It's been just over a week since this tournament started, and we've seen it all, to dust off an old chestnut.
We've had skull-numbingly boring games like France - Uruguay and Ivory Coast - Portugal, and thrilling encounters like Cameroon - Denmark and Slovenia - USA.
We've seen perennial favorites crushing group minnows (Germany 4-0 Australia), struggling with long-shot no-hopers (Brazil 2-1 North Korea), being held even by presumably inferior opposition (Italy 1-1 Paraguay), and stunningly getting knocked off their gilded pedestal (Spain 0-1 Switzerland).
As a fan, I've gone through a dizzying range of emotions. I've been disappointingly leaden-stomached (Gerrard's goal), ecstatically light-headed (Clint's equalizer, helped by Rob Green), flag-wavingly triumphant (getting a draw against England), heartbreakingly disappointed (Going 2-0 down to Slovenia), and bile-spewingly outraged (Mo Edu's goal).
But the thing that has surprised me most is not how I've experienced this tournament, because there was no chance that I wouldn't be unhealthily obsessed by it. No, the most surprising thing is just how mainstream our beloved sport has gone in the last week. In 2002, if you cared enough to be slightly miffed by Torsten Frings's handball, you were either a girl (they were allowed to enjoy soccer), or an odd, basement-dwelling shut-in who wasn't man enough or athletic enough to play a "real" American sport. Now, if you aren't screaming for the head of Koman Coulibaly, you're simply unpatriotic, and not a real sports fan.
There will be plenty of people for whom this is the beginning of a life-long love affair with the beautiful game. They'll travel vast distances attend USMNT games, follow a European club in bars on winter mornings, or buy season tickets to Major League Soccer matches. They'll be hooked by the culture within the game, the passion of the supporters, the grace and power sport itself, and they'll pass that onto their kids, their families, and their friends, helping perpetuate the growth of American soccer. They'll become one of us, the existing collective of US soccer die-hards.
It's a bit heady, and of course, there will be people who won't really pay attention until the next World Cup, filing away the World Cup next to the Olympics, the Tour de France, and the Kentucky Derby as occasional "events" rather than seeing it as part of the greater soccer narrative.
They will be joined in their indifference by the same troglodyte mouth-breathers who spend more time badmouthing our sport than watching theirs. We won't convince them that our sport has just as much validity as any other, and frankly, why would we want to?
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there will also be some who become casual fans. They'll watch the big Premier League clashes, Champions League matches, US World Cup qualifiers, and the MLS playoffs on TV. They might get along to a game or two and buy a jersey, if we're lucky. They're the biggest group out there, and the ones who will ultimately decide the future of our sport. Winning over the casual sports fan means viewership, investment, and cultural legitimacy.
That the World Cup has that legitimacy is an indisputable fact. The World Cup, as a huge, all-encompassing, attention-hogging event, has made it in America, in spectacular fashion, and aided by a very good and phenomenally interesting USMNT. Right now, Landon Donovan is bigger than Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods put together.
The trick will be to extend that reach, to get those casual fans watching game after game of the World Cup to watch the Champions League, the Premiership, the US National team, and most crucially of all for American soccer, MLS.
The next six moths are the most crucial in the history of the sport in this country. Will we be welcomed into the pantheon of the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL? Or will we continue to be a big deal every four years, but a niche sport, albeit one growing slowly and steadily, in the meantime?
