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

I think there was more media there than any soccer event I have ever been to. And throughout all the coverage you’re gonna see the only thing I can say I got that they don’t is this photo. It’s a keeper.

I’m gonna go with the annotated photo story for this one, because that’s sort of the hand I was dealt. Seated on the ground behind a goal isn’t the best place to watch the game, but it gets you some good camera angles. And from the looks of it–I mean people I knew from glossy magazines were there–you’re going to be hearing plenty about it. I’m hoping someone writes it up as a real game story. That would be fun to read. So on to the Steve Nash Foundation Charity Classic presented by (I didn’t recognize the logo on the t-shirt)…

(UPDATED WITH BEST VIDEO YOU WILL SEE OF THE EVENT)

—- Click HERE for the full story…

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For those who know me, it is no secret I love soccer and love jazz. For those who follow the two art forms, it is no surprise that neither are popular in the United States.

I recently wrote an essay for GOOD magazine–one of the better magazine launches in the last few years that I’m psyched to be even a small part of–on the state of jazz in the U.S.

On top of my own experience chasing jazz across the country I interviewed several musicians to get their thoughts. One of those I spoke to was pianist Jason Moran. At the end of of our interview I couldn’t help but inquire about what I saw as the existence soccer and jazz share in our country.

As JVC Jazz Fest begins in New York, after the jump we talk about a comparison you may not have thought about. 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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The Seattle Sounders are not the only thing leaving the USL this year. Another Pacific Northwest soccer icon is hanging it up. The Portland Timbers’ Jim Serrill retired last Thursday, razing the fans as Timber Jim one final time.

I thought this would get more attention in the soccersphere but I guess a mascot–a word I don’t think quite fits Jim–doesn’t pull attention when they aren’t in front of the home crowd.

Maybe too it was time for a chainsaw-wielding icon to step aside as the city of Portland and indeed much of the Northwest continues its make-over from a region famous for resource extraction to one more interested in conservation.

Now I’ve never been a big fan of mascots. The only indelible memory I have of this sporting sideshow is the Atlanta Braves’ blatantly racist Chief Nokahoma accidently setting fire to his teepee in the left field bleachers of Fulton County Stadium.

But Timber Jim was different. As longtime Timbers fan Brian Costello said it in an e-mail that included the photographs you see here and after the jump, “It was an immense night.” Click HERE for the full story…

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At 40, Fox Soccer Report anchor and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) broadcaster Mitch Peacock has seen a few things, held a few jobs. My father on the other hand has had one job, been with one company his entire professional life. At 30, I’ve already surpassed him. The reality of my dad’s career inadvertently raised me to think that was the norm, that if for some reason you bounced from job to job there was something wrong. Then I entered the journalism world and came to realize that he is the rare case.

With this newfound knowledge, I forced myself to speak to as many people as possible to rectify my worn-in belief, to prove without a shadow of a doubt that leaving one job and taking another is not only not a bad thing, but could in fact be better, maybe even required if you expect to progress in your career.

Early in the life of TIAS I decided to reach out to some soccer journalists in order to learn their stories and discover their paths. Soccer journalism is its own beast with its own issues and following those issues is imperative I believe to getting at my self imposed editorial directive: What is American soccer? As goes the sport in this country, so goes the media, or is it the other way around?

The fact that the #1 soccer highlight show—number one because it’s the only one—in the country is produced in Canada by a Canadian company and sold to other markets, the U.S. being just one, is a great example of the at times, umm, odd?, soccer marketplace. With dwindling budgets, un-(soccer)educated editors, publishers, and producers, not to mention the hyper-fracturing of the consumer base, soccer is forced even further out in order to find a place in this wide world of sports and entertainment. Apparently that means Winnipeg, Manitoba.

As with soccer, each of our own professional aspirations and career paths face a daunting future. We all must find a place in this continually more competitive world. Peacock’s story, which he shares with me after the jump, is a prime example.

Click HERE for the full story…

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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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“But back windows aint much good for looking out. I never did like looking backwards no how. I always did believe in looking out front–looking ahead–which is why I’s worried about Rodney: What do you reckon’s out there in them streets for that boy?”

-Langston Hughes from The Sweet Flypaper of Life, a photo story about a family living at 113 West 134th Street in 1955 New York.

The home of FC Harlem is just a few blocks and more than a half century away… Click HERE for the full story…

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