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

I’ve been amazed at the amount of emails I’ve received from visitors to TIAS about the Fugees story, not to mention the coverage throughout the internet. Some people supported the team, the writer, the NY Times. Some didn’t. One commenter thought the article totally misrepresented the town, Clarkston, GA. A lot of the discussion seemed to revolve around the simple questions of Why now? Why this story?

One of the first things I said about the article is that it is nothing new. It didn’t shock me, it didn’t make me think “movie!”, and I’ve read it so many times, I didn’t even find it especially interesting (the boring prose didn’t help). Anyone who has spent some time around soccer in the United States knows of the strong cultural bonds between the game and its players, especially for those where America is foreign. This is not to exclude the more stereotypical Americans (me) who have had to fight soccer’s status quo (lesser, communist, wimpy sport), but personally, no matter how much I love this game, I don’t think that it will ever mean to me what it seems to mean for those who come here from abroad… and whether you know it or not, probably live in your town. They often come with little more than love, a strong work ethic, and soccer.

Of course, I pointed to my MLKHS story to prove my point about the ubiquity of this story, but in the days since, others have written to tell me their story or another one they heard about. Enter Paul Cuadros, author of Home On The Field.

This morning Paul posted a comment on TIAS, alerting me to his book (and maybe a movie deal with brokered by the same talent agency). He wrote:

“Thought you’d like to know that UTA also was representing A Home on the Field by Paul Cuadros–me. Got blown out of the water out in Hollywood by the bigfoot of the NYT. My book tells the story of the Jets, a team of Latino immigrants in the South that overcome terrible prejudice to go on and found a varsity high school team where football is king and win the state championship in just three seasons. I coached the team and helped form it. But the book also tells the story of Latino migration to the rural South, its reasons, life in the poultry processing plants where many of these kids’ parents work, and even some of the kids, their lives, their problems and their dreams. One year, our star goalkeeper had to go to Mexico to take of his grandmother over the summer. He had to cross the border on his own to get back in time to play. And while the book tells an inspiring story it is also sobering in that only one kid from the championship team goes on to play in college. Not a happy soccer story about little kids. Check it out. Not sure if this story will ever be made into a movie now but that doesn’t really matter. The book will stand on its own.”

A full review of the book can be found at cultureofsoccer.com, which also links to a podcast with the author.