I heard a lot about how the U.S. had to win the Gold Cup. To me this is the type of attitude that will keep the U.S. program in the middle class. We know that outside of playing Mexico in Mexico we are the best team in the region -- that has been proven in the last 10 years. Shouldn't all our attention be on the Copa América where we will get real experience playing against top teams in even tougher environments?
-- Sean Walsh, Boston.

Just like you can't choose which family you were born into, you can't choose which confederation you belong to (unless you're Australia, I guess). Inasmuch as the five CONCACAF games leading up to the big win over Mexico were pretty ho-hum for the U.S., I can certainly understand the fans' frustration.

But if the '09 Confederations Cup goes off like the '05 event did, the U.S. will be glad that it's participating in a valuable global tournament that it qualified for by winning the Gold Cup. Part of the U.S.' problem is that it doesn't play enough meaningful games, and those are meaningful games at a meaningful time.

That doesn't make me feel any better about the Copa América situation, though. I do wish MLS would take a break for a few weeks each summer to allow for international games.

I know it's a bit of a wishy-washy question, but given the recent Gold Cup TV ratings and the U.S. national team's rising Q-rating, what do you think the chances are that in several years we'll look back on '07 as the "tipping point" for soccer in America?
-- Jon-Claud Nix, Washington, D.C.

Those are positive steps, but a tipping point? Unlikely. It's the year after a World Cup, which is usually the slowest year for big advances on the soccer front. I still think the most likely event to move the needle on soccer in America this year will be the arrival of Beckham to the Galaxy. The national team doesn't play often enough to make soccer part of the daily discussion here. The Galaxy, on the other hand, might.

1) Great wins for Mexico against Brazil and Ecuador -- I was really impressed with their play, especially considering the fact they were coming off of a tough loss in the Gold Cup. 2) I'm disappointed that no national U.S. network is carrying the U.S. games in Copa América. It was hard enough to find the Gold Cup final (thank the Lord for Univision), but the fact that ESPN and others can't carry our big games against real international competition is really a bummer. Sure it might not go very well, but for big soccer fans like myself getting to watch my home team play on the big stage is always an exciting event.
-- Ron Olson, Cary, N.C.

Mexico has been loads of fun to watch at the Copa, and the emergence of Nery Castillo means El Tri's attack looks like it's in good hands moving forward (see also: Guardado, Andrés). I really do hope the U.S. and Mexico end up playing their rumored friendly at the Azteca in September, because these rivals can't play each other often enough in my mind. It's great theater, and it will only serve to make the sport bigger in the U.S. (for English and Spanish speakers).

As for the TV coverage, I hear you. Part of the problem is that if ESPN wanted to buy the rights to the Copa América or Gold Cup it would have to buy the rights for the entire tournament, not just the U.S. games, and the U.S. doesn't get good enough ratings by itself to justify that purchase.

Watching the games in Spanish isn't so bad, though, even if you don't understand the language. I get more frustrated with the U-20 World Cup broadcasting arrangement. I don't get ESPNU or Galavision, and my Mac won't work with the fifa.com webcast, so it looks like I'll be at the Baltimore ESPN Zone on Friday watching U.S.-Brazil. (They'd better get ESPNU at the ESPN Zone, that's all I can say.)

I just wanted to get your views on what Alexi Lalas said (the MLS players wouldn't miss a beat in the EPL). I, and probably 99.9 percent of the world, think the EPL is far superior, both technically and tactically, to MLS. I don't have a problem with Alexi supporting the MLS. My problem is that such outlandish statements gives everyone else a chance to rip on American soccer and degrade it even further. It's embarrassing and reflects poorly on the sport in our country and on the MLS. Any thoughts?
-- Chris, Bay Village, Ohio

If you look at the entirety of the article in The Guardian, Lalas' comments don't look nearly as insane as they did in the (more or less twisted) Associated Press story coming out of London.

Granted, I don't buy that you can take a helicopter load of MLS players and drop them into the Premier League and nobody would notice a thing. And when Lalas used the term "inferior product" to describe the Premier League, it was made to seem as if he meant "inferior to MLS" when I'm pretty sure he meant "inferior to La Liga." The fact of the matter is that MLS is a more competitive league than the EPL, if you take "competitive" to mean balanced from top to bottom.

Whatever. Lalas clearly has a skill for drawing attention and winding people up, and he has probably made better use of the Beckham signing in this way than anybody else. Guys like Lalas and his old pal Eric Wynalda may say ridiculous things sometimes, but there's no denying that they're good for American soccer.

What do you read for your soccer information on a daily basis?
-- Todd Milligan, New York City

Why, SI.com, of course. Jonah Freedman has assembled a really good group of writers covering various regions of the domestic and international game, and I'm especially impressed with the amount of Mexican and South American coverage. But I do read plenty of other stuff, too. There are several good soccer journalists in the U.S. and a number of smart bloggers, but the blogs/sites I read every single day are these:

• The Soccer Insider by Steve Goff at The Washington Post

• Soccer by Ives by Ives Galarcep at the North Jersey Herald News

• Sideline Views by Andrea Canales and SI.com's Luis Bueno

• Du Nord by Bruce McGuire

I just read your wonderful story about Mexican soccer, "The Great Mexican Soccer Adventure," and I came across an uncharacteristic mis-translation from Spanish. In quoting Oswaldo Sánchez on ardido in Mexican rivalries, you wrote: "It gives me a lot of courage," he said, "because they make fun of us and enjoy it." The word in question is "courage." Most likely Sánchez said coraje which also means something to the effect of (or a combination of) resentment, fury and disgust. When someone in Spanish says, Me da coraje, usually this is the meaning of coraje he/she wishes to invoke.
-- Mark Kozek, Columbia, S.C.

Thanks for the clarification, Mark. I got a fair amount of response from readers who thought I was condoning poor sportsmanship in what I wrote about ardido. To which I say, yes, of course refusing to shake hands is poor sportsmanship. But more intriguing than rendering judgment of the obvious -- to me, at least -- was gaining a greater understanding of how Mexican soccer players view their most bitter rivalries.

Something has confounded me over the past couple of years, yet no one has been able to help me. Whenever I hear an announcer or fan say something like, "Italy are the World Champions," or "Liverpool are playing Milan," it bugs me that there is no subject-verb agreement. Do they use the plural form of the verb because they are referring to a team with more than one player? When discussing sports here, people would say, "Arizona plays in the NL West," or "The Wildcats will make the Rose Bowl this year." While potentially unrealistic, it is grammatically correct. Will you please explain this to me? I need to be able to sleep at night.
-- Marcus, Phoenix

I've never been able to figure it out either, Marcus, and I'm glad I'm not the only one. There are a number of ways to detect a EuroPoser soccer fan in the United States. One of them is if he uses terms like pitch, kit or at sixes and sevens (whatever the heck that means). Another is if he says something like "D.C. United are hammering the Red Bulls." My Microsoft Word program flags it for bad grammar, and so do I. Can't stand it.

That's all for this week, but please feel free to submit your questions for the next Mailbag. For now, let's end with a trivia question that I don't know the answer to (but would love to find out from an intrepid reader):

Who was the last U.S. senior men's player to suffer the ultimate indignity of being subbed out in the first half of a national-team game for non-injury purposes? We were throwing this one around the press box at a U.S. game recently, and nobody (not even the U.S. Soccer media guys) had a clue.