Tag: us soccer

Why Landon Donovan did more for US soccer than anyone else

The announcement was inevitable. Seeing Landon Donovan score against Bayern Munich in a meaningless game somehow signified a type of finality reserved for movie scripts. When Donovan announced his plans to retire…

Why Don Garber went to Zürich

US Soccer’s concept of professional league divisions is a farce and a red herring, because it masks Major League Soccer’s real agenda and intention. • • • • MLS’s real agenda and intention is simple: what…

The Fermi Paradox of American soccer

WHY HASN’T THE UNITED STATES produced a world-class player in the men’s game? That question might as well read like Enrico Fermi’s intergalactic quandary, “Where is everyone?” I imagine physicists and astronomers…

From Swansea reject to Lazio legend: the story of Giorgio Chinaglia

Raised in Wales to Italian parents, Giorgio Chinaglia took a unique route to reach the top of football. We look back at the remarkable career of the man voted Lazio’s greatest player and who scored over 200 official goals to become the greatest import seen at the New York Cosmos.

Football, mediocrity and excellence in the USA

Below the radar of mainstream media, there is a debate raging in the football (soccer) world in the USA and Canada). At the centre of the debate are U.S. Soccer (FIFA’s representative…

The failed Team America experiment

LONG BEFORE A TEAM OF ANIMATED PUPPETS decided to take on the world under the banner of Team America, a hodgepodge collection of superstars and NASL underlings joined together in 1976 to take…

The symbiotic relationship between ageing stars and MLS

As featured on Guardian Sport It’s strange what falling out with Real Madrid can lead to; the evolution of Major League Soccer and the career of David Beckham can attest to that. Having…

Hindsight is 2018 for the US national team

“SOCCER HAS ARRIVED IN THE UNITED STATES! And it’s here to stay … just look at the watch parties, full stadiums stateside watching the United States Men’s national team play in the World…