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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…

THE DIARY PROJECT RETURNS

Typically in soccer circles the term ‘Yanks Abroad’ conjures European images, but surprise!, Americans are living in other countries…

Typically in MLS circles the league’s competition (or lack thereof) is viewed in a European context, but surprise!, soccer is being played in other countries…

Typically only European super clubs like Real Madrid or Manchester United go on World Tours, but surprise!, MLS is getting into the act…

Like in Australia, where the country’s top league holds a similar footing as MLS in the United States and where the Los Angeles Galaxy were welcomed last week on the first leg of their South Pacific roadshow. Fortunately for TIAS, Travis Clark was there when the two leagues collided. His impressions are after the jump.

Send in your Diary Project entries now! 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…

As if I could be any more jealous of the Washington Post’s Steve Goff over in China covering the Women’s World Cup. There’s a mammoth typhoon heading toward Shanghai, and for reasons I can’t fully explain, I really love storms and have a morbid wish to experience first hand natural disasters. Let’s just say when Mother Nature throws down the hammer, I want a front row seat.

The same wanting goes for the US WNT, who despite the storm - the center or eye of the typhoon is targetting Shanghai for the first time in ten years - managed a 1-0 victory over Nigeria to win their group. Lori Chalupny scored in the first minute, with the rest of the game being a wash. literally.

Follow Goff’s updates on everything WWC at his Insider Blog.

Check out the full game report at ussoccer.com

photo from fulhamfc.com

It wasn’t virtuosic, but that’s not Clint Dempsey’s game. Not yet anyhow, but it might not be too far down the road, because hard nose to the highway is this kid’s manner, and it showed on Saturday as he had a head (or foot) in each of Fulham’s 3 goals to tie Tottenham, one of the stronger teams (on paper) in the English Premier League. I can’t think of a more apt weekend for his production, as Clint is the definition of work, effort, labor.

It begs the question, as we celebrate the nation’s hard workers - most productive in the world they say - which American has had the best single-game perfomance?

Kabul, Afghanistan, 2006. Credit: Rodrigo Abd for the AP.

That road to hell, as they say, is paved with good intentions. And along the road this weekend in Afghanistan are seemingly endless poppy fields, maybe a soccer field or two if you look hard enough.

BBC reported this morning that the United States thorough understanding of Islamic piety continues to baffle in mountainous nation:

“A demonstration has been held in south-east Afghanistan accusing US troops of insulting Islam after they distributed footballs bearing the name of Allah. The balls showed the Saudi Arabian flag which features the Koranic declaration of faith… Some displayed flags from countries all over the world, including Saudi Arabia, which features the shahada, one of the five pillars of Islam - the declaration of faith. The balls were intended as a gift to Afghan children. The words, which include the name of Allah, are revered, and Muslims are very sensitive about where and how they can be used. Saudi Arabia has complained to the World Cup’s ruling body in the past about the use of its flag on footballs.”

Freddy Adu has played his last Major League Soccer game for what would appear at least the next five years, which is the reported length of his deal with Portugese Super Liga club Benfica. I’ve long supported Americans playing abroad, so I’m happy to see Freddy get his chance.

But it’s just not that simple.
Click HERE for the full story…

Ivory Coast, 5. Madagascar, 0. Didier Drogba, priceless. photo by Austin Merrill for vanityfair.com

If you’ve been following along with my journey over the last two years here at TIAS, you’ve read about my fascination with Didier Drogba and the Ivory Coast national soccer team. It is a story we are all likely familiar with in soccer circles, so why am I covering it again? And what does it have to do with American Soccer?

Well, for starters, as many American soccer fans can attest, sometimes you need a little reminder that the sport we love is as important as we think it is… somewhere. Not here, sigh, but somewhere, where people honestly believe it can end a war. And maybe it can.

And because this time, it is more a story about Austin Merrill, a former Peace Corp volunteer and Associated Press writer in the Ivory Coast. He now works at Vanity Fair, where we find his first person narrative about returning to the war-torn country and attending the Elephants’ African Nations Cup qualifier against Madagascar, in which there were “five goals to erase five years of war,” as a newspaper headline read the day after the Ivory Coast victory.

A must read: Best Feet Forward