The World Cup - You Care About it This Summer, You Just Dont Know It

When I was around the age where just about every American boy starts to play sports, my dad was pretty sure that soccer was a communist plot. American sports are baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Not soccer. Nonetheless, he agreed that the energy I expended on Saturday gave him an extra hour of sleep Sunday morning. So it goes even today for a nation of soccer moms and dads. What you don't know is that nothing could be more American than pulling for our team to win this year.

In less than 200 years, our country went from a thorn in England's side to the most dominant nation the world has ever seen. We've grown up as winners. We have the best military, our GDP is three times larger than the next highest nation's and larger than the next three combined. We invented velcro and nuclear weapons. Europeans hate that. We love it. Americans love winners, and we've done lots of winning. From the medal count in the 2010 Winter Olympics to the Ryder Cup (it takes the entire European continent to compete with us), we sip from the cup of victory, and we can't get enough. Then there is this little thing called the World Cup...

We've never won it. The best we did was in 1930 and that was third. Sort of. It was a small field of teams (13) and half of them were from South America, where the Cup was played. In comparison, that's like the NFC East Champions crowning themselves the Superbowl Champs without playing anybody in the rest of the NFL. Over the history of the World Cup, we have trouble even qualifying. We've only managed that feat 8 of the 18 tournaments that have been held. For a nation that loves to win, we're right up there with Scotland. When we do make it, we rarely make it out of the first round of round robin games, losing to teams like Paraguay. Yes, Paraguay is a country. Try to find it on the map. In typical fashion, most Americans respond with the fact that we don't care about soccer, or we don't watch sports that end in ties, or even that soccer is a game we let our kids play until they can fit into extra small shoulder pads. Although I generally agree with these statements, it can't replace the small craw in my side.

We can't win and the Europeans and South Americans love it. We won WWII, but Brazil has almost as many victories as we have appearances. We are the world's wealthiest nation, but we can't seem to put 11 players on a field to compete with Slovenia. If you ask a German what he worries about this summer, its heffe weissen and fussball; if you ask an Italian, its good pasta and calico (soccer); to a Frenchman its good wine, football, and any large formations of Germans marching along the border. The countries of the world have conceded that they can't best us in most of the measures of world domination, except for the world's most dominant sport - soccer.

Now back to why you care. For just a moment, look away from your internet searches on the spring college football updates. This year, our national team is actually ranked - 14th. Last summer, we beat the #1 ranked team in the world at the time, Spain. We've had a professional soccer program in the US that has been able to sustain itself. We have a large youth soccer population that serves as a feedstock to an extremely organized amateur league (colleges and universities) that can produce large numbers of quality players. The time is set for us to finally compete on a world scale, and this year, we can actually make a showing. For just a moment, imagine the look on the French Prime Minister's face as the World Cup trophy is hoisted above the stars and stripes. Imagine the disdain that the BBC sports casters will have when they utter the words, "Your World Cup Champions, the Americans." We're Americans. We're Winn

When I was around the age where just about every American boy starts to play sports, my dad was pretty sure that soccer was a communist plot. American sports are baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Not soccer. Nonetheless, he agreed that the energy I expended on Saturday gave him an extra hour of sleep Sunday morning. So it goes even today for a nation of soccer moms and dads. What you don't know is that nothing could be more American than pulling for our team to win this year.

In less than 200 years, our country went from a thorn in England's side to the most dominant nation the world has ever seen. We've grown up as winners. We have the best military, our GDP is three times larger than the next highest nation's and larger than the next three combined. We invented velcro and nuclear weapons. Europeans hate that. We love it. Americans love winners, and we've done lots of winning. From the medal count in the 2010 Winter Olympics to the Ryder Cup (it takes the entire European continent to compete with us), we sip from the cup of victory, and we can't get enough. Then there is this little thing called the World Cup...

We've never won it. The best we did was in 1930 and that was third. Sort of. It was a small field of teams (13) and half of them were from South America, where the Cup was played. In comparison, that's like the NFC East Champions crowning themselves the Superbowl Champs without playing anybody in the rest of the NFL. Over the history of the World Cup, we have trouble even qualifying. We've only managed that feat 8 of the 18 tournaments that have been held. For a nation that loves to win, we're right up there with Scotland. When we do make it, we rarely make it out of the first round of round robin games, losing to teams like Paraguay. Yes, Paraguay is a country. Try to find it on the map. In typical fashion, most Americans respond with the fact that we don't care about soccer, or we don't watch sports that end in ties, or even that soccer is a game we let our kids play until they can fit into extra small shoulder pads. Although I generally agree with these statements, it can't replace the small craw in my side.

We can't win and the Europeans and South Americans love it. We won WWII, but Brazil has almost as many victories as we have appearances. We are the world's wealthiest nation, but we can't seem to put 11 players on a field to compete with Slovenia. If you ask a German what he worries about this summer, its heffe weissen and fussball; if you ask an Italian, its good pasta and calico (soccer); to a Frenchman its good wine, football, and any large formations of Germans marching along the border. The countries of the world have conceded that they can't best us in most of the measures of world domination, except for the world's most dominant sport - soccer.

Now back to why you care. For just a moment, look away from your internet searches on the spring college football updates. This year, our national team is actually ranked - 14th. Last summer, we beat the #1 ranked team in the world at the time, Spain. We've had a professional soccer program in the US that has been able to sustain itself. We have a large youth soccer population that serves as a feedstock to an extremely organized amateur league (colleges and universities) that can produce large numbers of quality players. The time is set for us to finally compete on a world scale, and this year, we can actually make a showing. For just a moment, imagine the look on the French Prime Minister's face as the World Cup trophy is hoisted above the stars and stripes. Imagine the disdain that the BBC sports casters will have when they utter the words, "Your World Cup Champions, the Americans." We're Americans. We're Winn