Along with millions of other Americans, I was recently duped. Under the influence of several expensive marketing campaigns -- thank you ABC, ESPN and Nike -- I was led to believe that the U.S. national soccer team was capable of achieving something historic in the 2006 World Cup. Despite the fact that I never played organized soccer -- I was a baseball player -- I decided to emotionally invest myself with the World Cup exploits of the U.S. team. Each game, I sat transfixed in front of the television, wrapped in my U.S. flag, cheering for well-placed through balls and bemoaning phony off-sides calls. I truly thought that Bruce Arena would be able to lead the squad back to the quarterfinals, if not further.
What a fool I was. I had forgotten a basic fact. Soccer is about as American game as samba dancing and chowing down on escargots. Sure, we have excellent college teams -- including Virginia -- and the MLS features a bevy of talented players, but we are nothing on the international level. We just do not have the talent nor the experience needed to excel on soccer's grandest stage. Brazilian and British children grow up dreaming of becoming the next Pele or David Beckham while American children dream of becoming the next Michael Jordan, Brett Favre or Cal Ripken. Americans lack the level of passion for soccer that is needed to produce a national team capable of making a run through the World Cup.
The only reason that we reached the quarterfinals in 2002 was that we snuck up on people and caught every break along the way. This year, we suffered a devastating punch early on and never recovered. Jan Koller's header past Kasey Keller in the fifth minute of the opener against the Czech Republic appeared to utterly shatter four years of U.S. preparation. I have never seen as uninspired soccer as I witnessed during that 3-0 loss to the Czechs. Our supposed offensive playmaker, Landon Donovan, looked like a zombie out there and most of his teammates hardly looked livelier. The Americans might as well have flown home after that game. The passionless loss made it clear that this team did not have the moxie to repeat the success of 2002.
The only reason that the early exit of the U.S. was so disappointing was because of how much hype had been built up about the team leading up to the World Cup. If that hype were deserved, it would have been understandable. But after the lackluster performance of the U.S., it seems more likely that the squad's potential was over-hyped in order to boost the ratings for ABC and ESPN. That will come back to bite those two stations in the butt in 2010 when Americans will be more cautious about buying into the hype and tuning in.
The most egregious example of this hype was Nike's commercial featuring clips of the U.S. team with "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" playing in the background. I cringed every time that it came on the air. Baseball was my life growing up as a child and to hear that song be used for soccer was quite disconcerting. While I have grown to appreciate soccer in recent years, it will never be on the same level in my mind as baseball, basketball and football. Call me a simple American if you wish. I will wear that badge with honor.
So four years from now in the run-up to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, don't get pumped up about the U.S. team's potential. Just sit back, drink a beer, eat a hot dog and turn on some baseball. It's the American way.
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