By CHRISTIAN ARAOS

Staff Writer

This is a column that will appear towards the end of the week discussing the hottest topic in American soccer. If you don’t like the Twitter connection or the Puck Daddy influence, oh well, thanks for clicking.

Yesterday, I encountered the second professional American football writer and part-time soccer scribe to talk … how can I put this gently … out of his ass in regards to soccer in this country (the first featured on these very pages).

I also stumbled upon a veteran sports media talking head essentially calling for US Men’s National Team Head Coach Jurgen Klinsmann to be deported.

Was it bothersome? Not at all. In fact, as I drank a beer and soaked in the hate, all I can think to myself was “sweet … American soccer is now mainstream.”

In case you missed it, there is an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal written by a self-identifying Englishman who also is on the New York Giants beat. He is of the opinion that American soccer ‘obsessives’ are “the most derivative, excessive and utterly ridiculous collection of sports fans on the planet.”

Pardon The Interruption—an occasionally bearable sports debate show on ESPN—followed that salvo with one of their own, discussing an analogy Klinsmann made to debunk the notion that Landon Donovan deserved a place on the World Cup roster given his past success, pointing to the ludicrous contract numbers Kobe Bryant earned in his recent contract extension. The talking head in question asserts himself and claims that Klinsmann is not on Bryant’s status to make that type of judgement and should “get the hell out” of America.

Shoutout to you dear reader—even though you’ve probably made some ad hominem response to a previous column I have written—for being smart enough to seek out reports and opinions from people like myself and the rest of the EoS staff, as well as the countless other journalists on this beat who would never try to click-bait you with an article that labels you as a ‘scourge’ on soccer.

Shoutout to the podcasters and broadcasters out there (I’m required to plug Seeing Red) who are brave enough to present themselves on a daily basis with provocative opinions and insight and do so without calling for the deportation of the person whom is being criticized.

At some point in the sports opinion-giving thing that we do, it is required that each of us opinion-givers check ourselves and make sure we are doing what we do out of expression and not narcissism. It is a tough spot. Conveying your opinion and knowing there’s an audience willing to receive that opinion with a reaction is an empowering feeling — and yes — the statements about being mad with power apply.

It gets even harder to check yourself when payday is coming up and it is evident that you are making a career out of being you.

That feeling of empowerment, the solid compensation and the fact that what you say ends up under the banner of the “Worldwide Leader in Sports” or on the webpage of the newspaper with the most circulation in the United States makes for plenty of ego boosting fuel. It gives tangible incentives to continue to develop and perpetuate a schtick that develops into a persona which envelops and consumes the person.

Such is the fate of almost every prominent sports opinion-giver in the world.

But the sports opinion-giver needs fodder to give his opinion on. (It’s always a he — wish it weren’t the case.)

Sports, right?

Not exactly.

It has to be mainstream sports. It has to not only be a sport that is mainstream, but it needs to contain a sporting figure that can be turned into a polarizing sporting figure. With some sporting figures, making this change can be easy and justifiable. See: Michael Vick. With other sporting figures, it is more difficult and absurd. See: Yasiel Puig.

Soccer-specific examples of the former and latter would be Klinsmann and the American Soccer fan, respectively.

Yes, American soccer is mainstream. It earned this distinction sometime in the past 18 months when attendance and television ratings for both the USMNT and the Mexican National Team skyrocketed. It also earned this distinction when ESPN, FOX and Univision gave MLS and U.S. Soccer a record television contract.

Hell, it earned this distinction the moment 50 Cent and Tim Howard shared a remote studio in Central Park.

The ultimate consequence of being a mainstream sport is that anyone involved in the sport can become a figure. Players, coaches, assistant coaches, physios (or is it trainers? I don’t know if I’m using the correct term), prominent reporters aka ‘insiders,’ fans, relatives and hot dog vendors; all are capable of becoming a figure worth debating over. In that need to find the centerpiece for which the debate can revolve around, the sports opinion-giver finds himself occasionally reaching — and that was the case with the sports opinion-giver at the Wall Street Journal.

There are a few things about fans that are worthy of criticism. Only two of those things were mentioned and they were said facetiously and in passing as part of an ironic device in the juvenile lede paragraph. The American Soccer fan’s ‘elaborate affection,’ which is apparently defined as the fan’s use of expressions originated outside of US borders, angers the sports opinion-giver so much that he must trivialize a war in order to prove his insignificant point. (Rule of thumb sportspeople: stop consuming any sports media that makes any trivial war references.).

Of course, the sports opinion-giver also contradicts himself by criticizing the American Soccer fan for ‘pilfering’ fan culture from around the world but scolds the same fan for harboring organic elements of American fan culture.

Self-contradiction is one of the many glaring faults for the consumed sports opinion-giver. Another is sociopathy in that the thought of genuine excitement that one possesses is something the consumed sports opinion-giver must take and destroy so that the individual feels just as hopeless as the opinion-giver. The American Soccer fan’s excitement is something that cannot be criticized. It is genuine. It is honest. It is not blind. The American Soccer fan’s potentially blind support is something that can be criticized because it can create misguided perceptions — but that is not a point the opinion-giver at the Journal makes.

As for the talking head at ESPN, Klinsmann has made it easy to be the polarizing sports figure. You could even say that Klinsmann has purposely made himself to be the polarizing sports figure for reasons unrelated to the topic at hand. However, Klinsmann saying the USMNT cannot win the World Cup is not ‘gutless;’ it is being realistic. Also, Klinsmann has lived in America for more than a decade, so the talking head’s assertion that Klinsmann is a carpetbagger is incorrect.

What is so wonderful about the talking head’s last two arguments are that they are examples of another of the consumed sports opinion-giver’s faults: a commitment to the narrative. Both the writer at the Journal and the ESPN talking head committed to the same narrative: nationalism. Yet the American Soccer fan, the most obvious example of nationalism, epitomizes it in the most positive manner. It is the writer who resorts to using his English nationality to insult the actions of another national. It is the talking head who uses his American nationality to proclaim the American sporting culture’s superiority to the Euro-American ethos that Klinsmann possesses.

Klinsmann and the American Soccer Fan have their flaws, but both are responsible (though not solely) for bringing soccer in America to the mainstream. However, things get a little louder on the national stage with the noise of mainstream sports opinion-givers desperate to sustain themselves and their personas on any figure in any sport.

It is not something we should fight, nor is it something we should just accept. We need to just acknowledge it’s existence and raise a beer to it because, guess what?

We’re mainstream now — and that’s all we ever wanted.