Did U.S. women help enhance soccer’s popularity? YEA

While the American women couldn’t quite get it done against Japan in the World Cup final, they may have pushed their sport’s popularity to the top in the US.We’ve all heard the arguments for why soccer hasn’t caught on here. It’s too slow ? there’s too many 0-0 games ? I’m sure you can provide reasons of your own.What it comes down to is the fact that, unlike basketball and Dr. Naismith, or baseball and Abner Doubleday (if you believe the legend), soccer wasn’t created on these shores. And just like other global institutions revered everywhere but here – the metric system, mass transit – we rejected it. You might as well have asked us to take up cricket.Well, creating a sport here is one way to guarantee national popularity for it. Another way is to take a sport created elsewhere and give it an American identity. Boxing, for instance, was popular with both the ancient Sumerians and the 18th-century British before anyone here ever heard of Muhammad Ali. Tennis, too, was born overseas (Shakespeare has the French ambassador ship a box of tennis balls to English King Henry V) ? but it will be the talent of the Williams sisters, and the tantrums of John McEnroe, that fans remember most vividly.So will it be with women’s soccer. The 2011 national team crafted storylines that will resonate with US fans. The Americans were the last team to qualify for the Cup. They were on the ropes against Brazil yet prevailed – like Rocky against Ivan Drago. And they came so close against Japan before goalie Hope Solo injured her knee and the Japanese won on penalty kicks.The women’s soccer players of tomorrow – well represented in youth leagues, and on high school and college teams – will see reflections of themselves in the sweat-soaked, mud-spattered US national squad after the game. Every player who has been sprawled on the ground with the trainer by their side will know something of what Solo went through after injuring her knee ? and everyone who has “played hurt” will sympathize with Solo, who did just that in the PK session.Tomorrow’s stars are already using that American theme, technology, to discuss the 2011 team – via texting, Facebook, Twitter (“Traffic on social media ? (generated) at its peak more tweets-per-second than either Britain’s royal wedding or the announcement of Osama Bin Laden’s death,” the AP noted). On traditional TV, the final drew a record audience for an ESPN network.Solo and her teammates may have lost a Cup final. Yet they may have gained something greater: Long-term popularity for their sport.Rich Tenorio is The Item’s sports copy editor.