Soccer-bashers love to say that they've been hearing their whole lives that soccer was a growing sport in the US, and that nothing has changed over the years. Anybody who really believes this is either incredibly unobservant, very thick, or they view the world only through heavily-tinted goggles that only feed their biases. To wit:

- In 1986, I had to watch most of the World Cup with headphones at the BYU library, in the AV section of the foreign language area. That was the only place I could watch most games in Provo, in a small cubicle on a tiny screen, since only a small handful of games were shown on English (cable) TV. Sports pages of newspapers carried almost no World Cup news. Even when the US qualified for the first time in forever in 1990, there was very little TV coverage, and even the US games were mainly on then-obscure cable stations (TNT, IIRC). Now there is saturation coverage of the event, with every game broadcast in HD in multiple languages, with decent English-language play-by-play commentators and studio hosts, and we can even watch some run-of-the-mill non-US games on major network TV.

- In 1986 (and 1994, for that matter), professional soccer didn't really exist in the US. Now Major League Soccer (MLS) is an established, expanding league with many soccer-specific stadiums (which were a pipe dream in the '80s and early '90s) and a decent core of followers. It will never be the NFL, but it's much more than we had in 1994, and it may well give the NHL a run for its money before too long.

- As of the 1986 World Cup, the US hadn't qualified for a World Cup since 1950, mostly because of lack of talent -- I don't believe there were any Americans playing in European leagues at the time. We were a weakling in the CONCACAF region and lost regularly to the likes of Canada, El Salvador, and Honduras, never mind Mexico. Now we are a dominant team in the CONCACAF region and produce some of the best talent in the region (thanks largely to all those soccer moms), and there are quite a few Americans playing in major European leagues. Losing to Canada or El Salvador is now a big deal, and missing out on the World Cup would be almost unthinkable.

- As I mentioned earlier, there is no comparison between 1986 and 2010 in terms of Americans' awareness of and interest in the World Cup. In 1986, it was almost impossible to have a conversation about the World Cup or international soccer with any American who had not lived overseas, or whose parents were not recent immigrants. There was simply no awareness of (let alone interest in) the sport. Today, millions of Americans are interested in the World Cup and the sport, and it is hard to avoid the subject while the World Cup is in progress. More Americans purchased tickets to the 2010 World Cup than residents of any other country, besides the host nation. Thirty years ago, I never thought any of this would happen during my lifetime.

Here are some old threads on this subject:

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=5596630

http://www.cougarboard.com/board/message.html?id=8826417