"He strikes it well, certainly with loads of pace."

This is what John Harkes said just a few minutes ago after Ronaldinho just missed a free kick in the Brazil vs. France World Cup quarterfinal.

John Harkes is an American. He's a former U.S. soccer player. But that quote up there doesn't have a bit of American in it.

Now, I enjoy soccer more than the typical American, I'm half German, so I grew up around some soccer. But it's still far from my favorite sport and I understand why there's not much of an interest in the U.S.

The language is one of them. I mean, the U.S. goes to the trouble to change the name of the sport. In most countries soccer is reffered to as football. Well, we've got our own football, so we call it soccer.

That's all well and good, but if we're going to go to the extent to change the name of the sport, can we get the U.S. commentators to use more Americanized terminology?

These announcers are not British. It's all English, but in America we speak American. It's just not the same.

I mean, saying "He strikes it well, certainly with loads of pace" draws blank stares and "Huh?"s from Americans.

How bout, "He kicked the leather off of that one, J.P. I mean that thing was buzzing..."

That's more like it, that's American.

The thing that really bugs me is that at the end of games when the play-by-play guy will tell you who advances. It's not American at all.

For instance. When the Heat moved on to the finals to play the Mavericks, the announcer may have said, "Miami moves on to play Dallas in the finals."

But in the World Cup you get a different format. "France advance to take on Portugal."

Now, that's how English people say things of that nature. They make a team a plural thing. And that can be argued, since most teams are made up of more than one person. But in American a team is a singular unit. So, please can we get some American play-by-play guys to realize that.

This may be just one small step to getting Americans to enjoy soccer, but I think it might not be a bad idea.