Soccer isn’t a source of American metaphors. People cover their bases, play hardball, and take a swing and a miss. The Monday morning quarterback comments on a Hail Mary. You roll with the punches when you’re on the ropes. A full-court press is a game changer. But language is as much a metaphor for life as sports is. In January, an Economist poll found soccer edging ahead of “America’s Pastime,” baseball. One in 10 now call Euroball their favorite sport, just ahead of baseball (9%) and well behind football (36%), but not far off basketball (17%). The balls they are a-changin’.

How did soccer become as American as swimming across the Rio Grande? The same way as everything ever did: market forces, magnetic appetites, and human aspiration. American football is England’s rugby football without the passing game. Baseball is England’s cricket in a hurry. Soccer is already Americanizing. In the land of Title IX, soccer spread as a girls’ game, with the boys playing catch-up. This is the first World Cup to subdivide the halves into quarters for “hydration breaks,” because the public is more prone to dehydration than any other species, and to have live entertainment in the half-time break, because the networks enjoy it that way, and so do we.