Someday, we'll be a 'united' United States of Sport

I spent three hours in downtown Iowa City on Saturday, and for once I actually had the same temporary raison d'etre as a lot of University of Iowa students.

The time spent there was watching the U.S.-Ghana World Cup match. In bar after bar -- pubs, if you will -- dozens of young adults were watching the game. Intently. Some wore soccer fan-garb, the funny red-white-and-blue hats, an occasional U.S. flag for a cape, shirts with U.S. Soccer logos.

But there were a lot of Johnny- and Janey-come-lately fans, too, like myself. People who got swept up in the Americans' dramatic win over Algeria earlier in the week and wanted to see the U.S. team keep going in the tournament.

I was in Slippery Pete's for the second-half of Saturday's match. When Landon Donovan scored on a penalty kick early in the half to tie the match, it was a goose-bump moment. Not the goal itself, but the reaction from the people in the bar.

It was similar to what you can see in this montage of Americans' responses to Donovan's game-winning goal against Algeria.

This country has virtually every sporting experience known to the human race, but we haven't had a genuinely shared team to go nuts about since the U.S. men's hockey Olympic champions of 1980.

As disdainful as many Americans are about soccer and the World Cup, there were a lot of people in a lot of walks of life who suddenly got interested in last week's matches.

Had the U.S. beaten Ghana, the buildup for Friday's quarterfinal match against Uruguay would have been interesting. And had the Americans won that ...

"If the U.S. ever gets to a World Cup final, it'll be bigger here than the Super Bowl," I overheard a young woman say in Slippery Pete's. Her male companion disagreed.

But I think she just might be right. For one thing, we have no idea what it's like in this country to see our national team go that deep into the World Cup. The U.S. was three whole excruciating games away from a spot in the finals.

For another, while everybody watches the Super Bowl, only a minority have strong rooting interests. I enjoyed it, but wasn't emotionally involved in the New Orleans-Indianapolis Super Bowl matchup in February.

I'm not a flag-waving "USA! USA! USA!" chanter. I just want, one day, to see and feel something that brings people all over our crazy quilt of a country to feel like they're rooting for the same thing, to be able to scream at TV screens together and high-five total strangers after goals, and have the excitement grow all over the nation over a full month.

Better to be united over a silly reason like a World Cup than a world war.

That loss to Ghana was deflating. The fun was seemingly over as soon as it got started. Ghana can play Uruguay in a day that is monumentally exciting to both nations. For us, it will just be Friday.

Maybe in 2014. Yes, that's it. 2014.