This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS - Tackling the subject of Soccer in the US, and worldwide.

Laugh about it, shout about it / When you’ve got to choose / Every way you look at it, you lose
—-

Lost in the whirlwind tour of South Africa and the Confederations Cup, which brought outlets from Harper’s to Deadspin to what seemed like every newspaper in the country out for a week-long soccer columning festival, was the demise of Brad Friedel’s once heralded (here at least) soccer academy in Ohio. So why does that matter?

In the last two weeks I’ve received emails asking why I didn’t write anything about the Confederations Cup or when I would. I’m still wondering, what really is there to say? Dan Loney did the best job I’ve seen of basically saying just that while pointing out the US MNT is not that good and doesn’t have any depth and doesn’t have the best coach they could. Too many of the rubberneckers came with, as Loney put it, “nonsense like winning games and getting good performances out of our players.” So where should the attention be going? Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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Discovered at the age of 10 in New York. In an elite American residency program in Pennsylvania at age 11. Three seasons at FC Metz youth academy in France at 13. A year in Italy as an amateur on AS Livorno’s reserves at 17, followed by a spell in Scotland at St. Mirren.

A soccer vagabond by the age of 19, Devann Yao is now back home in New York, and that’s where he wants to stay. What’s a kid got to do get a little attention around here? Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore–And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over–like a syrupy sweet? Maybe it just sags / like a heavy load. Or does it explode?

-Langston Hughes

On Friday, April 3rd, FC Harlem will open its doors to the public for a photo exhibit and reception, celebrating the growth of the club, soccer’s place in uptown Manhattan, and the first of its kind (in NYC) soccer field, to be built in the borough. For the club’s director Irv Smalls and the few hundred kids that participate in the club, some dreams, all be they minuscule in the grand scheme of things, no longer need be deferred.

Photographer Rojelio Rodger Rodriguez was kind enough to give TIAS a preview of his exhibition. Prints will be available for sale at the event, with proceeds supporting FC Harlem. Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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two ways to grow grassroots spread seed in manhattan

So if there was any debate it is now officially over. I’m old. While I was thrilled to see the large turnout and overwhelming success of Grassroots Soccer’s charity event at the popular nightclub Marquee last Thursday, there was no question which part of the week I was going to enjoy more. A couple hundred kids running around on a soccer field on a brisk fall morning is hard to compete with. That, not a packed sweaty nightclub, is my fountain of youth. Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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Gotham Hall, Midtown Manhattan. The 2008 Streets To Fields black tie gala put on by MLS W.O.R.K.S. and the U.S. Soccer Foundation to “celebrate the sport of soccer in the United States” donated proceeds to Harlem Youth Soccer “to help build a soccer field for its players and develop an after-school soccer and leadership training program.” The New York Times reported that $300,000 was raised by the very unpublicized event. David Beckham gave “the award to the man,” in his words, honoring Pele for his lifetime achievement in supporting American soccer. A leadership award went to Phil Anschutz while the philanthropy award went to freshly minted New York Governor and Harlem-born David Paterson. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush showed their support through pre-taped videos.

Behind all the glitz, glamor and sculpted ice there was a reason for this banquet. Full feature to come on the whirlwind year in the life of Executive Director Irv Smalls and the biggest little club in New York. For now, a photo story to wet your appetites.

Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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From Irv Smalls (back, center, with the shaved head in the above photo), Director of FC Harlem:

On Saturday Dutch soccer star Edgar Davids and his street soccer team from the Netherlands, Monta, paid a visit to FC HARLEM’s travel teams. ESPN filmed the piece on the handball courts at Jacob Schiff Playground. The Harlem community turned out to watch our FC HARLEM LIONS learn some tricks from some of the best free style players in the world before taking them on in a small-sided 4v4 game. FC HARLEM players held their own, In fact Monta and Edgar were so impressed with a few of our high school players they invited some of them to play on Sunday against the NIKE Futsal Team, going as far as to inquire about their availability to travel with them!

I was unable to attend the fun this weekend, but Irv was nice enough to share a few photos after the jump. Every league, director, coach, and parent out there should be watching this guy…
Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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HARLEM YOUTH SOCCER CLUB’S 15 MINUTES OF FAME, HANDED DOWN BY DAVID BECKHAM, WILL LAST LONGER WITH THE CONSTRUCTION NEXT YEAR OF A “WORLD CLASS” SOCCER FIELD IN THE BOROUGH

David Beckham and Ty Harden arrived in Harlem an hour early for the soccer clinic created for 30-or-so lucky FC Harlem under-12’s. The Red Bulls’ Juan Pablo Angel and Jozy Altidore, stuck in traffic, arrived about an hour later. Which was a good thing, because after experiencing first hand the blood thirsty papparazzi in action, I don’t want to think what would have happened if it was the other way around.

The photographers were crazier than the fans, and arguably outnumbered them. And there I am with my little Pentax Optio point-and-shoot in a sea of Canon SLR Cameras with lenses the size of my leg. Size has its priviledge. They got their HD, zooming close-ups and I muscled my little guy in there for what you’ll find after the jump. I now know, just a taste, of what it must be like to work for TMZ. I’ve never seen anything like this, but that had nothing to do with any of the soccer… Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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photo credit: Zaki Raheem. Taken 7/2006 in livingston, Guatemala

Harlem’s Soccer Savior - or at least one of them - Irv Smalls sent me the above photograph a few weeks ago, and it’s sat as my computer wallpaper ever since.

I’ve been wanting to use it here at TIAS, but have yet to find a tie-in. So today I made one:

CALLING ALL PHOTOS!! Send me your best soccer photos and once enough come in, I’ll throw ‘em up and let everybody vote on their favorite (I’ll come up with some sort of prize when it comes down to it).

All the big men’s tournaments are over for the year, so get out from in front of the Spanish channel and take some photos of the beautiful game!

We’ll call it the Photo Diary Project, a spin-off from our first Diary Project - where readers wrote their soccer experiences for me to place in this here virtual time capsule. By the way, that project is still open. Here is one of my favorite past examples:

Brothers In Arms

GET WRITING! GET SHOOTING! YOURS COULD BE NEXT.

Adam Spangler

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The mainstream media is always a step behind when it comes to soccer, so it should come as no surprise the New York Times came to Harlem FC a few weeks after I did, highlighting the burgeoning club’s search for fields.

Updating the story, Executive Director Irv Smalls e-mailed me about his weekend, and I had to share it. After the jump, Irv adds more evidence to the mountain of proof that New York is an artesian aquifer waiting to be tapped. Didn’t you know - all the good stuff is underground.
Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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LOCAL EDITION 

American soccer has more things working against than Jim Rome. In Manhattan, the battle is over field space, being that there is an enormous lack of space, not just for soccer, but any sort of recreational activity. Maneuvering through the Parks Department to secure space is as daunting as anything soccer faces in the city, something I learned first hand on a walking tour of possible uptown fields with Irv Smalls, director of the Harlem Football Club, who is in desperate need of field space.

Now, the beloved soccer metropolis that is Pier 40 on Manhattan’s downtown Westside is in jeopardy of becoming what critics are calling Las Vegas on the Hudson. The two proposals were debated last night at a public hearing. The New York Times gaves most of its inches on the first plan, described as a “$626 million plan by the Related Companies to turn sleepy Pier 40 — now the site of the garage and a few sports fields — into a cultural complex attracting 2.7 million visitors annually… In addition to a theater for the Cirque du Soleil and a 12-screen cinema, the plan for the pier calls for an 1,800-seat music hall, a 28,650-square-foot event space and a glass-enclosed winter garden, as well as shops, restaurants, more athletic fields and more than 2,000 parking spaces.”
Click HERE for the full story…

Adam Spangler

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