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

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…

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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 Time 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…

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Buzz Carrick’s first job in soccer was an unpaid position with NESN, the New England Sports Network. Foreshadowing? He’s barely earned a dime off soccer since. There is a behind-the-camera broadcasting career in there somewhere that pays the bills, but 3rd Degree, the decade-old website founded and produced by Carrick and focused on FC Dallas, runs on volunteers for a financial loss.

But you wouldn’t know it from looking at the site. With practice reports, overseas pre-season training, reserve game features, and an open mind to new opinions, 3rd Degree has been filling one-by-one the voids left by the mainstream soccer media, creating a blueprint for the what the future of soccer journalism may look like. If hyper-local journalism is the future as some say it is, well, 3rd Degree is soccer’s explorer in residence. And if there really is such a thing as citizen journalism, this is an example of that as well, because Carrick doesn’t consider himself a journalist even though he holds himself and 3rd Degree to industry standards.

But before I could say any of this for sure, I needed Carrick to touch a few more voids. The story of 3rd Degree’s methodical rise out of the darkness is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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“You goin in,” a Fulham fan asked a Portsmouth rival from the line at Fratton Park’s visitors gate? “Of course,” the hefty Pompey supporter said smiling, his PFC jersey stretched to the brink over his belly. “Once in a lifetime isn’t it?”

Yes sir. My first two English Premier League games go down as not just historic for me, but for Fulham as well. My week in England comes to a close, but Fulham and its American quintuplets will be in the Premiere League next season, thanks to the greatest ugly win I have ever seen. (Reading and Derby County’s American players were not as lucky). Click HERE for the full story…

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Fulham v Birmingham City. Saturday 03-May-2008 3:00 pm.

Riverside Stand. Block X Row 2 Seat 11.

I’m a little lost for words. But not tears. It was unexpected. But taking my seat in the second row 20 yards up the sideline, the crowd singing and smacking their Clap Banners, I kind of lost it, a boy welcomed to the bosom of the mother he never met.

Click HERE for the full story…

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At 40, Fox Soccer Report anchor and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) broadcaster Mitch Peacock has seen a few things, held a few jobs. My father on the other hand has had one job, been with one company his entire professional life. At 30, I’ve already surpassed him. The reality of my dad’s career inadvertently raised me to think that was the norm, that if for some reason you bounced from job to job there was something wrong. Then I entered the journalism world and came to realize that he is the rare case.

With this newfound knowledge, I forced myself to speak to as many people as possible to rectify my worn-in belief, to prove without a shadow of a doubt that leaving one job and taking another is not only not a bad thing, but could in fact be better, maybe even required if you expect to progress in your career.

Early in the life of TIAS I decided to reach out to some soccer journalists in order to learn their stories and discover their paths. Soccer journalism is its own beast with its own issues and following those issues is imperative I believe to getting at my self imposed editorial directive: What is American soccer? As goes the sport in this country, so goes the media, or is it the other way around?

The fact that the #1 soccer highlight show—number one because it’s the only one—in the country is produced in Canada by a Canadian company and sold to other markets, the U.S. being just one, is a great example of the at times, umm, odd?, soccer marketplace. With dwindling budgets, un-(soccer)educated editors, publishers, and producers, not to mention the hyper-fracturing of the consumer base, soccer is forced even further out in order to find a place in this wide world of sports and entertainment. Apparently that means Winnipeg, Manitoba.

As with soccer, each of our own professional aspirations and career paths face a daunting future. We all must find a place in this continually more competitive world. Peacock’s story, which he shares with me after the jump, is a prime example.

Click HERE for the full story…

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Gotham Hall, Midtown Manhattan. The 2008 Streets To Fields black tie gala put on by MLS W.O.R.K.S. and the U.S. Soccer Foundation to “celebrate the sport of soccer in the United States” donated proceeds to Harlem Youth Soccer “to help build a soccer field for its players and develop an after-school soccer and leadership training program.” The New York Times reported that $300,000 was raised by the very unpublicized event. David Beckham gave “the award to the man,” in his words, honoring Pele for his lifetime achievement in supporting American soccer. A leadership award went to Phil Anschutz while the philanthropy award went to freshly minted New York Governor and Harlem-born David Paterson. Presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush showed their support through pre-taped videos.

Behind all the glitz, glamor and sculpted ice there was a reason for this banquet. Full feature to come on the whirlwind year in the life of Executive Director Irv Smalls and the biggest little club in New York. For now, a photo story to wet your appetites.

Click HERE for the full story…

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EDITOR IN CHIEF OF FUTBOL MUNDIAL IS BREAKING DOWN BORDERS,

WAITING FOR AMERICAN SOCCER TO CATCH UP

Robert Abramowitz has a drool-inducing resume: Television Commentator/Anchor - ESPN International (Latin America) & ESPN Deportes (US) - May 1994 – Present. Radio Commentator - NFL/Westwood One/Univisión Radio - November 2003-Present. Radio/TV Play-by Play/Analyst - New York Knicks - May 1996 – Present. Television Voiceover/HBO Sports - August 2001 – Present. And of course, Editor in Chief - Fútbol Mundial - May 2002 – Present.

And that’s just the stuff he is presently working on, to say nothing of his past. So, um, Robert might have a thing or two to say about Hispanics and American sports. You can find Part 1 of our conversation here; we pick up with the state of Futbol Mundial and FM USA after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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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…

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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…

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