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

SHIRT OFF MY BACK EDITION

USA 2, Mexico 2. Man those games are fun (even when the soccer aint so good, and it don’t count for nothin). Altidore scored what will be his first of many international goals (and mixed it up throughout his 90 minutes). Onyewu returned from his recent international doldrums with, yes, a perfect header, but he also hustled back and stood up the countering Mexicans seconds later (without a foul!). Bocanegra was the foul king last night, but he did manage to not make any of the major mishaps he has a tendency to oblige (and that have him out of the Fulham starting lineup?). Michael Bradley also committed some dumb fouls and continues to struggle with carrying his club prowess into the national team (it was painful to watch him for most of the night, but all of our European-based players looked tired, so we’ll give him the friendly pass). Considering we shoulda coulda won what was a game largely dominated by the speed and tenacity of the young Mexicans (we should all count our blessings that Giovanni Dos Santos played as few minutes as he did) in front of what seemed like 60,000 Mexican fans in Houston of all places, I guess a draw - a Mexican moral victory as it was called - is acceptable (as long as Bradley learned some things ((like bringing in a few more defensive backs?))).

My favorite part of the game and the rest of this week’s news are after the jump. For continuing updates on all the must-read stories, Follow TIAS at Twitter (see side panel at right).

banner photo courtesy of ISI Photos

I don’t know if he’s a fan of soccer, but Pedro Gomez has to be happy to be off the Barry Bonds trail. By far the highlight of my night, nervously hunkered down in front of an HDTV, was the addition of Pedro Gomez to ESPN’s broadcast crew. I know, he barely spoke besides a corny, sombrero-clad pre-game crowd pleaser and that GREAT bilingual post game interview with the lone Mexican to find the net, Jonny Magallón. But the fact that he was there at all, that ESPN had a half-hour of pregame and on-line postgame, made me think maybe 2008 will be different for soccer on ESPN. Of course there were reasons to think otherwise: in-game SportsCenter updates? A passionless John Harkes? The fact that they haven’t hired Ray Hudson away from GOL TV, a network that would never be able to equal an ESPN bid?

Like the roster, there is some room to grow for the broadcast crew, which we just found out will get some more practice when the US MNT takes on Poland on March 26, Spain on June 4, and a game to be determined against a FIFA top-five opponent in New England around June 8 just before qualifying begins! USSF just got around to confirming these points, in some cases weeks after we already knew about them from the other delegations. Which is to say the front office has growing pains too. Steve Goff has the specifics on the games as well as the determination to say that the ‘top-five’ game will be against Argentina (Ives guesses its Italy, but Goff’s theory sits stronger with me). I have to admit that part of me was wondering why we were having another Mexico game when Argentina was in California this week. Of course I know the answer to this: money + rivalry = everybody wins (even the loser).

The rest of the week for me went something like this: A website called Soccerlens is holding more blog awards (TIAS got 2 nominations for best design and best MLS blog), the 2008 MLS Schedule is out. Drogba is never going to win the African Player of the Year award. South Africa is having trouble keeping the lights on. And wait for it… Kohls is the official department store of US Youth Soccer! So we have a forever-increasing number of soccer blogs, Africa on the verge of both celebrating a great Africa Cup of Nations and at the same time falling apart, and American sponsors are as usual kind of a joke. All is well in the soccer world! Although I can’t help but wish Steve Nash (and the billionaires of the soccer world) would put their money into the MLS instead of the new women’s league. But hey, the WUSA WPS is going to need all the help it can get…

which was the most common sentiment coming down on the new US MNT jersey. Along with some other members of the media, I visited Nike headquarters - editor’s note: Nike sponsors my work at TIAS - last week to witness the unveiling of some of their new technologies. The new “golf polo,” “tommy hilfiger-esque” - to name just a few of the detractors’ adjectives - jersey was one such release (you saw the new ball as well last night).

Speaking with Fox Soccer Channel’s Mitch Peacock and catching up with US Soccer’s newly promoted communications director Neil Buethe were my professional highlights. That’s Neil checking out the new fabric in the above photo; see a short photo story of the visit on my Flickr page linked on the side panel to your right.

But back to this new jersey.

Everybody seems to have a problem with the USA jersey(s). TIAS contributor and friend Michael Agovino, for one, must have loved that his slideshow for Slate about the poor US MNT uniforms got a second round of hits as comment section after comment section on every blog that addressed the new uniform had a link to the story.

I’m guessing a lot of those people are like me: they care about the jersey, in part because they have a closet full of their favorite jerseys from national and club teams. I don’t like to admit it, but I have about 30. Another thing I don’t often freely admit is that I love clothes. Like one of my favorite people, Ossie Davis, said in one of my favorite movies, Joe Versus the Volcano, when Tom Hanks (as Joe Banks) said he needed to buy some clothes after limo driver Davis (as Marshall) asked him where he needed to go:

“You were hinting around about clothes. It happens that clothes are very important to me, Mister… Banks. Clothes make the man. I believe that. You say to me you wanna go shopping, you wanna buy clothes, but you don’t know what kind. You leave that hanging in the air, like I’m going to fill in the blank, that to me is like asking me who you are, and I don’t know who you are, I don’t wanna know. It’s taken me my whole life to find out who I am and I’m tired now, you hear what I’m sayin’?”

I couldn’t agree with Marshall more. Maybe US Soccer still needs to find out who they are? At this point, the Brazils, Italys, and Argentinas know. England, they, well… they thought they did.

If you’ve been following TIAS, you know I prefer the plain, all-white uniforms of New Zealand. I’ll add a crisp, dark, solid-color suit with peak lapels and corded shoulders to that list. Maybe I’m boring. Maybe I’m a little too fashion forward at times. Maybe the same goes with these new jerseys. Brazil stays with its yellow shirt; Italy of course sticks with their blue. So maybe it’s the consistency, more than the design as Agovino contends? The yearly changing of the guard has plenty of fans up in arms. The injection of a special jersey, especially one people end up loving like the red Don’t Tread On Me jersey, later pulled off backs and shelves, didn’t help any cause except the one their auction profits were donated to. So what’s the deal? How could this sartorial ship get righted?

During the media trip to Beaverton, Nike’s Creative Director of Football Phil Dickinson spoke about the new apparel technology and designs, spending a lot of time with the jersey that was my clear favorite: this baby blue Holland number. Dickinson touched on almost every facet of the design and why it was chosen: that particular shade of blue is an ode to the Dutch royal family, as is the specially shaped shield; the three hoop stripes are red, white, and blue, the colors of the national flag.

Serious thought was obviously put into that anything-but-consistent-with-the-orange-past jersey. Admittedly when I walked into the room I was hoping it was the US MNT jersey, because really, it could be with a different crest patch. But it would be naive to think designers didn’t put equal thought into the U.S. jersey, as many an angry internet commenter has posited. Listening to Dickinson with a media mob from as far away as South America, four things became clear to me:

1 - South American women in broadcasting tend to be attractive.

2 - Love it or hate it, apparel designers worked with the team, its players, and its staff to create a US MNT uniform to make all groups (ok, expect maybe the fans) happy.

3 - Fashion inherently is for people to love, hate, and argue over (spend a “Fashion Week” in New York and you will understand this wholly). And last and most importantly…

4 - The USA has no royal colors, no family crest, no deep history or story to lead this creative journey.

Argue it if you want, but we have an American flag to go from and that’s about it. And you can’t use any stars according to FIFA rules because that denotes a championship. So that leaves us stripes, red and white. It wouldn’t be so hard to argue the flip-flopping national team uniforms in fact exhibit America perfectly. More than any other, the United States is the cultural chameleon of nations, leading the way on most things fashionable. Agovino took up this point when he wrote: “De Tocqueville might ascribe it to American exceptionalism, William James to pragmatism (”To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.”), Bill Clinton to our need for reinvention. You certainly can’t blame market forces, because the national uniform lacked consistency even before sports jerseys became huge sellers. The most likely reason is that soccer has no tradition here.”

It didn’t have tradition. It does now, or in the very least, it is starting to. As many a fan and Agovino alluded to, the now famous Don’t Tread On Me Jerseys were popular with fans (one just sold on Ebay for $300) and were a throwback to the 1950’s uniform. “Why not make that our jersey” is a common question. Well, I’ve always associated the cross-cutting sash/stripe with River Plate in Argentina, and I hate collars on athletic wear (re-read observation #3 above).

Bottom line: we are never ALL going to be happy. Some people loved the Copa America uniform. I thought it was hideous. With the emergence of the “third jersey” there is always a place to tinker with the basics. So this fact, after my all-white home uniform (jersey, pants, and socks) and all-blue or all-red away uniform, has me thinking of what I would design given the reigns (which begs a final question: why not have a design competition for a new jersey?)…

Give me Back in Black, like my Atlanta Primetime-having, Hammer-loving, 2Legit2Quit Falcons. Like an angst-ridden teenager pissed at a disrespectful world, an all-black uniform could speak more to American soccer than even red white and blue. Thanks to photoshop, it might look something like this…