Our Herb Brooks Moment

With the World Cup draw having been so ably handled by the gorgeous if ultra-leftist actress Charlize Theron last night in South Africa, we now know where all 31 of the qualifying countries will be playing, and we know where France will be playing as well.

For the United States, my first love in the game of "football" even if it is a place I prefer not to reside in, the draw could not be better. For not only does its group involve two of the last countries to qualify from their respective continents, Algeria and Slovenia, it also requires that the US kick off the account against England.

Fearsome England. Birthplace of The Game and home of the vaunted Premiership. Thanks to Charlize and the Football Gods, American soccer has been given the one opportunity it has sought, pined for, and ached for--a money game against the world's most storied football power on a Saturday afternoon in June.

For American Soccer, this game is for all the marbles. A draw, or improbably but not impossably a win, and this game will not only mark America's true arrival as a first-tier footballing nation but of soccer as a first-tier American sport. A humiliating shut-out, and it's time to forget soccer once and for all and start considering how many NFL rejects we can recycle into rugby players for the following year's Rugby World Cup.

Great games deserve great speeches. So, here is my adaptation of the famous speech by the last US Hockey Coach Herb Brooks to his charges before the epoch-changing match against the Russians in the 1980 Olympics, with apologies to Kurt Russell's performance in the movie "Miracle":

Great moments...are born from great opportunity.
And that's what you have here today, boys.
That's what you've earned here today.

One game.
If we played 'em ten times, they might win nine.
But not this game.
Not today.

Today, we play with them.
Today, we stay with them.
And we shut them down--because we can.

Today, WE are the greatest footballing nation in the world.
You were born to be footballers.
And you were meant to be here today.

This is your time.
Their time is done.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about
What a great football side the English have.

Screw 'em.
This is your time
Now go out there and take it.