Way to Go America!

So the World Cup began on June 9, and since I've really had nothing to do so far this summer, I've been watching the games. It's interesting, and it's in high definition here. Which, by the way, if you haven't experienced, is exquisite. Now, as you may have heard, the United States, that's us, although if you're reading this from another country, "Hello! How are you?", has been knocked out of competition. As far as I can tell the United States finished in a tie for 26th out of 32. Here's the kicker, or one of them: we finished tied with Iran! Irony, thy name is the World Cup. I suppose the other kicker is that this is supposedly the best team this country has ever fielded for the World Cup, if you believe all the hype, which as an uneducated American, I did. But here's the thing, and the point of this post. I think it may actually be the best thing for US soccer, or football as the rest of the world calls it, to finish so low. I mean just suppose that the US wins the World Cup. We were going off at about 70 to 1 depending on who you believe. But suppose we win. I suppose the good will in this country lasts about a week or two, before the stories stop appearing on TV, radio and newspapers. But now, the outcry is "What the hell went wrong?" If US Soccer drags this whole process of analyzing things, changing things, maybe leaking some reports, the could maintain interest, at least in the media, for a few months, which is a half dozen more weeks that the average Sportscenter watching person would hear about soccer.

I also heard a comment made, in general about US international sports, comparing this World Cup team to the Olympic men's basketball team. Something about how other countries are getting their players into the NBA, which is apparently the best basketball league in the world. So I came up with this. Right now, the NFL uses Europe as its developmental league, NFL Europe, how creative. So why not do the opposite here? In the interest of the national team, start sending MLS players over to some maybe second tier league in Europe that could be sponsored by MLS or at least a team. I have no clue as to how the logistics on this one would work out, but we have got to stop sucking at sports. We've lost basketball gold, hockey gold, the WBC, the World Cup... so the only things we really have left are NASCAR and bowling. They're like the retards of the sporting world.