I’ve never met a beer I didn’t like.

Well, actually, that’s not true. My freshman year in college, my buddy Jon-E bought a twelve pack of this foul swill called Blatz. Yes, Blatz. I believe the name comes from what you spend the next day doing. (”Sorry, dude. I can’t play ball right now. I’m in the bathroom taking a mean Blatz.”) The “beer” — I use the term loosely — tastes like skunky, watered-down, alcoholic seltzer water. Jon-E, me, and two other buddies took a sip and simultaneously spat out a mouthful of Blatz. You might say we Blatz’ed all over ourselves.

None of us finished our beer and we used the remaining cans trying to hit a STOP sign across the street. (Haley, if you’re reading this, please understand that Daddy often needs to exaggerate his stories to enhance their comedic value. We actually drained the remaining cans, took them to the nearest recycling center, and donated the redemption money to a local children’s hospital. Also, drinking is bad and you can’t date until you’re 35, so stop asking.) We didn’t chill them. We didn’t bring them to a party. We didn’t even put them in a beer bong. We just threw them away.

Let me repeat that so it sinks in: Four broke, college-age males THREW AWAY 12 FULL BEERS.

At that point in our lives, we would have drank bong water if it had enough alcohol in it, but we couldn’t bring ourselves to have one more sip of Blatz. To this day, Blatz remains the only beer I’ve ever thrown away.

So, I have met a beer I didn’t like, but only one.

That’s not to say that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed every beer I ever drank (save one notable exception). There are some God awful beers out there. Natural Light, or Natty Light as the kids are sayin’ these days, should come with a warning label that says “if your hand isn’t uncomfortably cold when you’re holding this beverage, you should set it down and walk away”. My thoughts on Stella are well documented. I think Corona would taste better if the Mexicans DID piss in it. But that doesn’t mean I would pass up a Natural Light, Stella, or Corona if offered. I think these beers have a time and place and enjoy them on occasion, but I also recognize that they are more than moderately mediocre and understand why the vast majority of people can’t stand them.

It’s the same reason why the vast majority of American’s can’t stand soccer: American soccer sucks.

It doesn’t “Blatz” suck. It’s not unwatchable. But, for the most part, American soccer is bland, uninteresting, and unappealing, the sporting equivalent of Natty Light. And those are the good games.

I understand this might come as a bit of shock to the American soccer fans out there (all 25 of them) riding high after the US National Team’s shocking upset of Spain, the number one team in the World, but it has to be said in order for us to move forward. Admitting we have a problem is the first step towards fixing it.

So, repeat after me.

“American soccer sucks.”

Again!

“American soccer sucks.”

LOUDER!

“AMERICAN SOCCER SUCKS!”

One more…ok, this is getting ridiculous.

You get the point. Americans do not play soccer at a high level. Our National Team is competitive (just ask the Spaniards), but we aren’t a threat to win a major international competition (No, soccer sycophant — would that be a soccerphant? — the “Confederation Cup”, which, for the record, I had to Google just to make sure I had the name right, does not count as a “major” international competition. There’s one major international competition — two, really, but the US does not participate in the European Championships for obvious reasons — and it’s called the World Cup.), the MLS is a joke in comparison to other top flight international soccer leagues (English Premier League, Italian Serie A, or Spanish Primera Liga), and, most importantly, the United States Soccer Team does not have any identifiable superstars.

We have some good players, but no superstars. No Ronaldinos. No Kakas. No Cristiano Ronaldos.

Everyone’s abuzz about Jozy Altidore after his game winning goal against Spain, but Jozy Altidore is just another way of saying Freddy Adu, which is another way of saying Landon Donovan, which is another way of saying DeMarcus Beasley, which is another way of saying Brian McBride, which is another way of saying Claudio Reyna, which is another way of saying Tab Ramos, which is another way of saying Alexi Lalas, which is another way of saying… ok, I’m out of names.

Any time an American soccer player emerges with a modicum of talent, the sports media dubs them the “Michael Jordan of Soccer” and guarantees that they will transform soccer in America and establish the USA as a World power in the sport. Soccer fans keep buying into the hype and telling their friends that this time will be different. This player is the real deal. Trouble is, none of them are the real deal and after selling the casual sports fan a bill of goods for over a decade, the American soccer fan has completely lost his credibility.

If American soccer fans want the casual sports fan to truly embrace soccer, they need to be honest with them. They need to look them in the eye and tell them the truth: “American soccer sucks, but it’s getting better.” In fact, in my lifetime, I should be able to use phrases other than “not entirely embarrassing”, “vaguely watchable”, and “refreshingly plucky” to describe soccer in America.

And, frankly, I can’t wait.

Because while soccer in the USA might suck, soccer as a whole, most definitely, does not suck. In fact, soccer is one of my favorite sports and one of the most thrilling and dramatic to watch. You just have to understand it.

It’s become rather en vogue to say that soccer is boring. Soccer’s detractors point to the lack of goals as irrefutable evidence that soccer lacks drama or excitement. What they fail to realize is that the lack of constant scoring is exactly what makes soccer so exciting.

Because teams score only a few goals in a typical soccer game, each goal is incredibly important. And while a game may contain only a small number of actual goals, it consists of a never ending series of shots on goal, near misses, and scoring opportunities, each of which is an edge-of-your-seat moment due to the chance that it might lead to the ever important goal. Watching a close soccer match is like watching the bottom of the ninth in a one-run baseball game with a runner in scoring position, if the bottom of the ninth lasted AN HOUR AND A HALF. (That’s right, a soccer game is only 90 minutes and, because there are no stoppages in play aside from half-time, there are no commercials. If you want to watch a football game or baseball game, you’re making a half-day commitment. With soccer, you can start a game at breakfast and be done in time for brunch. Brilliant!)

Sure, there are boring soccer games, but for the most part, a small handful of plodding, defensive 1-0 soccer games give the rest of the games a bad name. And, to be fair, every sport has boring games. A 76-63 basketball game is boring. A 10-3 football game is horrible. A 1-0 baseball game is debatably more appealing than watching two sloths hump in slow motion on the Discovery channel. But, regardless of the score, games in all sports have a certain appeal if played at a high enough level. Even a 1-0 soccer game, if played between Brazil and Argentina, or Spain and England, or Manchester United and AC Milan, is almost always engaging, exciting, and thrilling from start to finish.

And that’s where we need to get with US Soccer.

Right now, bad US Soccer games are downright Blatz terrible and good games are luke-warm Corona funky. For soccer to truly take off in America, we need the bad games to be slightly-chilled Coors light eclectic, and the good games to be ice-cold Maui Brewing Company Big Swell IPA on the beach at the North Shore at sunset spectacular (If you haven’t had the transcendent experience of enjoying the best beer from, what is, in my opinion, the best local brewery, on the beach, at the North Shore, at sunset, you haven’t lived). Until then, there’s no use trying to convince casual sports fans to watch soccer, because no one wants to watch two hours of the sports equivalent of Blatz.

Not even me.