The United States soccer team is now eliminated from the FIFA World Cup after a crushing 2-1 loss in extra time to Ghana. For the hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Americans who started to follow the US Men's national team within the past 2 weeks, and are ready to let soccer go by for the next 4 years until Brazil 2014, I ask, give it the sport itself a chance while the sport is still fresh on your brain.

I know a good number of them saw the goal in the first 5 minutes of the game, and probably decided it was time to let the sport go back into its hiding place for the next 47 months. Most long time fans who have tried to get people to watch the World Cup probably (At least those who are Star Wars fans)

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.

This is what I think soccer fans who have attempted to get others into the sport, and well, have been able to successfully do up until tonight, begin the hard part of the process. Keeping those people watching after "their team" gets eliminated. Unfortunately, everyone only got to see one to four games, maybe a couple more, but unless you're big on the sport, you'r probably not in your 30th match watched of the World Cup at this point. It's a lot easier to get people to watch a team they have a huge rooting interest for.

Now, there is still plenty of great soccer to watch, and if you liked what you saw on the field as a sport in general, I encourage you to watch today. Germany vs England and Argentina vs Mexico. If you make it through today's games, and still don't think you can enjoy soccer the rest of the way, then I will let up and leave you be on the issue of the World Cup. It will be an impossible battle to try to keep people watching with the US losing, but at this point, I think there are some who are interested enough in the sport itself that they will continue to watch, and this is just a nudge in that direction for you who want to continue.

I know @SeanCablinasian says he wants to continue to watch, and I've given him some tips already (root against Mexico, always). My old roommate @moes19 has pretty much become a soccer fan whether he'll admit it or not. Between 2 years of matches on Univision, FSN, or ESPN, I have successfully implanted the love of soccer in his brain.

I've been lucky to meet up w/ a group of awesome people in the @TexianArmy lately. http://www.texianarmy.com will give you some more information about them, but essentially they are a supporter group that has been around since there were rumors of the San Jose Earthquakes even moving to Houston swirling around. They're a crazy fun group to be with while watching Dynamo games, and for the entire World Cup, I've been tweeting, texting, IMing, and generally freaking out about every US match with some of the members, as well as how great some other matches have been, and then when all that is over, spend some more time talking about nothing in particular. Awesome bunch of people, if you want to experience what they're like at a Dynamo game, check out their website I linked above, or message @cougarclaws on Twitter.

I think that's all I have for now, I will leave you with K'Naan - Waving Flag if you need something to listen to.