“MLS Team America” Could It Work?
Yanks-Abroad is a great site.  I read it near religiously.   You should too. The name alone, however, suggests its latent bias – one toward a preference for US players that are playing abroad, and a (general) disinterest in MLS.    That made Brent Latham’s new Yanks Abroad piece “PHILLY..GO AMERICAN!” such a peculiar and interesting one.  It is a worthy read, so I won’t recap it here, but needless to say he makes an interesting argument that the Philadelphia Union has a unique opportunity to go 100% Americ

Unfiltered Thinking: Beckham, Donovan, MLS Cup 2009
When writing about a game that involves a team I support I like to take the approach of looking at the cup as being both half full or half empty. As a (mostly) non-partisan observer for MLS Cup I didn’t want to pollute this blog with such thinking.   (I am, however, surprised that I haven’t yet seen an overtime/penalty related headline somewhere about how “The Cup Runneth Over” . . . )  Instead, here are some largely unfiltered thoughts on yesterday’s MLS Cup. It was a Cup Final – Last night’s game was not filled with particularly pretty soccer nor as many goal-mouth chances as I’d like to see, but this is what Cup f

US Men v. Slovakia: The glass is half . . .
A Slovakian team that was (apparently) good in European qualifying, but not well ranked by FIFA,  played a defensive, counter-attacking game against the USA in a partially filled stadium, on a pretty ugly field and won 1-0 on a weak penalty call.   Not what you call must-see-TV, so it is probably good that not many people saw it.   For us die-hards, let’s get right to it . . . Glass Half Full View USA maintained possession for large stretches of the game, something they had failed to do against most other opponents recently.   That said, Slovakia seemed content to let the US keep possession, especially since so much happened i

Under-17s, Luis Gil and the Maturity Quagmire
The US Under-17s are out of the Fifa U-17 World Cup after a tough loss to Italy.   I saw less of their World Cup play than I wanted, but a few thoughts remain hard to shake. Maturity is over-rated – at least in soccer.   The game against the UAE reminded me most why watching the occasional youth game is so refreshing: even in a pressure situation the ‘kids’ tend to play with an offense-first mindset and a penchant for flair that will very likely (and sadly) be taught out of them in the pro ranks.   Our challenge is finding a way to add the professionalism, strength, speed of play/thought that is required to make the next step wi

Dempsey: Exceptional American, American Exception.
Kudos are clearly warranted for Clint Dempsey as he hits his second goal in as many weeks for Fulham FC.      While his first professional coach and likely mentor, ex-Liverpool great Steve Nicol, might not immediately love that Clint helped Fulham take down Liverpool, it was clearly a significant achievement following a goal the prior week against wanna-be powerhouse Manchester City. As a Revs fan, I was on the Dempsey bandwagon early . . . he brought swagger, skill, attitude and the honest work-rate of a rookie who was both earning his keep while still making waves.�