The United States men's national team may have fallen in the Round of 16 in its World Cup campaign, but it captured the hearts and minds of the nation while doing so – and that's according to the man tasked with leading the whole darn country.
President Barack Obama called US national team members Clint Dempsey and Tim Howard on Tuesday to offer his congratulations for their and the team's performance in Brazil, in this footage released by the White House:
The president touches on all the key talking points from the growth of the sport in the country to the players' heroic performances in Brazil. He squeezed in a Tim Howard beard joke, telling the US goalkeeper, "Tim, I don't know how you're going to survive the mobs back home, man. You're going to have to shave your beard so they don't know who you are!"
