This is a short excerpt from my latest featured post for the blog of Over-the-Rhine’s original sports bar, Rhinehaus, located in my hometown of Cincinnati and home to many WSOTP Watch Parties and Events. To read it in it’s entirety, please click here or click the link at the end of the post.

Last summer’s FIFA World Cup in Brazil was a breath of fresh air in American sports. Freed from the constraints of rivalry with one another, fans coming from nearly every corner of American sports fandom convened together to cheer on the US Men’s National Team in spectacular fashion.

Bars across the country like Rhinehaus were packed wall to wall with not only their normal Saturday and Sunday morning Premier League patrons, but swaths of new fans ranging from casual supporters to die hard patriots. Public spaces in major cities filled with chanting fans by the thousands — as was the case in the Wrong Side of the Pond-hosted event down on Fountain Square with the Cincinnati Saints — to watch on jumbo trons. It was damn near impossible to not get caught up in the excitement.

And if you’re feeling nostalgic for the outpourings of love the beautiful game received in 2014, worry not: you can get a taste of that excitement in the summer of 2015 too.

Starting tomorrow, the FIFA Women’s World Cup will be kicking off another month long soccer extravaganza in cities dotted around our northern neighbors Canada. And unlike the men’s tournament last summer where we were belabored underdogs, our ladies are actually among the favorites.

Continue reading “The Girls of Summer” on the Rhinehaus blog. →