" Long term maybe not I guess it depends, the World Cup can really work for the domestic brand of a nation where soccer is not the dominant brand of football. It certainly worked that way with Australian soccer. In Germany 2006 Australia had not qualified in 30 years or so. But when we made it in by beating Argentina when we still were qualifying through the South American region it was a huge deal. Once we made it there we came back to beat Japan 3-1 in the dying stages of the game after being down 1-0. And we conducted ourselves pretty well against bigger world teams in Brazil and Croatia. Making it through to the final 16 to be robbed by eventual winners Italy. It was the perfect tournament to push that code of Football in our country. The A League really took a boost after that as former Socceroos started coming home to play after International and European league careers were ended and we started to gain marque international players looking for one more season or two in the twilight of their careers. Soccer in this country went from a National Soccer League that was broke and struggling to remain relevant to an aggressively expanding competition that it slowly but surely generating more interest in the local brand of the game which was in no small part because of the World Cup. "I've no knowledge of the Australian sports scene but what other major sports leagues are there down under? Just curious how much competition for mind share soccer had. With the NBA, NFL, MLB, and college sports it's already crowded over here and I don't see this World Cup changing much. Honestly other than the L.A. Galaxy I can't name another soccer team in the U.S. and I'm pretty sure that there are a few in the same state as me.
After looking it up I found there are two teams in Texas; the Houston Dynamo & FC Dallas. I lived in Houston for 5 years and I still wasn't sure they had a team or what the name was. That's just sad.
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