Question No. 19: Thanks to last year's Confederations Cup and
Donovan's extra-time goal last weekend, do you think soccer is finally
taking off in America?</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Put it
this way …</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When I was in the third
grade (1978), people thought soccer was taking off in America.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When I was a freshman in college (1988), people
thought soccer was taking off in America.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When
I was a barely employed wannabe sportswriter in Boston whose life
revolved around the O.J. Simpson trial and partying every night (1994),
people thought soccer was taking off in America.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When I was living in Boston with my fiancée and writing
for ESPN.com (2002), people thought soccer was taking off in America.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
I am 40 years old. I live in Los
Angeles. My hair is turning silvery white. I have a wife, two kids, a
mortgage and that same ESPN column. Guess what? People think soccer is
taking off in America. Only this time … I agree with them.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Question No. 20: Wait a second … you agree
with them? YOU AGREE WITH THEM???? You sap! They say this every four
years and it never happens!!!! Klosterman is right! You are the
Manchurian Soccer Candidate!</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Hear
me out …</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When Donovan
scored that Cup-saving goal against those spineless
playing-for-a-tie-when-they-needed-to-win-by-two-goals Algerians, the
moment resonated like no other goal in American soccer history. We
didn't have anyone telling us how we should feel, what the implications
were, what the moment
meant. We knew what it meant. We wanted
more games. We wanted our boys to keep playing. Someone scored. We
celebrated. We jumped up and down. We ran around the room. We were alive
for another game. For once in a fragmented sports world, we all
happened to be rooting for the same thing.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
When
does that happen anymore? In 2010, you can follow any athlete, whether
he plays 13 miles away or 3,000. You can watch any game you want. You
can read any and every opinion that exists. You can find out information
as soon as it happens, instead of 12-18 hours later in a newspaper. You
can interact with other fans who love your team; you can butt heads
with the people who hate them. You can tweet your thoughts on a big play
as the players are still celebrating it. You can root for your real
guys and your fantasy guys. You are fanatically autonomous.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
We didn't have nearly as many choices when I was
growing up. Either you rooted for local teams or you jumped on a
successful bandwagon (such as the Steelers' or Cowboys') because they
were always on national TV. The days of "I'm going to fall in love with
Oklahoma City because I love watching Kevin Durant, even though I live
in Maine" were still decades away. Eight-Year-Old Me rooted for the four
Boston teams, Ali, Nicklaus, Connors and Leonard. I hated the Yankees,
Raiders, Dolphins, Canadiens, Flyers, Sixers, Munson, Nettles, Stabler,
Clarke and Kareem. I liked Earl Campbell and the Oilers' uniforms. I
liked David Thompson and George Gervin. I loved all Topps cards. I loved
Gerry Cheevers' mask. I loved Terry O'Reilly and Mike Haynes. I loved
Freddie Lynn more than anything. And those were the only real sports
opinions I had.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Fast-forward to
2010. What shapes Eight-Year-Old Me? How would EYOM settle on 10-12
things to love and hate? How would EYOM differentiate substance from
nonsense? How could a moment stand out for EYOM when
everything
gets televised or covered? It's total sports overload. Too many choices,
too much noise, too many extremes, too many niches, too many forums,
too many opinions, too many people trying to stand out. You become numb
after a while. The only thing that never gets old? Winning in the most
dramatic way possible, then basking in the glow of that dramatic victory
with as many people as possible.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Recently,
Tiger Woods came closest to uniting everyone for a common rooting
interest -- remember the 2008 U.S. Open? -- but his career imploded and
he squandered that momentum indefinitely (if not forever). There is no
"Wildly Popular American Athlete" or "Wildly Popular American Team." We
even turned on Brett Favre. We only share the Olympics together, every
two years. A rotating cast of athletes that fleetingly capture our
affection, and after that, we never consider them again.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
The U.S. soccer team could own that "everyone" domain for
the simple reason that it's unattainable for anyone else. We always
want our national soccer team to succeed; it would be un-American to
feel differently. There's continuity through the years when certain
players (such as Donovan, Howard and 2010 breakout star Michael Bradley,
locks to make the 2014 World Cup) stick around for a prolonged time.
There's always a finish line (the Cup every four years), with dozens of
exhibitions, smaller tournaments and World Cup qualifying strewn in
between. If you want, you can extend your attachment by following
American stars on their club squads. Add everything up and it feels like
following the Lakers, Red Sox, Niners or whomever.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
(Note: I knew I was hooked on Saturday, after Bob Bradley
started Ricardo Clark over Maurice Edu, when I was sending e-mails back
and forth with friends much like I would have done had Doc Rivers
started Tony Allen in Game 4 of the NBA Finals.
What the hell is
going on? Why are we doing this? Is Edu injured or something? This is
terrible! WHY??????? You may have been sending those same e-mails to
your buddies, too. That's the "everyone" domain.)</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
A cynic might say, "Come on, you could have said the same
thing when we beat Colombia in 1994." No way. You need time with these
things. Decades. You need kids like me to grow up with soccer in their
lives. You need a few memories to stack up. You need it to happen
organically. The theory that soccer would never catch on until we found
our own Pelé or launched our own successful pro league was dead wrong.
We only needed to be exposed to great soccer for a prolonged period of
time. We're American. We only respond to the best. The cream of the
crop. Nothing else is going to fly.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
We
don't care that much about Donovan playing for the L.A. Galaxy with
guys who couldn't sniff the Premier League, just like English people
wouldn't care about seeing Dwyane Wade playing with a bunch of
D-Leaguers in London. We want to see Donovan tested against the best. In
the months leading up to the 2010 World Cup, I watched Donovan play big
games for our national team, for the Galaxy (in the playoffs), then
overseas for a solid Everton team. I
knew he was a world-class
player. I
knew he was legitimate. I wasn't stealing that opinion
from a magazine or a talking head. The hours I logged with Donovan made
me feel invested in him.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
It's just
easier to care about soccer now. Actually, it's something of a perfect
storm -- the technology in place, the flaws of our own professional
sports, the efficiency of soccer games, our longing for the
pre-JumboTron days when people just cheered and that's what fans did,
our best-of-the-best fetish, ESPN's unwavering commitment to pushing the
sport, the urgency of every game -- that makes more sense as a whole
than it did 10 years ago. After that crushing Ghana defeat, the U.S.
players weren't devastated just because they blew a winnable game, but
because they knew a growing number of Americans actually cared and it
wasn't simply a bandwagon thing. (The TV ratings backed it up: an
astonishing 19.4 million U.S. viewers.) It was like pining for the same
girl for four years in college, finally hooking up with her one night,
then getting kicked out of school the next day.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Dammit!
I blew it! I had her! We could have had something!</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Regardless, the U.S. completed Stage 1. Soccer is no
longer taking off. It's here. Those celebratory YouTube videos that
started popping up in the 24 hours after Donovan's goal -- all unfolding
the same way, with a stationary shot of nervous fans
watching
the game in a bar, going quiet for a couple of seconds during the
American
counterattack, reacting to Dempsey's miss (
"Nooooooooo!"),
holding their breath for two beats (
"Wait a
second …"), exploding on Donovan's finish (
"Hi-yahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"),
then chanting
"USA! USA! USA!" afterward -- tapped into a collective
American sports experience unlike anything since Lake Placid.</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
I would never compare Donovan's goal to Mike
Eruzione's goal, or compare the significance of an early-round World Cup
game to the best American sports night ever. But you can't tell me
Donovan's goal was a fleeting moment or a lark. Each celebration clip
that landed on YouTube could have been any American bar, any group of
American friends, anywhere. Like John Cougar Mellencamp's annoying Chevy
commercial sprung to life. Only it wasn't annoying. I thought it was
glorious. Those clips choked me up. Those clips gave me goosebumps.
Those clips made me think, "I forget this sometimes, but I'm glad I live
in the United States of America."</p>
</p>
</p>
</p>
Rasheed
Wallace loved to say "ball don't lie." YouTube don't lie, either. We
will always have the Algeria game. Always.</p>
