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

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…

For quite some time I’ve wanted to create a map that could graphically answer my oft recycled question, “what is American soccer?”

But there were two problems. First, the full cultural answer to that query is impossible to fully contextualize at TIAS, much less a single map. And secondly, while I am a certifiable freak for maps—I once created a map of Vermont’s glacial geologic history—I don’t know the first thing about making a map when you replace the colored pencils with a computer.

Enter Bill Turianski from Bill’s Sports Maps. A recommendation from Jeremy Rueter at Albion Road led me to Bill, who after I planted a seed, produced a map exclusively for TIAS depicting the professional soccer landscape for MLS and USL. Future maps are the obvious next step in this project, allowing one quick glance across the years to exhibit the growth or decline of the sport in this country.

A full size image for 2008 is after the jump. Click HERE for the full story…

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…

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…

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…

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…

From Irv Smalls (back, center, with the shaved head in the above photo), Director of FC Harlem:

On Saturday Dutch soccer star Edgar Davids and his street soccer team from the Netherlands, Monta, paid a visit to FC HARLEM’s travel teams. ESPN filmed the piece on the handball courts at Jacob Schiff Playground. The Harlem community turned out to watch our FC HARLEM LIONS learn some tricks from some of the best free style players in the world before taking them on in a small-sided 4v4 game. FC HARLEM players held their own, In fact Monta and Edgar were so impressed with a few of our high school players they invited some of them to play on Sunday against the NIKE Futsal Team, going as far as to inquire about their availability to travel with them!

I was unable to attend the fun this weekend, but Irv was nice enough to share a few photos after the jump. Every league, director, coach, and parent out there should be watching this guy…
Click HERE for the full story…

MLS expansion has come sooner than I thought it would. San Jose gets its Earthquakes back in 2008, giving the league 14 teams. Refilling a once (fairly) proven market seems like the safe choice, the right choice if you have to expand the league, but do you have to? Do you want to? There’s a lot more to this than it would first appear, and before I launch into a tirade about diluting an already weak player pool, I feel like I need to revisit the arguments here. 2010 is likely the next time we’ll have this topic in the headlines, so let’s see if we can’t figure it out.
Click HERE for the full story…