Going, Going, Ghana

Okay, so the United States lost to Ghana in their World Cup game. All right, so they don't advance to the quarterfinals. But -and you knew I was coming to a "but," and it's a heck of a "but" - they got more Americans interested in soccer and attracted more fans to the sport. The Major League Soccer All-Star Game next month is likely to draw its largest audiences ever. Landon Donovan is a celebrity on the order of David Beckham. The U.S. has now competed in six consecutive World Cup tournaments. And when the MLS championship is played this fall, even the most apathetic Americans will be able to tell you who won, just as even Americans completely disinterested in football can tell you the New Orleans Saints won this year's Super Bowl.

Okay, maybe not so much on that last point, but the American team can now be taken seriously. They played with heart and passion, and they won the hearts and attention spans of millions. They won their group and outperformed the French and the Italians - the two teams who played for the Cup in 2006. They made it difficult for Ghana to win. The United States men's soccer team returns home with their heads held high and their dignity intact.

But did we have to lose to Ghana, the same country that eliminated us from the 2006 tournament?

Goal!

You know, I'm one of those disgruntled souls who grew cynical about patriotism, largely because I found so many scoundrels taking refuge there. To paraphrase Bill Maher, I grew tired of Americans yelling how we're number one even though we don't have the objective rankings and studies to back up our claim. I have been hugely embarrassed at this country being seventeenth in the number of women in elective office, twenty-second in controlling infant mortality, twenty-fifth in mathematical aptitude, thirty-seventh in health care delivery, and forty-ninth in literacy. I have bitched about how our high incarceration rate, our high murder rate, our massive military spending, and our coddling of millionaires at the expense of everyone else.

But when Landon Donovan scored the deciding goal late in the second half in the U.S. men's soccer team's match against Algeria, I couldn't help but cheer. I was proud to be an American. They did it. The American men's soccer team proved that the United States is a force in the game to be reckoned with. They showed that soccer is growing in America, and that it's becoming more accepted and more mainstream. They proved we have some of the best, most talented, and the most determined players in the world. They never gave up. They pulled through. They now advance to the group of sixteen out of 32 teams.

It almost makes me forget that, according to a recent survey, 41 percent of all Americans believe Jesus will return before the middle of the century.

Oy.