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

After hearing from a few people about the poor sound quality of the interviews on last week’s Waiting For Gaetjens podcast (sorry about that), I figured I’d transcribe the two interviews and post them here. I normally wouldn’t do this–I hate the whole, I write the same thing that I Twitter that I podcast that I Facebook, etc, etc, etc–but I think Hugo Salcedo in particular offers the most experienced knowledge of the movement of American youth players to Mexican club teams, while Goal.com’s Rene Leal, who spent time with Pachuca’s youth team, can shed light on the experience from a player’s perspective. And anyway, because no one actually heard what they said on the air, this is still new.

So how does the pipeline for players going from the U.S. to Mexico work? Will we see more movement? Will we see Americans without Mexican ancestry start heading south? Is this good for American soccer? Greg Lalas and I follow the path south to a system better prepared at present to accelerate the soccer education of American youth. Click HERE for the full story…

Did I just learn why the negotiations over the collective bargaining agreement are so contentious? Did I find out just how disrespected the Vietnam league is? Or did I discover that MLS doesn’t think he’s worth it? There is plenty to learn from the professional path taken by Lee Nguyen, but at present, all I have are questions.

Talking to Nguyen back in November of last year it seemed certain he would be playing in a MLS uniform in 2010. Once high school player of the year and college freshman of the year, as recently as last fall Arsenal had nice things to say about the 23-year-old Texan who played within the national team system at almost every level. He’s spent time at PSV Eindhoven, Randers FC, and HAGL in Vietnam. In an environment where nearly every talented young American player runs from MLS to foreign countries for better competition and compensation, here is a guy who wants to come back home. Done and done, right? So why am I waking him up at 6:45 AM in Vietnam—Lee thankfully awake from the half-day time change and jet lag before his new season starts at the end of the month? Click HERE for the full story…

I’ve asked Lyle Yorks for an interview several times to no avail. Agents aren’t known for talking to press and short of Scott Boras are famous for the low profiles they keep in the shadowy underbelly of professional sports. So when Michael Wheeler appeared on Twitter, giving up information not just on client movement but personal research on the game, it struck me as odd.

And what with the MLS combine and the Superduperdraft coming up in the next week, it’s a perfect time to pick the brain of the one agent–a relative newcomer to the business but not the sport–who would not only be willing to talk but hopefully have something more to say than the usual fair. Click HERE for the full story…

QUICK PROGRAMMING NOTES:

TIAS, Du Nord, The Original Winger, Soccer By Ives, and The Offside Rules will be hosting a party Friday night 9pm in downtown Seattle at Kell’s Irish Pub (FYI - bar charges $5 cover, which is not going to us). It’s a true soccer bar I’m told, should be a good time. Won’t you join us?

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New Podcast Coming To iTunes: WaitingForGaetjens.com
Hear me butcher first and last names and attempt to make co-host Greg Lalas laugh as he tries to bring serious analysis to the world of American soccer. We’re looking towards a weekly schedule to begin after a special week of several run-up shows revolving around MLS Cup. Those few shows will also be downloadable at MLSnet.com. The plan is to pull in the best guests we can and keep it entertaining and informative. Please check it out–RSL GM Garth Lagerway joins us tomorrow–and let us know who you would like to see on the guest list. We’ll get it right next time.

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Now back to regularly scheduled programming already in progress…

I can’t remember the last time I put up a player interview on the site, but I’ve been fascinated with Lee Nguyen for awhile now. And then over a stretch of one month this fall the 23-year-old attacker went from Vietnam superstar to Arsenal trainee to FC Dallas off-season practice attendee. Curious, I went looking for some info, but found few answers. Here’s this kid living large over in Vietnam, cover of GQ, etc, etc. But we never hear much about him Stateside. We can’t begin to pronounce his Vietnamese club team and know nothing of his life in the far East, which is entirely different from every American soccer player, maybe in history.

On the phone the Texas native with Vietnamese roots sounds like his fellow Texan Clint Dempsey–that rough southern drawl lazy on the crackling cell phone satellites…

Click HERE for the full story…

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Grant Wahl discusses his new book, The Beckham Experiment, out now from Crown

Why do book reviews have to be summaries of the book? I never got that. I understand it but don’t get it. I do get jacket blurbs, though. Those few sentences of praise on the back of a book–I’m always curious what names are there and what they say.

“Through the prismatic window of its most famous player, Wahl masterfully traces every intersection, follows every turn through the disjointed world of American soccer’s season on the brink… of what exactly is the lasting question.”

“There’s your jacket cover blurb” I wrote in sappy jest to Grant Wahl, when he asked my opinion of his book this past Spring. It was a joke—as if I’d be chosen over Foer, Deford, and other famous writers who praise the book on its back cover. But I have gotten to know Grant a bit over the four years I’ve been producing TIAS (Wahl was my first in-depth interview as I began to position TIAS as place where soccer journalism, not just the sport, was a topic of discussion). So after signing my life away, I was able to procure one of the first galley copies of the book back in May. And before the mainstream got its grubby hands on him, Grant talked his publisher into allowing him to speak to me before the deluge of requests. Click HERE for the full story…

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

Steve Nash and friends throwdown for the showdown in chinatown, take 2

It’s never as good as the first time. The rain, the grand stand bleachers, the wet turf, the steady cam man on the field, the crane cam hovering over the crowd. What was an underground experiment last year became the mainstream mainstay as Steve Nash and Claudio Reyna hosted their 2nd annual Showdown in Chinatown to benefit each of their namesake charities. The line-ups, tweaked a bit from last year, will star in a Fox Soccer Channel documentary about the game.

That’s not to say it won’t be the best sporting event all summer in New York City. Standing over Thierry Henry’s shoulder while he watched the first half from the bench is not something one takes lightly. It was a mid-eighties Michael Jackson moment for some, which is why this event will forever be, no matter how many times they play it, a once in a lifetime experience. Click HERE for the full story…

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…

Indoor is in a weird place. If you think soccer has it bad in the American sporting landscape, how bad is it for its little indoor brother, a wholly unique being known to most players as that crazy game that filled the cold winter months between club seasons? Better than you might think actually.

I loved it as a kid. Playing inside that oval felt like being inside a virtual video game. There were penalty boxes. It was hilarious. But professional? That was the farthest thing from my young imagination, even considering that before the 1994 World Cup the only professional soccer I saw as a kid was the Atlanta Attack indoor team. But even as a kid you knew those guys weren’t making much money.

Yet then and now guys are working, doing their thing, earning a living, maybe doing better for themselves than if they were in MLS. But still indoor is one of those things people forget existed if they ever knew at all, like so many local (maybe backwoods) sports. I saw some figure-eight car racing in Northern Illinois as a kid that still blows my mind when I think about it today. People get paid to do some crazy stuff. And people who may or may not know who the players are come out for the entertainment. Click HERE for the full story…

(this is all five parts of the story in its entirety)

Ron Isley croons from the stereo of the Audi A6 Quattro Clint Dempsey purchased from sports agency-mate Ryan Nelsen. “You fool one day you’re here and then you’re gone.” But before the beat drops, before UGK’s Pimp C and Bun B have a chance to trade verses about making the most of the Texas youth they were dealt, before we’re even out of the parking lot of Dempsey’s apartment, we’re out of the car.

Across the street private preparatory school blazers are tossed to the sidewalk; tiny fists on fragile arms flail like loose garden hoses. “What the…. Should we break up that fight?” Dempsey asks without a glance to me, his big black eyes fixated on the fracas as if he already has his answer. “Sure, your town your call,” I tell him beginning to crack open the passenger seat door. We jump out of the car stopping traffic on the bustling two-lane road in London’s Wimbledon neighborhood. The dozen kids, no older than 12 maybe 13, turn toward us as we approach, taking notice of the bigger boys calling out, “Hey, what are you….”

Click HERE for the full story…