Hyperbole is simply too easy today. The trap that exists, one created by an amount attention for a USMNT match that goes beyond almost anything we have seen before, is a tricky thing to avoid. Exaggeration is often a writer's friend, one to be used to make a point or elicit a reaction; there are times when hyperbole is the most effective tool we have at our disposal.
But any writer worth his salt, especially those writing on sports, fights the urge to go overboard. Ridiculous statements that go beyond the significance of one day, one event, or one match, threaten to strip away the real weight that the singular moment might actually have.
And so I struggle.
Other writers have gone as far as to say that today's match represents a tipping point for the future of soccer's profile in the United States. If the US win, it will only grow, they suggest, hitting heights we have never seen before. Conversely, if the US lose, they argue, the resulting fallout could be catastrophic to the momentum the game has built up over the last six months of 2009.
Maybe that's true, but I think the idea goes well beyond the reality. Soccer, no matter the new found attention the game is getting, is still "fringe" by almost every measure. Any attention the game receives in the mainstream media is a bonus; even if the Yanks lose in Mexico City, as they have always done in the past, the gains of 2009 cannot be completely lost in one two-hour span. It's much more complicated than that.
I won't begin to try and flesh out exactly what might happen if the US win or lose today on a wider scale than that of the soccer community as it already exists in this country. For me, it shouldn't be about trying to determine what a victory or a loss might mean anyway. Instead, it should only be about the excitement among the supporters, the anticipation and energy that arrives with a big game, and the joy we get from the belief that this time, "we" can win. There's nothing else in the modern human experience that can match it.
Did I just trail off into hyperbole? Damnit.
Let's deal with the fallout, good or bad, when the game is over. Could an American victory today be a seminal moment in the history of America's (eventually) wholesale conversion to soccer? Sure, I suppose it could. Could it be the end of encouraging up-tick in coverage and attention if the boys go out and lose? I have my doubts, but I can understand the argument.
Still, defining moments might be in the offing today, be it for the team as a whole, players individually, or the US soccer program as a true force to be reckoned with. There's pressure there, to prove that beating Spain wasn't simply a one-off aberration, and actually meant something as a symbol of our continued international improvement. No one is backing down, and there's a strong sense that Bob Bradley's team understands what this game means, even if it won't change their ultimate World Cup qualification fortunes. An opportunity to create those defining moments, the type that echo down the years and will be reminisced over by generations of American soccer fans, don't happen very often.
Is that hyperbole? I can't tell anymore.
Three hours to go.
