Ah, the World Cup! The eyes of the world are trained on South Africa, well most of the eyes anyway. We tend to look away in the good ole USA. Soccer or futbol is easily the most popular sport in the world, inciting fans, countries and continents to impassioned action.

Here in our country I have been hearing how it is the fastest growing sport since my elementary school days. This for the most part is true if one only measures the growth in youth leagues, high schools and in colleges. I know my love grew for it when I was quite young and that love has spread from play to avid fan, but I gave up long ago on the hope it would take America by storm. Other than our Woman’s national team a decade ago it would seem soccer in this country has found its fan base and will not spread beyond that group.
Last week as everyone knows the American team received a bad call in World Cup play against Slovenia that kept them at a draw instead of a straight win. For 24 hours it was the talk on sports radio, television news and even made it to a few water cooler conferences. One foreign commentator on ESPN’s coverage suggested with the buzz the bad call had been a gift in the fact that American’s finally cared and was paying attention to their team. Today all the talk was about a marathon match at Wimbledon and America’s extra time winning goal against Algeria took a solid back seat to tennis.

Although I have accepted the downgrading of soccer’s importance in my country, the acceptance only came after questioning why it was so. The answer was simple. We are not that good at it. Americans focus on domination in sport. In soccer we are always an underdog.

We have fielded some great teams, but even in their greatness the European powers of the sport see us only as a slow curve in their road to victory. The Brazilians and Argentines of South America see us as place to play out their pro careers when they are no longer physically capable of playing in Europe and on their home continent.

Many sport fans in America do not understand the game and cite the low scores and players writhing on the field in supposed mortal pain after barely being touched as reasons not to watch. The parity of the world’s players and a game plan followed are some of the reasons for the low scores. The recent dismantling of the North Korean team by Portugal 7-0 should have fed some of those desires. The death throes of uninjured players on the field gives the players time to catch their breath reset and start again. There are no time outs and substitutions are limited to 3 players. Essentially the players are running a mini marathon while keeping in mind a game plan, individual assignment and knowing one mistake made will be aired over and over on billions (yes billions) of television sets around the world. Want to get some perspective of the expectations and pressure put on these players? Just read up on the 1994 Columbian World Cup team.

Here is the final word. America is poised for a deep run in this world cup. They are the first American team to win their first round grouping in 80 years. Keep in mind the 1930 World Cup was the first time for the event and that American team finished 3rd overall. The highest finish by any non South American or European team in world cup history. America plays Ghana at 2:30 Saturday, the teams are close in ability, but Ghana will have the support of the African continent. Winning that one will cause the remaining teams to take us more seriously. Italy and France have already gone home, Germany has struggled, and England already learned we came to play. Spain and Brazil still see us as upstarts, but remember quite well the matches with the Americans from last year, and well know we are dangerous.

Let’s support the team and put the fear in the rest of the world that we are on the doorstep of taking over their beloved game. After all when it is over you still have Nascar and some of the marathon low scoring snooze fest pro baseball has to offer.