Listening to or reading about what non-Americans think about the U.S. national soccer team can be fascinating.

One one hand, there’s this: A YouGov survey of people from 21 countries who had teams in the current World Cup found that the question: “Which team are you rooting against” returned “Iran” with the most mentions, with “USA” second.

That has to be political more than sporting. The U.S. soccer team has never been past the quarterfinals of the World Cup and has left bitter memories — from the pitch — nearly nowhere. Why “root against” the Yanks, when they are all but certain to fall out without your little bit of psychic energy? Or it more about drone strikes?

Mexico and Russia rooting against the U.S., well, that is ingrained, but what’s up with pluralities in Italy and Australia naming the U.S.? We thought we were friends!

But beneath what appears to be a general popular preference that the U.S. not encounter World Cup success is a sort of grudging admiration for what we might call the “intangibles” the U.S. team brings to the competition.

Because, remember, when your average British journalist looks at the U.S. roster, and sees where those 23 guys play, they are underwhelmed. So what to make of a team that seems to be stronger than it pedigree would suggest?

Some examples.

–After the U.S. had lost a 1-0 lead over Ghana in the 82nd minute, The National’s Gary Meenaghan, a native of Scotland, wrote: “Yet if there is one constant in the US soccer team it is immense mental strength.” Which led to his description of John Brooks’s winning goal. In another story he filed that night, Meenaghan made reference to U.S. soccer gumption. “Jurgen Klinsmann has built a team around the spirit rather than a spirit around the team.”

–If Klinsmann can be considered as an outsider, and he can be, he made a similar sort of remark after the Portugal match. “The United States is known for giving their everything in every game and if you look in the past at the U.S. team, they make things happen … We have that fighting spirit, that energy and determination to do well in every single game.”

–Richard Jolly, an Englishman who is a regular contributor to The National as well as espn.com, today wrote this about the U.S. team: “The U.S. has been very business-like, albeit in their usual way. … Hugely committed, physically strong and well organised, they are a typical American team. … Individually, they may be the least-gifted squad in the group but their collective power brought victory against Ghana while they were seconds away from defeating Portugal.”

Those are the sort of notions you see in non-U.S. media, especially in the English speaking world. An unwillingness (well-founded) not to carry on about the great individual talents in the U.S. squad, but a need to explain the successes, some of them not so modest, in the international game.

The consensus seems to be this: The U.S. finds athletes who care at least as much about their national team as their club — which is not at all a certainty in most of the world — and then play together well and with great industry.

In a way, they are back-handed compliments. But they are compliments, after all, and there would have been none 15 years ago.