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

Discovered at the age of 10 in New York. In an elite American residency program in Pennsylvania at age 11. Three seasons at FC Metz youth academy in France at 13. A year in Italy as an amateur on AS Livorno’s reserves at 17, followed by a spell in Scotland at St. Mirren.

A soccer vagabond by the age of 19, Devann Yao is now back home in New York, and that’s where he wants to stay. What’s a kid got to do get a little attention around here? Click HERE for the full story…

(this is all five parts of the story in its entirety)

Ron Isley croons from the stereo of the Audi A6 Quattro Clint Dempsey purchased from sports agency-mate Ryan Nelsen. “You fool one day you’re here and then you’re gone.” But before the beat drops, before UGK’s Pimp C and Bun B have a chance to trade verses about making the most of the Texas youth they were dealt, before we’re even out of the parking lot of Dempsey’s apartment, we’re out of the car.

Across the street private preparatory school blazers are tossed to the sidewalk; tiny fists on fragile arms flail like loose garden hoses. “What the…. Should we break up that fight?” Dempsey asks without a glance to me, his big black eyes fixated on the fracas as if he already has his answer. “Sure, your town your call,” I tell him beginning to crack open the passenger seat door. We jump out of the car stopping traffic on the bustling two-lane road in London’s Wimbledon neighborhood. The dozen kids, no older than 12 maybe 13, turn toward us as we approach, taking notice of the bigger boys calling out, “Hey, what are you….”

Click HERE for the full story…

PART 5

Looking over photos back in New York, it’s clear that the closest I ever got to being Clint Dempsey was on the golf course (and that probably will end once he puts in some practice). The flare that helped get Clint to where he is today might be lacking at the moment as he fights for playing time in a system at Fulham that often works against the instincts he and his brother developed in the name of Maradona in the trailer park, but listening to Clint talk about his game, you know those skills are there if only in hibernation. And I’m not one to wake a sleeping beast. Golf though, well, I figure if I was going to take Clint in something, the frustrating game of golf was my best shot. Click HERE for the full story…

PART 4

It’s dark out, time has gotten away. I didn’t envision talking to Dempsey to be this easy, for him to be so engaged. I should probably let the guy get some rest. But he keeps asking questions, almost as many as me. He wants to compare our lives, proving his point that he’s just another guy working his way up. Click HERE for the full story…

PART 3

Lance Dempsey now coaches soccer in North Carolina. Seeing the game from the other side of the sidelines gave him a new respect for the work his older brother put in. “My parents sacrificed a lot,” he tells me. “But I don’t want it to sound like something crazy, like we were homeless, like Clint was the focus of the family. My parents did what any good parents would do. They helped all of us. Clint put in a lot of work.”

That work began as is typical among siblings, with the younger brother trying to keep up with his older brother. Ryan, now 30, has five years on Clint, whose feet were firmly placed in the elder’s footprints at a very young age. The boys took to the free form and constant flow of soccer over the traditional family favorites, football and baseball. The Dempseys weren’t initially a soccer family and Nacogdoches didn’t have anything similar to a club team. The boys played pick-up games in their largely Hispanic neighborhood, learning from their peers without coaching or structure. They ran through the house and school hallways with their favorite soccer jerseys on.

Click HERE for the full story…

PART 2

A talented tennis player, Jennifer Dempsey ranked in the top two at Nacogdoches High School. Her athletic pursuits begged for more attention, and being a family of limited means, younger brother Clint, 13 at the time, was forced to put his soccer development on the backburner after three years of family sacrifice supported his pay-to-play club needs. It was only fair; Clint is one of five children (younger than Ryan, Jennifer, and Crystal; and older than Lance) and was by no means the only child in the family with sporting aspirations.

Click HERE for the full story…

PART 1

Ron Isley croons from the stereo of the Audi A6 Quattro Clint Dempsey purchased from sports agency-mate Ryan Nelson. “You fool one day you’re here and then you’re gone.” But before the beat drops, before UGK’s Pimp C and Bun B have a chance to trade verses about making the most of the Texas youth they were dealt, before we’re even out of the parking lot of Dempsey’s apartment, we’re out of the car.

Across the street private preparatory school blazers tossed to the sidewalk, tiny fists on fragile arms flail like loose garden hoses. “What the…. Should we break up that fight?” Dempsey asks without a glance to me, his big black eyes fixated on the fracas as if he already has his answer. “Sure, your town your call,” I tell him beginning to crack open the passenger seat door. We jump out of the car stopping traffic on the bustling two-lane road in London’s Wimbledon neighborhood. The dozen kids, no older than 12 maybe 13, turn toward us as we approach, taking notice of the bigger boys calling out, “Hey, what are you….”

Click HERE for the full story…

I wasn’t sure Frank Dell’apa would want to talk to me. Like most I presume, I heard via du Nord that he was being moved at the Boston Globe, where he has been a sports reporter since 1989, from covering his preferred beat (Revolution and international soccer) to the Celtics. To be moved from soccer to basketball would be a promotion to most, but not to Frank, not to his loyal readership. It would be understandable if he just didn’t want to talk about it for a number of easy to deduce reasons.

But he said yes. And as with his decades of reporting, we are all the more lucky because of it. And for the digital time capsule of this here site, it kind of comes with perfect timing (sorry Frank). It is just that for a man who has spent his life in sports journalism chasing soccer this unexpected career tangent elicits perspective, which begs to be gathered up, marked down, and reconsidered as we determine the future—-journalism and soccer, observers and participants. Our conversation is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

For those who know me, it is no secret I love soccer and love jazz. For those who follow the two art forms, it is no surprise that neither are popular in the United States.

I recently wrote an essay for GOOD magazine–one of the better magazine launches in the last few years that I’m psyched to be even a small part of–on the state of jazz in the U.S.

On top of my own experience chasing jazz across the country I interviewed several musicians to get their thoughts. One of those I spoke to was pianist Jason Moran. At the end of of our interview I couldn’t help but inquire about what I saw as the existence soccer and jazz share in our country.

As JVC Jazz Fest begins in New York, after the jump we talk about a comparison you may not have thought about. Click HERE for the full story…

I don’t care for the comedy of Ray Ramano. It’s just not my thing. I’m more of a David Cross/Patton Oswalt kind of guy. I can watch the same Seinfeld episode a thousand times, but new episodes of The Simpsons can’t hold my attention.

Comedy might be the most subjective medium of all the creative arts. Because looking at the award tally, not to mention the pop culture award du jour that is a Simpsons guest appearance, it appears everybody indeed loves Raymond. I’m just not one of them.

Sports broadcasting isn’t that much different. He’s got one of the plum jobs in broadcasting for FOX, but I can’t stand Tim McCarver (re: thanks Deion Sanders). I love the measured intelligence of Joe Simpson. I really don’t care for Dick Vitale. Lots of people seem to love him (and he’s got a pretty good gig himself) but I’m just not one of them. And I don’t like the comparisons between him and GolTV’s Ray Hudson. Sure, they are both, um, individuals to say the least, and share a radical emotion for the sport they love, but Vitale paints the most mundane statistics not with a brush, but with a paint grenade of hyperbolic emotion. It can be a source of comedy, but you won’t find yourself laughing with (or at) him.

Hudson’s commentary, unlike his opinion, is harder to pin down, though he’s not afraid of pulling the pin on a grenade or two . You of course have the metaphor bombs, but watching an entire game with GolTV’s team delivers the give-and-take that finds moments of brotherly bickering in an Abbott and Cosetello frame that sets it apart like the best local baseball broadcasts over the course of that lengthy season. You’re not just waiting for the next explosion, you’re smiling, getting argumentative, and yes laughing, sometimes all at once, as if you’re watching the games with your crazy uncles. At its worst GolTV’s broadcasts with Ray Hudson are silly, over the top nonsense. At their best, it’s a soccer sitcom as the team captures the essence of the beautiful game in the broadcast booth. Click HERE for the full story…