I might not be the worst soccer fan in America anymore

Sunday night after the kids were in bed I fired up the TV for my weekly ritual of ironing shirts and watching sports. In the fall this means NBC’s “Football Night in America” more often than not.

However this past Sunday, despite the fact that my favorite NFL team, the Pittsburgh Steelers, was playing, I went for the MLS and the “real” Western Conference championship game (as opposed to the “Eastern” game featuring two teams from the West).

Well the Los Angeles David Beckham’s lost 3-0 to FC Dallas in an enjoyable match-up and I get some points towards earning my MLS soccer cred back after watching a record low number of games this season.

As far as the final, I don’t have a horse in the race, but I will likely pull for Colorado as it would be nice to see Pablo Mastroeni to win a title. The guy has been a great competitor for the US team for a decade, ill-timed tackles on Italians non-withstanding.

The worst soccer fan in America…

Well for the moment anyway it’s me. The MLS launched its season this past weekend and I managed a whole 20 minutes live and a handful of highlights on Fox Soccer Report last night. I do have a replay of the LA-NE game running in the background today but when you already know the outcome it’s a little tougher to pay attention as a fan.

I am a big proponent of MLS. It is a huge part of the soccer landscape in our country, is a key to developing the game in the States (even with its challenges), and in my opinion American soccer fans owe it to the MLS to at least pay attention. So I felt like a bit of a hypocrite after realizing I had just missed “opening weekend” of the 2010 season.

That said, is it really, really smart to start your season during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament? The small amount of live action I did watch over the weekend was from the Seattle-Philly game on Thursday night. I flipped over to watch, but kept flipping back to watch Butler knock of Syracuse and an epic battle between Kansas State and Xavier.

As a sports fan this was really no contest, even as a die-hard soccer fan. The opening game of the MLS season where half the teams are going to make the play-offs and it really only matters how well you are playing in October (case in point – Real Salt Lake last year)? Or the romance of the underdog taking the big, bad power conference school to the buzzer in the NCAA tourney?

Soccer is and will always be my number one sport. I’ll watch the MLS play-offs over a mid-season Packers or Steelers game every time. But putting the opening weekend of your season up against the 2nd biggest sporting event in America after the Super Bowl is going to be a tough, tough sell for me.

Maybe I am not as die-hard as I like to think I am or maybe it's just that for this one moment in time I am the worst soccer fan in America.

So, sorry Don Garber. Sorry new look Chicago Fire (I still love you guys). Sorry MLS. You are not going to win when you take on “One Shining Moment”.