US? A? Nope, but OK.

In yesterday’s Confederation Cup Final, the US Men’s National soccer team lost 3-2 to Brazil despite taking an improbable but deserved 2-0 lead into the half. On the surface, it would be considered a pretty crushing loss (and, yes, it was) but they proved the skin-of-their-teeth win against Spain was not merely a fluke. That was their goal going into the match and, though they understandably wanted the victory after a cracking first half, Brazil’s victory seemed inevitable even before Luis Fabiano put the Selecao within a goal at the start of the second 45 minutes.. Anyone that knows a thing or two about “footy” knows that for the US team, thought the game itself was ended in a depressing way, the tournament can still be viewed as mission accomplished. Now, instead of wondering how to blow up the team and start all over again, the last two games have shown the US has potential. Clearly, the team is not a soccer superpower, but at the very least, we’ve moved from “third world” to “developing nation.”
Like any country on the rise, the team has its fair share of problems. The biggest problem, it seemed, is that we don’t have a quality midfielder. None of our guys (save maybe Landon) seem to understand the concept of controlling the ball. The midfielders were afraid of holding onto the ball and would just pass it ahead to the forwards at the first sign of pressure. That doesn’t work when you don't have world-class strikers like Wayne Rooney and Fernando Torres upfront. You give up the ball over and over again and, as the US did, spend most matches on your heels while hoping to make the best of the few chances you do get. The strikers we have now are capable of scoring goals but they are not capable of creating goals. The US needs to commit itself to putting patience into practice. In the soccer Bible, patience begats ball control begats opportunities begats goals.
On a related topic, there's all this talk about soccer never being popular in the US. That's BS. Inferior soccer will never be popular here but that’s true of most things. I keep hearing about how the US has been responsible for largest percentage of World Cup ticket purchases and that should be sign enough that there are soccer fans in the US, they just want to watch the best. Soccer, at its bes,t is a flowing battle capable of producing a “holy sh*t!” moment at virtually any point in the match.
The majority of US soccer fans like all sports fans, want to watch a great product, they want to be entertained. The best way, I believe, to “make” soccer popular in the US is broader coverage of the important leagues, i.e. Premier, La Liga, and Serie A, where the world’s best already perform, rather than importing the over-the-hill superstars to the MLS (which is basically the current strategy). That’s not the case with what we have, the MLS. The MLS will not and should not be popular until there’s a concentrated effort in the US to turn its best and brightest up and coming soccer talents into world-class performers. I don’t think that will even have a chance of occurring until there’s a desire by a broad fan base for that to happen. For the MLS to have a chance to become successful, the US needs to promote what it CAN be, not what it is now. And the best way to do that would be to generate interest using other leagues. ESPN recently purchased the rights to air several EPL games next season due to the Setanta Sports bankruptcy, spurred on I’m sure by encouraging ratings from its Champion’s League coverage. That’s a solid start and I hope the network increases its coverage. Fox Soccer Channel is solid, but ESPN and its HD goodness provide an audience that FSC can’t hope to reach at the moment.