Sunday, July 17, 2011, 2:07 pm
World (Cup) domination
Earlier this month, I went to Washington, D.C., for the Fourth of July, and there’s something about the capital — particularly around Independence Day — that elicits faith in the country.
It reminds of the myriad reasons America is good — democracy (even though Washington’s license plates scream in protest “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”), freedom and The Washington Post.
Soccer doesn’t always make the list.
Just ask Abdul.
Abdul was a household name across his country, wowing Afghani crowds with his soccer skill. That was a lifetime ago. Earlier this month, he was waiting tables during the breakfast shift at a hotel restaurant in Arlington, Va.
It’s not clear how much of what Abdul told us was true: whether “everyone knew” him in his homeland when he was a young man. There’s only so much you can discern from chit-chat with a waiter. But it was clear that he had no interest in D.C. United, the professional club in his new hometown.
The skill just isn’t good enough here, he said.
I’m not a savvy enough soccer observer to know how truly poor (relatively speaking) the play is in the American top flight. But I was impressed with some of the shots and passing when we took in United’s 2-2 draw with Mid-Atlantic rivals Philadelphia Union on July 2.
What was obvious to anyone at the half-empty, aging, made-for-baseball-and/or-American-football RFK Stadium that night was that soccer is not an American institution.
But here comes the U.S. women’s national team, which is about to take the pitch in Germany to face Japan looking to win its third World Cup title (which would be a record).
If that happens, the team will be on the front of every major newspaper in the country in the morning and will provide plenty of fodder for sports journalists — and would even outside of the doldrums of summer.
Why? America doesn’t like the game.
Not really, but America does like winning. See: American Revolution.
Cue the Greewood. Go Yanks.
