So where do we go from here, we infantile nation of football players and fans?

We’re impressionable, that’s for certain – we’re emotional, easily and equally elated and distraught by our highs and lows.

We also want to prove ourselves to the rest of the world. We’ve conquered all foreign enemies in virtually every major sport, crowned our national football and basketball elite as “world champions”, and been a world power politically and economically for much of our relatively short history.

The pitch is one surface, one aspect of life that we have yet to dominate on a global scale. While many countries are usually the ones becoming more Americanized in terms of media and culture, it’s ironically us whom are now trying to become more Uruguyan, German, or even Ghanian on the pitch.

We’re in unfamiliar territory and in an underdog role that we cherish – that is until the underdog can’t seem to break its threshold. Our threshold is here now and it’s very real: we need to go from bit players to superstars on a global level, and we need to begin now.

It’s a daunting task, but we have the resources. Now it's time to develop them.

***

The 2010 FIFA World Cup is over for the United States. It came to a bittersweet ending in the quarterfinals, at the hands of a young and athletic Ghana squad.

We showed the world that we had real strengths: we are a gritty and unselfish group, with an exceptional keeper in Tim Howard and a high-level playmaker in Landon Donovan.

We also had our weaknesses exposed: we lack a deadly striker, our dribbling and passing isn’t always pinpoint, and our back line was inconsistent.

(Apparently we have a penchant for being on the wrong end of controversial calls as well. My buddy’s take on this: “It’s [having inexperienced refs at the cup] like asking a minor league ump to call the World Series. Refs from inexperienced countries don’t have the necessary experience to call those games…FIFA needs to make a change.” Preach it.)

While  the 2010 Cup was crucial as a measuring stick as we compare ourselves to other football powers, we’re also a team and a nation of fans with questions about our future.

As a team, how do we go from good to great? And as a country, how do we adopt and embrace soccer as our own?

***

Before we answer those questions, we have to acknowledge the obstacles - and there are several – preventing American soccer from becoming elite.

-Major League Soccer: On a global scale, Major League Soccer is really the minor leagues. We have very few elite players, a small fan base, and the 18-team league has just a fraction of the financial backing afforded to the teams in the English Premier League. And the money is the biggest thing holding the MLS back: it simply can’t offer comparable salaries to ones shelled out in the EPL or a similar elite league – which is why when the MLS does get that rare elite athlete (Dempsey, Howard, Donovan, Altidore), he’s quickly bought up by a high-level team.

The solution could be, as the MLS grows in popularity (according to mls-daily.com attendance was up more than 9% last year), more wealthy owners will buy in and infuse more cash into the league. Perhaps even more corporations (like Red Bull in New York or Samsung for Chelsea in the EPL) will buy in to the league and become huge financial backers.

-High-level experience: Because of the relative amateur status of the MLS, one of the biggest differences between the U.S. national team and the elite countries is the level of experience that the individual players have had. We have just five players – Tim Howard, Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey, Oguchi Onyewu, and Jozy Altidore – who played in Italy’s Serie A, Spain’s La Liga, or the English Premier League last year. For comparison, all of Spain’s 23 rostered players play in one of those three leagues. The situation presents a lose-lose for the MLS and America’s soccer program. The MLS wants the best American players to stay on our soil, but it doesn’t have the type of competition that allows those players to truly become elite on a global scale.

-Too many options: American soccer’s biggest problem may be that there are simply too many sports options for young kids to choose. Soccer is the only sport for some countries, but most American kids have probably never seen a professional soccer match live on TV. The majority of the money is in basketball, football, and baseball, so young, elite American athletes will always be steered towards one of the big three. There are exceptions – Jozy Altidore and Tim Howard look like they could have played any sport they wanted – but the majority of American kids are shying away from soccer at a young age.

-The American mentality: Watch Sportscenter on any given morning for 15 minutes and keep track of what you see. It’s mostly strikeouts and home runs, it’s dunks (I think the ratio of dunks to everything else in LeBron highlights is about 8:1), or it's touchdown passes and brutal hits. But soccer? Maybe a couple of near-goals, a keeper knocking away a shot on goal, or a striker making a long run down the field – then finally a lone goal or two mixed in somewhere. Soccer just isn’t…cool enough in most people’s eyes.

As Americans, we like the big play, the homer, and the flashy dunk and most fans rarely pick up on the subtle details.

We overlook the audible at the line, the hitter working the count, or the big man setting the screen – the things that actually lead to those highlights.

Soccer is full of those subtle details though. No one talks about the great lead pass that Tim Howard threw to Clint Dempsey that started the U.S.’ game-winning run in extra time against Algeria. We must learn to appreciate the skill and subtlety of the game if we want to fully embrace it. 

***

Personally, I’m going to give soccer a trial run after the World Cup ends. I want to follow the club teams for a year and see how involved I can get with it. I am especially excited about following the Champions’ League tournament, the final of which has been called the Super Bowl for the rest of the world – what kind of sports fan wouldn’t appreciate something of that scale?

I had to choose a couple of teams to follow, so I went ahead and picked FC Barcelona in La Liga (because of Lionel Messi) and Chelsea FC of the EPL (because of Didier Drogba…and because Chelsea is my girlfriend’s name). I’m even thinking about joining an English Premier League fantasy soccer league because I find that having a fantasy team is one of the best ways to stay immersed and current with any sport.

I would encourage America to do the same. If we want our national soccer program to become elite, must invest in it. We must give the MLS a shot, go to a game (why not take a young kid to a game and see if he likes it? It’s a lot cheaper investment than shelling out a couple hundred bucks for an NFL or NBA game), or tune in when a game is shown on ESPN2.

We need Nike and Adidas to push the game and market our own stars and make them household names. We need ESPN to get our soccer stars involved, whether it’s in the form of highlights or just face time and interviews

We must learn more about the game and how it’s played so that we can recognize great skill when we see it.

It’s up to us.