Shattered Dreams of the Quarter Finals

For a moment there, I really thought USA was going to win.  After playing a terrible first half, we finally got our act together and started to play some soccer.  That dream came tumbling down with Ghana's score in the first few mintues of overtime.  A heart-wrenching game.

Throughout the World Cup coverage they keep pushing the idea that Soccer is becoming popular in the US, and that team USA's success is sparking a new wave of fandom.

Google Trends sheds some interesting light on the situation.  Here we see the frequency of seraches and news articles for "soccer" in the United States:

And here "World Cup":

In both cases, we have very similar searching frequencies to the 2006 World Cup.  In fact, generic soccer searches are significantly below that of 2006.  Both cases, however, show significant increases in news reports.  While I really would love to see soccer become a popular sport, the claims seem to be inaccurate based on generic google searches, and are likely just an attempt by the media giants to capatlize on soccer.  Or maybe the sport was already popular just not covered by the media, and media coverage is what they deem as "popular"?

What do you think, is there a resurgence of soccer in the United States?

Personally, a couple good beers and a thrilling soccer game with some friends is about as good as it gets.  It's graceful and action packed.  It's based upon a refreshing dose of team work and communication.  The entire game flows continuously without commercials or breaks; each second of the game is important.  It may just be personal bias from having played the sport myself, but it remains one of my favorite sports to watch.  And I'm excited about tomorrow's England Vs Germany game.