Why should Americans care about the World Cup and Soccer?

1. Are you hearing all this World Cup 2010 excitement and wondering what is all the fuss about? Whether you like it or not, you will be smothered with soccer from June 11^th to July 11^th this summer. To get a good picture of how much the popularity of the World Cup has grown, just turn on ESPN and see if you can go five minutes without hearing about the World Cup. ESPN even hired a team that took two years to write a musical score that will only be used for one month. If you are one of those World Cup laggards, here is a list of reasons why should care about “the beautiful game”:

1. 1. Everyone else in the world cares

Y Yeah, Yeah, I know, your Mom told you that you shouldn’t do something because “everyone is doing it.” However, you have to stop and take notice when 5.9 billion people are doing it. In 2006 5.9 billion watched the 2006 Cup, an estimated 260 million watched the final and more than 600 million viewers watched part of the final match. To put this in perspective for us Americans, the 2006 Super Bowl had about 91 million viewers and the 2008 summer Olympics highest rated event had 39 million viewers (the Opening Ceremony). It is truly the biggest stage and begs your attention.

2. Love the Olympics? The drama heightens even more in the World Cup

It is very true that Americans love the Olympics. We love the spectacle and the warm patriotic feelings that it brings, but what we really love is the drama. We love to see if Michael Phelps is going to win his 900^th medal, we want to know if Usain Bolt is going to run faster than lightning and we want to see the world’s best athletes perform on the biggest stage. The fact that it happens only every four years draws us in. We as Americans love drama.

Welcome to the World Cup, an event that bleeds drama. The World Cup has temporarily stopped wars and caused countries to drop everything to watch their beloved national team. In 2006 the qualification of the Ivory Coast caused the country to call a temporary truce from their bloody Civil War that had lasted years. In 1994 a Columbian player named Andres Escobar scored an own goal in the World Cup resulting in his side not advancing to the next round and was later shot and killed. His death was widely believed that he was murdered because of his horrible mistake. Many in depth studies have shown that the World Cup results can drastically affect the stock market. Albeit good or bad the World Cup results have serious ramifications and prove that the World Cup should steal TNT’s slogan of “We know Drama.”

3. America has the best team we have ever had and best chance to go to the second round

A big reason why we love the Olympics is because we dominate. We love to watch winners. Partly why the World Cup has been slower to catch on in the United States is because we have historically been a weak team. The USA didn’t qualify for the World Cup for 40 years, but since 1990 we have qualified for every tournament. Since 1990 we have steadily improved and have finally produced some credible results.

In 2002 we shocked many and made it to the quarterfinals of the World Cup and barely lost to Germany in a game where we were robbed of a game tying penalty kick. Just last year we made a phenomenal run in the Confederations Cup and shocked the world by beating Spain and going up 2-0 on Brazil early in the game. Of the 23 man roster for the World Cup, 19 players play abroad with 17 that play in Europe. This is by far the most US players playing overseas ever. This is of course significant because the most talented leagues are in Europe and this experience has helped us immensely.

The US team has also been been drawn into arguable the easiest group they have ever seen in this year’s World Cup. They have a very good chance of making it to the next round and you will want to witness it! They also will be playing England in the first game of the World Cup, which I believe is the biggest game in American soccer history.

4. Nonstop action

Whether or not you agree that soccer is “the beautiful game”, it packs 90 minutes of nonstop action. No other American sport can say that. American football stops every 20 seconds, baseball every 1 second, and basketball has 4 quarters with more fouls and timeouts than you can count. Soccer is a game that requires an incredible amount of skill and endurance. The average professional soccer player runs 6-7 miles per game. Not too shabby compared to those fat American football players and beer belly baseball players. Whether you like soccer or not you have to respect the athletes.

The World Cup is usually soccer at its best and if you have a hard time getting into it try watching some teams like Argentina, Brazil, Netherlands and Spain. If you watch those teams and don’t think soccer is a “beautiful game”, something is terribly wrong with you. As with anything, the more you watch soccer the more you love and understand it.

I truly believe that if you give the World Cup a shot this summer you will be drawn into the beauty and madness known as World Cup soccer. Join the world and watch and appreciate a sport that transcends the playing field.