Want to divide a room? Want to roll a hand grenade across the floor? Want to make a whole bunch of new enemies and find out who your real friends are?

Walk in and blurt out the following words: Major ... League ... Soccer ... will ... become ... a ... big ... success ... in ... this ... country.

Ka-boom.

Hold onto your shorts.

Duck and cover.

Well, here goes.

Major League Soccer will become a big success in this country.

No, no. I really believe that.

Whatever it is about the world's game that makes it so divisive in the United States is still alive and well, particularly among traditional hardcore sports fans here. Many of them look upon soccer as though it is hateful. Football fans may not love baseball, but they generally respect it or tolerate it. Basketball fans might not know a blue line from a foul line, but they don't ridicule and mock hockey.

Soccer, on the other hand, is fair game.

Scoring is important, I get that. Netting more goals is a good thing.

But when the Steelers beat the Packers, 21-14, everything's fine. If Real Salt Lake beats the L.A. Galaxy, 3-2, matching goals for touchdowns, soccer is boring.

I don't know why.

Maybe it's because, as RSL owner Dave Checketts says, "It's still perceived as a sport that belongs to other countries."

Maybe it's because of all the flopping in soccer, players absorbing a slight bump from an opponent and falling to the turf as though someone filled them full of buckshot. Sports fans here hold toughness in high regard, they can't stand that kind of theater.

Maybe it's because there are too many ties. Everybody hates ties, especially nil-nil ones.

Maybe it's a quality issue, the level of soccer played in MLS cannot yet compare from club to club to the Premier League or La Liga or the Bundesliga. American sports fans usually are drawn in by the best the world has to offer. They're less interested in second-tier guys, on account of marquee value and sheer talent and performance.

RSL general manager Garth Lagerwey, who was selected in the initial MLS draft as a goalkeeper -- "I was 150th out of 160 selections," he laughs -- back in the mid-'90s, says the league, after 14 years, can now sign a few superstars, such as David Beckham, but the best long-term solution is youth development through establishing academies.

"It's like any business," he says. "If you develop your own products, it's cheaper than buying them from somewhere else."

Checketts recently visited Sheffield United's academy in England and walked away impressed by the training, the nutrition, the environment for bringing up great soccer talent, and, just as importantly, sinking the game into the kids' consciousness.

Back in 1984, Checketts was part of the Jazz's launching of the Junior Jazz program, a youth-league deal that grew to involve more 100,000 basketball players. Few, if any, of them went on to play for the Jazz, but, Checketts says, "Those same kids who were playing on our youth teams are the 32-year-olds who now are buying club seats at Jazz games."

We've been hearing the claim for two decades that more youngsters play soccer than any other youth sport in this country. Present estimates float toward some 20 million. So a pro league here will eventually benefit from that, right?

"In the past, kids never have been able to see that they can make a living playing soccer," says Checketts. "Now, they're going to be able to make that living."

If that sounds like a sales pitch from an owner, it's because it is a sales pitch. But that doesn't make it false. With the kind of high-powered owners in place in MLS, the infrastructure is there to build the talent pool over the next 20 years.

All of them salivate at the prospects of a Barry Sanders growing up playing the game, or a Kobe Bryant, or a Tim Tebow; a handful or a hundred of them.

And speaking of infrastructure, MLS currently has 15 clubs, eight with their own soccer-specific stadiums, and will move to 18 teams over the next two years with the addition of Philadelphia, Portland and Vancouver. The league would like to get to 20 in the near future.

Just as important are streams of revenue to support those teams, attract the attention of existing top players and develop more from within.

The biggest risk factors are: 1) The current global recession. Will the economic climate sour the appetite of communities for building stadiums? Those stadiums are significant for the aforementioned revenue sources. 2) TV ratings need to improve. World Cup viewership is off the charts, MLS, though, is not yet a huge draw. 3) Season-ticket sales must be solid. Seattle has sold 24,000. Toronto has 16,000. RSL has about 6,000.

Overall, success will come to MLS -- in time.

It is, in fact, a matter of time. And wise stewardship. The game, when properly played and presented, is too good to simply blow off.

Lagerwey says the league eventually will not only grow to be one of the top soccer leagues in the world, but also one of the top pro leagues in the United States.

That sounds like another sales pitch.

But I'm buying.

Ka-boom.

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Monson and Graham Show" weekdays from 2-6 p.m. on 1280 AM The Zone. He can be reached at gmonson@sltrib.com .