I’ll be the first to admit that I never watch soccer. Never, as in if I had the choice, I would pick the infomercials for Wen hair care products over some second rate English league soccer game on Versus. 

Don’t misinterpret what I’m saying as I hate soccer, because that’s simply not true. I used to play soccer and I was good at it. However, especially here in the United States, soccer lies about fifth on the sports totem pole. Having said all of that, I just can’t get enough of the World Cup. As an American, you should be interested as well. 

Over the past few days, I've found myself watching games and rooting for countries I didn’t even know existed. But, that isn’t the point. The point is that watching the World Cup is a great time for everyone, regardless of your knowledge or enjoyment of the sport. 

Soccer is the most popular sport in the world in every country...except in the greatest country in the world (USA, obviously)...and Canada. Show a little culture, people. This means the World Cup is a bigger world event than the Olympics in terms of passion and interest. Why? Because the Olympics are dominated by the United States. It’s pretty hard for Portugal to get motivated by the Olympics, when their only medal was in sprint kayaking (look it up). 

And, that's my next point – we’re finally the underdog. Basketball, baseball, American football, number of murders per capita, obesity rate, incarceration rate, credit card fraud, military spending; we’re number one at a lot of things (unimportant things like math, science, life expectancy, infant mortality rate, average household income and unemployment- we're not doing so great, there).  

Here, in the land of the free and home of the brave, we aren’t number one in soccer. Not only this, but we aren’t even supposed to make it out of our group, which means we aren’t in the top 16 in the world. To me, that’s one of the best parts of the World Cup. We are finally a massive underdog in a sport that the entire world cares about. It’s one of the things that makes watching so much fun.

People love to root for the underdogs. It’s why people root against the Miami Heat or the New York Yankees. Sure, watching Lebron and Michael Phelps dominate the rest of the world in the Olympics is fun. However there's just another level of excitement and passion when you’re rooting for the underdog.

Finally, nobody likes that person who feels compelled to tell everyone they’re too cool to watch the World Cup. Sure, it can be slow at times. And sure, you may not recognize any of the names, but you’re never too cool to be a patriot. If over 10,000 people can show up on a hot summer day in a park in Chicago to watch the stars and stripes go to battle with Ghana, you can take two hours out of your day to not be that annoying person who complains that everybody is a bandwagon fan and soccer isn’t cool. Plus, don’t be “that person,” because nobody likes “that person.”

So when the red, white, and blue hits the pitch to, “layeth the smacketh down” Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson style on Thursday and in all our remaining games, I have one request. I ask that you fire up the grill, throw on some burgers and hot dogs, crack open a 6 pack of Bud Heavy, maybe even shoot a gun, and root like hell for the USA. You’ll be glad you did. #IBelieve