Are you ready for some foot...ball?

We have all seen it, most of us have even played it, and the game is hugely popular everywhere. Everywhere except the United States.

If you haven't guessed it yet, I'm talking about soccer. And I have news for you. It is about to arrive.

American children, myself included, have participated in the game. We have all portrayed the universal scene of 20 five-year olds herding a white ball towards a destination they have long since forgotten about. For some reason inexplicable to me, this constant running in circles brings smiles and fun to the masses of youngsters crowding soccer fields across the country. But at some point that gets lost.

I can't explain why Americans drift away from the game the entire globe embraces so strongly. But this affliction must surely have something to do with the American love of high scoring, high contact spectator sports. I was one of them, I must admit. My disdain for soccer was unrivaled. The game was lost on me.

Then one evening in mid-November, I was channel surfing when I saw a bunch of neon orange jerseys running around on the field. My first instinct was that the University of Tennessee was playing and my interest perked a little bit and I began to watch.

Now by this time I realized that those highlighter colored jerseys belonged to the Houston Dynamo. Its opponents in white, the New England Revolution, were playing the Dynamo for the Major League Soccer Cup.

This was the finals and why didn't I know about it? Why didn't I care? I now suddenly did. I was then glued to my seat. I'm talking non-blinking, heart pumping intensity that I usually reserve only for Sabres games. My father coyly asked me, "Did you just turn European?"

Well I haven't started spending Euros yet but that was one of the best sporting events I had ever seen. The game went for a scoreless 90 minutes, then a scoreless overtime, then in the second overtime the Revolution's Taylor Twellman netted what was sure to be the game winner. Seventy-one seconds later Houston's Timmy Ching retaliated with a goal of his own.

The game went to a shootout. Quite possibly the most exciting thing in all of sports! Houston won the shootout 4-3, and with it the Cup. But that shootout won more than the game. It won me over as a fan and I guarantee it won over a lot of others as well.

So with the MLS coming to some sort of legitimacy after years of being seen as a floundering league in a nation of non-soccer fans, the game may be gaining a stronghold in the nation.

And did I mention that the most recognizable soccer player in the world, the face of the game, David Beckham, just signed a quarter of a billion dollar deal to come to play with the Los Angeles Galaxy?

It is hard to put into words the media bombardment we are going to see. We thought it was bad when Posh Spice and her quintet of Brits hit America. Be prepared to see her husband's face everywhere. Buses, billboards, Wheaties boxes, Gatorade and everything in between will be graced by his likeness.

Having his star power and his international celebrity playing in the U.S. will undoubtedly have an impact on the sport's popularity from the moment he arrives. What Tiger Woods did for the game of golf, Beckham will do the same for soccer. That is get children interested, keep them interested and grow the game.

A lot of you may think soccer isn't for you, isn't for this country and isn't going to succeed. I encourage you to watch a game, however boring you might think it is. I will attest, I am a convert and it can happen to you.

This is a fans game, that can be seen from the outrageous followings that teams like Brazil have and from the eruption of joy from the entirety of the Italian peninsula after last summer's World Cup victory. Don't worry America if you still need your gratuitous violence it is only one Zinedene Zidane head-butt away.

There is a reason this game has the uncanny global following that it does and it has something to do with those five-year-old smiles. Those smiles never leave in other parts of the world and from a new soccer fan. I hope they don't disappear here anymore.