Daily Mixup

USA soccer is growing (national news)

By ScottX

 The United States of America has always been a soccer country. However, it hasn’t been a soccer super power. That has been saved for countries like Brazil, England, German, Argentina, and some others. What has been happening in the USA since 1996 is steady growth in soccer. The soccer news coming out of the USA has been positive. I’ll be talking about some of ways the sport of soccer has been growing and expanding in the USA in the past decade or so.

The United States has always had a lots of young soccer players. Most kids play when they are little. Usually the allure of other sports pulls them away from the sport of soccer. Everyone knows the popularity of football, basketball, baseball and even sometimes hockey, trumps the popularity of soccer in the US. So most teenagers or slightly younger kids learn soccer, then leave the sport to start another. Since the inception of Major Leage Soccer, more kids are actually sticking with soccer and trying to become professionals. MLS doesn’t pay as well as other professional sports usually but if you get discovered and end up going to Europe or somewhere else, you can make millions.

MLS or Major League Soccer as it’s called in the USA, is another reason soccer is growing in America. MLS is the highest tier soccer league in the USA. Many people have said MLS would just fold due to lack of interest, but it’s still going. Fourteen years later to be exact. More and more of the teams in MLS are doing better finacially every year and the future looks bright. Every year more of the teams are closer to making a profit instead of a loss. And like every league, it still needs to grow.

Another example of the United States growing in soccer is the 2002 world cup. The US men’s team went in knowing they had an uphill battle against Portugal in the first game. Portugal were the favorites, with players such as Jorge Costa, Luis Figo and Sergio Conceicao. Portugal was also ranked 5th in the world at the time. What happened during the game made world cup history for the US team. Goals by the usa team in the 4th, an own goal in the 29th and a strike from Briank McBride in the 36th minute gave the US 3 goals and by the end Portugal could only muster a goal from Beto in the 39th minute and an own goal. Riding their momentum from the 3-2 win over Portugal the US men’s team in their white and blue soccer jerseys tied host country South Korea 1-1 in a nailbiter. While losing the last game to Poland 3-1 the USA was still able to advance to knockout phase of the world cup because Korea defeated Portugal 1-0. In the first game the USA faced their arch rivals from south of the border Mexico. Everyone knows how great the games are between the USA and Mexico. This was no exception. Especially with the world cup on the line. The US bested the Mexicans that day 2-0 on goals from Brian McBride and Landon Donovan. The next game the USA was eliminated from play by a determined German team 1-0. The US team gave the Germans all they could handle in this game. It however showed the world the USA could get to the final eight of the world cup and still compete.

One last way to see soccer growing in the USA is in the soccer specific stadiums being built around MLS. There are currently 7 soccer specific stadiums in MLS. Two more are being added for the 2010 season. Also, an older stadium is being renovated in Portland for a MLS play in 2011. These new stadiums have the best soccer equipment, seating, vendors and more. Shops in these stadiums carry items such as soccer shoes, soccer jerseys and more. So if you looking for MLS soccer jerseys, you should get out to a game and explore the stadiums. Overall, these new soccer specific stadiums show that american soccer and MLS is here to stay.

Soccer in america is growing. There’s no doubt about it. It’ll take time before the USA can actually have a chance of winning a world cup. But we are heading in the right direction as shown by the reasons i’ve explained here. Before you know it, you may see American’s holding up the world cup for the first time in history. With the huge population of the USA and the passion for soccer, it’s just a matter of time before we are a soccer power on the global scale.

This article was written by the Webmaster of SMB Information.com- Scott Beshenich
SMB Information Network Website

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Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 6:05 pm and is filed under news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.