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

Trolling online for the latest news out of Carson, CA. and the US MNT training camp, I inevitably end up at US Soccer after stops at Soccernet, SI, and du Nord, not to mention a few dozen other websites. All different sites, at least by URL, and all serving up different views, or at least different voices. After fishing daily in the soccer seas for the better part of two years, I can guess more often than not what each place will be offering. As if ordering from a menu, you go first to that which you’re hungry for. Dempsey is in at Fulham; what kind of sauce would you like with your news? I thought the Dell’Apa marinade added some nice flavor. Beckham won’t be returning to Madrid this summer; would you like a side of potatoes with your lameduck? Depending on what you’re in the mood for, you may want some options on the way things are prepared. Tastes change and in the very least most of us enjoy some variety. Me and Apple Jacks are like this, but I don’t want them every day.

It got me thinking. Where does TIAS fit into this at times admittedly bland menu where things can taste quite similar; last thing I want is for it to taste like chicken.

The goal going back to August 2005 is not to blog under the strict definition of blogging, an ethos supported by my now out-of-date profile written before the site launched. This weblog game started by linking to original content, not creating it, and in that way I’ve wanted to offer something different. Not better – I have no illusions of grandeur – but different. I’ve always liked different, even if just for the sake of it. After all that chicken, even just a decent steak has some value. That’s why I’ve always thought of my online venture as a magazine, not a blog, but every day these lines are blurred by magazines and blogs, whichever title you care to choose. They are, though, just titles, and that doesn’t change much, if anything. You won’t find daily updates here, but you will find thousands of words on a topic, something very un-blog. I’m constantly torn between doing more updates or letting a lengthy story get more time as the top story (the upcoming re-design will hopefully share in a solution for this argument). All of this, however, takes a back seat to the important issue, which rests on you, the reader, and the need for you to find the content, no matter its frequency, to be thoughtful, to open or continue a conversation, and above all, to make you think about American soccer, even if it happens to be 1000 words on the on-line menu of soccer news.

So is this what makes a magazine, a website, a feature article, or a 100-word piece good or at least a worthwhile part of the greater soccer community? Back in 1938 the English intellect Cyril Connolly wrote, “Literature is the art of writing something that will be read twice; journalism what will be read once.” It is under this idea that I relate to the question, and see it as a challenge, begging to be tested, for the two polarities in Connolly’s mind to be combined. Where the leaders of literary journalism have succeeded, I only hope my occasional, stabbing efforts don’t embarrass.

Why go that route? We already have du Nord, the one-stop soccer shop for all our news necessities (and everything else published online and off having anything to do with soccer). The Midwestern futbol fanatico does a tremendous job leaving no stone unturned, eliminating the need for me to do anything but point the hungry masses in his direction. So, for example, you’ll find the weekly Barometer here concentrating on the quality of writing that is out there, not the newest scoop, which brings us back to where we were before I felt it necessary for some reason to explain myself.

Trolling online for the latest news out of Carson, CA. and the US MNT training camp, I inevitably end up at ussoccer.com. It’s just one of the places you have to taste. With all the commodities, access, and obvious possibilities within reach, if anyone can make something out of the almost nothing that is a winter training camp, it’s going to be them. While a talented designer or two could still go on the payroll to help deal with the delivery of the massive amount of content, no one can compete with them in this arena. Noticing this fact after a lull in US MNT news, it seemed a natural time to consider all online content as it addressed a single topic. Who covers what and how do they do it? And needless to say, it takes a bit of magic, turning nothing into something. And this fact, no doubt, is why plenty have had very little if anything to say on the camp thus far.

So to the news I was originally looking for, after being momentarily distracted by contracts and work permits…

With these kind of training camps, it’s all about the next best guy you haven’t heard about. Problem is, if you are going to ussoccer.com or soccernet, you’ve likely heard of USSF’s un-capped prospects and Ives Galarcep’s players to watch. What? Justin Mapp is supposed to be good? Who knew? It’s my biggest frustration. Sports journalism is struuuugaaaaaliiiiing – Kornheiser and Wilbon should even agree… even if they might be the only two people in the world who could get something out of these superlative offerings. Frank Zappa knew what I am referring to when he said, “Rock journalism is people who can’t write interviewing people who can’t talk for people who can’t read.”

Change the word ‘Rock’ with ‘Sports’ and the argument remains. It’s a constant battle I fight and more often than not lose. How do you make the same old answers to the same old questions entertaining? And if that’s impossible, what else can be offered? Why not just let the players do it themselves? Enter player blogs and diaries. They’re all the rage these days, the easy fix to the bland player profile. And what with the general public’s unquenchable thirst for knowing, really knowing, no I don’t think you get it, really knowing your sporting heroes, the straight from the source approach also delivers what the market demands. And cheaply, and we all now the market loves cheap, especially when it has the opportunity to be better. Sacha Kljestan’s camp diary follows the curve behind the likes of Jay Demerit and Jonathan Bornstein.

See, I finally got some news in there, but was that better than simply linking to a bunch of stories? That’s up to you. In its simplest form, the blog is a service, a middle man, and I have no real interest in being another Willy Loman hawking his favorite wares. But that leaves a precarious position in the blogosphere, burning the candle at both ends, no? The only way I explain that away is that at least this way, love it or hate it, you can react off TIAS, not just what it points too, thus preventing the death of another salesman.

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