Over time, that “outsider” status became more of a curiosity to him. He’s encountered many sports fans, and even sportswriters, who have acted “threatened by the game. It didn’t make any sense to them. "‘The game ends 0-0, where is the excitement in that?’ People want to see the longball, and lots of points and runs, and that kind of action that is quantifiable. And in soccer, that’s not the way it’s set up. The old guard, it was kind of strange, I observed it again and again, there was almost this violent reaction against soccer, over the top attacking this game.”

Andy Markovits, a comparative politics professor at the University of Michigan, has heard all the arguments about what makes soccer unpalatable to many Americans, starting with those about the sport’s relative lack of offensive gratification. He doesn’t buy them.

“This is all historical,” says Markovits, author of the new book Gaming the World: How Sports are Reshaping Global Politics and Culture. “It has nothing to do with the fact there’s no timeouts, and it’s low scoring. Baseball and hockey are low-scoring as well. I’m totally convinced that it has nothing to do with the sport itself. It is all about history. Basically, these are all sports languages. And soccer is a language Americans don’t speak. It has nothing to do with ‘they have no attention span.’ They have attention spans for baseball games. My gosh, four hours.”

Markovits argues that America’s sports languages were created during a roughly 50-year period starting in 1860. Those preferred sports developed their own culture, statistics and heroes. And over time, each became even more entrenched, making it a challenge for other sports to break through. Yet, he adds, “There’s no reason for these languages to remain immutable. I don’t see a reason why, in 2050, the U.S. can’t be the best soccer nation. Or why Holland can’t be the best in baseball. Or Japan in basketball. These things switch. One day, people here will speak it. We are much better than we were 10 years ago. And we will be much better in 10 years. The trajectory has been phenomenal.”

Sterry noticed the "shift in the zeitgeist" during a recent interview by an older sportswriter: "The tone was not what’s wrong with soccer, but it’s like, ‘what’s wrong with me? Explain the game to me.’"

Markovits expects the World Cup to be “a big deal” in America, “maybe even watercooler talk,” because the tournament has been gradually Olympianized, with the pull of national identity making many care about a sport they might otherwise ignore.

But there’s one thing that Markovits, Sterry and Black all agree is most necessary to send the sport really soaring... through June, and July, and beyond.

“I think a lot depends on June 12th,” Sterry says. “When the U.S. plays England.”

Special feature Stars of the World Cup We spotlight 50 of the most entertaining, most skilled and most important players to watch in South Africa. NBCSports.com

“Very critical,” Black says. “That is the liftoff. It will propel the rocket fire.”

Some are calling it the biggest game in American soccer history. And it comes up first, before the U.S. plays Slovenia or Algeria.

“A rivalry with an old colonial master, and now we have a chance to defeat them on the world stage,” says Black, who identifies himself as American after living half his life here. “And I think the rest of the world, I think, will be supporting the United States in this game. We are the underdog here, and the U.S. usually doesn’t get treated like underdog on world stage. The England’s superiority complex is larger than their beer gut. They tend to think everybody else should be on bended knee, in front of great crown of soccer they have put on their heads. So we have the opportunity to knock it off.”

And should the U.S. lose or, worse, fall to advance out of the first round?

“People will say, ‘Oh well, same old thing it always was. All this and for what?'” Sterry says. “America likes winners.”

America won the U.S. women’s World Cup in 1991 and 1999.

“But it has to come from the men’s side,” Markovits says. “Our women are sensational, but that is just not going to create sports culture. If the U.S. excels in it, it will have a major spillover to soccer. Soccer is not going to touch the big three in my lifetime — I just turned 60. But it might become like hockey.”

And it could create a virtuous cycle, where the success of the U.S. team inspires even more gifted youngsters to stay with a sport they already play, but didn’t once view as a potential career.

“In a couple of generations, you are going to see more great athletes play soccer,” Sperry says. “I envision a day when (athletes like) Kobe Bryant and LeBron James are twin strikers, and Ray Lewis as a central defender, and Derek Jeter running the football. When we gravitate toward soccer, then we will win the World Cup. And I don’t think it’s that far away.”

Markovits won’t go that far. But he does believe as more kids learn to “speak soccer” as well as they speak baseball and basketball and football, then they’ll be less prone to abandon a sport for which they may best suited in favor of one in which they are less likely to excel.

“Here’s the thing,” Markovits says. “There is a 20 million person supply. People play it. And they play it the way they bowl or fish or bicycle. Of these, very few will have the ability but also connect in a way that is part of culture. If in fact we win, more of these 12-year-old kids connect. The pool enlarges. And yes, I think we will get better.”

If so, soccer is sure to get bigger.

And Fado Irish Pub’s competition — for top soccer bar — is sure to get tougher.

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