The United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and brought the world’s most popular game to the world’s richest country.  One year prior, Major League Soccer was launched as the premier soccer league in the United States, hoping to use the World Cup as a platform to bring significant exposure to the new venture.  The inaugural MLS season was played in 1996 with ten teams and the League has since expanded to 16, with two additional ones to begin play in 2011 and two more in 2012.

While soccer remains the most popular sport on the planet, Major League Soccer continues to lag behind the three and a half major sports in the United States (NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL).  However, the game of soccer appears to be on the rise, as ESPN and Fox Soccer Channel continue to bring more and more live games from a number of European leagues so that fans throughout this country can enjoy the game at its best.  However, that is unfortunately the biggest problem with the MLS: American fans enjoy watching the world’s best play certain sports and the MLS does not have the game’s best players.

While the National Hockey League has struggled to regain the casual fans that it had before the 2004-2005 lockout, this year’s Winter Olympics in Vancouver helped those casual fans reconnect with the game of hockey.  While the standard NHL game doesn’t have close to the drama that an Olympic matchup has, learning the names of Ryan Miller, Zach Parise, Jack Johnson, and Patrick Kane helped the casual hockey fan become engaged once the NHL season started up again.  Even though Miller’s Buffalo Sabres were eliminated in the first round of this year’s playoffs, he became a household name during the Olympics and fans were able to watch him live during the NHL playoffs, creating a huge push for the League.

The NHL playoffs are currently in the conference finals round and there are a few Olympians left on each of the four squads, making the Olympic fan able to cross over and see their heroes still playing.

However, soccer couldn’t be any more different.  The FIFA World Cup is beginning in just over a month and there are commercials for the tournament every five seconds on one of the ESPN networks.  The World Cup is an amazing spectacle and this year Team USA has a shot at making it into the elimination round.  The names of the players on the U.S. team are about to become household names; unfortunately, those names are not ones you will find on most MLS broadcasts.

Since I am not a big soccer fan, I consulted with three people that I consider experts as to who the best players are on the U.S. squad, including the author of the great soccer blog, Soccerhaus.  Without any consultation among them, they each told me that the five best players on the U.S. team are Landon Donovan, Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Oguchi Onyewu and Jozy Altidore.

A brief sidetrack: if you haven’t seen the new Jozy Altidore ESPN SportsCenter commercial, you need to watch it now:

Now I know that there are plenty of other players that will be on the World Cup team, but one has to assume that the casual soccer fan will not memorize every guy on the team.  Frankly, I am not sure we’ll learn about all five of the guys listed above, but we’ll go with that for now.  While Donovan might not be a household name in every household, he is probably the most famous American soccer player in the world right now and he plays in the MLS.  Yes, he’s the face of the League, or at least he’s one of them along with his teammate David Beckham.

Donovan has played in Europe, including a recent stint with Everton in the English Premier League, but he is an MLS player and very well could be the biggest draw to the League.

Unfortunately for us, the rest of the list all play in Europe, some after brief stints in MLS.  Goal keeper Tim Howard played for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now the Red Bulls) from 1998-2003 before going over to England to join Manchester United; he was then on loan to Everton and is now a full time player there.

Clint Dempsey, who played in MLS for the New England Revolution for three years, now suits up for Fulham, another English Premier League club (I am trying to avoid the term “EPL” as a friend from England told me that no one there has ever referred to it as such).

Oguchi Onyewu is a defender for A.C. Milan after spending a few seasons with a variety of European clubs.  The 2006 U.S. Soccer Athlete of the Year has been injured for much of the past season and just recently made headlines when he reached an agreement with A.C. Milan to play another season for them at no salary, as he missed the just-completed year after not suiting up once.  Onyewu is still recovering from his injury, but could still be named to the U.S. World Cup team.

And finally, there is Jozy Altidore, a former member of the New York Red Bulls who is currently playing with Hull City of the English Premier League (he started in Europe with the famed Spanish club Villareal).  Altidore is slowly becoming one of the more popular players on the U.S. squad, but he is just another example of one of our best players making a name for himself outside of the country.

The biggest problem with the MLS is that the best American players recognize that in order to get better and become more popular, they must play against the best competition in the world and that competition is not in the United States.  What the MLS does have is almost-washed up stars coming over for the last final paychecks and possibly new fans to buy their stuff (I’m looking at you David Beckham and Thierry Henry).

Ultimately, ESPN’s non-stop talk of the World Cup will most certainly help the game of soccer in the United States.  But will it help the country’s premier soccer league?  I am not so sure.

While a number of athletes have foundations in their names, Nash clearly takes an active role in his, using his celebrity athlete status to raise awareness for his charitable work and the issues that it tries to address.  One of the most popular events that the Foundation puts on is called “Showdown,” which is an organized eight-on-eight soccer match with teams made up of NBA and soccer stars from around the world.  These games are played in an urban setting  and have included the likes to Theirry Henry, Grant Hill, Claudio Reyna, Tony Parker, Baron Davis, Chris Bosh, and others.  The most recent one was in Chinatown in New York City on June 24th, 2009.

The Foundation’s website (www.stevenash.org) lists 18 different events that have been organized since 2007 and already has a link for a 2010 Showdown.  There are a number of different ways to support the organization, including weekly or monthly payments, and passing certain donation thresholds rewards the donor with a foundation t-shirt.  One other way to support the organization is to give a certain dollar amount for every assist that Nash has this season; an interesting twist that allows fans to cheer for Nash and support his foundation at the same time.

While there are a vast number of athlete foundations, it’s clear that Nash is incredibly involved in his and deserves the mention as this week’s pick for Foundation Friday.

Click here to donate

In what I consider a rather unusual move, Beckham was named Captain before the match, despite never starting for the team and only playing a combined 37 minutes for the Galaxy. Donovan was previously the Captain, but it appears that his demotion did not effect his play.

Playing in front of 17,223 fans, Beckham finally delivered what many have been anticipating for the months leading up to his arrival. However, soccer still has a long long way to go.

The game was a friendly for Los Angeles and did not hurt their 3-5-4 record record in the MLS standings. Los Angeles not only needs Beckham to help grow soccer, but also to help them win. He showed up in the US with a sprained ankle which has clearly hampered his ability to play.

Los Angeles’ next game, which will actually count, is Sunday, August 5th at Toronto.