The U.S. qualified for its fifth straight World Cup last Saturday, but did anyone notice? AP
	MAILBAG Frank Deford will periodically answer questions from SI.com users in his mailbag. Your name: Your e-mail address: Your home town: Enter your question:

I always thought that as much as we devoted ourselves to our myriad sports teams that at least we Americans could be proud of ourselves that we didn't go ga-ga over any silly national team.

Well, right now I wish we did have a national team or two that we could give our hearts to. We could use a little team spirit in the United States.

It isn't just that we are so politically divided. We're so fragmented we don't even have any television shows we all watch together. Where are the M*A*S*Hs and Seinfelds of yesteryear? And good grief, now Hollywood has discovered that nobody but teenage boys will actually go out together to see movies anymore. Whatever happened to word of mouth?

What we need is a national team we all can talk about around that proverbial water cooler that's replaced the proverbial hot stove.

Other countries everywhere on this warming globe all live or die with their teams. Oh, what it did for the little Czech Republic when it won the gold medal at 1998 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan. Why, that was better than throwing the Commies out. And last year -- when Argentina won Olympic gold in basketball -- even inflation went on the back burner. And, of course, everybody but us benighted American souls already are consumed about whether or not their boys can make the finals of the World Cup of soccer next summer.

We beat Mexico last Saturday to qualify. But who even knew we were in the World Cup? In sports, for us, we are the world. They threw baseball out of the Olympics because nobody in America The Beautiful gave a what-for about our own national pastime national nine.

But maybe caring about a team that belongs to the whole country -- not just the one that's for my city or my alma mater -- would revive our spirit. We're so down and divided, so doubting of our leader. Even for those declining numbers of us who want to stay that course in Iraq, the war is despairing. What happened on the Gulf Coast ashamed us. As for the rest of the world, they can't even decide whether the great America is a bully or a blowhard. We're unsure, unloved.

It's revealing that the only time we ever truly got passionate about a national team was in 1980 when Iran held our hostages, and we were generally as buffaloed and mortified as, well, as we are now. It was then that even Americans who didn't know a hockey puck from a badminton birdie embraced our skaters. And it was our hockey team, full of some kids who took heart, that lifted us up with them.

Sport is by itself insignificant, especially when our soldiers are vulnerable and our most vulnerable civilians are forsaken. But yes, it would help if we could have a team for us all to root for, just like those nations who aren't superpowers do. Remember, on a municipal scale, it did matter to the people of New York that the Yankees played so wonderfully after 9/11.

Amusements mean little by themselves, of course, but when a nation is both dispirited and riven, anything we can share serves as a mucilage to better hold us together until something stronger can lift us up for real.