The New Republic

Most soccer fans today accept the idea that the world's most popular
sport will continue to grow in the U.S.—albeit slowly—and that the
game's rise is supported by increased TV coverage, rising quality of
 MLS teams, and fan education and awareness that takes place during
spectacles such as the World Cup.
 But there's another reason: high school.
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I was en route home from South Africa yesterday—and still haven’t made it to D.C.; I’m sipping a Jamba Juice and typing in the lovely JetBlue terminal at JFK—so I still haven’t seen all 120 minutes of USA-Ghana. The last 30, however, I did catch during a short layover in Dubai. I was drained, the U.S. seemed drained. Maybe it was sitting in a quiet airport lounge, listening to play by play in Arabic, with just a couple of American fans in a small group around a flat screen. READ MORE >>

This year’s World Cup demonstrates, as it has in the past, a particular feature of American exceptionalism: the rest of the world cares passionately about soccer and its quadrennial championship. Americans don’t. READ MORE >>

PRETORIA, South Africa -- The guy standing near me was crying, too. READ MORE >>

To be just a little cheeky, the answer to your question, Frank, is Yes. This has nothing to do with Team America's performance. We may, nay should and do, all admire their courage, their attitude, their determination to rise above their limitations and their refusal to buckle even when all seems lost. There are other sides in the tournament who could learn from Bradley's side in these respects. READ MORE >>

It’s usually the case that any time a headline asks a question the answer is No. This post is no exception to that rule. The Americans were not robbed today and nor were they the victims of any anti-American bias. Sorry, Jesse, but that’s the sort of fanciful, solipsistic whingeing one normally associates with Notre Dame fans.  READ MORE >>

OK, a note on the Soccer Wars. The truth is this: soccer has won.  No-one expects soccer to supplant the NFL in American affections but any comparison of soccer in America in 1990 and 2010 reveals how much progress the game, and most especially the World Cup, has made. Indeed, I was struck last weekend by how much "bigger" the tournament was in Washington, DC than it was even in 2006. READ MORE >>

Don DeLillo’s 2007 novel Point Omega begins with an anonymous man, standing in the Museum of Modern Art, watching Douglas Gordon’s 24 Hour Psycho, which stretches the Hitchcock film to diurnal length, turning mere frames into emergent stories. “Suspense is trying to build,” DeLillo writes, “but the silence and stillness outlive it.” READ MORE >>

Simon Kuper: "the growing tribe of US soccer nerds" ThinkProgress takes on "the right-wing war against soccer" Jonathan Chait: soccer triumphalism turns ugly Hyundai pulls its "Church of Soccer" ad READ MORE >>