Why Soccer's Impact in the United States Has Grown

(Photo by Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images)

Throughout American sports, soccer has long been considered to be a second-class sport, as it hasn't received as much support as major American sports such as Baseball, Basketball, and the NFL.

But within the last month, times have started to change for the better for soccer in the United States, all of which started in the Confederations Cup in June in South Africa.

After losing 3-1 to Italy and 3-0 to Brazil, the United States appeared to be heading out of the tournament early, and coach Bob Bradley appeared to be on the hot seat.

But, America recovered with a 3-0 win over Egypt, and with Italy surprisingly losing 3-0 to Brazil, the United States stunningly found themselves onto the next round of the Confederations Cup, as now they would face Spain, which at the time was ranked as the number one team in the world.

However, this didn't stop them, as the Americans stunningly defeated Spain 2-0 on goals by Jozy Altidore and Clint Dempsey, and great goalkeeping by Tim Howard as the United States went onto the Confederations Cup final against Brazil.

In the final, the Americans got first half goals by Dempsey and Landon Donovan, but Brazil scored three goals in the second half to end the amazing run that the Americans had in the tournament.

But this was only the beginning of soccer's rise in the United States.

The next major soccer story in the United States happened on July 2, when Donovan, who plays on the Los Angeles Galaxy with English star David Beckham, announced in a book written by Grant Wahl called The Beckham Experiment that Beckham is a terrible teammate and captain, and didn't do enough to help the Galaxy.

This only added more fuel onto the fire with Galaxy fans and Beckham, who stated earlier in the year that he wanted to remain with Italian giant AC Milan instead of the Galaxy, which angered many Galaxy fans.

On July 19, Beckham played his first home match back in America at the Home Depot Center (the Galaxy's home stadium), as the Galaxy faced Beckham's "old club", AC Milan in a friendly.

However, Beckham got into a dispute with a fan during the match, in which Beckham called the fan down from the stands who was heckling him during the match, which has caused some people in America to question his ability to deal with heckling fans.

However, in Beckham's next game at the CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City, Beckham once again got into a dispute with a fan who was wearing an English national team jersey, as Beckham has stated that the fan was insulting his wife Victoria as Becks and the fan exchanged words.

The second major story was the inaugural World Football Challenge, which consisted of Club América, Inter Milan, AC Milan and Chelsea.

These games were able to get tens of thousands of fans to attend these matches, as the Chelsea vs. Inter match in the Rose Bowl had an attendance of 81,224, and in the six game tournament, the overall attendance was 336,813.

American fans were also able to see the Milan derby in Foxboro on July 26, and saw Chelsea beat Club América 2-0 to win the inaugural World Football Challenge.

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