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

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…

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…

It’s not exclusive to soccer or even sports. I think it has something to do with human nature, specifically fear and comfort-ability. How else can you explain the hegemony within the constant reshuffling of power positions inside USSF or the fact that it seems everybody who gets the jobs I want has a famous family or friend?

Yesterday John Hackworth was fired from his position as head coach of the U17 national team and residency program director. Today he was relegated/demoted/promoted to assistant coach of the US MNT and Development Academy Director. Given the incestuous maneuvering – Rick Reilly to ESPN/Dan Patrick to Sports Illustrated springs to mind of another reshuffling – what is really changing?

A Rose by any other name is stinking up the joint after the jump…
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.

Switzerland is looking for light in the shadows of European soccer. That’s trouble for the U.S.

Just another friendly. We learned a lot. They’re a good team. That’s the gist of what we’ll be hearing from numerous players and coaches after the US MNT and Switzerland finish play in Basel. And maybe it’s true. Thats the rub with friendlies. With sports journalism really. Can we really trust anything any of them say? A timely question - Hope - now more than ever - Solo. If we can’t trust what they say, that still leaves us reams of technical data and circumstance.

When it comes to sport, I’m not one for data because they are yet to quantify emotion. That leaves us circumstance. Which is exactly why the US MNT better not come out like they did against Sweden in August. Switzerland is swimming in circumstance.

It also helps if you have a good writer to make sense of it. Former Newsweek and Esquire Magazine editor Michael J. Agovino - he last wrote about soccer (jerseys) for Slate here - was kind enough to take time away from a book project in Zurich to set the scene. After the jump, Michael tells us what we should expect from the Swiss.
Click HERE for the full story…

Men’s National Team Roster vs. Switzerland. Basel, Switzerland. October 17, 2007

GOALKEEPERS (3): Marcus Hahnemann (Reading FC), Tally Hall (Esbjerg), Chris Seitz (Real Salt Lake)
DEFENDERS (7): Carlos Bocanegra (Fulham FC), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Dan Califf (Aalborg BK), Jay Demerit (Watford FC), Oguchi Onyewu (Standard de Liege), Heath Pearce (Hansa Rostock), Steve Purdy (1860 Munich)
MIDFIELDERS (7): Freddy Adu (SL Benfica), DaMarcus Beasley (Glasgow Rangers), Michael Bradley (SC Heerenveen), Maurice Edu (Toronto FC), Benny Feilhaber (Hamburger SV), Eddie Lewis (Derby County), Danny Szetela (Racing Santander)
FORWARDS (4): Clint Dempsey (Fulham FC), Robbie Findley (Real Salt Lake), Preston Zimmerman (Hamburger SV), Sal Zizzo (Hannover 96)

A quick reaction and then straight to the always thorough USSF press release after the jump…
Click HERE for the full story…

THE GOOD CHILD: a program enters murky waters for first time

After three-plus weeks of watching the US WNT compete in the Women’s World Cup, losing sleep, spending predawn mornings watching soccer from halfway around the globe, riffing on Hope and Solo witticisms – ok so my list is not going to stack up against Steve Goff’s, so let’s just stop here. Half-naked in silky French national team shorts is not territory I want this website to cover.

But whether you were in China, as Steve was, or sitting on a couch in the darkness of morning with the TV turned low so as to not wake up your roommates, it’s been a long strange trip through the WWC.

Maybe it was all just a dream…
Click HERE for the full story…

Brad Friedel talks to TIAS about his effort to develop American youth

Every professional soccer player who wants to be the best is going to Europe to play. In the past, for American kids who dream to be that player some day, there hasn’t been too many options to help the initial growth. Since 1999, 40-odd kids annually win the lottery if they are selected to USSF’s Bradenton Residency Program, located at IMG Academies, the private campus that charges upwards of $50,000 a year for non-scholarship club players to hone their skills on the fields next to those of USSF and the U17 US MNT. That’s it; that’s the list. You have summer camps and clubs innumerable, even ones under the muse of Beckham, but as for full time soccer instruction integrated into academic education, Bradenton was it.

Not anymore. We’re not building the world’s tallest skyscraper here, but former US and present Blackburn goal keeper Brad Friedel made a huge splash this fall when his Premier Soccer Academies in Cleveland, Ohio, welcomed their first full time residency student/players.

If competition breeds quality, this can only be good…
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…