with the End of Year Appraoching does the US National Team Confederations Cup Perform Rate as one of the top Sports stories of this Year??
if youre talking about the US............No, for 4 days the United States was in love with the US national team. Thats it. Its a nice little footnote lost in UNC winning the national championship, the Steelers winning the superbowl on an amazing late game TD, more BCS controversy, the World Series everyone wanted to see, the Lakers returning to the top, Lebron getting knocked off, Pitt vs Villanova and Pacquiao knocking out Hatton in round 2. No one outside of soccer fans even remember it happened.
the topic came up my mind because i was listeningto several sports Radio outlets and Tv Media and Realized that this is the time of year they do "Year In Reviews", oh Yeah and now Decade in reviews cause a new decade in I would 2010....... I would Imagine ESPN would mention it but thats about it. FSR and sporting news not so much.. Mayb Local outlets that have a decent following of MLS and or soccer, who knows.
I think thats a problem that some people who are not familiar with the American Sportscene, I mean Its so large here so much going on at one time and even on its off months(Summmertime(nonolympic years)... But Really thats something all American Soccer Big wigs need to work on.. the US Confed run at the start was another hum hum and then as the days go on things got better... something needs to be kept going, and be more consistent. Realistically you wont see the UEFA Champions League Final or the premier League and even US Soccer on the Mainstream rotation outside ESPN.... Maybe FSC but Soccer should learn on how to Market and expand on that how to market well in the American Community.... Maybe the USMNT Confed run maybe top 25 at best.....
For me...yes it was. Then again for me a friendly against St. Kitts and Nevis is more important than the World Series.
That's a little pessimistic. I can't remember which category, but the game was labeled as like one of the best games/upsets/matchups/stories or something of 2009 on SI.com. I think most sports guys remember it because it was when soccer and the national team really announced themselves to the world. It might not be remembered with the great finals and championships of the year, but it will be remembered for its significance.
Spain has lost now, what...1 match in it's last 45 or something? ...and that was to us. Yeah, it ought to rate.
Right behind Tiger Woods put form 3 feet, that gets labled "an amazing put from the GREATEST AHLETE EVER"-
Thats cute but again, you're the minority, not baseball and boxing fans in this country...okay maybe boxing. But certainly not baseball. I guarantee you that at least 500x as many people in this country can tell you the result of the World Series than can tell you who was in the confederation cup final.
the run was AMAZING.. yeaa it truly was.. but as hard is it is to accept, most sports fans do not even kno wat the confederations cup is for it to be significant enough to them. Had we won it.. then perhaps we'd get a little more acknowledgment. the only way for us soccer to get credit where credit is due.. is a deep impact into the world cup, i'd say a semi final run should do the trick.. as unrealistic as that may sound, as someone mentioned earlier the american sports market is huge, only the best or very close to it on the grand stage will turn heads to soccer in this country for example, kcal 9 did a 2009 great sports moments in review, no mention of our performance in the confed cup watsoever, the only soccer that was shown was a half second clip of donovan and beckham celebrating, thats it. women's basketball and horse racing had more coverage in their greatest sports moments than US soccer did. now i know thats a very obscure and specific example, but it jus shows that maybe we haven't come as far as we would like to think.
The victory over Spain is the third biggest win in US soccer history IMO. Only Portugal 2002, England 1950 are bigger, no offense to Paul Caligari vs TnT. So yes, it should be a top ten story for 2009. But like everyone has said, no one outside the circle of futbol fans even knows the CC exists. Here's hoping we make some noise in South Africa.