GLASGOW, SCOTLAND: Written Monday, June 19 (posted later)
We're on a tour of places where people care about good soccer and where they drink beer. First stop: Glasgow, Scotland. Which leads me to my first thoughts on this World Cup. If you don't know who Archie Gemmill is, you're probably American. Here's a cultural reference for you - in Trainspotting Ewan MacGregor has sex with some girl and then says 'I haven't felt that good since Archie Gemmill scored against Holland.'

Every school boy in Scotland knows not only who Archie Gemmill is, but can re-enact the goal from the 1978 World Cup game against Holland. Of course, it was one of the World Cup few goals to remember if, like me, you are a Scotland fan. But, still, these are kids who were born in 1990, 12 years after Gemmill beat three defenders around the top of the box, including a nifty move where he sent the ball around one to the left and went around him to the right before blasting the ball into the upper left corner.
Because that is what Scots know and love. Football, or as they say, fitba.
The U.S. has scored some pretty nifty goals in its World Cup life - some that come to my mind are the goal that sent England into mourning in 1950, and I think you may have to add Dempsey's goal against Ghana this week.
Yet school kids from Portland to Omaha to the suburbs of Philly either don't care much, nor won't remember them next year.
Which is why - no matter what its record against the Faroe Islands (it was a disaster) - no matter what it's score in group play, Scotland deserves to be in the World Cup, while I would argue the U.S. does not.

What is sports? Yep, a chance for one team to play against the other. But if there are no fans, no collective sigh when a player gives up the ball, no roar when a goal is scored, no taunting the other team's fans based on their long-ago history and religious beliefs, then is it really the beautiful game?

No. At least not in the World Cup. The World Cup is not the American team vs. the Ghanaian team. It is _ or it should be _ America vs. Ghana. A substitute for wars, a way for our whole nation to go to war for one day against another, to be proud for one day to be Americans, because we play the world's most important game better than the other country. Alas, it ain't like that. Sam's Army is pretty small. The Tartan Army even goes to other country's games when they have no Scotland to support.

I met a Scot this week on the train in Munich, as we were leaving a Serbia vs. Ivory Coast game _ a game in which millions of Serbs were hanging on every touch of the ball. Oh, and it's also a game that has temporarily halted a real shooting war, a civil war in Ivory Coast, so it's a pretty big deal for the Elephants too.
But anyway this Scot _ a Presbyterian minister no less, with a crazy wig of Orange hair and a tartan tam _ told us he still follows the World Cup because he has 31 favorite teams in it. (Every team that could possibly beat England).

And so my plea to FIFA is this _ base World Cup qualification in part on the performance of the fans, as well as the team. The great teams would of course always be there - the Brazillians, the Germans, the Italians, the Argentinians. The little desperate countries that make such good stories would be there. And the Americans, who play their hearts out while their countrymen sleep or yawn and check out the papers for NFL news, wouldn't be let in, opening up a spot for countries where there are days of mourning following the day in group play where it becomes apparent that the team will stay home yet again.

Like Scotland. Who I hope to be watching beat England in 2010 in a stadium in Cape Town with thousands of Scots who will then be able to die happy.

I saw a lady outside the stadium in Munich the other night who had tears in her eyes and who said, 'I am sick and will die soon. Please trade me a souvenir for a ticket so that I might see one game before I die."
It was probably bullshit, but maybe not.