This is bound to be dismissed as wishful thinking, but I have a strong sense that this World Cup marks a turning point for U.S. soccer, at least in the tedious quadrennial debates Americans have over the merits of the beautiful game.
I’ve been watching the World Cup since 1978. Every four years, we soccer fans see more converts joining us in the excitement the tournament ignites, even as the soccer haters insist on telling us how boring they think it is.
The same thing is happening this time, but it feels different. The soccer haters are still making their lame jokes, but now it feels like there is a critical mass of soccer fans too large to ridicule or ignore. The soccer haters are the odd ones out.
I watched Saturday’s USA-Ghana game at Fado’s Irish Pub in LoDo, and the place was so crowded you could barely move. There were American flags, Team USA jerseys, necklaces of red, white and blue and at least one blowup doll of Uncle Sam.
But this was more than an expression of patriotism. This crowd clearly understood the game, its rules and strategy. These were knowledgeable soccer fans.
Because it was mostly a 20-something crowd, I noticed something else that could help the game leap in popularity in the coming years. Guys, there’s a whole generation of women who played soccer growing up. They might not like football or appreciate baseball, but they understand soccer and they like it. If I were a single man in my 20s, I’d give that careful consideration.
This actually dawned on me before I met Kelly Hartig, a 21-year-old CSU student who was wearing a T-shirt she hand-lettered with the message, “Team USA can score with me any day.”
Hartig has liked soccer since she was little, but she agrees with me that this World Cup has exposed a deep vein of interest in the game.
“For the U.S. to finally be good has raised the level of awareness,” Hartig said, “and you can’t help get caught up in that.”
OK, so the U.S. was ousted by Ghana, a country of 24 million in west Africa, and the soccer haters will find that extremely amusing. But this team did more than any other to help Americans appreciate the wonders of a great game.
“It’s OK, guys, you did your best and represented us well!” Olympic downhill champion Lindsey Vonn wrote in a Twitter update.
And there was this Twitter from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers: “I’ve got nothing but respect for our team. They played hard, just came up a little short.”
Rodgers asked his followers to give some “love” to U.S. defender Jay DeMerit, who is from Green Bay. Soccer fans know DeMerit is never going to be as popular as Rodgers, but Rodgers knows an athlete when he sees one.
And I know soccer won’t rival the NFL in popularity in my lifetime (and the Packers will always be my favorite team), but it doesn’t feel lonely to be a soccer fan anymore. So keep making your asinine anti-soccer jokes if you want — fewer and fewer people are laughing at them.
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
