Like many in this country before and after me, I was initially sucked into the rich tapestry of the European game. Leagues, pyramids, cups, continental competitions. It played so well into my various interests of sports, history, and geography.
I'm a Millennial who was born in 1986. The first game I remember watching on TV was USA-Switzerland in the 1994 World Cup, which I watched with some interest despite having zero soccer influence from my parents. (My dad nonetheless coached my team in kindergarten. No wonder I suck.) My first USMNT game in person was when I was 11 and made my dad take me and my brother to the USA-El Salvador game in November 1997 in Old Foxboro stadium. The US won 4-2.
Despite all that, I didn't closely follow US soccer at the time. I was a young teenager and I had few sources of information and nobody to share fandom with. I basically just had my one friend who is from a Venezuelan family of Italian descent. He's a supporter of Milan, Salernitana, and Venezuela. I'd watch Champions League games with him starting with, I think, the 1997-98 tournament -- I remember 1.FC Košice playing for some unknown reason. I pestered my parents into subscribing to the package with Fox Soccer Channel (neé Fox Sports World, which still had stuff like Aussie Rules at the time, which was awesome even though I still don't know what was going on.), as well as to World Soccer magazine. By this point, the internet had arrived in our household and I somehow discovered rec.sport.soccer. I still remember this legendary Polish troll, a fan of Lech Poznan, who would somehow turn just about every discussion of European football into a debate about World War II. Given that Americans tend to be drawn to England in part because that's where English-language sources are, I found myself in truly obscure rabbit holes like Tony Kempster's (RIP) non-league site, which was oddly fascinating and gave me an absurdly detailed knowledge of random towns in England.
I never had a European team, though. It was all too distant and there was nothing I could really identify with as an American. I didn't pay too much attention to MLS either. It wasn't that much fun to follow when there's no one to follow it with and information is hard to come by. When I follow a team, I like to know everything. But the more I watched all these teams with their histories and dramas, the more I realized I wanted all that stuff in the US and MLS began drawing me in. Once I found a US soccer internet community, it was over. A huge part of the fun of being a fan of any sport or team is yapping/discussing/debating and once I found an outlet for all things US soccer, basically, I finally found something I could really get behind.
Admittedly, Bob & Jonathan Kraft don't make MLS super easy in Boston. The stadium situation sucks, the team often sucks (not this year or the last, though), and it's questionable whether the Krafts even remember they own the team. Still, as a US soccer fan MLS is the most interesting league. It's where most American players play, it's where most USMNT players come through the ranks, it's where US club teams are building their own histories and traditions, and it's where the US is slowly carving out its place in the world of the sport.
MLS isn't the prettiest girl at the dance; she's the girl next door who you suddenly notice after a few years.
