By Bob Kravitz

bob.kravitz@indystar.com

Next match%3A U.S. vs. Portugal%2C 6 p.m. Sunday

It is 4 p.m. on a Monday in the sleepy suburb of Fishers, and at the Chatham Tap on 116th Street, the crowd is elbow to elbow, applauding madly when ESPN shows the United States bus making its way to the pitch in Natal, Brazil.

Did I mention this was 4 p.m., some two hours before the Americans' first World Cup game against Ghana? Did I note that the bar stopped allowing people inside at roughly 3:30, when soccer fans starting going two and three deep at the bar and the tables all were filled?

The grizzled old fogies like me (age unconfirmed) have got to stop diminishing soccer and accepting the growing truth about this sport: It's not just the future. It's the present.

Major League Soccer may not be part of the Big Four, but it will be in due time. The 20- and 30-somethings here are proof of that, cheering, chanting, rooting on the Americans in a 2-1 victory over Ghana.

Guys like me? We're dinosaurs, straight from the primordial ooze. We grew up when boxing mattered. We grew up when horse racing had cachet. We grew up when the Internet was a Space Age notion only a few Silicon Valley geeks could have contemplated.

An hour before the game, Lisa Excell, a 56-year-old woman from Westfield, turned to her two sons.

"How many games did you guys watch today?'' she asked her sons, Josh and Russell.

"Three,'' they said.

"I get into it with my kids; my boys brought me into it,'' Excell said, noting that they used to be Sporting Kansas City (MLS) season-ticket holders when they lived there. "When they played, we taxied to every field, every tournament, all the weeks away for games. We lived it.

"I just wanted to come out with my sons to be a part of the crowd, be with other people who love the game.''

There are two kinds of soccer fans, which can be said of virtually every sport.

There are the hardcore fans, the ones who follow English Premier League and show up at the Tap at odd hours to consume a Guinness and watch Everton against Stoke City.

Like Andy Kienle, a 31-year-old attorney from Indianapolis, who wore a red, white and blue bow tie at work and then into the Chatham Tap. He was a goalkeeper (soccer term) at Bishop Chatard.

He was asked, "What can you tell me about Ghana?''

"I'm surprised Michael Essien isn't starting; that's a big deal,'' Kienle said. "And Kevin-Prince Boateng isn't starting either. He's the one who scored on us the last time (when the U.S. lost to Ghana in the 2010 World Cup).''

Seriously, when you know the Ghana roster, who's starting, who's not starting, you're hard core. Or have money on the game. Or both.

And then there are the once-every-four-years fans — like me — the ones who couldn't name two U.S. team members and only follow the game because there's an American team playing.

Like Cody Stanley, 29, a Fishers resident and a teacher at Clinton Central.

I asked him how many American players he could name.

"Joey Altidore,'' he said.

His friend, Jamie Feldheiser of Fort Wayne, gave him a look.

"It's Jozy,'' he said in a disapproving tone.

Stanley came by a taste for soccer the hard way.

"My wife and I were on our honeymoon in Jamaica, she ate some bad jerk chicken and got really sick,'' he said. "For five days, we were stuck in our hotel room. It was awful, I just played nurse. But the (2010) World Cup was on the TV, so I watched every game and I was hooked. So this is the first time I can really test my soccer endurance.''

I'll be honest: For years, I despised soccer zealots. They acted like they spoke a foreign language they were the only ones smart and refined enough to comprehend. It wasn't just that the Rest of Us weren't soccer fans; no, it was that the Rest of Us weren't worldly enough to appreciate the subtle beauty of soccer — even the endless parade of nil-to-nil contests.

They were like fans of Miles Davis and foreign films with subtitles; if you didn't love them, you lacked proper sophistication.

For decades, they told us soccer was the future, rolling out all kinds of statistics regarding youth soccer, forgetting to note that all those young kids who played soccer grew up and bought football tickets. Sure, it was a huge participatory sport. So was bowling, and nobody was lining up to watch Nelson Burton Jr., either.

Well … the worm has turned. The demographics have changed; just about everybody in the place was in their 20s or 30s, making me the (sigh) Old Guy At The Bar once again.

In this world, you change with the times or the times leave you behind.

Bob Kravitz is a columnist for The Indianapolis Star. Call him at (317) 444-6643 or email bob.kravitz@indystar.com. Follow him on Twitter: @BKravitz.