the great American upset

It's not often the US finds itself on the losing side of anyone's predictions (karma encounters notwithstanding). But, uh, yeah, we beat Spain last night, much to my and many others' surprise (yes, Colin, with the exception of you, who of course were sure the US would eek out a victory.)

Though I am surprised about the American win, I have to say it's likely we'll only be seeing more of the same in the years to come. It's not only because the US hate being bad at things (which we do, sport not the least) but it's also because we are veritably a nation of athletes.

This guy agrees.

Unlike many countries which have national sports for which they are renowned (and often limited to -- say Pakistani cricket or Italian soccer), the US has gradually moved out of the realm of exclusive American sport to colonizing other countries' (sport). The secret? Crosstraining. What I've noticed about South Africa is that much like social and economic segregation persists into the 21st century, there is not a lot of sporting crossover in high school and varsity-aged players. Unlike the three-sport athletes I grew up with, by the time many young players arrive in high school, they've already made their choice (or it's been made for them). What this means is that unlike in the States, where one has a wide pool of athletic and versatile players, in other countries this might not be the case. The result is that if we want to get good at soccer, we can, and we will, and we'll make it speedy, because not only is the infrastructure in place we've got a country of up and comers waiting to be tapped.

I mean, if the US is willing to elbow its way into India's niche professional cricket market (see http://www.aplcric.com/ for some premium details) then why shouldn't we put our national stubborness to the test and win at another imperial sport? We've outsourced enough rugby players to pin us to the map, so with a little more cash thrown at the problem (it's rumored the new APL will be making use of Yankee training sites upon start-up) we might reclaim our imperial history.* We certainly can't let the stinky Euros have all the fun.



*Fact: the first recorded international cricket match was played between the United States and Canada in 1844. Canada won, so we promptly outlawed the sport.