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Andrei Markovits's avatar

You cannot imagine how Reyna's run delighted me. As somebody who has followed and witnessed soccer in the United States -- as well as U.S. soccer -- since my arrival here in 1967, I cannot put into words the immense development and improvement that we have come to witness -- and MUST acknowledge -- that soccer has experienced here. BRAVO to all, and yes, that includes MLS. The US -- as Grant rightly says -- is still not a first-class soccer country but in some ways it will always be different from those that are by dint of lots of reasons but none more important that in no country in which soccer provides the hegemonic sports culture are there four major team sports that crowd that country's sports space. England has cricket and the two rugby codes -- though regionally separated with Union in the south and League in the north. Basketball is a solid number two in the Mediterranean countries plus Brazil and Argentina; hockey has cultural presence in the Czech Republic and Slovakia and, of course, the Scandinavian countries. But in NO COUNTRY other than in the United States are there four such items. And this is fine! Soccer should -- and has already -- developed in the United States with its own accent so to speak, literally! And there is no shame in that. Alas, our cultural closeness and linguistic overlap with England means that there will always be a battle for authenticity in American soccer that will measure itself by English everything -- play on the pitch (do you see my authenticity here?), fan behavior, terminology, language, all of it! Soccer is not the only cultural item in which I see English, the common language that divides us from England and Britain, as a real curse! Onward to clinching a spot for the World Cup this Sunday!!!

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Jody Robins's avatar

Very much agree about the recent pervasiveness of negativity. The insane anti-MLS contingent is particularly annoying. Acosta has one bad game vs Panama and that crowd ignores his previous good games vs MX, his 3 assist/hockey assists vs Honduras, and even his fantastic chip to Reyna that should have resulted in a Pefok goal. I think at some point, we just have to try and ignore the negativity crowd and enjoy the fact that this is a young promising team with players in leagues around the globe that just went toe-to-toe with MX in the Azteca. Eight or twelve years ago any of us following the USMNT would have been overjoyed to hear what was in our future. Clearly T&T still has a hold of many of us, but hopefully the team can put that to rest on Sunday.

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