My new favorite sport, or a passing fad?

After nearly 40 years of despising everything about soccer, I think I have become a fan of the “world’s most popular sport.”

On Sunday afternoon I watched what I believe was one of the most exiting sporting events I have witnessed in the last couple of years as the United States Soccer team took on Portugal. The two teams played to a 2-2 tie with the Americans giving up a last second goal to allow the Portuguese to knot the match.

The conclusion of this match marked the first time I have ever watched an entire soccer match. I’m not sure why I decided that all of the sudden I would watch a soccer match, but I did and know I think I am hooked.

My former disdain for soccer goes back to my childhood. Growing up I played all the regular “American Sports,” i.e. baseball, basketball and football. Somewhere in the early 1980’s, soccer became popular stateside and my parents signed me up. I was always the bee’s knees when it came to kickball on the playground, so I figured I’d be an ace at soccer. After the first practice, however, I knew that soccer was not for me. There was just too much running, not enough scoring and I couldn’t use my hands. I was out before I was really ever in.

Later in life, when I became a sports reporter, a high school coach explained to me, off the record, his contempt for the sport. He said that soccer took away good athletes from his football program and he felt the sport was for “pansies.” Football was the sport of kings at the school and the soccer athletes were looked at as second-class citizens.

Flash forward to Sunday afternoon. I was laid-up with a bit of a stomach-bug and there was nothing on the tube. I knew that the FIFA World Cup was going on in Brazil, but I couldn’t have cared less. Then, on ESPN, I channel-surfed my way into a documentary about team USA. I found out that their coach is from Germany, that team USA is playing in the “Death Pool” against the stiffest competition in any bracket and that the players, like the rest of the United State citizenry, are made up of athletes from a dozen different racial backgrounds. I also found out that the team had already exceeded the expectations placed on them by the worldwide sports media and that a win against Portugal would propel them to the round of 16, a single elimination tournament on the road to hoisting the World’s Cup.

I decided to give the game a chance and I was amazed. These guys are athletes in every sense of the word, not at all the pansies that coach had talked about. Unlike other North American Sports, team USA is playing for the pride of our country and I really got behind that idea while watching the match. I still don’t understand all the rules of the sport, nor do I think I will watch soccer that isn’t the World Cup in the future, but the match was so exiting that I am really looking forward to Thursday’s game against Germany.

If you haven’t given the sport of soccer a chance yet, as many American’s still look at it as a pansy-sport, give Thursday’s match a viewing. If team USA wins, I guarantee you will be hooked to World Cup play. If they are defeated, well, real football starts in August. Go Big Blue!