eric Cantona. And where once we had the likes of Maradona and Paul Gascoigne on the international scene, now we have silence.

If there's one thing lacking from the global game, it's the characters who once defined it. Not only would a guy like Tebow inject some much-needed personality, his positivity would also help counteract the negative storylines which continue to cast a dark cloud over our sport. Racist abuse by players, widespread corruption in the game's governing body, disgraceful behaviour by men paid millions of pounds just to kick a ball around.

These are the narratives that drag soccer down, time and again. How refreshing would it be to focus instead on an athlete like Tebow, whose biggest crime is harmlessly irritating 50 percent of America? We've got nobody like him, and I can't see anybody on the horizon either.

Here's a guy who believes so strongly in himself he's got fans pulling for the best quarterback of a generation worried. A sports star of such enormous conviction that he's not afraid to say what he wants, when he wants to say it. An athlete who's walked straight off the page of a Hollywood script and into the living rooms of America, intent on taking the moment for everything it has to offer.

If you really don't want him, football fans, we'd be happy to have him. He'll need a decent WAG first, though.