It seems unlikely that the US squad is going to advance as far as they did last time around unfortunatley. Here's a piece about soccer by Dave Eggers, in which he sums up the piece by saying:
It's inevitable, given the way the U.S. teams are improving every year, that eventually we will make it to the semifinals of the World Cup, and it's likely, one would think, that the United States will win it all in the near future. This is a country of limitless wealth and 300 million people, after all, and when we dedicate the proper resources to a project, we get the job done (see Vietnam, Lebanon, Iraq). But until we do win the Cup—and we have no chance this particular time around, being tossed into the Group of Death, which will consume us quickly and utterly—soccer will receive only the grudging acknowledgement of the general populace. Then again, do we really want—or can we even conceive of—an America where soccer enjoys wide popularity or even respect? If you were soccer, the sport of kings, would you want the adulation of a people who elected Bush and Cheney, not once but twice? You would not. You would rather return to your roots, Communist or otherwise, and fight fascism with your feet.
It was a tough break being drawn with the Italians, Czechs and one of Africa's better teams. In Australia I've heard the statistic that America has more registered players than we have people - so I can only imagine that the popularity will rise eventually, despite occasional lack of success. Soccer/football is the type of sport that you generally need to play to enjoy watching, and the benefit of the game over other footballs, and indeed over many other sports, is that you don't need ot be a freak of nature physically to be good at it - i.e. you can be short/tall, relatively big or small, and the game has a place for you somewhere.
Posted by: Edward | June 15, 2006 at 01:15 PM