Cover of 'How to Play Soccer', 1920

The return of the link post! How long has it been? We're too lazy to look. Long enough, anyway.


The following is a small collection of items from the last seven days we deemed worthy of passing along to you, the discerning soccer fan. Read and enjoy.

It's been a long time since I did a link post.  Aside from the Henry-Hartman incident last night, there's not much top-of-mind to write about.  Perhaps something will present itself a bit later.


In the meantime, let's take a look around the webernet for interesting things to read...

After Landon Donovan liberated us from World Cup purgatory (months of teeth gnashing reflection on a tournament gone wrong, with a special place in our bitter hearts for the referees) in the final minutes on Wednesday, the wave of good feelings reached Humunga Cowabunga from Down Unda proportions (if you understand that reference I'll be shocked). We're soaked with it.


It's time to refocus. Not for us, because it doesn't really matter what we say or do, but for the players. Emotional victories carry a bit of bad with all the good; tomorrow is a classic "letdown" scenario because it's always difficult to get bad the energy needed to play at your best when you've expending so much psychic energy only a few days before.


Which is one of the pitfalls of all of this. By winning the group, which is all they could do with England only scoring once against Slovenia, the U.S. actually finds themselves short a day of rest. Their Round of 16 match is tomorrow, giving them little time to sort their minds, renew their bodies, and plan to for Ghana. It's on Bob Bradley to take care of that last part, a task that probably includes juggling his lineup once again. Questions surround Onyewu, the strike partner for Jozy Altidore, and whether or not Jonathan Bornstein gets another chance to send U.S. supporters into terrified hysterics.


It's not correct to say that everything has gone right so far. The Americans seized the moment when it counted, and for that we should be ecstatic. But there are questions to be answered, tough ones that will determine if the U.S. goes as far as it ever has in a World Cup post-1930. Ghana is beatable, just as every team in the U.S. portion of the bracket, but that doesn't really mean anything when it's all about the next 90 minutes for team that is more than capable than beating themselves.


I'm betting on Bradley getting right because he's proven himself more than capable of doing so up to this point. From there, it's on the players to kick Wendesday's theatrics out of their minds and give all they have for the next bit of glory.


And let's not leave it to the end this time.


The semifinal talk started the moment we all realized that the U.S. won their group. As Paul Oberjuerge wrote, short of karmic concerns, it's perfectly reasonable to dream. Hell, even Cesc Fabergas thinks they have a shot.


A few links to get you ready, because I'm unlikely to produce a proper preview:


The Shin Guardian's preview and Martin Rogers of Yahoo!.


Some discussion of the "Rise of Soccer", from me (at FourFourTwo.com) and Neil over at Yanks Are Coming.


I'll probably update this post with links throughout the day, so be sure to check back.

Yes, it's back. Once a week this time around. As before, the effort will be to bring you links to things you might not otherwise encounter on your daily scan of the internet, with an occasional mainstream story sprinkled in from time to time.


Less comment, more links. Who wants to put forth any effort on Friday?


An open letter to Landon Donovan

Nicely done, and I chuckled at the #26 joke.


A piece on Denver as a World Cup host city

The story itself is so-so, and gets in some "MLS sucks" shots, but the comments are amusing.


Staffordshire perspective on Chris Birchall's move to LA

Maybe they should change the name of the club to "David Beckham's LA Galaxy" officially.


Union draftee Toni Stahl wants to make soccer big in Finland

Do Finnish soccer fans wonder how good Teemu Selanne be if he had decided to play the beautiful game?


Site for dead MLS stadium project in St. Louis falls into disrepair

I hear the graffiti said "NASL RULES!"


Have a good Friday, everyone.

The issue of immigration and soccer is bouncing around the internet recently; several articles have come out on the issue in regards to the US National Team. I haven't completely wrapped my head around it all, but it's clearly worth talking about; even more so because it seems the anti-immigration lobby are using the squad to illustrate that immigrants are failing to assimilate.

At least, that's what The Wonk tells us, as they explain that an article I linked to previously was actually a backhanded slap at immigration policy. I had no idea, and failed to realize that the source of the piece, the Center for Immigration Studies, is actually working to reduce immigration. No matter your opinion on the issue (a political sticky wicket I'm not going to muck up a soccer blog with), it's interesting to see soccer, and specifically the National Team, as a focal point in the debate.

• The new American owner of Italian club Bari has high hopes for Serie A; how an American, Italy's first foreign owner, will fit in there will be an interesting saga to watch. Bari is new promoted, so there shouldn't be the same pitfalls that American owners in England have encountered after taking over massive clubs. Italy has never been a place that Americans go, which is why Livorno's interest in two (Donovan and Clark), and Milan's signing of Oguchi Onyewu this summer was intriguing. With an American owner in Italy, it's possible we'll see more names linked with Serie A.

• Someone has a solution to the chronic controversy of the amount of added time Manchester United gets at Old Trafford; follow the example of American football. I love when Americans do this, because while there's validity to the suggestion, they often fail to appreciate how resistant to change sports communities typically are. It's why goal line technology is still not in place, why there's no pitch clock in Major League Baseball, and why angst-ridden discussion follows all of those issues. Eventually changes do come, as we're seeing with the end-line official experiment in the Europa league, but I can't imagine significant changes with timekeeping are ever going to be seriously considered.

• Finally, if you're a soccer player, you live in Boston, and you want to be in a movie, here's your chance (oh, but you have to look "ethnic"). I can't imagine that soccer will be a major part of a movie about a career thief being chased by an FBI agent in Boston, but you never know.

The fate of the National Soccer Hall of Fame, an institution that marks its thirtieth anniversary this month, is just a bit up in the air. Located in Oneonta, NY, the Hall recently inducted players Jeff Agoos and Joy Fawcett; unfortunately, the museum itself has been closed to the public in light of budgetary concerns. Perhaps those same budgetary concerns are why so many of the links on the Hall's website are dead ends (*UPDATE* The links that were dead this morning are working now; thanks to Jack in the comments for the heads up).

An unfortunate set of circumstances, and one that may lead to the Hall of Fame being relocated. Most American soccer fans probably wouldn't be averse to a move for the Hall, but that doesn't hold true for one Oneonta city historian. He takes us down memory lane with a piece on how the Hall of Fame came to be back in 1979.

• College soccer certainly has its detractors, especially among the pro-focused majority of American fans. The rule quirks, unlimited substitutions, and physical style turn off many who would prefer the game in the US rely more on club-run academies than scholastically-based competition. College soccer also has defenders though, and one West Virginia Mountaineer wants you to ignore the soccer snobs and enjoy the game for what it is at the university level. It seems the Mountaineers are, with 3,000 fans showing up for the soccer team's home opener.

• I suppose that it's nice that someone in northern Idaho felt the need to defend soccer against the American version of football, though I think the comparison is unnecessary. There's enough room for both sports here, and there's really no need to get into which is "tougher". One of these days, Americans en masse will wake up to just how great the beautiful game really is, and these type of pieces will thankfully disappear. I wish they would, especially with the rampant homophobia present in this one. Ugh.

• Soccer playing robot!

We're going extra deep in this round, to places that soccer fans would almost never find themselves (unless you were looking for them), so bear with me.

An intelligent friend of mine recently commented that sometimes American soccer fans work too hard to force their "differentness" on others. He meant the statement in a myriad of ways, but most pointedly about the innate need of some to separate the game from the big American sports through deference to mode of competition used in places like England and Spain. He's passionate about his soccer, but advocates for things "traditional" fans usually don't, like conferences, unbalanced schedules, and evaluation of players through statistics; for many, those things are anathema, "American" ideas that have no place in the sport.

But each of his views are equally as valid as anyone's, and unlike some fans, he makes it a point to back them up with reason and logic. Give him a few minutes, and he just may have you convinced that MLS needs a conference system with an unbalanced scheduled to accentuate regional rivalries. He rejects the notion that soccer fans are "special" and therefore need to push for our leagues to operate differently from the tried and true methods of other domestic sports; we're just fans who happen to like a game that has yet to catch on with the masses.

My point, if I can ever meander my way to it, is that the "uniqueness" of being a soccer fan in a country that doesn't generally embrace the game is part of the draw for many who follow it passionately. Caring about soccer makes some of us feel like we're part of a special club in which only a select few have membership. In other words, it's cool because it's not popular.

Most of us, even if it were the case, wouldn't voluntarily admit to this snobbery. Not this guy, who somehow turned a post about a song on his iPod into a whine-fest about soccer becoming too popular. I guess some people would just prefer that the sport stay "undiscovered" in the United States. Yea for exclusivity.

Meanwhile, a Northern Ohio paper tells us the story of two English brother playing high school soccer in the States, with the reminder that all is not always black and white when it comes to the way the game is taught between the two Anglophone nations. Too many of us take it as a given that coaching is better there than here; that might be true for the famous academies of England's biggest clubs, but doesn't necessarily hold on other levels. Then again, maybe the English kids are just trying to be nice.

Michael Brett at Pop Matters gives us something I'm surprised we don't see more often: a piece on the similarities and parallels of the world's two biggest "football" leagues, the English Premier League and the National Football League. As America continues to embrace soccer on a larger scale, and because the Prem dominates headlines and attention in that realm (for better or worse), the two leagues are bound to become more and more linked in subtle ways. How long before millions of Americans are spending their Saturday mornings at the pub watching English football and their Sundays at the bar watching the American version?

Finally, a young writer in Canada attempts to put the issue of looks and talent in context, using Mr. Beckham as an example, and wonders why sports fans (both men and women) can't seem to rise above carnal instincts when observing the opposite sex playing the game. While her question is clearly broader than soccer and is focused more on gender roles than anything else, I find the subject fascinating, and certainly believe that "attractive" players often receive more praise than they may actually deserve. It's not a hard and fast rule (see Ribery, Frank), but it clearly plays a role the way certain players are viewed.

Melbourne Rectangular Stadium, under construction

Deep Cuts for Thursday, more informational than thought-provoking, though this not-really-obscure piece on diving and the psychology behind it from The Globe and Mail does get the synapses firing just a bit.

• The United States might have one less competitor in race to host one of either the 2018 or 2022 World Cup, as Australia's bid has run up against some financial issues. Needing twelve venues of at least 40,000 seating capacity to meet FIFA requirements, state and federal governments must decide who will foot the bill and have yet to come to consensus. Worst yet, it looks like a design flaw in Melbourne's new stadium will make expanding its capacity a extremely costly project. Australia is no one's front-runner, but anything to ease the path to another American World Cup is okay by me.

• The South African Football Association is holding presidential elections, something World Cup organizing committee chairman Danny Jordaan says won't have an effect on the tournament. Mixed in the story is a recap of FIFA's report card on South Africa's preparations, with the largest concern appearing to be transportation and accommodations. As more time has passed, the general fears that South Africa couldn't handle the World Cup have seem to have faded; it might be a bit premature, but you have to credit the South African officials for making better progress than many observers thought they could.

• The newly minted Philadelphia Union are making a serious investment in the local community of by working towards establishing a soccer program in the Chester school district. The area currently has no soccer program, a situation the Union are looking to rectify as early as June of next year. Vice President Rob Smith is leading the club's effort, spending at much as 90 percent of his time working on the Chester program. The Union's roots will be well-established in Chester by the time they take the field if projects like this are indicative of their commitment to the area.

• A late addition to Deep Cuts is this odd piece on the US National Team and how its fortunes would be affected if the anti-immigration lobby FAIR (Federation for American Immigration Reform) is successful in their aims. I can't speak to the veracity of the claims that FAIR (who I know nothing about) wants a zero immigration policy, but the author does a good job of reminding us just how multi-cultural and diverse the National Team is with its collection of players who are the sons of immigrants.

Deep Cuts will bring you slightly obscure, always interesting links from around the soccer world (usually with an American flavor) on a daily basis. If you come across a story you think would be a good candidate for the roundup, feel free to email it to matchfitusa@gmail.com.

Let's get going.

• Footsmoke has an interesting missive on the nature of modern fandom, drawing parallels between music and sport. The author comes to a conclusion I so often do when it comes to adopting foreign clubs to root for; without some kind of real connection, how can can the emotional investment truly take?

• World Cup bid leaders from England, Qatar, and the US will speak to an assembled conference called Leaders in Football next month. Don Garber will be the American representative, and it set to discuss the development of the game in the United States, as well as "join the debate around how best to narrow the wealth gap between professional leagues around the world." I wasn't aware that Garber had any particular insight into that issue, but I suppose that running a league with a franchise system and centralized contract control gives him a unique perspective on the economics of football.
  

• Unfortunately, the prevailing image of soccer in the United States is one of minivans and orange slices; that suburban, lilly-white profile has harmed the growth of the game in the black community, an issue that author Robert Woodward is tackling full on. Mr. Woodward paints a tantalizing picture of an American soccer future that includes a passionate and engaged African-American community. Breaking down stereotypes and making the game accessible to all is a major problem confronting the American soccer community, and frank and honest discussions of the situation should be openly welcomed.
  

Today is an MFUSA snow day, as I've decided to avoid the debacle that is the DC area's attempts to deal with a little snow, and stay home. Luckily for you, this means as many posts as I can muster and progress towards the release of a new podcast by the end of the day.

Let's start with a small collection of links that have caught my eye this morning:

GOALSeattle has a look at what Qwest will look like on Opening Day (sorry, I just can't make myself call it "First Kick"), and it all sounds pretty impressive. If the momentum rolls in the Emerald City all season long, it will set the standard for new clubs in MLS. I just hope they make a lot of noise up there in the Northwest; Qwest is notoriously loud as an American football stadium (partly due to the fans, partly due to the intentional acoustical design), so Sounders fans have a chance to set the bar.

As a follow up, Kyle McCarthy at Goal.com wonders if the instant success of Toronto and Seattle will shine a harsh light on the rest of the league. It's possible, and perhaps outside observers will spout negativity about the less successfully marketed clubs, though the overall effect should be a positive one. Every marketing head in MLS should be taking notes from TFC and SSFC. Although the resonance of Toronto's sell-out success is mute in the States because of the Canada-factor (not fair, just the truth), Seattle's ticket sales bonanza could conceivably trickle down to other MLS clubs around the country. Hopefully, some of the mainstream sports media starts to pay attention in the coming weeks.

I'm now of the opinions that Rio Ferdinand is a jackass. How about a little respect for someone who took a chance, Rio? While we may all be turning on Beckham now, and the grand experiment has petered out, just the fact that Golden Balls had the, well, balls to come here with a hope to grow the game is commendable.

DaMarcus Beasley might be wasting away in Glasgow, but at least Mo Edu is making progress. With the U.S. midfield seemingly stacked, the development of Edu would seem less important for the Nats, and more important for the developing rep of American players. Not true for me on the first point, as I think Maurice will be a big time part of the team in South Africa next year.

On the expansion front, the Timbers Army held a rally on Saturday (using this link because Duane's comments are always a worthwhile read). It may not be a foregone conclusion with the vote still to come (March 11th), but I'd be betting on Portland for one of the two slots (if American books took bets on that type of thing). The other spot seems like it could go any of the remaining suitors, including Montreal; while I'm not convinced that the Quebecers are back in the mix, it's hard to believe that Garber & Co. didn't get a little starry-eyed over the CCL match attendance.

Today is roster compliance day for MLS teams, although in the Kyle McCarthy article I linked to earlier, he explains that there's not much bite to the deadline. All it really means to me is that we're getting closer to First Kick (okay, so maybe I will use it; just seems hokey for some reason). With my NFL football team falling apart, I need to keep my mind on the good stuff: MLS soccer in 17 days.

Picture grabbed from Off the Post, who I'm sure got it somewhere else.

I'm working on a new open letter idea, one with a little more scope and potential impact than the last one, so I've brought you a few links to tide you over.

Zero soccer content in the first link, just an insanely idiotic view on American football that I think is worth sharing. This is why I get frustrated, and why I'd like to take a frying pan to the skulls of most American sports fans.

I'm not normally a reader of Bleacher Report, but I came across a of fan blog (I think it's a fan blog; the writing is horrible) that illustrates one of the cornerstone tenets of the typical American attitude towards soccer. The "there's not enough scoring" argument. The guy's even given some suggestions on how to "improve" the game and make it more palatable to the American sports fan (and I say BAH! to all of them)

This one is great. Apparently, soccer is akin to socialism, which it why it will never succeed here. I just might be in the market for a new nation to call home; if any of my international visitors would like to make a suggestion, feel free. Suffering fools is taking up way too much of my time.

No American attitudes in the fourth link, just an examination of "soccer chatter". Pretty interesting stuff, although I would argue that almost none of it applies on this side of the Atlantic.

And finally, a nice short piece on the "football or soccer" argument. I'll call it whatever I want, thank you very much. I'm all for using the two words interchangeably, as the meaning is almost always made clear by the context.