As the readership slowly grows for Match Fit USA, I'm finding myself more and more concerned that I have yet to write a clear and concise explanation of the my aims and goals for the blog. This post is an effort to rectify that situation.

I'm not sure it's quite necessary, and perhaps the context and viewpoint of a blog isn't important to the majority of readers as long as the content is interesting and informative, so forgive me if this comes off as hubris.

A few facts about me, just to frame my reasons for blogging.

I'm a writer. That can mean many different things, but for me, it simply means that I love to convey my thoughts in written form. I'm one of those guys that constantly gave lip service to writing a novel (insert Brian Griffin joke here), and then only wrote in fits and starts that never amounted to anything significant. Still, I know I'm a good writer (there's the hubris), and this blog gives me an outlet for a talent that I've spent years generally neglecting. Until the idea for this blog came along, I never truly considered writing anything other than fictional works; I'm finding, however, that the satisfaction I get out of this far exceed my initial expectations. I should have done this a long time ago.

My passion for soccer is relatively new. While it's possible this fact will invalidate my opinions in some of your minds, I think it's important to know. Simply put, I view myself as exactly the type of American sports fan that MLS needs to attract to become a big time league in this country. I have been a passionate American football and baseball fan for as long as I can remember, and I never really considered soccer to be anything other than an peripheral sport to which I might give a modicum of attention on occasion (I've never been a hater). I don't remember the exact moment, but my soccer passion sprung forth fully formed a couple of years ago after I intentionally sought out EPL matches on television. Since, I've found both the game on the field and the game's place in the American consciousness to be all-consuming passions, passions which directly led to the creation of this blog. As a result of my admitted neophyte status when it comes to the actual play on the pitch, I usually try (I say "try" for a reason, I'm not always successful) to avoid any evaluation of players or teams that would be better done by those who have played and observed the game for much longer than I (I did actually play as a kid, just like every suburban-bred American of my generation).

I am not a journalist. I don't have sources, or my finger on the pulse of the league, or a desire to break news; as of the moment, I am just an observer of soccer in America attempting to raise the level of discourse on the game's place here. I will, on occasion, comment on the headlines of the day, or "report" news that might be germane to the larger issues I'm trying to examine, but I am never going to be a traditional soccer news blog. Too often, the pundits and talking heads declare unequivocally that soccer will never succeed here without ever giving legitimate reasons as to why that might be true (and no, the "not enough scoring" argument is not a legitimate reason), and my aim is to either discover what those reasons might be, or to debunk the myth completely.

Now, as for those aforementioned aims and goals:

Originally, I intended this blog to be a hobby, a way for me to get out of my head all of the opinions and thoughts relating to American soccer that were constantly threatening to explode my brain in a fantastic display of frustration. I am without a community of like-minded individuals with which to discuss the game (a situation I should endeavor to rectify, to be sure), and the blog was intended as a surrogate for that missing community.

Things changed quickly. While the blog still serves as that brain-spew repository I originally created it to be, it has also become a means to an end. As I said before, I have both a passion and a talent for writing (damn hubris again), and because of both that fact and because I have felt for a long time that I am falling well short of my reaching my full personal potential, I've come to view the blog as a possible way to convert a hobby into a career. I know it won't happen overnight, and I know there's a chance it might never happen; that won't stop me, however, from working towards that end.

I don't suspect that this blog itself will bring me much in terms of monetary rewards; those of you who find this stop on your daily Internet journey a worthwhile one need not worry about being inundated with ads. That being said, I do have grander designs for Match Fit USA, which may include a few or all of these things:

1. Domain name- I would love to own www.matchfitusa.com
2. More writers- No reason I should be the only one spouting nonsense on the topics I try to cover here; if there are others out there that have well-formed opinions and a talent for writing, I would love to have them involved.
3. Live coverage- Eventually (I stress EVENTUALLY), I hope to get to a point where I can travel for major events, as well as visit the hotbeds of American soccer to gain insight I currently lack.
4. A panel-style podcast- Yes, I've done a podcast (and I plan to continue), but it's not quite what I would want ultimately; I'd love to have several people with different viewpoints examining the state of American soccer in an audio format.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I've only been doing this for a couple of months now, so any gains made in any form are a bonus. Still, I'd be lying to everyone involved (you, the reader, as well as myself), if I didn't admit to visions of a bigger, better future.

Hopefully, for those of you who enjoy what I do here, I've managed to shed some light on my background and viewpoint. I also hope I haven't alienated anyone; I realized this whole thing is both self-serving and off-topic. I promise to get back to the business at hand as soon as possible (maybe there's some new Beckham news to comment on).

Finally, I have to say thank you to everyone that stops here, but especially to those of you who have given me feedback (both good and bad). It's your support and any effort to spread the proverbial word (special shout out to my fellow bloggers), that spur me on and make the effort worthwhile.