Let’s look forward to another of Grant Tunkel‘s fascinating descriptions of the USA (and Sunderland) supporter’s experience of World Cup joy.
The USA’s 1-0 defeat by Germany was probably about fair. But Portugal’s win against Ghana was the result that ensured American progress to the knock-out stages of the competition.
And what a pleasure it is to see the Americans do what mighty Italy, Spain, England and Portugal could not and get beyond the group phase.
Salut! Sunderland readers, for whatever reason, voted the USA their second team at Brazil 2014. I respect that choice – England’s exit means they also become our first team – but have also been impressed by the way they have played and the support they’ve had.
Some lack of quality, but great application, as Mark Lawrenson rather astutely put it in the BBC coverage.
It didn’t seem right that a nation as powerful as the United States should not have a decent competitive national football – yep, football not soccer – side. Now it has.
Just as with Rugby the expansion of the game with Argentina and Italy improving year on year has done nothing but improve the quality of the game as a visual attraction.
For football the attraction of the game within the USA has been so important and yes China may become an integral part of the sport but it has taken far too long to wet the Yanks appetite and a successful run in this world cup will ignite interest in the game like never before.
Hopefully American obsession with fitness and athleticism in sport will, with the huge amounts of money available to invest, provide a further push forward for football but it will hinge on ensuring that the governing bodies concentrate on getting its own corruption out of the game because the Americans are professional at that too.
not according to “soccernomics”. The future belongs to China.
And this was before the authors saw Jozy.
Very true Jeremy,if the yanks decide to take it up as a first sport the rest of the world would not get a look in….it d be USA wins the World Cup every time
The US seems to have eventually come of age as a football playing nation. It’s taken a lot of persuasion and coaxing but they seem to have caught on to it eventually.
I wonder how many would be superstars there might have been had they not wasted their time on baseball, Gridiron and basketball?