the jewel of the duwamish
The treasure is not always what it seems. Didn’t Jack T. Colton teach us anything? It’s not a shiny, Tiffany-made cup. It’s not a three-day party of networking and one-night stands. It’s a moment where truth and disbelief bleed into the surreal. It’s a band on parade with a madcap leader out front. It’s the fans and all the swag they buy, creating a cohesive gang of support whereby the entire stadium is a supporters group. It’s the stadium with as many images of Sounders as Seahawks. It’s the Emerald City itself–the temporary end of the yello

Vietnam Superstar
QUICK PROGRAMMING NOTES: TIAS, Du Nord, The Original Winger, Soccer By Ives, and The Offside Rules will be hosting a party Friday night 9pm in downtown Seattle at Kell’s Irish Pub (FYI - bar charges $5 cover, which is not going to us). It’s a true soccer bar I’m told, should be a good time. Won’t you join us? —- New Podcast Coming To iTunes: WaitingForGaetjens.com Hear me butcher first and last names and attempt to make co-host Greg Lalas laugh as he tries to bring serious analysis to

just get real and do it
Want improvement? A century ago as America’s eastern cities overpopulated it was, “Go West, young man.” For soccer a century later the trumpet sounds the same. Only going west means tracking back to the previous Western frontier. In mainland Europe. Or at least that’s what Simon Kuper believes and writes in his and economist Stefan Szymanski’s new book, Soccernomics. I transcribed the entire interview, and he didn’

a life toward soccer, part 2
Los Angeles artist Noe Valladolid continues his illustrated soccer biography The TIAS Diary Project returns with the 2nd part of a series put together by a young man in Southern California. This is his life’s story, his soccer story in words and pictures. Consider it a stab at a TIAS graphic novel. For the first installment, I referred to it as a stab at a comic book, but “graphic” now seems to be a better fit, as Noe’s story takes a turn

Kicking And Screening, now in DC
foreign failure (and a blind date) nets New York DC a soccer film festival What almost started in London, only to become a gift to New York, is now taking the show on the road with the second installment of the Kicking & Screening soccer film festival in Washington, DC, October 15-18. With three new films that were not shown in NYC, the DC edition still includes Les Yeux dans les Bleus, but adds in a personal favorite, Sons of Sakhni