All Blog Posts (19)

Let's get the speculation going and plant the seeds for an argument that has no real official way to keep score.

What will be the US Men's National Team's predominant lineup throughout this summer's Confederations Cup (starts in June; USMNT is grouped with Italy, Brazil and Egypt!), throughout World Cup qualifying and (assuming USMNT makes it) at the beginning of the Copa Mundial, World Cup 2010 in South Afr

Nick Green, 100 Percent Soccer blogger from DailyNews.com, offers a provacative review of the emerging Mexican futbol flick Rudo Y Cursi (rude and corny?) The bigger point Green makes is that this movie will stand our from other soccer fare in that it isn't cheesey, predictable, generalistic, or otherwise use soccer simply as a cultural symbol (hey- what's so bad about that?), and instead centers on an entertaining soccer narrative of

Here's a great read from Maggie Thach of the Salt Lake Tribune on the diverse nationalities of youth soccer players in Salt Lake City. Its great context for a place that most Americans probably think of as extremely homogenous, but which is actually incredibly diverse.

Writes Thach, "Coach Eric Bliss said of his 20

A short but very telling post by Adam Spangler at This is American Soccer (sponsored by Nike) that illuminates the flavor of grassroots, world soccer right here in the US. FC Harlem is a youth program that is actively reaching out to the West African and other diverse communities that neighbor its Harlem roots. The quotes in this post (a note from Irv Smalls, FC Harlem head)

Some People Are On The Pitch has two old but hilarious posts about colorful nicknames of soccer clubs 'round the world:

Affectionate nicknames of world football clubs. Ex: Did you know that Inter is known as Il Biscione, or The Big Grass Snake? (You might have if you're Italian.) My favorite: the Beatles nod in Villareal's The Yellow Submarine. This list makes U.S. team names extremely dull in c

This article- depressing and inspiring at once- by Wright Thompson at ESPN was also an Outside the Lines special a few months back. Its another must read; it really explains the dire living situations in Ghana, and the desparation kids and parents have when a rare opportunity to use soccer as a "way out."

My take is that there is almost no way an American-raised kid can relate to the culture described in t

Here's an older story by Robert Andrew Powell of the NYTimes about how a U-23 minor league team in Boulder, Colorado, and an affiliate of the Colorado Rapids, went carbon neutral to stay in business. The Premier Development League team secured a sponsorship from Natural Habitat Adventures, an upscale Colorado eco-tourism company, and launched