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

US WNT 2. Iceland 1. A narrow victory this weekend followed the drubbing handed to Chinese Taipai. One thing I love about international soccer is you never really know what’s going to happen. Especially in friendlies. Who plays, who sits, who cares? There’s plenty of factors, not the least of which is fan support, which at the Home Depot Center, didn’t seem to be a problem. Hannah Lee was kind enough to share her experience after the jump.
Click HERE for the full story…

It was down in Chinatown at my favorite field in the city, this little jail of a field that never ceases to be filled with games. It’s like going to heaven and knowing the doors will be open, as long as you don’t mind getting your ass kicked in heaven. Because the players on this pitch tend to know a thing or two about kicking that round ball around and they don’t mind showing it to you – make that shoving it down your throat – when you step onto the pitch. So, It was down in Chinatown at my favorite field in the city, when a group of kids were tying their shoes and getting ready to play. With a absence of tact, one of the kids said as he climbed to his feet, “ready crackers, these Mexicans are going to be beat our asses. We might have the authentic jerseys, but they have this game in their blood.” Said in jest, no doubt, and about people who clearly weren’t Mexican. Money can’t buy you love the cliché sends, and I think its safe to say it can’t buy you a national pastime either. Turn this artificial grass into parquet and this conversation might be different, but this is soccer, and the white kids with the EPL jerseys on were in the very least a little insecure about their skills.
Click HERE for the full story…

We’ve all heard it. If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? Or rather, if the US WNT plays in Rochester and is televised nationally on ESPN2, does that make some noise? What about buzz? Is there buzz? Because that is what our newest contributor, James Weise, news director at Kick This!, is looking for? Read his first (of hopefully many) contributions after the jump.
Click HERE for the full story…

What’s yours? What will you make of it? Check in with one such dreamer after the jump as our Diary Project adds to the time capsule.
Click HERE for the full story…

—–Original Message—–
From: Wes
Sent: Friday, September 08, 2006 10:41 AM
To: This Is American Soccer [mailto:thisisamericansoccer@gmail.com]
Subject: Re: MLS

You have some valid points about Don Garber and “the league” as you call It, holding players here. Here are my points:
Click HERE for the full story…

I can’t be everywhere at once. That’s where Rusty comes in. It’s where you could come in too. Send me your soccer-related story ideas, adventures, and anecdotes, and we might use ‘em here at TIAS. We’re in the early stages of ramping up the site and will be looking for contributors to exact an exciting perspective that maybe I’ve missed. I can’t be everywhere, and that’s where Rusty comes in…
Click HERE for the full story…

So I have been wanting to do something with Soccer In The Streets for some time, and when I got the letter below from their director Jill Robbins, I finally had a peg. I had something written on the organization a long time ago, but after reading Jill’s letter, on top of my belief that whenever possible, the best way to tell a story is to let those whose story it is tell it, I decided I’d simply share her words with you.

My piece basically explained my belief that Soccer In The Streets is just about the greatest organization in the world of soccer. Then, Jason Longshore, their communications director, sent me some photos of the kids they work with, which made me replace the words ‘just about’ with ‘most definitely’.

Please follow the links to their homepage, and think about how you might be able to contribute to this great cause. Just as soccer is treated in the United States – that one time every four years that you stop and pay attention to something really really really great – more important things such as poverty, racism, and the overwhelming inequities of our societies are too seldom recognized, addressed and given the proper attention.

Jill’s letter is after the jump.
Click HERE for the full story…

American soccer is going global, and it has nothing to do with Germany, unless we’re talking Bundesliga and Keller. Our country’s trade deficit doesn’t translate to soccer, where our exports greatly outweigh our imports. While it hurts on some level to see the players go, you understand that they want to play for, with, and against the best, where they can get better and earn higher salaries. If you can accept this (and everyone should at this point because it means a stronger US MNT even if it detracts from MLS), that only leaves one question: how do I follow DaMarcus Beasley’s PSV or Onyewu’s Standard Leige? As we wait for what I would like to think are inevitable changes - players and broadcasts will be venturing Stateside in the future - we’re still left with a gap to fill now.

Enter Yanks Abroad, who beat everyone to that gap, and have been filling it (while emptying their bank accounts) ever since. YA stands with a small group as one of those things you come across, and just love it. It fits you; it gives you what you need. It’s first love; it’s perfect; it’s, a wait-why-didn’t-I-think-of-that kind of moment. One could argue the writing leaves a little bit to be desired - as with any news service, the information overload and daily grind of deadlines, not to mention understaffing, doesn’t always allow for fine prose - but the YA guys have done an immense service to American soccer fans, and I give them the biggest compliment you can get in the world wide web: signing up for the e-mail newsletter. With a strong business model, they could eventually, someday, you never know, reap financial gains, allowing more time for quality while not skimping on the quantity. And who doesn’t want to get paid to go to soccer games, European club teams no less?

With the Diary Project, my goals have been to capture a moment in time for American Soccer. With any adolescence, we have this teetering maturity that in any consecutive moments is infantile and full grown. With every answer there are two more questions. You’ll never quite sure who will show up for the next game or the next year. The light at the end of the tunnel is a strobe light, on-off, on-off quicker then you can count. It’s a constant cycle of consumption and growth, purging mistakes, missteps, and malcontent. In short, you pay your dues. You scrape and crawl without apology to the next test, and then work even harder. The story of Yanks Abroad is the same as our nation in that degree. Success is not granted. There is also a symbiotic relationship between the two, As goes US soccer, so goes Yanks Abroad, because without yanks abroad, there is no Yanks Abroad. It will be interesting to see what kind of variable MLS will play, in buildiing American soccer, in polishing players for European games (and YA reports), and maybe one day in closing the trade gap.

Rich poor win lose grow fade away? You just can’t say right now for US soccer, so we take a moment to look around so we will know from where we came. Thanks to Chad Winger, Mark Flannery, Rich Fidler and Greg Seltzer for the document. Their moment is after the jump.
Click HERE for the full story…

With Alaska, there are always questions. For me, the first question was “when do we go.” I’ve long been fascinated with the 49th state, urging my parents to take me there in high school, and dreaming of going back the day we left. I chose topics for my master’s thesis that allowed me to travel back to the state in 2004, spending a month meandering throughout the Alexander Archipelago like the peripatetic whales I spent days kayaking next to. I’ve seen the endless midnight sunlight of summer along knife-edged ridges miles above the sea and swam in the bluest glacial waters. When I die, if we get to chose, I want Alaska as my heaven. So when Elias Ulvi wrote me from from the last frontier, I knew I had to get him to contribute. It turns out he knows about Alaskan questions as well, and that is where we start our next installment of the Diary Project…

Click HERE for the full story…

MLS and MLB both started their seasons over the weekend. Spring is in the air. Every year about this time, taking a look down at those few extra pounds that found there way to my midsection over the winter, I wonder what could have been. What if I stuck with soccer, stuck with any sport for that matter. Could I have gone pro? Call me a complete idiot, I still think I could have. Idiot.

Life is full of choices. Or at least that is what my mom told me when I fought that kid in fifth grade over a four square game, called him a son of a motherless goat (The Three Amigos was huge then), and had a little meeting with the principal. She also fed me that cliche when I got caught with three teammates from the Varsity soccer team smoking marijuana after practice, and again, got a glorious meeting with the principal.

It happened countless more times. Life is full of choices. It took me all the way to college to fully realize the choices we make. For the first time, I was in control. I could choose my college, my major, my life in no uncertain terms. I chose to stop playing soccer for the first time in more than a decade, for no small part because I could do what I wanted now without the threat of the principal’s office or the watchful eye of parental wisdom. It wasn’t that I hated soccer, but I knew it wasn’t going to be my career because I wasn’t THAT good, and moreover, there were a lot of things I wanted to do.

As the years slide by, you are faced with more questions with less or at least different opportunities. What do you want to do and how bad do you want it? Answer those questions honestly and proceed accordingly. It’s that simple.
Click HERE for the full story…