What do Americans make of soccer?

In a comment on the earlier FIFA World Cup post, I briefly alluded to the quadrennial ritual I have been observing in the US since I moved here: Whenever the World Cup is happening somewhere in the world, some Americans fall over themselves declaring how boring, silly etc the game is. H. Hertzberg has a column in the current New Yorker, in which he describes this as a distinctly right-wing phenomenon. I would like to add two points to this discussion (see my comments)