Change We Can Believe In?

The Kufere Laing Lounge

It seems like every five year old kid in America plays soccer and everyone remembers their last season; at age eight. There's always the talk of the one amazing kid who dribbled through the entire team to score, your most memorable goal, an of course the reason you quit. Some stop to play another sport, others lose interest, but the theme is the same; American kids are not sticking with soccer. Due to this, the US men's national team is losing out on an immense amount of athletes. Unlike in other countries, most notably Brazil, where the best athletes play soccer, in America the best athletes go to play basketball or football. Why? Well, the answer seems quite simple. Americans are the best at basketball and football, due to this these sports get the most media coverage and the glory, and for an athlete these sports are seen as the most attractive. Furthermore, America boasts the best basketball and football league in the world as well as the best football and basketball players in the world.

The same cannot be said for soccer. The MLS is one of the worst professional soccer leagues in the world, and with the exception of David Beckham, does not have the world's best soccer players. The soccer seen in the United States is boring, with nonchalant crowds, and overall is a bad product. Furthermore, the MLS is soccer's representative in the US and is competing with the NBA and NFL for future athletes. The MLS' incompetence puts more pressure on the US National Team to succeed because the National Team has the US' best soccer players with a fair amount of interest and is on a huge stage whenever they play. If the US National Team succeeds, there will be more interest in soccer through country pride. As the interest increases in the soccer, its influence will grow with the younger kids.

This is why the US' win over Spain today was so important. If the US can continually knock off world powers, instead of being content with losing by a goal or two, the American preception of soccer will change. Tons of soccer fans will begin to come out of the woodwork, the same way attendance at local sporting events varies with the team's winning percentage. Still, it will take much more than a win in the Confederations Cup against Spain in a semifinal match the team luckily qualified for to bring real change. The US has to get at least World Cup Final to spark true interest and to get younger kids to stick with the game. We have already seen an international star can not come over and get Americans interested in soccer, an American has to get other Americans interested. It can't be one guy, (a few years ago Landon Donvan was seen as the savior of American soccer and that has done no more than Beckham) but rather a group of guys can spark change. If this current US team can build on this win and accomplish something special, ten years from now when American soccer is peaking, this group of guys will be seen as the team that changed America's view of soccer forever. But hey, no pressure US National Team, if you continue to be average, no one will care. No one ever will.