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

Chris Carlone, no matter what he says below or what you take from this first photo, is no geek. He’s just like everybody else, except for maybe that rock and roll band thing, but i don’t want to spoil it. I’ll let Chris explain, but remember, he aint no geek.

you wish you were me

So I play on this indoor team. One night I give him a ride to our game to this guy. Small talk in the car inevitable turns into “what do you do,” so I casually ask him what he does for a living. He says he works for a company that films all the Nike US Soccer “Don’t Tread On Me” ad campaigns. Shit, I thought to myself. I consider myself a pretty high level US MNT fan…or should I say…geek. Actually, I’d say I’m a pretty big geek, so you have to know this drew some serious interest to me. I’m kind of surprised the guy didn’t jump out of the car and take rolling on asphalt at 50 mph than listen to my “oh shit man that is so cool, tell me all about it” shtick. Lucky for me, and his future self, he stayed, and to my surprise, ended up competing with me for title of #1 fan, at least as far as this automobile was concerned. I’m sure there are much bigger fans than me. How should I describe my fandom? How about this: I own the last three jerseys and have them on my wall (I happen to be 36 and married, not 16), I regularly check ussoccer.com and post on Big Soccer Boards and read Soccer America magazine religiously. I heavily follow any foreign team that carries any national team player; I even don’t hate Landon Donovan (even though he left my favorite MLS team - the now defunct Earthquakes - to join the dark side, a.k.a. LA Galaxy). And of course, I go to any National team game I can and watch every game on TV I can’t go to. And I should probably share that watching the game on TV is more like standing and screaming the entire time. So like I said, I know there are much bigger fans out there, but for a 36-year-old man with jerseys on his wall, I’d say I could hold my own with the big boys, or at least the big geeks.

After drooling on my new friend for the first half of the ride to our game, I almost crash the car when he tells me about how he was on the field during the US-Mexico qualifier, how he filmed all my favorite US Soccer ad campaigns, and met various heroes of mine. Naturally I offer my services to him at any juncture if he ever goes on any more dream assignments. I let him know I’ll be his roadie or anything. I¹m sure I sounded reeeeeaaaal normal. I also tell him about my band, The Nads - yes again, I am married and 36 and am in a band called the Nads - and how our pumped up rock-n-roll might be a great soundtrack for the next ad campaign. The most amazing thing about that ride was he actually hooked me up with a colleague who might actually take this music pitch of mine seriously.

Flash forward a few days. I find out the US MNT is playing Japan at SBC park (did I mention I live in the San Francisco Bay Area) in an international friendly. Call me a stalker, but this, I thought, might be my best opportunity. I call my new driving buddy and his colleague and remind them that if they need any help at the game to let me know. I didn’t hear from them for a while, so I buy myself 2 tickets in the cheap section at home with my fellow geeks, Sam’s Army. Weeks go by and I hear nothing. Two days count down till kick off and I get a call that it’s a go: I’ll be on the field helping out. Doing what I wasn’t sure at that point, but did I care? Hell no, I’m going to be on the field!!!!

So here I am, with my all-access field pass walking out through the tunnel onto the field of SBC Park. The San Francisco air is damp, windy, and freezing. Translation: a typical winter day on the peninsula. I walk through the tunnel and hear this thunderous applause. I picture myself in a National team uniform with the captain’s armband. I wake up out of my daydream to find that I have a bright orange vest, delineating my press pass ­ I’m guessing so a security guard doesn¹t knock me out before seeing the wee-little badge dangling around my neck. It might not be a national team uniform, but hey, It’s good enough to get me on the field and on the field I am. I cruise around the field to survey the scene. It’s about 40 minutes till kick off and the stadium is looking predominantly Japanese. At least most of the good seats are heavily blue with big banners, which read “Nipon Ultras”. As the game draws closer I start to see more red, white and blue. I go over to a very enthusiastic clump of US Soccer fanatic kids who all looked to be around 12 years old. They are screaming at the top of their lungs, and the game isn’t even starting for another 15 minutes. I went up and slapped them all five. They all wanted me to get autographs for them. I asked them whom their favorite players were expecting to hear a lot of Landon Donovans being yelled out, but instead the beautiful sound of Dempsey is ringing in my ears.

I cruise over to the other side of the field where the bleachers are and find the comfort of Sam’s Army. I also recognize many faces from the Kasbah die-hard section at the Earthquakes game. All of them are happy to finally have something to cheer about including myself. As the stadium fills, I’m blown away at the now impressive looking attendance in my hometown stadium. The only problem is, I have to keep it cool on the field. I have to keep it professional. I soon find out I can’t jump up and down like the freak I normally am. A giant man wearing a suit and a headset makes that abundantly clear. If you’re going to stand behind the goal, he said (I’m paraphrasing, my fright and embarrassment made his words a little foggy), you gotta be cool. If you’re going to freak out, I’ll escort you out.

I am so far from cool at this point. The barrage of shots starts hammering down on the Japanese goal, and I’m standing six feet from the post. With every shot, I force my body to be still, yet out of my voice comes a scream like a 16-year-old girl seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan for the first time. My wife would be so proud.

I was so amazed at the physical play that took place in the box on corner kicks, the speed and toughness of Wolff, the ease in passing and distribution of Donavan, the bad ass-ness of Dempsey, Pope’s goal, and Noonan’s constant feeding from the wing. It was Incredible to see Taylor Twellman’s perfect header off a beautiful corner kick. Too many moments to mention.

Final whistle. The score USA - 3, Japan -2. Over-all, a very exciting game. Even if I sat in the bleachers it still would have been exciting but this was beyond anything I would have imagined.

I left SBC Park not the way I came in but the normal way with everyone else, cattle mooing our way down the stairs and out. I wanted to get a sense of the crowd and the vibe. It was exciting to be in a sea of soccer fans that for once seemed mostly American. These weren’t baseball fans; these were my people! I left with excitement and hope that the world’s sport is really growing here. I saw this guy in a thick sea of people outside the park climbing up on the Willie Mays statue and was waving the American flag and chanting US slogans with his US National team jersey on. For baseball fans, this was sacrilege, for me a good sign from god.