International Soccer

Don't get me wrong, I love club soccer. I follow my clubs passionately and most of the year it's leagues and cup competitions that dominate the headlines. But as we get closer and closer to another World Cup the international games start to pick up.

International sports in general are a great leveller. Take the Olympics for instance. For the majority of the time no one gives a damn about who the best pole vaulter or speed skater is. But strap a flag on their uniform and all of a sudden it means something totally different. While MLS struggles to build up more of its fan base, U.S. Soccer at least seems to draw interest. That may mean that there is more interest in the sport as a whole but I think some kind of nationalism has at least a little but to do with it.

With that said, many of these games mean 10x as much to other countries. I will never forget the USA/Honduras Gold Cup match I saw at Giants Stadium. Sam's Army was there doing a great job as usual but one look at the colors throughout the stadium proved who had the real support of the crowd. When Honduras scored to go 1-0 up, the place went nuts. I love the passion soccer fans exhibit in general. Add passion for one's country to this and it's hard not to get caught up.

FSC has some OK Asian qualifiers on this weekend but GolTV actually has a few I'm waiting eagerly like Spain v. Turkey and The Netherlands v. Scotland. Way too many games to even begin a comprehensive analysis but I'll post a few teams and players to watch tomorrow with maybe a few little previews. I'd also like to analyze the groups in each qualifying zone sometime soon but until then, later days.