U.S. optimism also in football

This years World Cup of football in South Africa is only three days away. Sadly without Swedish participation this year, but somewhat of a relief is that most other big football-nations are taking part, which will hopefully guarantee entertaining plays.

One such big nation is not the USA. On the contrary, taking in consideration its size and wealth it must be one of the "smallest" footballing countries in the Western hemisphere, as it so far has very few accomplishments on the World stage. Having made it to the round 0f 16 a few times since 1990 might be considered a decent result, but real successes have been lacking. This have not decreased Americans' optimism for this years tournament, where a whole 46 percent of North Americans (also including Canadians) believe that the US will bring home the gold from South Africa. The US is in general an optimistic society, where positive attitudes towards the future, one's own situation, and technology outrank those of the cousins in the West. When it comes to belief in one's own nation, as measured in the belief of the "cultural superiority" of the country, the US is only outranked by Italy in the Western hemisphere. I was a bit surprised to find that this had spread to football, which is still quite a small sport in the US. It has grown since the World Cup was held there in 94 though, and now the games in the domestic league MLS oftentimes fill more seats than the National Hockey League-matches.

That is not to say that the U.S. optimism about their national "soccer" side has grounds. I would say there is no chance of the US winning the gold, although they should advance from an easy group consisting of England, Algeria and Slovenia. Making it to the quarter-finals would be a big accomplishment for the Americans.