The World Cup - You Care About it This Summer, You Just Don't Know It

When I was around the age where just about everyis a game we let our kids play until they can fit into
American boy starts to play sports, my dad wasextra small shoulder pads. Although I generally agree
pretty sure that soccer was a communist plot.with these statements, it can't replace the small craw
American sports are baseball, football, basketball, andin my side.
hockey. Not soccer. Nonetheless, he agreed that theWe can't win and the Europeans and South
energy I expended on Saturday gave him an extraAmericans love it. We won WWII, but Brazil has
hour of sleep Sunday morning. So it goes even todayalmost as many victories as we have appearances.
for a nation of soccer moms and dads. What youWe are the world's wealthiest nation, but we can't
don't know is that nothing could be more Americanseem to put 11 players on a field to compete with
than pulling for our team to win this year.Slovenia. If you ask a German what he worries about
In less than 200 years, our country went from a thornthis summer, its heffe weissen and fussball; if you ask
in England's side to the most dominant nation the worldan Italian, its good pasta and calico (soccer); to a
has ever seen. We've grown up as winners. We haveFrenchman its good wine, football, and any large
the best military, our GDP is three times larger than theformations of Germans marching along the border.
next highest nation's and larger than the next threeThe countries of the world have conceded that they
combined. We invented velcro and nuclear weapons.can't best us in most of the measures of world
Europeans hate that. We love it. Americans lovedomination, except for the world's most dominant sport
winners, and we've done lots of winning. From the- soccer.
medal count in the 2010 Winter Olympics to the RyderNow back to why you care. For just a moment, look
Cup (it takes the entire European continent to competeaway from your internet searches on the spring
with us), we sip from the cup of victory, and we can'tcollege football updates. This year, our national team is
get enough. Then there is this little thing called theactually ranked - 14th. Last summer, we beat the #1
World Cup...ranked team in the world at the time, Spain. We've had
We've never won it. The best we did was in 1930 anda professional soccer program in the US that has
that was third. Sort of. It was a small field of teamsbeen able to sustain itself. We have a large youth
(13) and half of them were from South America,soccer population that serves as a feedstock to an
where the Cup was played. In comparison, that's likeextremely organized amateur league (colleges and
the NFC East Champions crowning themselves theuniversities) that can produce large numbers of quality
Superbowl Champs without playing anybody in theplayers. The time is set for us to finally compete on a
rest of the NFL. Over the history of the World Cup,world scale, and this year, we can actually make a
we have trouble even qualifying. We've only managedshowing. For just a moment, imagine the look on the
that feat 8 of the 18 tournaments that have been held.French Prime Minister's face as the World Cup trophy
For a nation that loves to win, we're right up there withis hoisted above the stars and stripes. Imagine the
Scotland. When we do make it, we rarely make it outdisdain that the BBC sports casters will have when
of the first round of round robin games, losing to teamsthey utter the words, "Your World Cup Champions, the
like Paraguay. Yes, Paraguay is a country. Try to find itAmericans." We're Americans. We're Winners. We
on the map. In typical fashion, most Americans respondcare about that, and only then will things be right in the
with the fact that we don't care about soccer, or weworld.
don't watch sports that end in ties, or even that soccer