Even after loss, U.S. soccer moving in right direction

A couple days back the very funny WEEI.com columnist Jerry Thornton had a poignant piece about soccer fans in which he leveled about why his own personal interests in sports don’t fall in line with the beautiful game, but more on point why he has had a growing distaste for the soccer fan in general.

His criticisms were quite fair – often times we as a group of soccer fans display an Al Gore-like sense of humor when pundits or columnists or novices to the game make wise-cracks or critiques about our favorite sport. I know as someone that immensely dislikes NASCAR and gets plenty of good laughs about that sport that their fanbase does not get riled up each time someone like myself asks, “Is NASCAR even really a sport?” or makes some other sly, instigating comment.

I also know we as soccer fans often take the approach of the characters Barry and Dick (Jack Black and Todd Louiso) from the movie “High Fidelity” – two guys that had an intense passion for music, worked in a record store, yet acted like complete elitists any time someone had a question about music in the store. In the same vein, we the soccer fan act like “football snobs” criticizing those that we perceive to know less about our sport or we feel like should know more about the sport we love.

Misplaced passion is what I would call it and that sentiment, which is a big turnoff to many, is what must change in America for the sport to continue to grow from a grassroots Minute Man like insurgency to a full- fledge revolution.

Soccer or football is a game of celebration and a party, a sharing of cultures good and bad, about patriotically rooting for your home country until they are ousted and then likely jumping on the best South American team’s bandwagon (because they generally tend to be the flashiest and most entertaining).

Americans are just beginning to understand this – look at all the huge volume of viewing parties across the nation – and for me it’s truly a joy to partake in. But to get to the point of this recap column, it’s also why I feel an enormous opportunity was not cashed in.

The Men’s National Team – donned in throw-back jerseys to the 1950 team that advanced to the semifinals, farther than any other team in U.S. history – had a unique and once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to replicate that type of run and invigorate a nation.

In my lifetime I have seen three patriotic quests that have inspired that type of transcendent reaction – the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games gold-medal winning U.S. women’s soccer team with Mia Hamm and Brandi Chastain, the 1998 Nagano (Japan) Olympic Games gold-medal winning U.S. women’s ice hockey team with Cammi Granato, and the 2010 Vancouver (Canada) Olympic games silver-medal winning U.S. men’s ice hockey team with Ryan Miller and Brian Rafalski.

We can much more easily measure the impact of those first two teams with over 10 years time elapsed because it’s clear that those are two of the most popular girls sports played today. But I also think this past winter’s exploits by our men’s team will also see a similar uprising in the American youth ranks for hockey as well as opening the doors to many new fans to the sport of hockey, who were vastly entertained by an enthusiastic and classy bunch of professional American players.

With each game that passed throughout this tournament this courageous and resilient red, white, and blue side helped to change the way outsiders and newbies felt about the game and its fan base. The parties have been fun and lively with enormous crowds, and the U.S. games have been action-packed filled with dramatic come-backs.

Up against one of the giants of the sport in England? OK no problem we can get a good result, a thrilling draw to pull in and get the American audience’s attention. Down two goals after the first half against the smallest nation in the tournament? Nothing we can’t handle, and we’ll even show top class dignity not “ugly Americanism” when the worst call of the tournament goes against our team. Ultimately needing a goal and a win inside the dying seconds to continue a good World Cup campaign? We got that too, here’s the most dramatic moment of the tournament for you our growing fanbase as well.

But when everything was there for the taking – the most favorable bracket the U.S. could have hoped for to get to the semifinals, avoiding all the heavyweights (Brazil, Germany, Argentina, Spain, the Netherlands), and with the three best U.S. players (Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey) in the primes of their careers – the one chink in the armor, central defending, which had been exposed throughout the tournament was finally fatal thanks to Asamoah Gyan’s 93rd minute extra-time goal as one more cowboy-like last stand was not in the books.

What I had been hoping for is that a deep run in the tournament would pull in a bunch of “pink hats” for lack of a better term – the people that jump on the bandwagon of a team that is doing well. Yes the life-long Red Sox fans mock the pink hats for jumping on the Sox bandwagon only after the team won a pair of World Series titles after 86 years of despair, but some of those so-called pink hats are now fervent fans and truth be told it makes going to Fenway a little more exciting because you sit in a packed stadium and more lively atmosphere every game.

As someone who knows how difficult it is to build an interest level in something I care about, I was counting on a few or a bunch of those pink hats to see the brilliance I first saw in the 1990 World Cup that caught my imagination. There is clearly already a foundation there, but once you’ve built the foundation you can’t stop there, a floor needs to be set, walls need to be raised, a roof needs to be lifted.

Although the U.S. run could have been better, and I sit here an emotional mess pondering many questions in my head – why did Bob Bradley start Ricardo Clark and Robbie Findley in the last game when the two players weren’t up to snuff? Was winning Group C in 2010 (first time winning our WC group in 80 years) as good as advancing to the quarterfinals in 2002? How did Ghana knock us out for a second straight tournament without the Black Stars best player Michael Essien? – I now hope that their overall positive results in South Africa were good enough. I get the sense that we are moving in the right direction and I look forward to the next step – when Americans start asking what their favorite U.S. players will be doing following the World Cup.