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

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…

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…

AN MLS EXECUTIVE SINCE THE LEAGUE’S BIRTH, FIRST TIME OWNER NICK SAKIEWICZ TALKS ABOUT HIS NEW BABY AND THE CHANGING AMERICAN SOCCER LANDSCAPE THAT DELIVERED IT

Former professional goal keeper and founding executive of Major League Soccer Nick Sakiewicz spent the last 12 years working in MLS. First with the now defunct Tampa Bay Mutiny and most notably with the defunct-in-name Metrostars where he was the president of AEG New York managing all of AEG’s business operations, Sakiewicz knows more than most the trials and tribulations of American soccer and its meandering path toward being a true major league. Now, as a first-time MLS owner in Philadelphia working as CEO and Operating Partner of Keystone Sports and Entertainment, LLC, Sakiewicz has a chance to create what he couldn’t rebuild.

In his playing days there were few if any domestic options for the American soccer player. Later, his time as an executive was fraught with roadblocks, not the least of which was September 11th. However, player opportunities along with league infrastructure and community support have changed drastically since those times, substantiating the passion Sakiewicz always had with new, tangible hope for the game, at least in Philadelphia. And he needed it. Just last year he was about to leave the sport.

Of course now we know he didn’t. Fresh from the excitement of last Thursday’s announcement - over 2,000 season tickets have been sold in the first week - the proud new father spoke to TIAS about the changing landscape and what made him want to be a part of American soccer’s newest franchise. Click HERE for the full story…

…little miss attitude on the far left for sure. Following a finalist appearance in US Soccer’s first annual “best blog” awards, TIAS took home 35 percent of the vote to win best MLS blog over at Soccerlens. Not exactly a mandate, but well out front of the closest competition, MLS Underground at 20 percent. There is no mention which way the super delegates voted, but after acknowledging TIAS the Soccerlens editors abruptly threw their weight behind The Offside Rules. Isn’t democracy wonderful? Thanks to all those who voted!

DECORATED COACH SITS DOWN WITH FORMER STAR PLAYER SET FOR MLS BREAKOUT

I visited recently with Chicago Fire’s Bakary Soumare and his former coach Martin (Jake) Jacobson, both of NYC soccer dynasty Martin Luther King high school. Jake was the man who first spotted Soumare playing on a New York field soon after his arrival from France (where he grew up after moving from his birthplace of Mali), setting the course for where we now find the young defensive midfielder: fighting to fill the shoes of retired Chris Armas and weighing national team options. Click HERE for the full story…

a minor opportunity arrives with latest major league soccer club

The emerald city is in the process of losing a basketball franchise but gaining a soccer team… and a new Hollywood homer.

A few weeks ago, Drew Carey, part owner of the new yet-to-be-named soccer franchise, was in the broadcast booth at Seattle’s Qwest stadium during Monday Night Football on ESPN. For a couple of days in one American city professional soccer was part of the discussion.

But the discussion was short lived. MLS Cup quickly stole some attention. There was an expansion draft next. USL was at Soccerfest. And Thanksgiving threw in a bone. Or at least that’s what I thought (and would still like to believe). Click HERE for the full story…

2007 FOUND AMERICAN SOCCER IN SEARCH OF ITS HEAD

It started with the retirement of Brian McBride from international duty after the 2006 World Cup and has continued downhill to the incapable feet of otherwise able bodies.

The national team’s striker regression, however, highlights more than one team’s struggle to find a player fit for a role. Throughout the ranks of American soccer, the national team’s shortcomings up front lay bare the game-changing skills, mental and physical, still largely missing in America’s version of the global game. It reverberates throughout American soccer, making this the year of a headless beast. Click HERE for the full story…

special to tias, a guest column by Ryan O’Hanlon

“American soccer” seems to be a redundant term. Is the United States just trying to be different from the rest of the world? Is this a metric system situation? Australia kicked soccer to the curb in 2004 when it officially announced that ‘football’ was the proper nomenclature. New Zealand and South Africa still commonly use the term soccer, but I’m beginning to think ’soccer’ is more than just a word. It represents how the game is played, especially here in the United States. Watch any game, whether MLS, Division 1, or even the US National team, and soccer is what you get - a sport that relies on physical strength, speed, and supreme conditioning over tactical acumen or technical skill.

Soccer can still be the beautiful game, but too often it is the waiting game. Click HERE for the full story…

“I heard someone say the magic word. And the magic word tonight is Rebirth. Rebirth and Regeneration as embodied in the rhythm of Guan Guanco. Guan Guanco is the rhythm of rebirth and regeneration. Named by the Africans after the snake because the snake could shed its skin each year and appear to be reborn. Now say, it will get down in you sometimes…” -Gil Scott-Heron. Winter in America. tvt records, 1974.

More data is coming in now that the 2007 MLS regular season is over. 3,270,210 people went to see games for an average attendance of 16,770. Last year that average was 15,504. That’s 8.2 percent growth from last season to this year. E-mailer “Soccer is Life” who dropped these numbers into my inbox notes this is the biggest jump since the 8.8 percent between 2000 and 2001. To no one’s surprise, the LA Galaxy had the highest attendances (again), but again our emailer notes that it’s “actually not higher than some of their winning seasons in the past, even with the so-called “Beckham Effect” this year.” He finishes by driving the nail in: “LA Galaxy continues to beat out the Lakers and Kings in attendance averages.”

It will get down in you get down in you if you let it. What say you Portland radio?

Check out more stats at US Soccer Players.

photo from fulhamfc.com

It wasn’t virtuosic, but that’s not Clint Dempsey’s game. Not yet anyhow, but it might not be too far down the road, because hard nose to the highway is this kid’s manner, and it showed on Saturday as he had a head (or foot) in each of Fulham’s 3 goals to tie Tottenham, one of the stronger teams (on paper) in the English Premier League. I can’t think of a more apt weekend for his production, as Clint is the definition of work, effort, labor.

It begs the question, as we celebrate the nation’s hard workers - most productive in the world they say - which American has had the best single-game perfomance?