On occasion, I find the soccer blogosphere a little stagnant for my liking. Much of what floats around is the same information in different packaging, and while there are a few unique individuals capable of making that packaging sparkle, I'm still usually bored by the second paragraph (that's if there is a second paragraph).


We're all scrambling for the same eyeballs in a lot of cases, which means attempting to be unique while also staying on topic while also coming up with something clever and new while trying to come up with the next post a few hours or a day later. It ain't easy, and in a lot of cases, it leads to simple burnout. If you've been bouncing around the Internet for soccer talk long enough, it's probable that you've seen the death of more than a few blogs...and forgotten their names because our attention spans are short and what isn't there is of no concern.


Simply put, ninety-nine percent of us don't get paid, and have little prospects of getting jobs covering the sport. When it stops being fun, there's really no reason to go on.


All of the above also goes for podcasts. There's a million of them out there, and they're all essentially the same. Some may stick out because of the personalities, some may hit a chord with insightful discussion but seem overly dry, and others are just guys with PC mics breathing heavily into them while doing a poor impression of Football Weekly. On the one hand, the proliferation of soccer podcasts, filling a void American sportstalk radio can't or won't, is a good thing. But when the market is "flooded" so to speak, and one podcast bleeds into another without anything to separate them, it becomes a bit depressing. We don't need more armchair managers breaking down the U.S. left back situation or smarmy know-it-alls talking down to us or feeding the elitist beasts. We need some depth in the field.


And I don't necessarily mean in content, though that's obviously important; I mean in style, perspective, and entertainment value. To cite an example, and to pull back the curtain a bit, I'll reference my own podcast, The American Soccer Show. There's a reason the show Zach and I do sounds the way it does, from the juxtaposition of American soccer booster and "Black Cloud" to the interviews we choose to chase and the guests we decide to invite onto the show. The soccer podcast blogosphere has devolved into a massive roundtable of the same voices popping up regularly, just in different places, and usually saying the same things. I myself have appeared on several other podcasts over the past year, and while I'm more than happy to do them, I do wonder if we're all risking a bit of overexposure and too narrow a focus. Mutual admiration societies, for lack of a better description.


My long-windedness here is ultimately to present to you the new American Soccer Show, which I forgot to post earlier (recorded on Saturday night post-England) and to give my recommendation of the On the DL Podcast, hosted by Dan Levy of The Sporting Blog, a media-focused general sports show that comes out daily. If you're asking yourself why I'm suggesting you check out Dan's work, the reason is simple; he's covering the World Cup from a viewpoint outside of the insular world of soccer blogging, and doing it well. Dan's not an expert by any means, a fact I'm sure he'd admit to, but he comes at the sport from a refreshing angle because of that fact. He's a sports fan who also happens to be a soccer fan; after months of only hearing soccer discussion from people with degrees in soccer snobbery, much of what Dan and his rotating co-hosts/guests bring is just the type of perspective-adjustment many of us need.


The hardcore soccer crowd will always drive the biggest blogs and the most in-depth podcasts. For the most part, that's a good thing. But let's not forget the less-engrossed, equally as interested people out there that can teach us a thing or two about soccer's place in the American sports landscape.


Here be the new AmSoc for download
Here be it on iTunes