Opinion: It hurts watching the World Cup without US being involved

Take any one of the matches from the first weekend of the 2018 World Cup, in particular the Portugal/Spain match on Friday and Germany/Mexico match on Sunday, as examples of the beauty that is global soccer. The only thing missing for me, a soccer mad fanatic of the highest order (I love the game so much that I refuse, at this point of my career, to even cover Major League Soccer because of the emotional toll it may take) is the United States National Team (USMNT). The U.S. did not qualify for Russia 2018 and for me that leaves me enjoying the matches and the pageantry but missing the boys in red, white and blue. It hurts.

Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo scored three goals in a 3-3 draw to Spain and the world, though already quite familiar with the World Player of the Year, got yet another opportunity to see him on the biggest stage of the game. I really want the same for the United States players on what can easily be called our most diverse team ever. Players like John Brooks, Julian Green, Timothy Weah, Bobby Wood, Gyasi Zardes and Christian Pulisic are all in the dawn of their national team careers and should be playing for the best team tournament trophy in sports. Sadly they are not and the world, not just this columnist and more importantly soccer fan, is missing out on some top American talent.

There are viewing parties taking place near where I live -there’s a Hooters right down the street and a very popular Mexican restaurant a block further north- and I just can’t bring myself to drop by and celebrate the beautiful game with my fellow soccer purists and johnny come latelys. It’s so bad that I can’t bring myself to even wear my Team USA gear around town. I feel like it doesn’t speak as loud and proud without our team being in the World Cup. The Volkswagen commercials asking Americans to root for Germany and other national teams while apologizing to us for not being in the tournament did nothing to help.

As I wrote this column I prepared to watch Brazil play Switzerland and could not help but think back to my favorite U.S. national team, the 2006 squad. Now that was a fun World Cup. The U.S. did not advanced out of the group stage but I loved that team. The 1-1 draw with Italy on June 17, 2006 in the second game of the group stage made me proud. The 2-1 loss to Ghana five days later had me in tears. I was a die-hard U.S. National Team supporter from that moment on. I still am, no matter what.

With the announcement early last week that the U.S., Canada and Mexico will jointly host the 2026 World Cup we will once again have our time on the big stage and I will break my fast and be covering the matches in Atlanta for sure. I’d just like to be enjoying the USMNT a bit sooner than that. Let’s say in 2022 Qatar.