If a tree falls in the forrest & no-one is there to hear it...

I really wish that someone could explain something to me. Out of all the peculiararities of we Americans, here are just a few that come to mind right off the bat:

• Our sports isolationism (ie: that we call our professional sports team champions in every sport "World Champions", although the only US Professionl sports with tems outside on the continental US are Baseball (Toronto Blue Jays) & Hockey (Edmonton, Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver)...oh, & MLS is adding an expansion Toronto team in 2007
• The fact that the United States does not usually recognize the governing bodies of sports worldwide...usually creating our own to govern US play (ie: USGA over the R&A)...with the exception of MLS, which is governed by FIFA
• The US, along with Great Britain, are the only countries in the world which does not use the metric system as it's main standard of measurement
• In every other country in world, people are taught to speak at least two languages, whereas most US pupils to only retain a single phrase from their schooling..."May I go to the bathroom?"

As I sit here watching England battle for the pride of their nation in the single most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, I can't help but ask myself why Soccer is no more popular in the United States.Soccer, known the rest of the world over as Football or Futbol (as is will be frequently referred to from here on), is arguably the single most popular sport on the planet. In many parts of the world football evokes great passions and plays an important role in the life of individual fans, local communities, and even nations; it is therefore often claimed to be the most popular sport in the world. ESPN has spread the claim that the Côte d'Ivoire national football team helped secure a truce to the nation's civil war in 2005. By contrast, however, football is widely considered to be the final proximate cause in the Football War in June 1969 between El Salvador and Honduras. The sport also exausted tensions at the beginning the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990s, when a match devolved into rioting in March 1990.

Today, football is played at a professional level all over the world, and millions of people regularly go to football stadia to follow their favorite team, with billions more watching the game avidly on television. A very large number of people also play football at an amateur level. According to a survey conducted by FIFA and published in the spring of 2001, over 240 million people regularly play football in more than 200 countries in every part of the world. Its simple rules and minimal equipment requirements have no doubt aided its spread and growth in populrity.

The sport has given rise to one of the world's most popular figures, David Beckham, who's both name & face is instantly recognisable in every corner of the world. As one of the elite few who's status can be identified by a single name (joining the ranks of legends such as Pele, Madonna, Sting, Arnie, Shania, & Goodwin), Beckham's fame has even given rise to such off-field entertainment as the 2004 cult film "Bend It Like Beckham". With appearances may be better described as a phenomenon, Beckham is perhaps rivaled by only one man as the most recognisable figure on the planet...Tiger.

Dispite all of this, football has not reached soaring heights of popularity in the US, as it has the rest of the world over. Upon the loss of the US national team to Ghana on this past Friday, one of the ESPN analysists made a statement which I believe summed-up this quandry quite well...

"One player from the Ghana national team made a comment before the game that every player on their team would die to win the World Cup, because of what it would mean to Ghana & the whole of Africa...I don't think that anyone on the US team would even pretend to entertain that thought..."

Simply put, of those in the US who even know today that the US is out of the World Cup, only a fraction of them even care. I would venture to guess that well over half of the US population was even aware that the World Cup is being held, nevermind that the US national team had qualified. I'd bet many wouldn't even be able to tell you what the World Cup even was. A majority would no doubt be surprised to know that the World Cup was held in the United States in 1994 (as well as the Women's World Cup in 2003), during which the average attendance of nearly 69,000 shattered a record that had stood since 1950. The total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the greatest in World Cup history...yet most seem to not know anything about it...

If you think about it, who among you didn't play soccer as a child? Regardless of whether it was on a travelling team or on a town league (playing only other kids from the same town), I'm willing to bet that most of you have memories of soccer in your past. I'd be interested to know an exact percentage, but I would venture a guess that a majority of childen in the US play soccer on a team of some sort at one point in their childhood (admit it...you all remember the orange slices, practices with the team, & soccer moms...)

Maybe it can be chalked up to the fact that there was no professional soccer league in the US until the creation of the MLS in 1993. Baseball is only America's past-time because, since it's inception, people could go and catch a game down at the local ballpark. We route for our home team, revel in their victories, & feel the pain of their losses. Although, baseball fans in Boston & Chicago (north side) may be the only fans that come close to understanding how soccer is entwined with the lives of fans around the world. Particularly in Great Britain, where The FA Premeir League (UK's Primary soccer league) reins supreme.

Promoted as "The Greatest Show On Earth", the FA Premier League is the world's most popular and most watched sporting league, followed worldwide by over a billion people. Over 260 foreign players compete in the league, and 101 stars from England's domestic leagues competed in the 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan. It is widely watched overseas, with matches being shown in over 150 countries. In Great Britain itself, many people travel back to their childhood home-towns every weekend to cheer for the local teams for which they have loved all of their lives. Victories are invigorating. Loses are crushing. Teams are a source of local & regional pride, as well as a source of emense economic power (The Premier League is the most lucrative football league in the world, with total club revenues of over £1.3 billion in 2004–05, more than 40% above its nearest competitor). On a national level, not even the Olympic Games can rival the World Cup in terms of the amount of national pride on the line with every match. Only those who lived & died under the one of the two curses (that of The Bambino & The Billygoat), out of everyone in the nation, even come close to understanding...& then probably not quite to the extent to what British soccer fans live through every season.

Whatever your feelings towards soccer, you can't deny that it's popularity is steadily growing in the US & has been for some time. Although still in relative infancy compared to other American professional sporting leagues, MLS continues to gain interest & grow it's fan base with each passing season. This may be best described, in fact, by the comments made in a recent interview with Drew Carey (not only a season ticket-holder of the MLS Los Angeles Galaxy, but also follows the American national team as a press photographer, and sells his images via wire services under a pseudonym & is currently in Germany attending the World Cup matches):

"...I hope that it gets better for us every World Cup. Professional soccer in the US is getting better every year and one of these days it’s going to be the USA (winning the World Cup), I hate to tell you. It might be eight years from now, it might be twelve years from now, but you can’t stop a train, man. We are getting stronger all the time and I don’t see it stopping. It’s going to be pretty soon and think it will be really good for the sport all over the world."