Association football to futbol: ethnic succession and the history of Chicago-area soccer since 1920

Prompted by the underappreciated position of sports in sociological research, this essay examines the interconnections between the development of professional and amateur men's soccer in Chicago and theoretical understandings of minority, race, ethnicity, immigration, integration, and urban relations. Through archival research, interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork, including participation in a local ethnic league, the author was able to reconstruct and analyze the largely undocumented history of men's soccer in Chicago. By uncovering the ways in which soccer teams and leagues have exhibited patterns of ethnic succession, the essay demonstrates the continued relevance of this sociological theory, through its application to neglected social institutions like soccer leagues and for non-spatial conceptions of urban ethnic communities. In addition, it explores the symbolic and substantive functions performed by the soccer teams and leagues as sites for the construction and maintenance of collective ethnic identities. The study covers the period from 1921 to the present.