All hail American Soccer: With more MLS'ers going to the world cup than ever before, soccer's place in the US is getting bigger and bigger

In the winter of 1988, FIFA made a deal with the United States of America. Their deal stated that if, in the next few years, this nation could get a division 1 soccer league off the ground, than they would be rewarded with the right to host the 1994 World Cup. Though they would not be playing by the start of the 1994 cup, the United States got their league off the ground prior to the 1996 soccer season by forming a total of 10 teams and naming their league Major League Soccer or MLS.

19 years later, the team has added 9 teams, inked playoff broadcasting deals with key companies like ESPN and begun to lure some of the best players in the world onto its rosters. All and all, the purpose, the mission statement of the MLS is to transform the United States from a pathetic soccer nation to one of golden talent and an international talent pool. While they have not quite done that yet, the MLS is one of the fastest growing leagues on the planet. How do we know? Well all one has to do is look to the rosters of this year's world cup to see.

Before this year's cup, only once had more than 15 MLS players made the trip to the world cup and it had been 16 years since then. With representation numbers in Korea, Germany and South Africa of 11, 15 and 6 the MLS came up and basically handed its players out like tee shirts at a baseball game sending 20 players off to FIFA rosters. 10 of these players went to the US team headed by Jürgen Klinsmann while 10 others went abroad to play for their home nations.

But it is that number of MLS players playing for the US that is the most impressive. It is no secret that in nations like Spain, Germany or England soccer is the ultimate dream and aspiring players will do anything including travelling thousands of miles away from home for the chance to play. But when Klinsmann picks almost half of his team from US teams rather than international ones where US representation is not sparse, a statement is being made. With the MLS now producing homegrown talent like Clint Dempsey, Chris Wondolowski or Kyle Beckerman, it has been proven that teams do not need the likes of international icons, David Beckham or Fabian Espindola to win.

As we delve into those 4 American born, MLS playing, US national team members mentioned before, they all have one thing in common, a god given gift of goal scoreing. Beginning his career in 2005 with the New England Revelation, Clint Dempsey would score 25 goals for the team in a little under 3 seasons in Foxbrough before he caught the attention of England's Fulham club where he would play the next 6 years of his pro career. After averaging just under a half a goal per game with Fulham, Dempsey briefly played for Tottingham before returning to the States for the 2013/2014 and 2014/2015 season. Since his return, Dempsey has played as a calm and cool veteran scoreing 11 goals in 19 games and carrying himself on the field with a kind of confidence and finice that many did not associate with American soccer.

But Dempsey is not alone in his skillful manipulation of domestic defenses.  Playing as a pure goal scoreing forward, 6 foot 1 inch, Chirs "Wondo" Wondolowski was drafted the year after Clint Dempsey but unlike his counterpart never left the states in pursuit of soccer glory. Though he was pretty much smacked in the face by the team that drafted him, the Earthquakes, in his rookie season, Wondo went to Houston for the 2006 season and scored just 4 goals before he left 3 seasons later. For Chris it seemed that his MLS dreams might have been for not, the 4 goals he had scored in his first 4 seasons were all scored because of bad mistakes by the opponent and not because of any talent on his part and as he searched for a team to pick him up in 2010, none bit. Until one did.

In June of 2009, Wondolowski was traded back to the Earthquakes in exchange for Cam Weaver. That trade served as the great rebirth of a future star in Chris. In 2010, Wondolowski scored 26 goals, a year later he topped that total with 30 goals, a year later, 31 and a spot in the record books as the player with the most single season goals ever. In 5 seasons with San Jose, Chirs Wondolowski has blossomed into the most consistent goal scorer in the league and possibly on of the best in history.

However, unlike many of the former MLS stars he is competing with for that title, Wondo is American, living proof that times are changing and in parts of the country, soccer is becoming an acceptable dream for a athletic kid to work towards.

Now the two names that have already been discussed are pure goal scorers, speed driven monsters capable of hitting close to 20 miles per hour in fearsome breakaways up the sidelines and actually players that go against the mold of the MLS in more ways than one. Right from the get go, it was seen that the MLS promoted a brand of soccer that was best executed using physicality such as slide tackling, rough blocking along the sidelines, huge collisions and gritty position battles in the goal area that are all allowed by the referees of a game.

What also takes place during these games is a kind of simmering of tempers that every now and then boils over and results in shoving, yelling and ejections.

Two men at the forefront of instigating these scuffles and two men whose games are built around delivering the crazy physicality mentioned earlier are Brad Davis and Kyle Beckerman. Brad Davis is a defensive midefeilder with one of the strongest left footed shots in the world right now. He possesses a small but powerful 170 pound 5 foot 11 body that he uses to stuff opponents at the half line or shove bodies to the sidelines of the field. Though he is usually charged with at least 1 foul per game, David has only been red carded 4 times in his 13 year career. The moral of the Davis story is something along the lines of "yeah, you can get away with  a lot in the MLS"

But anyway, in 8 days, the 20th world cup will commence and 20 of the MLS' finest will make the trip to Brazil bent on international glory. In this, perhaps the MLS' biggest chance at pitching their players and their league to the world, these 20 players will be playing in a style that many had never thought of as a viable style of play. That is, the American style, born and raised by the MLS and responsible for an explosion of soccer interest in the sports crazed nation that is the United States of Amarica