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

…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!

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SAVING THE SOCCER MAGAZINE. OR NOT

I woke one morning a few weeks ago to Ives Galarcep highlighting a few soccer magazines and noting he would come back regularly and begin summarizing them, maybe something like Slate’s handy Today’s Papers column.

I commented that I was planning to do this for American soccer magazines, and Ives had beat me to it. But then I realized he had left me a window because he chose all international magazines. Ives came back with this:

“I have to be honest and say I just don’t have time to read the American magazines. Whenever I get my hands on a Soccer America I will check it out but that’s about it. The new Major League Soccer magazine looks nice but the information in the first one I read felt so dated to me. I guess that’s my problem. For the most part I will have already heard most of what I will find in American magazines. I will leaf through them on occasion when at Barnes & Noble but have yet to find one that compelled me to take it home.”

I know that feeling. It’s the reason why I had been sitting on this ‘American soccer magazine review’ idea since first getting my hands on the inaugural issue of MLS magazine. What was that, in July? Click HERE for the full story…

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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…

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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…

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If you are like me, good design helps keep you around. For example, I routinely flip through Dwell and Surface magazines, but I can’t remember ever reading something in either of them; maybe Dwell. My point is, beyond the fact that I can’t read more than a nut graph about design and architecture, aesthetics will never trump content in my mind, but they can have mutual interests. My point is it’s been more than two years of TIAS. I figured it was about time I changed my clothes.

What it means for you after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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I got nothing. But a whole lot is in the oven I promise. As a small taste, I was recently turned on to Twitter, a great place to share/dump/file all those thoughts running through your head. Maybe its a waste of time, or maybe somebody is giving me free space to keep notes for further gestation. Like most things, it is what you make of it. Me, I’ve got a lot of questions…

Do we need a week between MLS playoffs games? Can MLS only find an audience on Saturdays? Does defensive soccer have to be ugly soccer? Do we need to change the MLS playoff structure? Garber just alluded to “no” on 2nd DP slot for 2008, but everybody seems to thinks it’s happening. Will Galaxy’s offseason look like the Yankees? More than 30K tickets have been sold for MLS Cup final. Clearly there is an audience for a soccer game that matters, right? Does it matter to American soccer if U.S. hosts World Cup? Would you rather go to Australia in 2018 or Orlando for a game? Would you rather have Blanco or Beckham? What do I have to do to get GolTV in New York? It’s like getting books at Shawshank.

Get in and join the discussion at http://twitter.com/TIAS

‘ATWITTER’ cartoon by sarahl.com

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I’m waiting on a DVD to be released so that I can drop what might be the longest interview among long interviews here at TIAS. There’s also a few other big irons in the fire that will be delivered soon and explain in part the lack of recent posts. I’m also waiting for the MNT friendly this week and for Hope Solo to see the field again (not holding my breath). I’ve never wanted to see a story end happily ever after more than this one, and I’m usually the guy rooting for the bad guys. Should I wait for MLS to get a bump in coverage as the playoffs draw near or is that wishful thinking? What are you waiting for? MLS Playoffs? Beckham’s return? “Rossi to be an American” as one e-mailer wrote me?

Drop in the comments section or e-mail me and express what you’re waiting for. We can come back to it over the holidays and see if any of us got our wishes.

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Hurricane Katrina floods, devastates New Orleans. photo credit: Tyrone Turner for National Geographic.

Two years ago this week Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast of the United States altering the relationship between Americans and the environment, or did it?

That same week, two years ago today in fact, the day the levees broke, this here website got its start at a World Cup qualifying game chronicled in the inaugural piece, Breaking Tupperware with the US MNT and The PTA.

And there, in East Hartford, Connecticut, I remember sport once again filling the void left by disaster and in need of relief…
Click HERE for the full story…

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The 2006 American Soccer campaign is effectively over; its fiscal end, so to speak, comes to a close this weekend with the MLS Cup. We’ll get the usual hot-stove talk before the new year, especially from our Peace Cup Champions as they look to become World Cup Champions. January will materialize with an interesting transfer window for some American men looking for a change of scenery, which of course will only intensify the fixation our eyes and ears have for Europe, following our Yanks Abroad and pondering the potential squads that will be amassed for 2007. The ladies will soon need a World Cup roster, and someone will be naming a Copa America roster for the men. Who knows, maybe even Beckham will become an American problem.

There will, however, be an ebb and flow, and it is in these slight lulls over the coming weeks that TIAS will try to bring stories to the forefront that help to inspire and reinvigorate the soccer senses that have for better or worse been battered over the last year.

The love for a game takes that season-long roller coaster ride, finding some cheering and some left with contempt for colors, clubs, and countries. We would be wise to take a step back for rebirth, returning to the simple love for a game, for kicking a round ball around. As filmmaker Greg Hamilton told me a few weekends ago in an interview you’ll see in the coming weeks regarding his film, Mystic Ball, “There’s just something about manipulating a ball with your feet, whether its keeping it in the air or to score goals with it or whatever. There is something really extraordinary about that – extraordinarily difficult - and you know you’re just part of this weird fabulous thing.” So with that spirit in mind, we’ll be returning to your stories, your Diary Projects (send your’s here), and introspective pieces from our contributors (want to be a contributor? pitch me here).

We begin today with a letter from Gabriel Constans, a new contributor to the site. I believe we often find what we are looking for when we need it, and though the film Gabriel screened a few weeks back is several years old, it was new to him (and to me), and was exactly what we both needed. After a long, and at times trying, 2006, it is important to remember that this is what it’s all about.

Gabriel takes the reins after the jump…
Click HERE for the full story…

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left to right: Tarpley, Kai, Whitehill

A few things I didn’t want to slip past…

While most of us were pulling our tired bodies out of bed this morning, the US WNT was continuing their tour of South Korea, defeating the Netherlands 2-0 with goals from Lindsay Tarpley and Cat Whitehill, putting the ladies through to Saturday’s Peace Queen Cup Final. If the last string of World Cup tune-up matches is any indication, the better half of our National team picture is looking like a favorite for 2007.

And if anybody missed the Champion’s League clash between Arsenal and CSKA Moscow yesterday, WOW. No mystery I love Henry and the boys - some apparently don’t - but I can’t remember a game, in any sport, i enjoyed as much as that.

I mentioned earlier how I needed to watch some European ball after the boredom of last week’s MLS playoffs, and it seemed my wish was granted. FInal score: 0-0. Talk to me next week, but right now I don’t even care how many chances the north Londoner’s missed, or how the draw places them in jeopardy of not making it through to the knock-out stage of the tournament; the midfield play and one-touch passing at break neck speeds was the stuff dreams are made of… not to mention the goal tending and sweeping that held the high-octane Arsenal scoreless. Champion’s League indeed.

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