Footsmoke

Blog Thumbnail
Website
http://www.footsmoke.com/
Syndication Feed
http://www.footsmoke.com/?feed=atom
Last Updated
November 20, 2009 14:02 EST
Added
February 20, 2009

DON’T WRITE OFF THE U-17 NATIONAL TEAM YET

Footsmoke @ 07:05 PM EST

Much hype surrounded the talented U.S. U-17 national team during the Fifa World Cup in Nigeria. Ultimately, the team fell flat, losing in the round of 16 to a classier Italy side. And so the mumblings have started, gnawing into America's rotten system of developing professional players. "Is the Academy system the best way to develop players?

Click to continue reading...

HARNESSING THE HEAT OF CLOSED-CIRCUITS

Footsmoke @ 04:13 PM EST
One Fan's Reaction to Watching U.S.-Honduras Eighties-Style

I watch most U.S. national team games cloistered in my own soccer nerdom, hunched over a computer or slouched at a friend's house where I can bitch freely about the team's dry ideas and dire first touch. This is how a lot of us watch games.

Click to continue reading...

DEBATING DIFFERENT TYPES OF FANDOM

Footsmoke @ 09:56 PM EST

Throughout my life I've been both types of fan, loyalist and leach, depending on the sport. There is logic and even romance in each. But as I age I'm attracted more and more to the latter, to the Chuck Klosterman sort of sports fandom that resembles musical taste – polygamous and fickle. I think this is common for a lot of modern sports fans, the mass consumers of entertainment that we are.

Click to continue reading...

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO U.S. SOCCER FANDOM

Footsmoke @ 09:14 PM EST

To all those who rode their first wave of U.S. soccer fandom into the hot Mexican dust, welcome! Brush that dirt off your coat. Hang it up. Stay awhile. And chin up for god sakes. It's not that bad. I'm here to help you through it. There are just a few things you should know so you don't make rookie blunders like buying an Eddie Johnson jersey or dislexifying Onyewu's name.

Click to continue reading...

ON FREDDY ADU’S REVISED POTENTIAL

Footsmoke @ 10:07 PM EST

Maybe you had too much too fast. Maybe you had too much too fast.
Or just over played your part.
Nothin shakin on shakedown street. Used to be the heart of town.
Dont tell me this town aint got no heart. You just gotta poke around.

Freddy Adu was once pure potentiality.

Click to continue reading...

AN ADULT’S LETTER TO ALEXI LALAS

Footsmoke @ 07:43 PM EST
By Diego Maradona

Alexi,

What's up you leather-faced buffoon? Last time I saw you I was probably putting the ball through your legs. Or blowing lines off your wife's potatoes after your country banned me in 94'. You're lucky I didn't get you on the field. Just kidding. Have we met before? I don't remember.

Click to continue reading...

WPS END OF SEASON WRAP-UP

Footsmoke @ 03:31 PM EST

* This is the last time I'll write on WPS for a while, I swear. Unless SI hires me to do "The Marta Experiment" or something.


American citizens pay more attention when Lady Gaga burps on television than when New Jersey's Sky Blue FC wins the WPS championship.

Click to continue reading...

HOW MUCH WILL HDTV AFFECT SOCCER IN AMERICA?

Footsmoke @ 01:43 PM EST

Bill Simmons, one of the most beloved messiahs of American sportswriting, is getting into soccer. I wish him the best, although I have a feeling he has no idea how big of a plunge he is about to take. His new attraction to the sport should make for an interesting experiment with fans of mainstream American sports.

Click to continue reading...

HOLY CRAP, HAS ANYONE ELSE NOTICED WHAT MANCHESTER CITY IS DOING?

Footsmoke @ 03:30 PM EST

Manchester City is like a black hole that has opened up in the fabric of the Premier League. Sucking mass, masses of expensive players and media attention, it leaves many fans unsure about how to approach the club's awakening and limitless powers. Some laugh. Some wince. Most shake their heads, confused and afraid, especially those millions of fans of any of the now comparatively-less-rich Big Four, which constitute most of the Premier League fans here in America and elsewhere outside England.

Click to continue reading...

“AZTECA BLUES” BY LANDON DONOVAN

Footsmoke @ 03:43 PM EST

Touch down in Mexico City, this is gonna be a blast
Touch down in the Valley baby, this is gonna be a blast

Out on the open airstrip, breath of dying horse's ass.

Tour Azteca at dusk now, this place is kinda scary
Tour Azteca's big shadows, this place is kinda scary

Out in the parking lot, I hope the hooker's spare me.

Click to continue reading...

EMBARRASSED, SLIGHTLY

Footsmoke @ 01:12 AM EST
A Late And Irrelevant Take On the U.S. Loss to Mexico in the Gold Cup Finals

Our team drank beers in afternoon light on the bleachers after a men's league soccer game. Behind us, a Latino man stumbled out of the shadow of a tree. His calloused heels scraped the pavement through the holes in his sandals.

Click to continue reading...

THE GROWTH OF ^EUROPEAN^ SOCCER IN THE U.S.

Footsmoke @ 02:13 AM EST
And Why It's Probably OK

Ah, summer soccer in America. When we can finally kick back, crack an ice cold Miller Lite, and take in some of that industrious Major League Soccer all of these scallywags have been talking about ... oh you've got Stella? Wait, Barca's playing? Maybe next year....

In a lot of ways, foreign club tours of America have exposed just how secondary MLS's secondary status is even in its home country compared to foreign soccer.

Click to continue reading...

ONE MAN’S STRUGGLES WITH WPS FANDOM

Footsmoke @ 03:40 AM EST
Does Liking Women's Soccer Make You Gayer?

I love soccer. And I'm pretty sure I love women. So why don't I love Women's Professional Soccer? Or do I, secretly? These are questions I fear to answer because any serious soul-searching might uncover the misogynistic pig within. That, or I'll end up stripping away a vestigial layer of macho-callous that has kept me straight and largely insensitive to the needs of women through the years.

Click to continue reading...

SHAKING LOOSE FROM THE SOIL

Footsmoke @ 02:40 PM EST
On Sports Blogging, Sports Journalism, and the Scary Fate of Humanity

Alright, alright, fine – blogging isn't journalism. Lines divide the two fields. Professional journalists get paid, for example. Us amateur bloggers usually don't. We toil in the nervous spaces between working on the internet and "working" on the internet, or between trips to Starbucks and withdrawing more trust-fund money.

Click to continue reading...

A KID’S LETTER TO ALEXI LALAS

Footsmoke @ 05:49 PM EST

Dear Alexi,

You seem like a pretty cool guy, for a ginger and a hippie. Actually, that's why I like you – cause you're a ginger but you make fun of yourself for being a ginger. You're like, ‘yeah I'm a goofy ginger, What? I'm still pretty cool and funny could probably kick your ass, so if you can't look past my gingerness then like screw you dude.

Click to continue reading...