It was like listening to the Red Sox or Bruins some 40 years ago on a transistor radio tucked under a pillow lulling me to sleep. Yesterday, Carl Yastrzemski and Bobby Orr were replaced by Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey via a live stream into my office. While organizing my projects, I listened to the ESPN3 (it’s just a matter of time before “ESPN8 – The Ocho” is a reality, isn’t it?) game coverage courtesy of my friends at Comcast… uh, I mean Xfinity. Around the 88th minute of a 90 minute contest, one of the announcers, um, announced, “It’s becoming desperation time for the Americans.” I had to watch.

The US team was dominating Algeria, but unsuccessfully peppering their goal with shots. Finally, this happened. My reaction was the same as when the Patriots won their first SuperBowl in 2001 on a game ending field goal except it had to be a silent movie… I was in the office. I bolted upright from my chair with my arms shooting toward the blue moon. GOOOOOOOAAAAAALLLLLLL!!!!!!!

I wrote about the beautiful game four years ago when I was rooting for butt-head Zidane and the French, but to have our national team in contention is amazing. In those four years, I also happily learned that not only will soccer knowledge help you in an increasingly global business world, but it will also give you something in common with your girlfriend’s son! How cool is that?

Forget the “soccer is boring” thing and jump on the World Cup wagon! There are games every day, and our US boys play next v. Ghana Saturday at 2:30.