USMNT's epic Nations League triumph over Mexico provided plenty of lessons

DENVER -- The United States men's national team headed into Sunday's CONCACAF Nations League final against Mexico as a side heavy on potential but light on experience. Yet in an engrossing contest that lasted almost three hours, this young U.S. team grew before the collective eyes of those in attendance, prevailing 3-2 after extra time to claim the inaugural edition of the trophy.

It was a match in which the U.S. navigated myriad twists and turns, rallying twice, converting a pressure-packed penalty through Christian Pulisic in extra time, and then surviving a penalty against them with substitute keeper Ethan Horvath saving brilliantly from Andres Guardado.

There was also the usual venom that accompanies this rivalry. Pulisic and his teammates were showered with debris (and Giovanni Reyna being hit in the hit with an object) after his penalty conversion. There were heavy challenges, more than a few scuffles -- including a hand around the neck of midfielder Weston McKennie -- and even a fan entering the field.

I think we will see soccer overtake hockey to become the #4 team sport in the U.S. For the time being, however, the football-basketball-baseball dominance will continue to draw most of the very best athletes in other directions.

If I could whisper into the ears of the people running U.S. Soccer, I'd tell them to do two things. First, keep politics out of the game. Unfortunately, U.S. Soccer doesn't seem to have any more backbone than the other major sports, but this would be a place where a little conscious counterprogramming would go a long way.

Secondly, soccer to this point has refused to let television gut the sport. Even before the recent political nonsense, I had largely lost interest in U.S. college and professional football, baseball and basketball because the play of the game has been so radically changed to suit the networks' dictates. The version of the games being played today is pathetically inferior to the sports as they used to be played. The kids raised on the modern version don't know any better, and that's just sad. I find the modern version almost unwatchable.

If television got its hooks into soccer, there would be four scheduled commercial breaks each half, with additional commercials spotted in on every throw in or goal kick. But I digress.

U.S. men's soccer will continue to improve at the youth and collegiate levels. Given the rate at which the NFL and NBA are imploding, I wonder if more of the top athletes might start choosing soccer as a destination.

Young athletes with pro potential will usually make a commitment to their primary sport between ages 12 and 16. In high technique sports -- and soccer, with its necessary foot skills, is perhaps the most technique driven sport of all -- every year that passes makes it harder to switch and catch up enough to play at an elite level. So the question is what makes middle- and high school age boys, who mostly know the prospect of a pro career is a longshot, pick A over B.

I didn't grow up with soccer so I don't have a feel for the intrinsic fun of playing soccer vs. football or basketball, which I did play. I came to soccer as an adult while watching a daughter become a reasonably competitive (not elite) player. I've watched enough to now believe that soccer is probably the most difficult of sports to play really well, mainly because you have to handle the ball and shoot with your feet at the same time that you are running and cutting. Baseball fans often say that hitting a baseball thrown by a major league pitcher is the hardest feat in sports, and for sheer quickness and hand-eye coordination, maybe it is. What soccer players do is akin to hitting a 100 mph fastball with a club attached to your feet while sprinting down a basepath, stopping and cutting as necessary to dodge defenders. And of course, it's the hardest of all sports in which to score, which is probably a weakness in the eyes of teenage boys oriented to quick gratification.

Soccer obviously has appeal for people of average size, who have virtually no hope of excelling in sports dominated by the very tall and the very big. You could be the best athlete in the world and be 5'10" and 150 pounds, and you won't make it to elite levels in football or basketball. But you can play soccer or baseball. They're all great sports. We tend to appreciate the sports we played as kids. Soccer will continue to grow in the U.S. because it is increasingly the gateway team sport for little kids. Given the thuggery that has gotten out of control in the NBA and NFL, and the risk of injury in the NFL, I suspect that more and more young athletes will stay with soccer. Lacrosse is growing for some of the same reasons.

In general, I think that all sports are best in the simplest form -- the "natural" form as played spontaneously by kids when they go out unsupervised, just to play for fun. MLB, the NFL and the NBA have prostituted their games for television. I appreciate soccer for holding to the true form of the sport. I wish MLB, the NBA and the NFL would revert to the classic versions of their games, but they won't as long as they sell out to television.

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