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

Chris Carlone, no matter what he says below or what you take from this first photo, is no geek. He’s just like everybody else, except for maybe that rock and roll band thing, but i don’t want to spoil it. I’ll let Chris explain, but remember, he aint no geek.

you wish you were me

So I play on this indoor team. One night I give him a ride to our game to this guy. Small talk in the car inevitable turns into “what do you do,” so I casually ask him what he does for a living. He says he works for a company that films all the Nike US Soccer “Don’t Tread On Me” ad campaigns. Shit, I thought to myself. I consider myself a pretty high level US MNT fan…or should I say…geek. Actually, I’d say I’m a pretty big geek, so you have to know this drew some serious interest to me. I’m kind of surprised the guy didn’t jump out of the car and take rolling on asphalt at 50 mph than listen to my “oh shit man that is so cool, tell me all about it” shtick. Lucky for me, and his future self, he stayed, and to my surprise, ended up competing with me for title of #1 fan, at least as far as this automobile was concerned. I’m sure there are much bigger fans than me. How should I describe my fandom? How about this: I own the last three jerseys and have them on my wall (I happen to be 36 and married, not 16), I regularly check ussoccer.com and post on Big Soccer Boards and read Soccer America magazine religiously. I heavily follow any foreign team that carries any national team player; I even don’t hate Landon Donovan (even though he left my favorite MLS team - the now defunct Earthquakes - to join the dark side, a.k.a. LA Galaxy). And of course, I go to any National team game I can and watch every game on TV I can’t go to. And I should probably share that watching the game on TV is more like standing and screaming the entire time. So like I said, I know there are much bigger fans out there, but for a 36-year-old man with jerseys on his wall, I’d say I could hold my own with the big boys, or at least the big geeks. Click HERE for the full story…

When Peter Hockaday, a Senior Sports Reporter for The Casper Star-Tribune, wrote me an email, there really wasn’t any question about whether I was going to read it or not. The subject line read “Crap, Piss, and American Soccer.” Now who among us could say no to that? Here is what I found inside:

This is a decidedly Wyoming story, because that’s where I live and where this story is set. The state motto here is “Equal Rights” but it might as well be “Don’t Tread on Me.” Much like the American soccer team, Wyoming is a state that is overlooked and unknown. I admit I knew little about Wyoming before moving here for a job after college almost two years ago. I soon learned two important things about the state: the wind is as prevalent as Starbucks in my hometown of Seattle, and the terrain is surreal in its flatness. But that latter part can be a positive, too. To my delight, I found that my new place of residence had a sprawling 12-field soccer complex.

In the summer, we have the regular rec soccer leagues that I imagine take place in cities from South Carolina to California. But in the winter, that’s when things really get interesting. When the wind blows the snow across the road so hard you can’t see two feet in front of your car, when your nose hairs freeze every time you step out the door, that’s when the soccer players in Wyoming pull back the curtain and reveal quite a show. Click HERE for the full story…

And so it begins… the ‘Diary Project.’ The seeds were planted back with Dre and his military team, but now there is a conviction that was not present before. Over the next few months you will be periodically hearing from a lot of new people. As described in previous posts, the goal here is to expand our knowledge of the reality of soccer in the United States by sharing personal histories, anecdotes, and essays. Together they will rest as a diary for American soccer. To my knowledge, nothing like this exists. We have an opportunity to do something. You have an opportunity to contribute. The response to the last post has been great - I’m daily going through your stories and opinions - and I only want everyone to continue to share there stories with me.

I mentioned a young man last time out from Argentina. His story, his predicament really, is, well, why don’t I let him tell it. Meet Mariano Malisani.

I’m a 20-year-old Human Resources Management student at Ashworth College in Rosario, Argentina, the last country before you get to the land of Shackleton and Scott, of Emperor Penguins and ice, and the country in which I was born, raised and have lived my entire life. So why do I LOVE the US MNT? Mine is a country filled with soccer history (not just the “Hand of God”), beautiful women, and a constantly struggling political system (so it’s not like it is that different from the United States).

yes or no?
Click HERE for the full story…

Say what you will about the holiday season - the materialism, the overlooked history, the trampling of that little old lady so that you could get that last Xbox 360 - there’s still something left to be said in the defense of kindness.

Remember Andrea, our new friend stationed in the Persian Gulf (check the archives for ‘a few good men’ if you missed it)? Well, I recently heard from him again. He wanted to pass along some thankyou’s from his team.

When Andrea first sent me some photographs, I saw something I hadn’t seen in years. They were still using one of those old indoor balls that looks like a giant tennis ball and has the touch of a rubber playground ball made for dodgeball or four square, not soccer. Being that I hadn’t seen one of those furry green behemoths in more than a decade, I thought i’d try to my way into freebies from Nike. I thought it made perfect sense to send some swag over to the Air Force guys. Nike threw in some Don’t Tread On Me t-shirts that they could use as their team jerseys - Andrea said they were using pennies. My thinking was that I wanted to thank Dre for taking the time to help me out, they had to put the tennis ball to sleep, and really, who else can relate to Don’t Tread On Me better than someone in the military? It was a perfect fit. Click HERE for the full story…

Most of the e-mails I receive from people offer up their stories in hopes that I will write about them. I welcome this mail. As a writer, I am always searching for great stories, be it soccer or otherwise. And although I do receive a good amount of e-mails regarding the blog, it still amazes me that people are interested enough, if that is the right word, to take time to write just to say ‘thank you’ or ‘good work’ or ‘hello.’ A few weeks ago, a young man named Andrea Cantatore (or Dre) wrote me. His message was short and to the point. “I play soccer when I get a chance,” he wrote. “But it isn’t very often. I wanted to thank you for writing some good articles.” This in itself is not the reason I thought people might be interested in him. It was the only other sentence in his e-mail–the one I can not quote or paraphrase because of security risks–that engaged me to what might lie beyond his simple words. Click HERE for the full story…