Morning gloat: Soccer haters pummeled with World Cup greatness!

Laying siege to Fortress Xenophobia

And it hit me: the tables have totally turned on soccer haters. At least for the time being.

Before, the anti-soccer brigade had all the leverage. They represented the “in” crowd, with big media on their side.

No more! The World Cup is cool right now. People don’t regard it as that cute little foreign oddity anymore – like some exchange student spending the semester here. At a bigger level, you cannot consume media now without bumping into a face full of World Cup.

It is absolutely all over ESPN right now, as the self-proclaimed worldwide leader has a major investment in South Africa 2010. Newspapers in the know are full of World Cup stories. Vanity Fair’s recent cover was just filled with pretty boy soccer beefcake, etc.

I told my friend: “How great is that? Dudes like this are getting absolutely beaten about the head with World Cup! They are just getting pummeled by it!”

And it must be terrible for them. In my mind, I pictured the ugliest of the soccer haters in my life, blood pressure spiking, spilling their morning coffee at the site of another World Cup piece. … And then they go yell at kids about getting off the damn lawn!

Maybe that makes me a sorry person for feeling that way. I mean, Churchill told us about being “magnanimous in victory,” and all that, right?

Well, I don’t see my attitude changing, so I guess it is what it is ….

As you revel in the glory of our victory, you might want to add to your stores of World Cup knowledge with a couple of recent SI.com pieces from your favorite, jubilant soccer writer. This one is a quick history of the United States’ past World Cup showings. This one documents the top five World cup matches the United States has played – including a couple of jaw-dropping upsets.