Culture of Soccer

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http://cultureofsoccer.com/
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Last Updated
November 20, 2009 21:09 EST
Added
February 25, 2007

How I Got This Way

Culture of Soccer @ 09:01 PM EST

I did a piece for Tom Dunmore's excellent blog Pitch Invasion today about how I became the obsessed soccer fan that I am. Kudos to anyone who can name a player for the Dayton Dynamo!

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An Interview with Jack Keane, Owner of Nevada Smith’s Bar

Culture of Soccer @ 08:00 AM EST

Any list of soccer meccas in the United States would have to include Nevada Smith's. The bar, located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, has bringing in the soccer faithful of New York since 1994. Today, on any given weekend day, the bar shows games from morning till night.

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United States: Importer or Exporter of Talent?

Culture of Soccer @ 07:00 AM EST

When I travel abroad, people often tell me that the United States is good at soccer only because they import foreigners to play for the national team. While this strategy was key in our development as a soccer nation, it is far, far less common today. The 1990s saw the US scour European leagues for players with American connections, coming up with gems such as Ernie Stewart and Thomas Dooley (both of whom had American servicemen fathers) and duds such as David Wagner and David Regis (the latter was a Frenchman whose late call-up into the 1998 World Cup squad led to great friction within the team and was a large part of the team's horrible showing in that tournament).

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Hello? Anyone still here?

Culture of Soccer @ 01:27 PM EST

First of all, I want to apologize for the sudden disappearance of Culture of Soccer last year. Starting graduate school ate up most of my time, and I couldn't keep up the site. However, now that I am a couple of years into my PhD, I find myself with a bit more time and I am happy to announce that I will be restarting Culture of Soccer shortly.

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Winthrop University’s Unlikely Ugandan Connection: An Interview with Assistant Coach Daniel Ridenhour

Culture of Soccer @ 07:19 AM EST
It is an understatement to say that the path from Uganda to South Carolina is not well trodden. But in the past few years an increasing number of young men from Uganda have been making the unlikely journey to Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina to study and play for school's soccer team. Click to continue reading...

Player Focus: Alexis and Amber Hernandez

Culture of Soccer @ 12:59 PM EST
The only thing more incredible than the fact that brother and sister Alexis and Amber Hernandez both play for youth national teams is the fact that both represent Mexico. The Hernandez siblings have lived their entire lives in California, but in the past year both have worn Mexico's famous tricolor. Children of a Mexican-born mother [. Click to continue reading...

2008 MLS Preview

Culture of Soccer @ 06:35 AM EST
Ed. Note: I don't normally dabble in "news of the day" type articles so this is a bit of a departure. I wrote this MLS preview and submitted it to the Guardian for consideration, but since I didn't hear back, I figured I might as well publish it here. A couple of notes on this [...] Click to continue reading...
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Global Political Economy and Team Selection: Mexico and Qatar

Culture of Soccer @ 01:32 PM EST
The case of Chivas' Jesus Padilla is not the only example of a soccer team in Mexico struggling to define who is, in fact, Mexican. The national team has been embroiled in controversy for much the same reason. The previous national team boss, Argentine Ricardo Lavolpe, angered some in Mexico by using naturalized players for [. Click to continue reading...
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Jesus Padilla and La Raza Cosmica in the 21st Century

Culture of Soccer @ 08:45 AM EST
What LA-based journalists Luis Bueno and Andrea Canales uncovered about Jesus Padilla was not that big a deal. Their reporting showed that Padilla, a young forward for Chivas of Mexico, was born in San Jose, Calffornia, not San Miguel de Alto in the Mexican state of Jalisco, as stated on the club's website. Click to continue reading...

Interview with Luis Bueno

Culture of Soccer @ 10:12 AM EST
Following up on my interview with Andrea Canales a few weeks ago, my interview with her fellow LA reporter Luis Bueno is up now on This is American Soccer (TIAS). Luis writes for Sports Illustrated, MLSNet.com, the Press-Enterprise, in addition to running his Sideline Views blog along with Andrea. Most of my conversation with Luis [. Click to continue reading...

Interview with Andrea Canales

Culture of Soccer @ 04:49 PM EST
This past weekend, I had the opportunity to head up to Los Angeles to speak with a couple of prominent soccer writers there. Andrea Canales and Luis Bueno are the duo behind the Sideline Views blog, and they also write individually for various publications. Both interviews were done as part of a joint project with [. Click to continue reading...

Ethnic Balkans Around the Globe

Culture of Soccer @ 09:56 PM EST
When Kosovo declares independence on Sunday, the number of countries to have risen from the ashes of the former Yugoslavia will reach seven (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia being the other six). Kosovo's independence – supported by the US and many EU countries, but strongly opposed by Serbia, along with its [. Click to continue reading...

Explaining the Lack of American Coaches Abroad

Culture of Soccer @ 07:49 AM EST
In the past few years, the number of American players plying their trade abroad has increased exponentially. It wasn't that long ago that knowledgeable American fans could easily count all of the "Yanks Abroad" (personally, I remember scouring for newspapers that would have a one-sentence blurb on the exploits of Tab Ramos at Real Betis). Click to continue reading...

Some Team Names Are All Greek to Me

Culture of Soccer @ 09:55 AM EST
Many trace the origins of many aspects of Western society to ancient Greece (though not all: in his essay Anthropology and the Savage Slot, Rolph-Michel Trouillot claims that "Greece did not beget Europe. Rather, Europe claimed Greece" [21]). The beginnings of democracy, philosophy, and debate as they are practiced today, it is claimed, can be [. Click to continue reading...
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Why Do They Play That Way?

Culture of Soccer @ 09:32 AM EST
One of the joys of watching the World Cup is seeing teams from different parts of the globe play each other. The styles they employ are often a study in contrasts. Any time England plays Argentina, it is a battle of grit and determination versus technique and guile (there's also the wee matter of the [. Click to continue reading...