About 15 million of you watched us play Ghana on TV, and I’m sure a great deal many more cared in some way about what happened. Check out this PostmanR article on ESPN.com about the interest in the World Cup. Landon Donovan’s goal against Algeria tore Twitter a new one. People were into this. It came in varying degrees, I’m sure, with some of you caring in that brief, fleeting “I hope our kids beat Taipei in the Little League World Series” way.

But I think there were some of you who found yourself caring a lot more than you thought you would. We tied England and you thought, “Hey, we might not suck too bad at this, and anytime I can enjoy leaving a smug Brit feeling suicidal, that’s something I’d like to be a part of.”

Then came the oh-so-dramatic Donovan goal against Algeria, and how could you feel anything but bliss? The stakes and the timing made it about as dramatic as sports get, and you’d have had to have a heart made of stone to not feel a little bit of something right there. Maybe it was joy, maybe it was pride, or maybe it was something just like you’ve felt during other great moments of fandom in your life.

Admit it, you really wanted us to beat Ghana. We’d have had a fighting chance against Uruguay or South Korea, and if we’d have gotten to the semifinals, who knows? At the very least, it would’ve been a hell of a ride there.

I think you wanted it. I think you came into the World Cup without even considering the possibility that you’d invest in it emotionally, and then you did.

Do you know what that means?

It means that you could like soccer.

If this World Cup has convinced me of anything, it’s that the general sports-watching American public can enjoy soccer. It’s not a boring game. It’s not too low-scoring. It is not unmanly or un-American. It’s a fine sport, as enjoyable as football, baseball, basketball or anything else.

By and large — and I realize I’m painting with a pretty broad brush here — I think the United States has failed to embrace soccer because we never felt like we were any good at it. If you can’t win, why play, right? Let other countries fight over the silly little game where you aren’t allowed to use your hands. We’ll stick to things we invented and can dominate.

But we’re decent now, and that changes things. We’re not a pushover for a single team in the world. Not for England, not for Brazil, not for France, Italy, Holland, Argentina or anyone else.

No one’s saying we’re as good as those countries, of course, and we might never be. But we can compete. We can envision a day where our name can fit in right alongside anyone mentioned in the previous paragraph.

I think, over the last two weeks, you’ve found that that idea appeals to you. If we can compete at soccer — if we can have moments like Dempsey’s goal against England, the furious comeback against Slovenia, and the glorious release of joy against Algeria — then yes, this game is just fine. It is perfectly enjoyable and exciting.

On top of that, soccer offers a bonus that almost no other sport can: the chance to support an underdog on an international level. Even if the future of US Soccer reaches the most optimistic of projections, we’re still going to be viewed as underdogs for a long, long time. And well beyond that day, if it ever comes, the traditional European soccer powerhouses will still be looking down on us. Not even our awesome steroids can help us here. We’re fighting an uphill battle for a long, long time.

If you like what you’ve seen over the past two weeks, I encourage you: Stick around for a while. Not just for the World Cup, but for European club soccer, for the MLS, and for local high school and college soccer. Give it a chance. Breathe it in for a bit, and see how it makes you feel.

Support breeds success, success breeds more support, rinse, repeat, and the next thing you know, we’re a much stronger soccer nation because of it. And the next time we play England, we don’t celebrate a tie. We bend them over, and we jam it in.

You can like this game. You know damn well that you can.

It’s not only bad news for Terry, as he’s battled injury problems all year long (edit: Terry seems to be okay, and will likely play the next game)… but it’s bad news for soccer, because now everytime someone takes a dive, they’re going to demand the oxygen and a neck brace, or no one’s going to buy it.

There was also a bit of a fight. Observe:

I guess that qualifies as a fight. Toure hits the guy, followed by the briefest of pauses as both men think to themselves, “Holy fuck, we’re fighting… so we really wanna do this?” And it continues from there, with some very serious pushing, jostling, and calling each other “bloody wankers.”

Chelsea won, I’m sorry to say. Two Drogba goals did it for them.

In Tuesday’s interview with the Gazzetta dello Sport, Materazzi disclosed that after he held his opponent’s shirt, Zidane said: “If you want, I’ll give you the jersey later.”

“I responded that I preferred his sister, it’s true,” Materazzi said. “It wasn’t something nice, true. But luckily there have been dozens of players who have confirmed that a lot worse things are said on the field.”

Well, here’s hoping that Zidane never ends up sitting in the front row at an Andrew Dice Clay performance.

I just can’t imagine that Zidane hasn’t heard worse than that. Either Materazzi is lying, guys just don’t talk trash to Zidane, or he was just overwhelmed with the pressure of playing in the World Cup, and the flipped out. I’d really be shocked if Zidane hadn’t heard worse than that before, but at the same time … that would be pretty consistent with everything that both Zidane and Materazzi said about the incident.

If he’s going to head butt someone’s chest because of this, then I don’t think the guy could even have a conversation with me. About 20 minutes ago, I accused a very close friend of mine of giving a handjob to a dead elk, for no good reason (as if there could be a good reason for something like that). Let’s just hope these two crazy kids can make up.

“He has not apologized to me and I certainly don’t have to apologize to him. If anything, I owe apologies to his sister, although I swear, before all this mess I didn’t even know Zidane had a sister,” he said.

Materazzi said that he thought the two could put the incident behind them.

“If peace can be made after terrible wars can Zidane and I not make peace? A peace between men, without much publicity, certainly yes.

“The door of my house will always be open to him and if he wants, Zidane knows how to find out my address,” said Materazzi.

The perfect way for this to end, obviously, is for Materazzi to put his Italian sausage down on Zidane’s sister.

So, for example, if Joe Cole (and I’m just using him as an example) rips up his ACL in a few years, we crack open the freezer, find the stem cells right behind the Stouffer’s frozen pizza, shoot it into him, and bam, good as new.

I at least hope he saves a bunch of them … I’d hate for the child to one day develop scoliosis, and have to hear daddy tell him, “Oh, no, I’m sorry. We can’t fix your spine. I know, tough break. But this one time, daddy had a really important game against AC Milan. Yeah … I’m sorry. But hey, we got you a brand new walker, little guy. It even has Spiderman stickers on it! Be brave.”

I’m not really sure why this bugs me. I’m all for stem cell research, and funding, and I think it’s an exciting thing, I do. And I think the people who believe that using stem cells is an abomination against God are absolutely fucking crazy. But, I dunno… using them to repair a center-back’s torn MCL, at least at this early point, seems a little crazy.

Maybe I’d just like us to understand this better, and figure out some of the more pressing applications first. For example, let’s wait until we figure out a way to use these things to cure Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s or some other debilitating disease first, before this just becomes a plaything for rich people.

So Landon went out, and he scored two goals, and he shut the crowd up, and he brazenly waved his arms encouraging them to boo some more. And that’s great, he took the heckling, and he bounced back, hooray for him. Really.

But here’s my problem. The criticism of Donovan is that he can’t do it on the big stage. He was borderline invisible in the World Cup, and he did bomb in Europe before deciding to come back home to the MLS where he feels more comfortable. The knock on the guy is that he won’t accept the challenge and play against better competition. He won’t leave his comfort zone to make himself better.

So his answer to that is what … to score more goals in an MLS game? Well, congratufuckinglations, pal, you did it. That stopped being a challenge for Donovan a long time ago. He’s the best player in the MLS. But that’s never really been the question, has it?

FIFA Soccer 07allows players to recognize their favorite athletes by the way they move. The human biomechanics of each athlete are taken into account and replicated in the game because the new engine is data-driven — the player motion is driven by individual attributes, physical characteristics and for the first time, traits.

“The FIFA Soccer 07 engine unlocks ultra realistic player motion and delivers complete responsiveness due to its ability to branch animations and the real-time calculation of real human biomechanics. Essentially our software engineers are writing human decision-making code,” said Hugues Ricour, Producer for FIFA Soccer 07on the Xbox 360.

I don’t know if this should frighten or excite me, but I do know that I am not about to apologize for my erection. According to the EA people, the game engine for FIFA is going to be completely reworked. They’ve started from scratch and built something new. They’ve spent two years on this thing. And the game was already, in my opinion, damn good. I liked the FIFA Series before I even liked soccer.

If you’re in the market for a beer bottle opener, you really can’t do any better than this new item that comes to us from Brazil. It’s the Ronaldinho bottle opener. That is marketing creativity at its finest. The design takes advantage of Ronaldinho’s unusually-shaped teeth and helps you crack open a beer in celebration of the next FC Barcelona victory.

If anyone knows how I can get my hands on one of these, please don’t hesitate to e-mail me.

There’s a song in France right now that celebrates the Zidane’s World Cup headbutt of Marco Materazzi. I don’t feel like it’s something to be particularly celebrated, and I’d be willing to chalk it up to just a few French idiots who wanted to write a dumb song, however… the song is the #1 song in France right now. Soccer fans of France, you are skirtbags.

Check out the translated lyrics, courtesy of SI.com.

Watch out, it’s the head-butt dance!
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the right
(Head-butt, head-butt)
Head-butt to the left
(Head-butt, head-butt)

Go, Bleus, Go!
Zidane, he hit [him], Zidane, he slapped (him)
(Head-butt, head-butt. Head-butt, head-butt)

The guido, he was hurt
Zidane hit (him)
The Italian is not doing well
Zidane slapped (him)
The referee saw it on TV
Zidane hit (him)
But we lost the World Cup
We had a good laugh anyway

Well, that’s the best fucking song I’ve heard since Mambo No. 5. Just inspired, Frenchy. Brilliant in its simplicity. It’s good to see that we’re not the only nation prone to falling in love with terrible songs.

What a tremendous thing to celebrate. Hey, we lost, but at least the best player in our nation’s history failed to keep his shit together for long enough to help us out in a penalty shootout. Italy has the World Cup, but at least Zinedine Zidane’s mother doesn’t have to be offended by an insult she never would have heard, anyway. Pat yourselves on the back for that one.

And for those of you who could care less about soccer and/or my rooting interests for any sport, you can skip this post. I certainly wouldn’t blame you.

In addition to Man City, I briefly flirted with Tottenham and West Ham. I liked West Ham for a few reasons… the movie Green Street Hooligans not insignificant among them. If you haven’t seen it, rent it sometime. And then just stop the movie as soon as Elijah Wood gets back to America and pretend that’s the end. It’s better that way, trust me.

I also liked the “Forever Blowing Bubbles” song, but it occurred to me that I’d never ever have anyone to sing it with. If West Ham wins a big game, and I take to the streets singing “Forever Blowing Bubbles” at the top of my lungs, all it’s going to do is confuse people and excite men named “Bubbles.” So that was a bit of a downer.

The other thing that attracted me to West Ham was the fact that Clint Dempsey could soon be a transfer target of theirs, and I think Clint Dempsey is the man. But you can’t choose a favorite team based on a favorite player. It doesn’t last.

Once upon a time, I like the New York Rangers because Wayne Gretzky played there… and when Gretzky retired, I found that I hadn’t really grown fond of any of the other Rangers, mainly because, at the time, they were an extremely poorly run organization who employed players who had many vaginalistic qualities. Mistake on my part. And rather than “pick another favorite team,” which you just can’t do, I had to give up the sport all together.

I was really intrigued with Spurs, too, but to be perfectly honest, Bill Simmons selecting them kinda turned me in the other direction. Not that I don’t like Simmons, I do, but I just didn’t want to go the same route. It’s a shame, too, because having a logo comprised of a “cock and ball” would’ve made me positively giddy. But it felt like that badwagon was getting a little crowded.

Which brings us back to Man City. The two biggest factors: the uniforms, and the fact that they’re called “Man City,” which lends itself to a nearly endless stream of jokes about my own sexuality, and I didn’t want to pass that up. I’ve already got nearly a year of experience with them, too, so… it’s probably a bad idea to just throw that away.

But again, this isn’t yet set in stone. I’m certainly leaning that way, and I can’t really predict when it will cement itself. Sometimes, you just have to let a favorite team choose you. So I’m adopting Manchester City right now on a trial basis. We’re dating right now. Manchester City and I are seeing each other exclusively, but we’ve decided to hold off on the physical part of our relationship for the time being. But I hope to be putting the wood to Man City a few weeks into the season. We’ll see how it goes.

Doug Ellis’ desire to sell Aston Villa could finally be realised with American billionaire Randy Lerner reportedly joining the race to buy the West Midlands club.

It is understood Lerner, who owns NFL franchise Cleveland Browns, will enter the bidding for the Premiership club when Villa chairman Doug Ellis returns from holiday this week.

I love how they say he “owns NFL franchise Cleveland Browns.” I wonder if there’s some obnoxious asshole American football fan in Britain who’s reading that and fuming because you’re supposed to say “the Cleveland Browns.”

But I digress. In the case of someone who’s responsible for the product that the Cleveland Browns trot out to the field every Sunday, it’s perfectly believable that he heard about a football team called Aston Villa and he thought, “Hey, they play pro football in England? I’m buying them! Who’s their quarterback?”

I don’t get why these NFL guys all the sudden want to buy Premiership (and most certainly not EPL) teams. I doubt that they’re just rabid soccer fans, looking for an outlet. If that was the case, they’d just buy MLS teams and save themselves a few bucks. Could it be that they feel that the Premier League has a chance to develop an audience in America? Anyone else have an explanation for me?

Thanks to everyone who e-mailed suggestions for my new English Premier League soccer team that I haven’t picked yet. Out of any challenge that I’ve ever thrown out to the readers, I can’t remember getting a more passionate, entertaining and informative batch of e-mails. If anything, I’m even more dedicated to making the leap now. And this isn’t going to be a half-assed thing, either. I’ll be buying the merchandise, TiVo-ing the games, traveling to see a couple home games, throwing myself into the team … I’m going all out. Obviously I’m not a huge soccer fan, but I’m a huge sports fan and it’s becoming clearer and clearer that I missed the boat with the English Premier League and UEFA. Better late than never.

Couldn’t agree more… I still maintain my belief that more people could/would be soccer fans if they give it a legitimate chance (which involves more than watching one or two games), and I’m somewhat regretful that I didn’t do it sooner. But I’m glad that Simmons is hopping on the bandwagon.

And I’m sort of in the same boat as he is, on the favorite team issue. It’ll be interesting to see where he goes. I watched a season of EPL last year, and I still don’t have a favorite club. I don’t even know if that’s the sort of thing you can choose, or something you just have to wait and let happen on its own. I was kind of leaning towards Manchester City, because that’s where Claudio Reyna played, and because I like their uniforms.

But that’s the problem with the EPL… there are only a handful of teams who can win the thing, and if I started cheering for Manchester United or Chelsea, I’d feel like a front-running prick. Liverpool’s also right there, with Arsenal and Tottenham not far behind. But after that (and I’ll admit that I don’t have the greatest understanding of this yet, so feel free to correct me) I don’t think there are too many teams that can hope to finish in the Top 4. Newcastle has kind of a high profile, I think. But after that, no one else is a real threat to compete for a league title. It’s like there’s a handful of teams, and then the NFC North.

So I could root for Man City, but really, the best I can hope for is an upset or two of Man United, and perhaps a UEFA Cup qualification. So I don’t know what to do. It’s not like the NFL, where there’s hope that sometime in the near future, they could rise up and be good. And I’m not saying that I can’t ever root for a bad team, because I have plenty of experience with that, but… it would be nice if they at least had a chance to compete at some point in the reasonably near future.

So I dunno what to do. I think teams like Tottenham (another team I’m leaning towards), Liverpool, and Newcastle are still in play. I’m ruling out Manchester United and Chelsea, because they’re too powerful, and I kind of hate them anyway. Manchester City and Tottenham are my leaders in the clubhouse. And I think West Ham’s got an outside shot, because of the movie “Green Street Hooligans” (a very underrated film that I really loved, except for the first and last five minutes of it) and the “Forever Blowing Bubbles” song, which is awesome.

So there you go. Clearly, not a man that is at all concerned with fair play, or the well-being of his fellow competitors. He has no qualms about attempting to injure a guy, if he thinks it’ll give him an advantage.

In other news, FIFA president Sepp Blatter says that FIFA may step in and take the Golden Ball award away from Zidane… which I think would be absolute garbage. His play was still brilliant, whether or not a dirty player goaded him into a physical attack. If FIFA’s going to do this, I hope they spend some time investigating exactly what it was that provoked the attack. If they’re going to penalize Zidane, something might have to be in store for Materazzi, too.

But I still maintain that Zidane, by doing what he did, let Materazzi win. I know it’s only human nature to respond as he did, but… by doing that, Zidane gave Materazzi exactly what he wanted, he screwed himself, and he cost his team. But I agree with the A of G… it’s amazing that someone, somewhere along the line, hasn’t beaten the guy until he pissed blood.

Well, that’s just not a very nice thing to say. In fact, it’s the most vicious trash talk I’ve ever heard of. And before we get to Zidane’s reaction, first I’ve got to sort of begrudgingly tip my cap to Materazzi. I mean, it’s a terrible thing to say, and he’s a vile son of a bitch for saying it, but when the goal is to get under a guy’s skin, well… hats off. You’re going all the way on that one, all morals be damned. Your committment to your ideals can’t be questioned, and you really can’t do much better than that. And it has the added bonus of making me no longer feel bad for any messed-up thing I’ve used to heckle a player.

Oh, and for good measure, Materazzi also called Zidane a “negro,” which is about the Italian equivalent of calling someone the n-word. Nice touch, cocksucker.

As for Zidane, who’s mother is Algerian (and also quite ill at the moment)… I mean, the head butt is understandable, but… you still can’t do it. In a way, it sounds crazy, but in that situation, with his teammates depending on him, the right thing to do is just take it and not respond. I’m not saying that’s what I would’ve done, and I’m not saying that it would’ve been easy, but… if he doesn’t respond at all, he stays in the game, he gives France a better shot to win, and he doesn’t tarnish his legacy. If he responds with a head butt to the chest, he gets tossed, everyone in the world calls him a dirty bastard, and he may have cost France at a shot at a World Cup. And he can always hunt down Materazzi a week later and beat him to death on his own time.

Son of a terrorist whore. That’s messed up.

That 16.9 million does include 5 million viewers from Univision, on top of the 11.9 on ABC…. so neither of the individual ratings is going to be setting records. But still, it proves that there’s an audience in America that is, at the very least, soccer-curious. Now, I’m not predicting that the MLS is ever going to take the nation by storm, but if they can improve their marketing, their level of play, and maybe get some help from a decent American performance on the World Cup stage… maybe there’s a market there for them after all.