Soccer haters, pay attention. You might learn something.

With the NFL season fast approaching and preseason games in full swing, I’d like to take a moment to make everyone aware that football everywhere is kicking off. Leagues all across Europe are beginning their soccer seasons this month, and this weekend marks the beginning of the English Premiership campaign, which means I’ll be parked in front of Fox Sports World during most of my free weekend hours. Seven Americans now ply their trade in what is arguably the world’s top league: Tim Howard and Jonathan Spector at Manchester United; Claudio Reyna at Manchester City; Brad Friedel at Blackburn Rovers; Kasey Keller at Tottenham Hotspurs; and Brian McBride and Carlos Bocanegra at Fulham. There are also Americans (Yanks Abroad, as they’re known to soccer geeks) playing in the English First Division (which is actually the 2nd tier of English football), the German Bundesliga, the Dutch Eredivisie, the French First Division, and leagues in Belgium, Denmark, and Norway. Fox Sports World covers a lot of these leagues, and they tend to gear their coverage towards a game involving at least one American player.

I’ve played soccer since I was five years old, but it wasn’t really until college that I became a fan and started watching it on TV. One of my favorite sportswriters, Jeff Bradley, writes columns for Major League Soccer and ESPN about American soccer, and this week's column for MLSNet.com particularly pleased me. He writes about individual performances in World Cup Qualifiers, and his #1 moment, a goal by Tab Ramos in 1997, was the exact moment that I realized my true passion for sports could be found in the fortunes of the Men’s National Team. It was an important moment for the Nats, as Ramos’ goal kept them alive in qualifying for the 1998 World Cup in France. As it turned out, the team may have wished they had failed to qualify, since they had a disastrous run in France, bowing out after three miserable games that included a loss to Iran. But, indirectly, that led to their success in the 2002 World Cup, since the coach at the ’98 World Cup, Steve Sampson, was fired, and new head coach Bruce Arena was brought in to replace him. Arena had previously achieved success at the University of Virginia and with my beloved DC United in MLS (who won their game against the Colorado Rapids tonight, 3-1), winning 3 titles in 4 years. He rebuilt the National Team with younger players, turning their fortunes around and leading them to an excellent showing at World Cup 2002 and a current world ranking of #7. At the moment, Arena has the Nats playing extremely well as they prepare to go to Jamaica for the next game of World Cup Qualifying for 2006.