Agent Palmer

The United States Women won their third FIFA Women’s World Cup title in Canada, in spite of looking and performing below their World #2 ranking at times.

But before I examine what it all means and what is next in the riddle that is Soccer in America, let’s take a look at how they got the Cup.

Many years ago, back in my college days, I would mindlessly play FIFA 2005 to take my mind off school. Playing FIFA mindlessly meant playing on an easier mode and scoring a ton of goals, and my good friend Chris (a.k.a. Agent Parker), would hear the announcer yell “DONOVAN!” repeatedly as I would maneuver Landon Donovan for a goal.

Well, it appears that the real Landon Donovan has been playing on easy mode for a long time as the career goal-scoring record holder for both the United States Men’s National Team and for Major League Soccer.

Germany stands atop the game of football (or futbol or even soccer, depending on your country of origin) as the 2014 World Cup Champions. This isn’t a shock as they’ve been here before – three times, in fact – making this their fourth World Cup.

This makes them a powerhouse in their sport, but it was how they managed to get to World Cup Championship No. 4 that makes this impressive.

Football, Futbol or Soccer, whatever you call “The Beautiful Game” it’s currently in a stage of frenzy commonly called, “World Cup Fever,” and the only cure is more of it.

In fairness to the other sports, it is only really in the United States where you either get it or you don’t. Otherwise, you get it and it’s a matter of degrees between passing fancy or religion.

In places where it is a religion, almost every beyond American borders, although factions do exist within the US, it’s hard to explain to Americans why it’s so important.

For some reason, February has been widely considered a wasteland in the American sports landscape. This is because most American sports fans look at February as a pause between the National Football League’s Super Bowl and Major League Baseball with a stopover in College Basketball for March Madness. But that is not the case, far from it. There is plenty of sport to go around in February for the American sports fan, even more for the worldly sports fan.

Below are 10 reasons February isn’t the sports wasteland that most seem to think it is. Because there are plenty of things for sports fans to get excited about.