Column: World Cup In America

The biggest world wide competition has come to a heartbreaking end. The last whistle was blown, the controversies are over and the Vuvuzelas have been silenced. The last game played on July 12th marked the beginning of another four year waiting period for the next world cup.

Huge soccer fanatics cringe at the idea that the worlds' biggest craze only comes through every four years. However, in the United States, most people do not know that the World Cup comes around every four years and even more surprisingly, many didn't know that the tournament was moving to Africa for the first time in history.

The United States soccer team made it to the round of sixteen during this year's World Cup and did it for the second consecutive time before being eliminated for the second consecutive time by Ghana. They surprised a lot of soccer fans around the world by accomplishing this deed. In the United States this fact was broadcasted through briefs on sport shows and radio talk shows and as a result grabbed the attention of the masses.
The national soccer team made it considerably far in the tournament but the ideology of "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" is what I believe propelled the masses to become fans.

Patriotism guides many of the actions that the American people engage in, watching and supporting the national team during this summer's competition was no exception to this fact. So many were captured by Landon Donovan's extra time goal against Algeria to make it into the round of sixteen, comparing it to "The Miracle on Ice" (however that was tied in) but as soon as they were heartbreakingly eliminated from the tournament, World Cup coverage amazingly declined. Why? In my opinion it is because the population that watched weren't soccer fans but United States fans.

At some point I believed that after this world cup, soccer will be the new favorite pastime amongst young Americans. Before the cup was over petitions to bring the World Cup to the United States quickly started making their way across message boards on Facebook and Twitter, however I quickly realized that bringing the sport to the front doors of America will not make a huge difference. For example, David Beckham of the L.A Galaxy made it a point to play in the United States because he could use his stature as a soccer sensation to provoke the American people's interest in the game. Furthermore, in 1994 the World Cup was held in the United States, a nation that at the time wasn't well known for their soccer skills, but the long term effects of the World Cup coming here as it relates to soccer hasn't been too favorable. There are countries considerably smaller than the United States that have never held the World Cup and have bigger fan bases than the United States. The love for the sport has grown in the United States since the '94 World Cup, but not enough for a nation with a population of 300 million people.

The reason soccer will never be prominent in the United States is if the ideology towards the sport changes and gets the respect it deserves. In the United States from an early age kids are indoctrinated through the media and parents that sports involve helmets and that these sports are the quickest way to overnight wealth. No one in this country has ever achieved extreme wealth from playing soccer, Soccer will not make it to a higher approval rating if in-depth reports aren't shown on sports television stations, more scholarships aren't given to college athletes, and that the idea that soccer is a girl sport. Soccer has the power to pique American's attention but it isn't powerful enough to maintain it. Maybe it's the ninety minutes of playing, if so the country as a whole should be treated for attention deficit disorder.