It's up to fans in the U.S. to keep soccer buzz going

	You can tell the resonance from this World Cup is unlike any previous one when even non-soccer fans in America are asking questions such as, is the U.S.' Clint Dempsey headed to Europe? Bob Martin/SI

I'm jonesing for my fix. Come on, admit it -- you are, too. You miss those long lunches down at the soccer pub and those late nights with the TiVo remote and three games on the DVR. You're jonesing because it was addictive and the fix was as plentiful as air.

For one month, soccer was everywhere in America, on TV, in Spike Lee's mouth, in both The New Yorker and Penthouse.

For one month, we long-suffering soccer junkies, who had nearly given up hope that the editorial Neanderthals would ever wise up, awoke every morning and pinched ourselves to see our little game splashed across the media spectrum. What next, I asked the dream gods each day, a Van Halen reunion tour? It all seemed unfathomable.

Furthermore, because we'd been kicked back to the curb before, we assumed that all the soccer headlines would disappear a few minutes after the final whistle in Berlin in favor of the special report that the Dallas Cowboys had signed their third-string tight end.

But we were wrong. Two weeks after Fabio Grosso slotted home his trophy-winning penalty, soccer is still on the brain. (Has anyone ever made a "This is Football.... This is Football on drugs" T-shirt?) Bruce Arena's hiring by the New York Red Bulls made the CNN ticker. The country has followed the Materazzi-Zidane fallout as closely as the T.O.-McNabb feud, because, really, every American loves a good car crash, don't they, especially when there's a Frenchman involved?

The number-crunchers have announced their World Cup-boosted profits -- e.g., Coca-Cola up 7 percent, McDonald's up 5.5 percent. Even the Sports Guy stopped nattering on about the L.A. Clippers for a few days to immerse himself in the glorious, heartbreaking world of English footie.

Suddenly, non-soccer people are asking questions: Is Clint Dempsey Europe-bound? (Yes.) Who will not start in the Chelsea midfield? (Michael Ballack.) Which team should I support in Greece? (Panathinaikos, duh!) It's so wacky that a buddy of mine who grew up a tortured Cubs fan in Chicago has moved to London and is now a tortured QPR fan.

The point is: Americans are embracing soccer still. And we junkies are asking, Is this the World Cup that finally gives soccer some staying power? Can we maintain this momentum? How do we keep this 1.21 gigawatts of soccer-loving energy flowing?