Why the Women's World Cup matters

It was a year ago that I realized soccer had caught on in America.

I'd met some friends at an Irish pub in Dupont to watch the USA-England game on the first Saturday of the 2010 World Cup. We got there early to secure seats, have brunch and watch Argentina play. When we arrived, the place was nearly dead. But over the course of the next three hours, something miraculous happened.

People started showing up. First the tables started to fill. Then it was standing room only. Then people began sitting cross-legged on the floor along the walls. They kept on coming and sitting until they had taken up every inch of space between and around the tables and were spilling out onto the sidewalk.

The waitstaff physically couldn't get to us to bring us the food we'd ordered. For weeks, the restaurant had been advertising two-for-one mimosas and Bloody Marys on game days -- before the match had even started, they'd run out of champagne. And Bloody Mary mix.

It was insane.

And the really remarkable thing was that it wasn't just the pub we were at. People were spilling out of every bar and restaurant in the neighborhood. Crowds descended on Dupont Circle, where a couple of big projector screens had been set up to air the games. They were wearing American flags and authentic football jerseys. Their faces were painted and, yes, they carried vuvuzelas.

And I thought, it's finally happened. America has finally discovered the beautiful game.

One might argue Americans aren't truly soccer fans. That they still don't follow the domestic league or know much about the players. They don't have fantasy teams, and most of them probably don't even really understand the rules. We're mostly in it for the excuse to be raucous and drunk in public before noon. But is that really all that different from the way the general public looks at American football? Isn't that too just an excuse to grill burgers and play bean-bag toss, and aren't most people inebriated beyond the point where a true sportsman's appreciation of the game is possible before kickoff, anyway?

I don't know. I guess my point is not that this is the peak of America's love affair with soccer. On the contrary, I think this is just the beginning. I think someday, average Joes will look forward to World Cup football with almost the intensity that I do. That eventually, the kind of fanaticism I witnessed on that Saturday last year will be expected when the tourney rolls around.

When that day comes, I think those who study sports culture (and are honest with themselves) will look back and agree it all started at the Rose Bowl on July 10, 1999.

America discovered soccer the moment Brandi Chastain slipped a shot past China's goalkeeper to clinch the Women's World Cup, ripped her jersey off and fell, euphoric, to the ground. It was a special moment for a lot of little girls like me who already lived and breathed the sport and got to watch our heroes Mia and Michelle and Briana and Kristine bring its highest honor home. But it was also, I think, an important moment for a lot of other people -- like our dads, who went in not caring an ounce about women's professional soccer but couldn't help but be swept up in the excitement of the tournament. Regular sports enthusiasts had no choice but to pay attention. "Oh, so that's what soccer looks like. Huh. It's rather entertaining, isn't it..."

That was a bigger moment in sports history than I think almost anyone realizes, because it was the moment that made a women's sport relevant for maybe the only time in history, that made a women's sport more popular in America than its male counterpart. Female athletes became household names. (And if you don't believe me, consider who graced SI's cover as the 1999 Sportsman of the Year.)

It didn't last, of course, our love of women's soccer. But I believe it primed this nation to appreciate the (men's) game. Think about it: Team USA's following has gotten larger and more invested with every passing World Cup in the twelve years since that day.

That's why I get so excited for Women's World Cup soccer. Because there's always a chance something miraculous could happen. That the country might be forced to stop and take note of not just the greatest game in all of sports but some of the greatest athletes. Against all odds. In a world where even women don't care about women's sports, where even I don't care about women's sports. Except this one.