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

D.C. is talking about it. Toronto is in the cross-hairs. Chicago does better without it.

New York still not really getting it.

It was a beautiful Sunday on Memorial Day weekend in New York City (I assume it was the same in North Jersey). Blanco and a quality Chicago Fire team were on hand to battle out the upper half of the Eastern Conference. Three points could give some swing in the standings.

There was even more potential drama, but I don’t expect the casual fan to understand the whole Bradley, Osoria, Conde, Marmol connections. And it is all about that elusive creature, the casual fan, don’t ya know? Click HERE for the full story…

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Buzz Carrick’s first job in soccer was an unpaid position with NESN, the New England Sports Network. Foreshadowing? He’s barely earned a dime off soccer since. There is a behind-the-camera broadcasting career in there somewhere that pays the bills, but 3rd Degree, the decade-old website founded and produced by Carrick and focused on FC Dallas, runs on volunteers for a financial loss.

But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the site. With practice reports, overseas pre-season training, reserve game features, and an open mind to new opinions, 3rd Degree has been filling one-by-one the voids left by the mainstream soccer media, creating a blueprint for the what the future of soccer journalism may look like. If hyper-local journalism is the future as some say it is, well, 3rd Degree is soccer’s explorer in residence. And if there really is such a thing as citizen journalism, this is an example of that as well, because Carrick doesn’t consider himself a journalist even though he holds himself and 3rd Degree to industry standards.

But before I could say any of this for sure, I needed Carrick to touch a few more voids. The story of 3rd Degree’s methodical rise out of the darkness is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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“You goin in,” a Fulham fan asked a Portsmouth rival from the line at Fratton Park’s visitors gate? “Of course,” the hefty Pompey supporter said smiling, his PFC jersey stretched to the brink over his belly. “Once in a lifetime isn’t it?”

Yes sir. My first two English Premier League games go down as not just historic for me, but for Fulham as well. My week in England comes to a close, but Fulham and its American quintuplets will be in the Premiere League next season, thanks to the greatest ugly win I have ever seen. (Reading and Derby County’s American players were not as lucky). Click HERE for the full story…

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Fulham v Birmingham City. Saturday 03-May-2008 3:00 pm.

Riverside Stand. Block X Row 2 Seat 11.

I’m a little lost for words. But not tears. It was unexpected. But taking my seat in the second row 20 yards up the sideline, the crowd singing and smacking their Clap Banners, I kind of lost it, a boy welcomed to the bosom of the mother he never met.

Click HERE for the full story…

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For quite some time I’ve wanted to create a map that could graphically answer my oft recycled question, “what is American soccer?”

But there were two problems. First, the full cultural answer to that query is impossible to fully contextualize at TIAS, much less a single map. And secondly, while I am a certifiable freak for maps—I once created a map of Vermont’s glacial geologic history—I don’t know the first thing about making a map when you replace the colored pencils with a computer.

Enter Bill Turianski from Bill’s Sports Maps. A recommendation from Jeremy Rueter at Albion Road led me to Bill, who after I planted a seed, produced a map exclusively for TIAS depicting the professional soccer landscape for MLS and USL. Future maps are the obvious next step in this project, allowing one quick glance across the years to exhibit the growth or decline of the sport in this country.

A full size image for 2008 is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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HISTORY EDITION

Somewhere a copy editor is pissed. Everything this MLS season is historic. “A historic double header,” as it was continuously described on Fox Soccer Channel, culminated the pre-season hype and put a fitting cap on the media hyperbole heading into Saturday’s games. Thing about it was, though, the games didn’t want to be left out. Some quick hits from an exciting opening weekend after the jump.

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photo credit: Bouna Coundoul by ISI Photos Click HERE for the full story…

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The Sweet smell of my lady’s love / her body blending with my own / a time when the world is dark and quiet and we’re alone / the precipice that separates noise from peace / a hint of the ever evolving magic / a precious place that combines and still confirms the space of oneness and togetherness / there is a morning thought.

And still a softer morning in March / a gift for me from god with a darling face and papa’s eyes and grandma’s grace / how there the light of immortality shines / as wondrous fragile dream chase light and the slightest breeze for the first time / morning thoughts then evolve as smiles and love and sunshine and…

Soccer. There is a morning thought. My lady in all her imperfect glory wakes from her beauty sleep to welcome me back into her arms. MLS 2008. What? You were expecting a preview? I think you know where to find it. Or you can sign up to follow TIAS on Twitter for instant updates on everything you need to know and a few things you don’t all season long.

–quote with a slight addendum, from Gil Scott-Heron’s “Morning Thoughts” off Reflections, Arista 1981.

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From a new coach and an updated roster to better finances and a looming new home, Red Bull New York is poised to make 2008 different.

Nothing says “let’s get this season started” like media day. After some brief words from the front office all the players spread out on coaches, available to whoever for whatever. My goal for the few hours I had over an extended lunch break was to introduce myself and TIAS to some of the players and get a barometer on the possibility of working with the team and players on some in-depth features for the summer. A new season means new opportunities for soccer journalism. After the jump, a few photos from the afternoon in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. Click HERE for the full story…

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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…

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FOR L.A. SOCCER WRITER LUIS BUENO, THE INTERSECTION OF AMERICAN SOCCER AND HISPANIC GEOGRAPHY IS NOT NEW. IT IS IN HIS BLOOD.

“Throughout the nation men and women, forgotten in the political philosophy of the Government, look to us here for guidance and for more equitable opportunity to share in the distribution of national wealth… I pledge myself to a new deal for the American people. This is more than a political campaign. It is a call to arms.”

-Franklin Delano Roosevelt, from his 1932 presidential nomination acceptance speech.

This could be soccer’s New Deal. Like President Roosevelt’s national program after the Great Depression, a move toward integrating soccer across American demographics might too bring relief, reform, and recovery to the people players of the United States American soccer. But will it be able to triumph over the roadblocks?

While I have been watching the deal go down in Harlem the last few weeks, Culture of Soccer editor David Keyes has been in Southern California and returns to TIAS with part two of his west coast swing. We heard from Andrea Canalas a few weeks ago and now turn our attention to her partner in blog, Luis Bueno. From the coincidentally appropriate setting of Sueño MLS tryouts in Los Angeles, our correspondent sits down with Bueno to learn about his path to soccer journalism and discuss the cross cultural attention (and tension) that is budding throughout Mexican and American soccer. Click HERE for the full story…

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