Proud Day For The U.S. - Womans World Cup Semi Final Match

Since before I was born, I was a soccer fan. My Colombian father decided weeks before my birth, that I would be named after the great and cool looking Colombian mid-fielder Carlos Valderrama. I enjoyed playing soccer very much, but my true passion was and will always be American Football.

After graduating from North Shore High, my football career pretty much came to an end. In college I played many pick up games of soccer on the St. John's great field and with many of my friends as well, in Uptown Manhattan on Bradhurst. Soccer is a passion of mine, that I will carry with me forever.

This past Saturday morning on July 9, I walked into my favorite bagel cafe that I frequent every weekend for a bagel or egg sandwich, and was surprised to see the FIFA Womans World Cup match of U.S.A. vs. Brazil on the TV. The Sea Cliff bagel Cafe usually has on a morning show.

While I was waiting on line for my food, I was rooting and cheering very loudly. The game caught my attention right away. Brazil's brilliant attacker and best female player in the world from what I hear; Marta, made an incredible move to free herself in the penalty box and split two defenders. She was then tackled and brought down in the box, for a penalty kick. An almost sure goal in soccer. The score was 1-0 in the U.S. favor.  When the Brazilian player lined up for the penalty kick, she had it blocked by Hope Solo, the new face of Womens Soccer in America.

The whole cafe jumped and cheered. Everyone was clapping and high-fiving. It was as if we were watching the AFC Championship game and the Jets just scored a gigantic touchdown.

We watched the rest of the game, and if you don't know by now, it was an incredible finish and the U.S. came out victorious.

Right after the game finished I called up a buddy of mine, who is also a soccer fanatic and told him, "I think I just saw one of the best if not the best American World Cup soccer games MEN OR WOMEN." He could only agree, because the Mens International Team is still going through a giant learning curve. As I learned that day, the American Women are a powerhouse in International play, and that would have been their worst finish in over 15 years if they had lost.

I could only think to myself, and wonder how many people actually just witnessed this great moment for America and women's sports as well. I checked out ESPN.com and read this statement:

"Bill Hofheimer of ESPN says that TV ratings for the quarterfinals match between the U.S. and Brazil drew an overnight rating of 2.6 — a result he calls "Awesome!" in his Twitter feed.

To put that number in perspective, this year's French Open final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer also drew a 2.6, which NBC welcomed as a 63 percent rise over last year's match.

And to put it in basketball terms, the match beat the coverage of this year's NBA Draft by 0.1 percent."

Not too bad for a sport that isn't even that popular or covered in the U.S.

Of course our girls still have to play France on Wednesday and then, get through either Japan or Sweden to win the World Cup. (Sweden is the only team to beat the U.S. this year). We can be proud of a group of athletes that played the way Americans should play. The girls didn't flop, they didn't give up, and they didn't complain when the refs blatantly tried to steal the game from them. In the last couple of seconds of the match, they came up with a movie like scripted ending to give America the win.

On the same weekend when Derek Jeter hit his 3,000th hit for a home run (an individual effort). Every sports reporter in the country had to place the woman's effort as the weekends best sporting performance. And history will only prove to show, that it will go down as an all time great.