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

I wasn’t sure Frank Dell’apa would want to talk to me. Like most I presume, I heard via du Nord that he was being moved at the Boston Globe, where he has been a sports reporter since 1989, from covering his preferred beat (Revolution and international soccer) to the Celtics. To be moved from soccer to basketball would be a promotion to most, but not to Frank, not to his loyal readership. It would be understandable if he just didn’t want to talk about it for a number of easy to deduce reasons.

But he said yes. And as with his decades of reporting, we are all the more lucky because of it. And for the digital time capsule of this here site, it kind of comes with perfect timing (sorry Frank). It is just that for a man who has spent his life in sports journalism chasing soccer this unexpected career tangent elicits perspective, which begs to be gathered up, marked down, and reconsidered as we determine the future—-journalism and soccer, observers and participants. Our conversation is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

Welcome to the Designated Players.

I know you have been holding your breath.

What’s that?

After those-half-ass-viral-campaign-teaser-banners? What, a few new prominent links?

Please. Lame.

That is one way to look at it. Click HERE for the full story…

For how small the soccer writing community is here in the United States, there is quite a lot of them. The creation of the Soccer Reporters spelled that out for me crystal clear. Goes to show just how big the United States is. Also goes to show once you start talking to some of them how incredibly few work exclusively on soccer.

Varied careers involving an international sport often creates a unique experience–Hey even Wilbon wants to be one. Now say your other job focusing largely on covering the next biggest international stage after the World Cup. You might have something to say about why sport is special and what we’ve lost along the way.

After speaking with USA Today’s Beau Dure, I found out he is just such a man… Click HERE for the full story…

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…

EDITOR IN CHIEF OF FUTBOL MUNDIAL IS BREAKING DOWN BORDERS,

WAITING FOR AMERICAN SOCCER TO CATCH UP

Robert Abramowitz has a drool-inducing resume: Television Commentator/Anchor - ESPN International (Latin America) & ESPN Deportes (US) - May 1994 – Present. Radio Commentator - NFL/Westwood One/Univisión Radio - November 2003-Present. Radio/TV Play-by Play/Analyst - New York Knicks - May 1996 – Present. Television Voiceover/HBO Sports - August 2001 – Present. And of course, Editor in Chief - Fútbol Mundial - May 2002 – Present.

And that’s just the stuff he is presently working on, to say nothing of his past. So, um, Robert might have a thing or two to say about Hispanics and American sports. You can find Part 1 of our conversation here; we pick up with the state of Futbol Mundial and FM USA after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

A SPECIAL ACN EDITION

Like The Daily Show without writers, this is a different kind of barometer. Remember this amazing piece by Austin Merrill, former Associated Press writer in the Ivory Coast? Well, he’s back (in Africa), working on another story, and while soccer is not his focus, there just so happens to be a little tournament going on at the same time. I like to call it the Africa Cup of Nations. Austin was kind enough to take a break from reporting on subjects that really matter and write exclusively for TIAS a little slice of soccer life in Ghana. South Africa buying supporters? Check it out, after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

EDITOR IN CHIEF OF FUTBOL MUNDIAL IS BREAKING DOWN BORDERS,

WAITING FOR AMERICAN SOCCER TO CATCH UP

Robert Abramowitz - that’s him on the right before the Mexico-Iran game in Cologne, Germany, at the 2006 World Cup - has a drool-inducing resume: Television Commentator/Anchor - ESPN International (Latin America) & ESPN Deportes (US) - May 1994 – Present. Radio Commentator - NFL/Westwood One/Univisión Radio - November 2003-Present. Radio/TV Play-by Play/Analyst - New York Knicks - May 1996 – Present. Television Voiceover/HBO Sports - August 2001 – Present. And of course, Editor in Chief - Fútbol Mundial - May 2002 – Present.

And that’s just the stuff he is presently working on, to say nothing of his past. So, um, Robert might have a thing or two to say about Hispanics and American sports. But first, let’s get to know him. Part 1 of our conversation is after the jump, with future installments coming as soon as I figure out how to transcribe all the Spanish off the recorder. Click HERE for the full story…

forget everything you knew about hawaii. remember everything you love about soccer

That’s a picture of Hawaii. Looks cold, no? Maybe you knew maybe you didn’t: you can snowboard on Mauna Kea – that’s ‘white mountain’ in the islands’ native language – the 13,796-foot volcano on the big island which shares its name with the state. This blew my mind the first time I heard about it. Stop and think about it, and it makes perfect sense. Same goes with the time I ran into a protest near a popular beach on Oahu and learned that there is a nationalistic secession movement in Hawaii among the native community calling for the islands’ independence and the return of the Hawaiian Kingdom, which was toppled in 1893 by businessmen and politicians looking to control the booming plantation economy among other interests.

These surprises – the fact that I never learned these facts in or out of school – go to show it’s dangerous to just accept the postcard perception. It’s always good to take the time to look around; you never know what you might learn, what you might fall in love with. I think that’s something every soccer fan knows a little something about. You have to want to find soccer. And when you do, it has to be about you; while the atmosphere is changing, the likelihood remains that the great majority could not care less.

Which is why I was ecstatic to learn that filmmakers at Stryker-Indigo are working on a documentary about the history of soccer – more than 100 years of it - in Hawaii. The film, Pele’s Children - more than halfway finished and looking toward a 2009 release - is if nothing else an act of love. It is being made because the filmmakers want to make it. It’s a story both personal and universal. That combination represents the best of art and the best of sport.

I sat down over the phone with one of the project’s leaders, George Fosty, to get the story behind the film. Our conversation is after the jump. 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…