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

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…

one of the “top 100 freshman to watch” reflects on his transition from high school to college soccer

written by Steven Amaya

It’s been a crazy year, the transition from high school to college: new, harder classes; a new, more competitive team. Oneonta, where Hartwick College is located, though only a few hours away by train from where I grew up in Queens New York, felt like a different planet. I quickly learned that it is all about controlling fear. The fear of the rising level of play, the increasing responsibility in both soccer and school, the amount of distractions I encountered. Will I fit into the team, the school? Will I get playing time as a freshman? Can I take advantage of opportunity? It’s a lot of pressure, in the shadow of the soccer hall of fame no less. In my jump from high school to college soccer, just as in what seems my entire life, I have found my ability to manage fear to be the determining factor for excellence or failure. Click HERE for the full story…

This week you read what ranks as maybe my favorite conversation I’ve had here at TIAS. It’s one thing to speak to soccer writing’s professional all-stars like Grant Wahl and Steve Goff, but it’s all together something different and special to be able to speak to a man like Greg Hamilton. Certain people, certain work, transcend the medium for which they reside in this terrestrial world. Greg, his film, his work, and his soul all qualify. To conclude our chase, after the jump Greg brings us up to speed on what he has been up to since we spoke last November… Click HERE for the full story…

one man finds the reward from a rare sport is family

Chinlone, who knew? Greg Hamilton’s dedication to his sport is something we can all - RBNY? - learn from. We pick up the conversation after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

a rare sport on the other side of the world saved his life - now he wants to give back.

“Chinlone and soccer – same family. There’s just something better about manipulating a ball with your feet, whether it’s keeping it in the air or to score goals with it or whatever. And then to do it as a team, there is something really extraordinary about that – extraordinarily difficult and you know, you’re just part of this weird fabulous thing. You know we are so good at using our hands, but a foot sport is just like wow – its odd in a way and it shows something about humans who would do something so odd and be driven to do so out of nothing more than the joy of it.”

A team combination of sport and dance with no opposing team, Chinlone, a sport native to Myanmar, is essentially a non-competitive exercise not too dissimilar to juggling a soccer ball. There is no scoreboard, no winner, no loser, however the sport is as physically demanding as any. Those who come to know it, practice it, seldom master it, yet find they are nearly unable to live without it.

Greg Hamilton is such a man, and Mystic Ball, the documentary film he made with movie partner Matthew London was his first gift back to the sport. In the years since its creation, it has won numerous awards and prizes, and Greg has continued giving back, as the sport continues to bestow gifts on him.

A year ago this November I spoke to Greg about his long journey through life to Chinlone, and struck up one of those friendships that could only exist in our digital world. I had just seen Mystic Ball, and though it had nothing at all to do with soccer, the visual similarities were too striking for me to let it pass. What I found on the other end of an e-mail, after a long long phone conversation, forced my hand. I had to share it. It’s not American soccer, but American soccer could learn something from chinlone.

But the world got in the way. Greg’s global traveling, from film festivals to Myanmar, hindered my deadlines. Our mutual hope that the film would be purchased for theatrical release had me holding the story in hopes of timely publication. But it didn’t happen that way. And then a few thousand monks started marching… and here we are.

Chinlone is a search for community, and it should be no surprise that Greg, after beating back the anger of his childhood through martial arts, would be drawn to something like Chinlone, Myanmar, and the people of Mandalay. And once you read the interview, it should be no surprise why people are drawn to Greg. But it started much more simply than that. There was no spiritual lightning bolt when Hamilton happened upon a man juggling an unusual, woven ball in a park in Toronto. But there was a sense he needed to learn more. He had to know what it was. I had to know why? After the jump begins our 3-part conversation, with parts 2 and 3 following in the coming days.
Click HERE for the full story…

U.S. Tops Switzerland 1-0 in Europe to End Losing Streak

He delivered what I thought was the best game preview written in the last few days. And now Michael J. Agovino is back, reporting from the US MNT’s 1-0 win over Switzerland in Basel. But this might have to be it for Michael. Or people are going to start to expect this kind of sharp, concise writing all the time at TIAS. And that doesn’t bode well for me.
Click HERE for the full story…

From Irv Smalls (back, center, with the shaved head in the above photo), Director of FC Harlem:

On Saturday Dutch soccer star Edgar Davids and his street soccer team from the Netherlands, Monta, paid a visit to FC HARLEM’s travel teams. ESPN filmed the piece on the handball courts at Jacob Schiff Playground. The Harlem community turned out to watch our FC HARLEM LIONS learn some tricks from some of the best free style players in the world before taking them on in a small-sided 4v4 game. FC HARLEM players held their own, In fact Monta and Edgar were so impressed with a few of our high school players they invited some of them to play on Sunday against the NIKE Futsal Team, going as far as to inquire about their availability to travel with them!

I was unable to attend the fun this weekend, but Irv was nice enough to share a few photos after the jump. Every league, director, coach, and parent out there should be watching this guy…
Click HERE for the full story…

A few weeks ago - if you didn’t know before – we were all reintroduced to a certain American soccer player when reporter Steven Sandor of Sun Media noted an Arsenal scout in the press box at a recent Toronto FC game. The report alluded to said scout’s apparent interest in Chivas USA Goal Keeper Brad Guzan, and the article quickly forgets about the scout (which he lead the piece with??) and meanders on about American goal keepers abroad.

Guzan is quoted in the piece, saying, “I’m only 22 years old. I know I have a long career ahead of me.” Funny thing, that Arsenal scout could have said the same thing. He’s only 23. He also could have said the same thing when he was a player, but that would have been wrong.

That Arsenal scout is Danny Karbassiyoon, the youngest American player to score a goal in English club competition (a game-winner for Arsenal, assisted by Cesc Fabregas, in the 90th minute of a Carling Cup game no less), and one of the more unfortunate injury stories of recent American soccer history.

A standout youth player in Virginia. A meteoric rise through Arsenal’s reserve squad only to be released by the club. Stints followed with the English clubs Ipswich Town and Burnley. Offers came in from the Iranian National Team. And then the wheels came off; the knee just wouldn’t spin with the engine. Retired at age 22.

Why Sandor decided to write another column on the popularity of American goal keepers in England, I’ll never know, but I should thank him along with Arsenal’s communications department in helping me track down Danny. And of course, I have to thank Danny for taking the time out of his busy schedule to speak with TIAS over the phone from his parents printing shop in Roanoke, Virginia, and for sharing some photos from his personal collection.

How’s the knee? How’s the scouting? What is he looking for in youth players? Did he really announce his retirement on Facebook? All those answers and more after the jump in this TIAS exclusive…
Click HERE for the full story…

tias exclusive

FILMMAKERS TAKE SOCCER DOCUMENTARY HOME. SCREENING FOR FILM’S SUBJECTS

When I first met Roger Bennett, he was standing in front of the East side Manhattan cinema where the film he created with Director Christopher Browne and fellow producers Alexander Browne and Michael Cohen, Sons of Sakhnin United, was about to be screened by the open-minded if a bit elitist Tribeca Film Festival patrons. Roger nor his Arsenal-tattooed colleague Cohen waiting with him seemed to be nervous. This wasn’t the world premiere, and the euphoria of finishing the film, getting it into the festival, and receiving rave reviews was all the satisfaction they needed.

Taking the film to Jerusalem, however, was a different story. A makeshift screening in a coffee house in Sahknin, complete with mayor, mullah, and Abbas Suan in attendance would prove even more nerve-racking.

Roger was kind enough to share his once in a lifetime experience with TIAS. And what with England and Israel facing off in a Euro 2008 qualifier on Saturday, there is no more perfect time to reflect on the realities of soccer in Israel.

The filmmaker’s adventure in screening is after the jump…
Click HERE for the full story…

Beckham lines up a free kick. So many they were, I can’t remember if this one went in or not.

It’s late late Saturday night. After 48 hours following David Beckham around New York City, did you think I wasn’t going out after the game? No, not with Beckham, but that’s nice of you to assume. Now to this crazy game… Click HERE for the full story…