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By MATT PARCHER
Sports Editor
sports@arkcity.net

I finally made the journey to Kansas City last Saturday to experience my first Major League Soccer match after I was invited to attend a month earlier by an ever-so-pleasant Kansas City Wizards' public relations representative.

As I awoke that morning to the sound of raindrops on the windowsill, I wanted to back out, to tell my brother that was planning on accompanying me that we would have to make other plans for the dreary day but the combination of my previous acceptance of the (free) tickets and my telling him I'd take him along persuaded me to hold these notions at arm's length -- at least until we were on the road.

At 3 p.m. we started the car and pointed it north.

First off, I don't have a history of being a soccer fan -- sure I hop on the bandwagon once every four years or so when the World Cup makes its global presence known -- so the thought of riding in a car for three plus hours for the match forced me to question my sanity.

In my mind's eye I pictured a rocking crowd -- 40,000 strong or so -- based on the pictures and games I'd seen on television so I figured I would be in for a good experience and pushed all negative thoughts aside.

This mental picture, however, was a far cry from what I experienced at CommunityAmerica Ballpark, although my surroundings weren't unimpressive.

The stadium had a coziness to it and I got the impression that the Wizards fans that contributed to the sell-out crowd around me -- 10,385 -- were a part of a tight-knit fraternity that would somehow will their team to a victory over Real Salt Lake.

My misconceptions about the atmosphere, I suppose, stemmed from the fact that I overlooked America's view of soccer as a secondary sport.

After all, our apathetic view of the world's most popular sport was a contributing reason David Beckham made the transition from Real Madrid in Spain to the Los Angeles Galaxy. He hopes to clue America in to what it's obviously been missing out on for quite some time -- a reported 284 million people watched the 2006 World Cup final, as opposed to the 90.7 million that viewed the Super Bowl.

I now see what I've been missing.

The game was very exciting and sparked my interest in every way, even though there was only one goal scored in the entire game -- an own-goal on the part of Real Salt Lake in the 89th minute.

One minute later, regulation ended and four minutes of injury time -- the clock in soccer doesn't stop so at the end of regulation lost time is added back -- was assessed.

Salt Lake couldn't score and the K.C. Wizards won the match 1-0.

As I was leaving the stadium that night, the drive home that awaited me -- which under normal circumstances would have been ominous -- wasn't completely dreaded.

I had played witness to the world-wide phenomenon called soccer -- or more rightfully, football -- and the replay of the game in my head seemed to serve as an anesthetic of sorts for the 230-mile trek that awaited me.