There’s a column in today’s paper by The Crimson White’s Alabama soccer beat reporter asking our readership to use the World Cup as a time to start following soccer. It’s a point well-made, and one I can relate to, not least of which because the 2010 World Cup was the time I fell in love – and that is the correct terminology – with the sport the world at large knows as the Beautiful Game.

I can even pinpoint the exact moment. I’ve written about it in this space before: Landon Donovan’s stoppage time winner against Algeria, saving the United States men’s national team’s hopes, powering them into the Round of 16. The U.S. fell to age-old nemesis Ghana in that round, but the seed was planted, and soccer had its hooks in me.

This team, in 2014, is extremely different from that 2010 team. The Americans’ savior – St. Landon as he’s known by Grantland’s Men in Blazers podcast – is gone from this team. The best player the United States has ever produced will not be in Brazil for the World Cup. Gone, too, are many of his teammates. Some have retired from the game. Some, like Donovan, were left out by coach Jurgen Klinsmann. Only a handful of players on this USMNT have World Cup experience. The U.S. is in the toughest group in the tournament, and many pundits are writing off the 2014 World Cup in Brazil, saying the USMNT is really playing for 2018 in Russia.

So, why should we American sports fans waste our time with the World Cup if we’re hopelessly doomed, you might ask? And that’s an awfully un-American thing to ask and you should feel ashamed.

In all seriousness, this is a team that’s encouraging to me. There’s a core of players on this team that should make American sports fans and American soccer fans more excited than they’ve been in a long time.

Start at the top, with Jozy Altidore. Altidore has been an unmitigated disaster in terms of goal-scoring in 2014. He was a non-factor for his new Premier League team, Sunderland, and only recently broke his USMNT goal-scoring drought with two goals (generally called a “brace” for the uninitiated) against Nigeria. Those same pundits who write off the USMNT claim Altidore can’t do it in the Cup against world class competition, that his magnificent run of form in 2013 can be attributed to playing against the supposed minnows of North America. Those commentators miss Altidore’s very real contribution as a strong target man in the box, able to hold up play and create chances.

Move back, to the midfield, where Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley play their craft as two of the most creative and attacking players in the USA’s history. Both had successful stints in Europe, both are consistently dominating in America’s Major League Soccer and both are vital and talented players for the U.S. in this World Cup. I echo many other American soccer fans when I say the U.S. will go as far as Michael Bradley takes them, and he can take them quite far.

Add to those players a crop of the most exciting young players the US has produced (or really, recruited) in a while: German-American Julian Green and Icelandic-American (and native of Mobile) Aron Johannson. These players are more promising than Freddy Adu ever was, and Johannson has already impressed, scoring goals for the US and his European club, AZ Alkmaar alike.

There are those who claim soccer is “un-American,” whatever that really means. Some will say it’s because the U.S. isn’t very good and can never compete on the global stage. Sure, this team has a Herculean task set in front of them, having to contend with Portugal and Germany in the group stage. This team, however, gives an American every reason to have hope, and to quote the American Outlaws supporters group, “I believe that we will win.”