Even U.S. soccer diehards are stunned by how well their countrymen have done so far in the World Cup. The red, white and blue have compiled four points in their division, toppling powerhouse Portugal, tying host country South Korea and needing only a draw with Poland tomorrow to advance to the tournament's final 16 for the first time ever on foreign soil.
"Anything beyond that," says Kevin Healey, coach and general manager of the Baltimore Blast, "and you'll see a lot of people dancing in the streets."
Well, maybe a few. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, 18 million Americans play soccer today, second in number only to basketball. Seventy-eight percent of those are under the age of 18. But for the general spectating public, soccer still draws something of a collective yawn, punctuated only by a spasm of interest every four years when the World Cup, the globe's most massive sporting event, takes place.
"I already know what you're going to ask me," says Dan Garber, commissioner of Major League Soccer, the 7-year-old, nine-team pro league that now supplies half the players for the U.S. national squad. "When will soccer go big-league in this country? My answer might surprise you, but I'll tell you what I tell everybody else: It already has."
Don't discount the idea. Garber worked for the National Football League for 16 years, the last three selling American football in Europe, so he has lots of experience "selling sports to non-believers."
"There are many more soccer believers in the U.S.," he says, "than American football believers abroad. And we're building."
Part of the growth, of course, stems from the game itself, a team affair based on physical nuances - trapping, tackling, heading, crossing - best appreciated by those who have tried to master them. Scoring comes as an extension of thoughtful execution of those skills, and, as in hockey's Stanley Cup playoffs, the tension is thick because every point counts.
"Sure, if you want to be negative, you can say 3-1 games, 2-1 games are dull," says Healey. "But there's a lot more going on than just scoring. And if you think about it, those scores translate into 21-7 or 14-7 games in football. It's pretty much the same."
The explosion of youth soccer, adds Dave Kasper, technical director of MLS' DC United, will translate into spectatorship.
"We've got a generation involved in the game right now," he says. "It's a generation of kids who are educating their parents about the game. There's going to be a lot more knowledge of the subtleties, appreciation of a well-played 1-1 tie, for example, like the America-South Korea game. Not a lot of people can appreciate that yet. It takes time."
That refrain has sounded through the ages, sometimes hollowly. For his part, former pro player Pete Caringi, now the coach at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, is still skeptical.
"It would help if the U.S. made a surprising run in the World Cup, like the 1980 hockey team in the Olympics," he says. "When an underdog team does well, that generates interest."
Americans also love a superstar, he adds, a superhuman Michael Jordan-type, "and we don't have a player who's even close to the best in the world. Maybe when that happens, it'll take us to the next level. But I can't really see it."
Others, though, see more of the pieces in place.
The more the United States team plays on a world stage, the better it will get, and "everybody loves a winner," says Healey.
The old North American Soccer League consisted mostly of foreign-born players - there was a rule, in fact, that required each team to carry three Americans - and that didn't help develop homegrown talent. In today's MLS, each team can carry only three non-Americans, and coaching in this country has advanced enough that those teams could produce elite stars of their own, aficionados say, making the game more attractive to TV networks. In addition, U.S. television finally shows games without commercial interruption, allowing viewers to acclimate to the sometimes mesmerizing flow of play.
In the MLS, Garber and DC United's Kasper like what they see.
Garber doesn't aim for his sport to reach NFL-level popularity, but to develop a "thriving, significant, credible sports league in this country" that can co-exist with America's native sports. He has made progress.
"We got a national TV contract after six years," he says. "The NBA didn't get one till 1980. Our attendance averages 16,000, which is a solid base. Each city has its own beat writers. We've got our own stadiums, scaled-down for soccer - one in Columbus, one on the way in Los Angeles - which make for a great atmosphere. We've achieved far more than people give us credit for."
On a national level, "we're starting to see a generation of adults who have played soccer in high school as well as college," says Kasper. "Now that we're on the world stage, more kids are making the choice to play soccer. Compared with other nations athletically, the U.S. kids are there. They're just a little bit away from the whole technical side of the game, the subtle skills."
Healey offers another analogy: the NFL.
"Think of pro football in the 1950s," he says. "It was nowhere. Look at it now." Soccer, he says, will make the same kind of strides.
And while Americans love a winner, no one is betting that this year's World Cup squad will bring home the gold. But faithful such as the Blast coach can hold out a little longer. He'll be thrilled if the team makes the quarterfinals.
"It will be progress," he says, "and progress feeds on itself. Confidence breeds confidence; winning breeds winning. Let's just see how far we get in the tournament.
"For soccer, it's just a matter of time."