Futbol is not football.

So what? That's what I say about U.S. Soccer team losing in the opening round of the World Cup. You can't expect the other nations around the world who live and die on the sport to give up and just let us move on to the next round. I remember working the 2002 World Cup and being excited by the play of the U.S. team. Watching both of the forwards (Beasley and Donovan) sprint up the field and score at will. I was swayed into watching this World Cup and to say I am disappionted would be an understatement. The team looked like they were stuck in the Mississippi mud with the tires spinning.

What's more important to us as a nation isn't that we can't be a third world nation like Ghana to advance, more importantly that we even care. Really, how many people are going to wake up tomorrow with a soccer hangover? Most of us will turn our attention to baseball or the "REAL" football or the watch the head chef from Hell's Kitchen bitch slap somebody. It's just too bad the U.S. lost so quickly because no one and I really mean no one in the U.S. will watch the rest of the World Cup. So, I think it's about time to refocus ourselves as a nation to realize that the World Cup is unattainable for us. We won't win it for the sole fact that we care so little about the sport. It may be our kids favorite sport to play growing up, but as we mature it becomes what most of us really think of it...Mundane. The sport has drama, action and speed, but what it lacks is the natural progression of a sport. So many of the athletes in this nation are taken in by sports that you must use all of your body. Hands, feet, head, and upper body. Plus they are pushed by society to play the 3 majors (baseball, basketball, and football). I think if you took our best athletes i.e. Lebron James, Randy Moss, Reggie Bush, Dwayne Wade, Jim Edmonds, or anyone that is playing one of 3 major sports.

So, this is it. The last time I speak of futbol or the little known sport in our country. We are not a soccer nation, but we sure do love our football. Bring on training camps. Preseason scrubs playing all 3 quarters, college football hype that begins to boil over by the beginning of August, and the hope that this might be the year that we win it all.