YOU are not a chest-thumping jingoist, nor are you obnoxious when you travel. You came to your senses about sport at an unusual time, in an unusual way, but when you found your calling, you knew nothing would ever separate you.

Perhaps your parents were born in Europe, or you played during school. Perhaps, like me, you lived abroad for a time during a formative year, during which you found your new love, returning to a world of scarce information and even scarcer respect.

Or perhaps, just perhaps, you were awake at two am, flipping through obscure cable channels, when you caught sight of the beautiful game as it was meant to be played - and your life was irrevocably changed.

Whoever you are, however you joined us: True American Soccer Fan, I Love You.

In a country where respected journalists inexplicably and idiotically call real football “awkward”, “inefficient” and “un-American”; where radio personalities seize on soccer riots as proof that soccer is ridiculous (ignoring the now-inevitable riots at the end of every major sport’s season in this country); where “Soccer Moms” and “Manchester United Fans” reign supreme, you persevere.

I love you because you’re willing to seek out small ex-patriate establishments with names like The Moon And Sixpence in the hope that they might be charging less than twenty dollars for the right to watch Leicester v Derby at nine on a Saturday morning. You ignore the irony that the only Irish pub nearby shows BOTH Celtic and Rangers matches.

I love you if for no other reason than your refusal to let tape delay - and the Fox network's Lionel Bienvenu - get you down.

I love you because, while your club loyalties may lie in Munich, Monaco or Macclesfield, your international eye is set directly at home. I love the way you paint your face and join Sam’s Army at “friendlies” in Los Angeles, where the home fans are outnumbered four to one and most of the match is spent dodging missiles of questionable origin.

I love the way you talk about “easy groups” and “FIFA rankings” as though it hasn’t been 72 years since the USA last got past the second round.

I love that it pained me to write the last sentence, and that I secretly swore that this year would be Our Year.

What I think I love most of all though is that in a country which, for all that is good about it, tends to be closed and xenophobic - you have chosen a sport which, by its very nature in this country, requires an international worldview. The best domestic leagues in the world are in places many narrow-minded Americans would rather forget about, and yet many of you know the geography of North London like the back of your hand.

Even if your team plays in the MLS, you are guaranteed to be cheering for Brazilians, Italians, Russians and Germans, not to mention Carlos Valderrama.

Although your numbers are relatively small, there are more and more of you every day.

When my son Nathaniel kicks the golden goal past Brooklyn Beckham to win us the 2022 World Cup, I love you because I know you will raise your glasses, your voices, and your hearts with me in toasting this awkward, inefficient, un-American but, most of all, beautiful game.