There's a new show available at the American Soccer Show website, or if you prefer, download it here. There's draw talk, strike talk, and USL/NASL meeting talk.
I'd love to start this post by using the tired analogy of "the light finally coming on" for the organization in question; it's not every day, unfortunately, that we see a marketing epiphany on the part of an MLS club, so the plaudits should be flowing fast and furious in the direction of FC Dallas after they announced their new "We Are Not Spectators" campaign.
The American Soccer Show World Cup draw special edition is now available for download. The show included calls by Ginge, Adam Soucie (Captain Positive), Max Zeger (Goal.com), Travis Clark (Covering the Pitch), Graham Bell of CSRN, and Shane Evans (Goal.com).
Staying on top of the soccer news of the day as I do, I've noticed something: every day, it seems, an American player is either confirmed to be coming to MLS or is rumored to be on his way. Among the names popping up recently are Vincenzo Bernardo and Lee Nguyen, two American youth internationals currently looking for clubs. Add the return of National Team defender Danny Califf to the mix, and a significant amount of American talent appears to be coming home.
Let's just get this over with and call 2010 "The Year of American Soccer History". Between club and country, things will all come together to bring about the revival of some old soccer memories, memories that make up a large portion of the history this country has with the beautiful game.
It’s a typical December afternoon in West Philadelphia. The sky is covered by several hues of gray, and a cold drizzle is gently falling. The crisp, wet conditions, however, cannot dampen the spirits of the roughly 400 hopefuls looking to catch the attention of Piotr Nowak and his staff. Throughout the morning, different groups of players representing nearly every age and ethnicity have taken to Rhodes Field at the University of Pennsylvania, all with one goal in mind: to wear the blue and gold of the Philadelphia Union.
The impending match-up between the United States and England, sixty years after the one and only other time they faced off in World Cup play, is a perfect excuse to take a look at the relative improvement of the two nations over that time. Though the US team was victorious on that fateful day in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the disparity in the soccer level of the respective countries was such that the Americans would not again participate in the World Cup for forty years, while England would maintain their position as a leading world power (with a few hiccups along the way) up until the present day.
