With the increasing globalization of soccer (European coaches leading non-European teams, South Americans playing their club soccer in Europe, etc.), I thought the conventional wisdom might be tested this year in Germany.

Apparently not. We've got four teams left and they're all from the continent. (Although, to be fair, there is a twist this year: Brazilian Felipe Scolari is coaching Portugal.)

I don't want to get into just why ESPN's coverage is so bad; that topic is being covered on blogs all over the place and even at Salon.com. I will instead offer a moment of brilliance from Univision's announcers today, just after Jens Lehmann stopped his second PK and sent Germany through to the semifinals:

¡El alemán! ¡Lehmann! ¡El alemán! ¡Lehmann!

In Spanish, "el alemán" is "the German" and the last two syllables of "alemán" are pronounced the same as "Lehmann," but with the accent on different syllables, so the whole thing was quite poetic. He continued on that theme by shouting, "Yes! Jens! Yes! Jens!"

Inspired.

For the U.S. National Team, there are already a number of strong contenders in the scapegoat derby. I've heard blame placed on the ref; on Bruce Arena; on the players; on FIFA, for seeding only eight teams instead of all 32; and on MLS, for not providing a competitive enough environment to develop young talent. I'm sure that there are more that I'm forgetting.

The sad fact of it is that if only a few small things had gone our way, we U.S. fans would have been cheering as the team went through to the second round. It's the nature of the World Cup, though, to make every moment, every unexpected bounce of the ball, something that we relive, analyze, and re-analyze endlessly in hopes of solving something that can't be solved. Things went our way in 2002 and they didn't in 2006.

That's not to say that the team's results were simply a matter of luck. As Obi-Wan Kenobi said in the first Star Wars film (er, fourth, I guess), 'In my experience, there's no such thing as luck.' I will stand on that same, seemingly invisible platform, and say that the U.S. didn't do enough to create its own luck in this tournament.

Believing in yourself and your ability to accomplish your goal is one of the key ingredients in accomplishing anything. In many ways, it's the foundation upon which achievement is built.

The importance of this ability is not a secret but its implementation is. I'm not talking about "Believe in Yourself," a static slogan that you might see on a motivational poster at work. I'm talking about a process that has many steps: choosing a goal, failing miserably, learning from your mistakes, having the courage to go back to whatever you're trying to accomplish armed with that new information, and trying again. And again. And again.

It's simple but not easy. There are always plenty of opportunities to stop before the process is complete. Maybe the people around you never thought you could achieve your goal to begin with; maybe the ball hits the post; maybe the referee mistakenly gives your opponent a penalty kick just before halftime. The hard part is in experiencing that setback and then letting it go, trusting again in your capabilities so that you can address your goal once more with all your energy.

Unfortunately, that's something that both U.S. coach Bruce Arena and his players did not completely acknowledge. It's ironic that one's intellectual knowledge of a situation can interfere with one's performance, but that's what happened. Arena knew how rare it was for a team to come back from a 2-1 deficit to win a game and that knowledge kept him and his team from being able to keep attacking their goal, relentlessly. Did you notice that the U.S. players who did best in this World Cup—Bobby Convey, Clint Dempsey, Jimmy Conrad—are the ones who hadn't been there before? They only knew it was the World Cup, something they had worked all their lives to get to, and they were going to do their best to succeed.

I thought this was something Arena understood but I know now that he doesn't, and maybe never did. I am reminded of the San Jose Earthquakes' 2003 playoff win over the L.A. Galaxy in which the Quakes overcame a 2-0 deficit in the second leg of their playoff series and a 4-0 aggregate score to win the series in extra time by scoring five unanswered goals in about 80 minutes. A fan hung a sign from the rail that said "We Believe," and the team and its supporters rallied around that idea and refused to give up, even when most soccer experts would have said that the cause was lost.

In fact, there was one particular soccer expert in the crowd that day who made several interesting comments about the game afterward. When interviewed by Sports Illustrated's Grant Wahl, this man was full of praise for the Earthquakes after their miraculous effort, saying "it was the best game I've ever seen in terms of the excitement and what had to be accomplished... I can't say it was impossible, because it's not impossible. They did it... They had to get four to go into overtime... It was truly remarkable. The crowd was into it. And the soccer by San Jose was pretty good, you know. They had to break down an L.A. team that was putting a lot of players behind the ball and had a great goalkeeper [Kevin Hartman] who made two fantastic saves."

That man who was so in awe of the Quakes that day was, of course, Bruce Arena. What's most telling about his attitude was something else he told Wahl:

"Before the game, I told [Earthquakes coach] Frank [Yallop], 'You can't let them get the first goal, and if they get the second goal [to go up 4-0 overall] then head to the bar.'"

So here we have the USA's problem in a nutshell: They weren't resilient enough and they didn't believe enough. Does this mean the U.S. needs Frank Yallop as coach? Maybe, maybe not. But it's certain that the U.S. needed more believers in Germany.

Finally—the team I recognize as mine showed up on Saturday night to challenge Italy. I fully expected to get at least one point out of this game and I suppose that was the best we could hope for under the circumstances—those circumstances being, of course, that the referee would send off three players in the game. It just goes to show that it's not only the players who can buckle under the pressure of a World Cup.

The match was also interesting from another perspective. One of the reasons I wanted to create this blog was to provide a snapshot of U.S. supporters, to show that people here get the sport and that our own soccer culture is growing. I also wanted to see where the bulk of U.S. supporters outside the groups I associate with were coming from, what they were like, and how they expressed their support. This match, in many ways, provided me with that snapshot.

An interesting thing happened before the game. A group of U.S. supporters started singing a melody I've only heard before at college gridiron games. I won't try to duplicate it here in text but I remember hearing it in Ann Arbor at Michigan games in the early 80's, a series of notes that repeated three times, leapt to a flourishing finish, and ended with an emphatic chant of "Let's go Blue!" I know lots of U.S. supporters who have been wracking their brains trying to come up with simple songs that we can do and here was one that everyone already knew and was uniquely American. That was the first time the light bulb went on that night.

The second was a chant that grew in response to gamesmanship from the Italian players and is one I also heard first at college football games in response to bad calls from the referee. It's simply "bullshit," shouted rhythmically over and over, and it was cathartic to be able to state plainly what Italy has been doing for years. That was light bulb number two.

Here's the thing: In many ways, we've spent years imitating things we've seen in England or other European countries, adapting songs slightly for our own uses. But these two chants last night were born and raised in the U.S., and I'm reasonably certain that a Uruguayan referee or a diving Italian midfielder has never had 20,000 people chanting "bullshit" at him before. It's loud, blunt, and a little rude, but what the hell? We're Americans. Our soccer culture is growing and last night, it took a big step.

There are lots of teams are getting good support here—some friends and I who attended South Korea/Togo on Tuesday estimated that 25,000 Korea fans made it into the Frankfurt stadium for that match—but there's nothing to compare with the enthusiasm that the host country is showing for their team. Two different places I visited for last night's Germany/Poland thriller show the depth of the German fans' support.

We ended up in a small, modern bar with an upscale menu and a nice rear-projection screen that was big enough to be seen from anywhere in the room. The place gradually filled up and we even had to share our table with two German women who provided some good conversation about the team and even answered a question that I had been wondering about for weeks: What does "Schweinsteiger" translate to in English? "Schwein," of course, is pig, as anyone who has looked at even one German restaurant menu will be able to confirm. They explained that "steiger" meant "something going up," so we settled on "Rising Pig" as a concise translation of the German midfielder's last name.

Here's the thing about the crowd at the bar, though. There were only one or two Germany shirts among the 50 or so people there and only a couple of people had any sort of noisemakers or face paint. But everyone there knew German soccer songs; everyone knew the "clap clap/clap clap clap/clap clap clap clap/Deutschland!" cheer. They didn't sing or do organized cheers very often, but when called upon, they knew how to participate.

We as Americans are usually a bit too hard on ourselves in our self-critique of our soccer culture. Europe has had a 100+ year head start and their sporting landscape is not nearly as varied as ours. But when people who show no outward signs of fandom drinking and watching the match in an upscale bar are starting traditional football songs and everyone else is joining in, it's hard not to think that you'd never see such a scene in the U.S., at least not now.

After a public volley of criticisms and finger-pointing by Il Bruce and several members of the USA starting XI yesterday, Bruce Arena stood before the world's media and told them it was all his fault.

I ran the gamut of emotions on this one and spent the better part of my morning apologizing to my European co-workers for our horrible performance. They were kind, saying that we didn't play badly (ha!) and that the Czech's are number 2 in the world.

As lunch time approached our attention turned to the matches between France / Switzerland and Brazil / Croatia. Many of our office are from France so they, of course, chose to watch this match-up during their lunch hour.

However, the Brits, our one Mexican and I opted for a late lunch and a much needed dose of joga bonito. Brazil did not disappoint and played well enough to replace the bitter after taste of the USA loss with a sense of wonder.

Kaka, Ronaldhino, Roberto Carlos - the sound of their names alone evoke excitement.

Thank You Brazil!
My faith in the beautiful game has been restored!

So what's the difference between FIFA's second-ranked team and their fifth-ranked team? Three. As in, three to nothing, the result that the USA had to choke down last night in Gelsenkirchen.

When we arrived in Gelsenkirchen after about an hour, we found thousands of Americans already there, singing and celebrating. There was an Elvis or two, a Captain America, several Uncle Sams, George Washington, and an inspired group of five dressed as the Harlem Globetrotters. Friends who hadn't seen each other since the last World Cup were getting reacquainted and the big thing on everybody's mind was how many more of us there were than before. When we finally arrived at our seats in the stadium, the fans were already in good voice, singing and cheering--not just the typical "USA, USA" chant, but some real live soccer songs that had been modified and otherwise adapted for our own use. It had all the makings of a watershed day for American soccer.

That dream began to crumble early on as Jan Koller headed a ball past Kasey Keller only five minutes into the match. The high point for the U.S. came when Claudio Reyna put a shot off the inside of the post, leaving us all to wonder later what the game would have been like if the ball had been just three inches to the right.

By the end of the match, it had all gone wrong. The anticipated excitement had turned into a nightmare. Every mistake the U.S. made was punished in the harshest possible way, with a goal by their opponents. The swing in emotion to bitter dread was dramatic, with the expectant fans left waiting at the altar by their team.

The worst part of it was that the U.S., generally speaking, just didn't seem to care. There was not enough fire in the team, not enough hunger. They had better rediscover it soon or it's going to be a long, long time until 2010.

It is the USA's turn to take to the field today against the mighty Czech Republic. I am so glad today is finally here!

The big question over here in the states is "Where are you watching the US game?" Astoundingly, the answer is anywhere they have a TV and ESPN2 or Univision. Long lunches are de rigeur among soccer fans this month, and it is key to find the location nearest your workplace so that your entire time is spent watching the game and not driving around lost.

I will be watching from the stadium cub of my local soccer stadium - Pizza Hut Park. It was a fairly easy choice for me as I took the entire day off so that I could immerse myself in the beautiful game.

Who
Do you want to watch the game with a bunch of other enthused fans? Or in the privacy of your own domain?

TV or HDTV?
Just how important is the awesome clarity of HD to you? Is it a requirement, a preference, or just whatever?

AUDIO
Do you want to actually hear the game commentary? Do you want it in English or Spanish?

LOCATION
Does it need to be next door? Or can it be a few minutes away? Is the TV over the bar at the local restaurant good enough, or do you want big screen sports bar atmosphere? What about the local English style pub? Or your local soccer stadium?

Wherever you watch from, enjoy the game and the moment.

GO USA!

All right, I hear you saying, enough with the atmosphere—how about a first-hand report of a game? We at WAATF aim to please and, hey, we were lucky enough to acquire a pair of tickets to the Sweden/Trinidad and Tobago match held last night in Dortmund. So, here's the scoop.

- Dortmund: Dortmund rolled out the red carpet for fans—literally. A few blocks from the main train station, we found a red carpet running up the block which continued for as far as we could see. Incredibly enough, this was their way of marking the path to the stadium.

- Stadium entry: They went through our bags pretty closely but were not interested in checking our IDs.

- The game: Borussia Dortmund's home stadium is the largest in Germany and it was packed with vocal fans. The Swedes made the most noise to begin with but T & T's fans grew louder as the game wore on. The red card that reduced Trinidad to 10 men early in the second half seemed to galvanize the neutrals in the crowd, many of whom started joining in with a call-and-response "Trinidad... Tobago!" cheer.

- Getting out of town: Surprisingly easy again. There's an underground stop right at the stadium and they had several trains queued up to take fans back to the main train station. We hopped one of these, checked the schedule for the return trains, then went off to get some dinner while watching Argentina/Ivory Coast.

- The oddest sight of the day came on the return train to Cologne, where we were surprised to see a couple dozen Scots wearing kilts with T & T jerseys. I asked them why they were supporting Trinidad and they explained that some of T&T's players also played on their club team, Falkirk. Here's what the train sounded like on the way back (use Quicktime or use link below to download):

Download file

During the week, I will be having to track the games on the computer while trying to be quite. On weekends, I will be at my local soccer bar with other supporters as I sip coffee and enjoy the action.

Needless to say, I prefer the latter.

I know that a lot of you who are unlucky to not to be in Germany are recording the matches to watch at night, while trying to avoid results. I am not like that. I just can't wait for six or so hours so I can catch the match. So, my plan has been to watch the match tracker of the games, then catching them at night when I get home, where three games will be waiting on my DVR.

The only problem I had was which match tracker to use? I decided to try the one on the FIFA World Cup website at first and found it to be pretty boring. Not a lot of details of the German-Costa Rica match but it did have a chat feature. In a smart move, they made sure that all comments on the chat were legit before they were posted, or else we would have a lot of spam and desperate guys looking for women in Brixton and Boseman.

I then decided to try out the Fox Soccer website. They had even less descriptions of the play, but there did have a cool little gadget where they showed, via animations, where the shots were taking place and the result. Still, I was not satisfied.

But, I then remembered the place where I always go to track the big European matches and they were doing the same for the World Cup. The Guardian's tracker is just a reporter recapping the match with a lot of snark while answering the best of the emails the writer gets during the match. I used them for the Ecuador-Poland match as the guy mocked the Polish midfield play while there was a long discussion on an Iranian supporter driving through London with his nation's flags flying around the vehicle and that the UK embassy in Teheran is located on Bobby Sands Street.

Of course, the hardest thing to do while doing this is to make sure you look like you are actually working. One of my bosses, who thinks I am a lazy guy (even though he doesn't give me anything to do), would flip if he saw me doing this. Knowing my luck, he would make me do some bizarre task as a punishment, like wash the tarp in his SUV (he actually has done this to me. By the way, if you know of a Chicago company that needs a guy who has writing and customer service skills, please email me at this address.)

When I got home on Friday, I watched both matches before going out to play in a pickup game at an indoor soccer center. The Germany win over Costa Rica was a fine start to the tournament, while Poland should be packing their bags, as they will be going home in another week.

This morning, I went down to my favorite soccer bar here in Chicago, The Globe Pub. Even thought the first match, England vs. Paraguay, was kicking off at 8:00am Chicago time, I had to get up at 5, since the bar said that they would be showing a rugby match between England and Australia and it was easy to assume the Brits who came in would stick around for the other form of football that morning.

So, after spending time shaking the cobwebs out of my head and getting the cat fed (who lets off one of the most evil sounds ever heard when he demands his food), I got on my bike and road in a cold shower down to the bar. Considering this is typical british weather, the atmosphere was pretty perfect for watching and England match.

When I got there, I had a minor shock. Turns out, the rugby match was taking place on Sunday morning. Too late to turn back, but there were a lot of spots open to sit down. So, for the next two hours, I spent the time drinking coffee to keep awake and talked with people I knew.

By the time the kickoff time came for the first match of the day, The place was packed with people to the point where they had people lined up half a block waiting to get in, a long wait it turned out since the bar was stuffed to capacity. In addition to the large contingent of England fans, there were some people that have Chicago Fire connections, including injured defender Jim Curtin, who lives around the corner from the pub, and former GM Peter Wilt, who is a frequent visitor to the bar.

Except for the own goal early in the match, the crowd was not all that loud and boisterous compared to past World Cups that I have watched at bars. Maybe it was the combination of the weather, the time of day or the fact that England played some piss poor soccer that kept the enthusiasm down. It was more like watching Wigan and Birmingham City playing instead of a World Cup match.

As time was running out, I had to leave the bar and go to a Starbucks temporarily so I could do a brief interview on a local internet show hosted by one of my friends. I talked about the World Cup for 10 minutes and pimped my website as well, before heading back for some breakfast while waiting for the second match.

There was still a decent crowd in the bar as Trinidad and Sweden kicked off, but everyone just assumed that the Swedes would romp to victory. That didn't happen as Shaka Hislop had the game of his life to secure a point for T&T in their World Cup debut.

After that match, I had to head home to get some housework done and watched the Argentian-Ivory Coast match. While the former world champions got the win, the Ivory Coast gave them quite a battle, a sign that Group C is going to be a dogfight before its all said and done. Should be interesting to see how Serbia and Holland turns out tomorrow.

Sunday is going to be a big day for us here in Chicago. Mexico will face Iran, and I will be in the bar again, rooting for the Iranians while hoping that nobody accuses me of hating America for doing that. Then its off to Bridgeview, as the Fire play their first ever match at Toyota Park.

The World Cup is on and as far as I am concerned, life is sweet right now.