Soccer outside Europe has gained in popularity in recent years, with David Beckham making a high profile move to the MLS in North America, a transfer that transformed soccer into a sport with a widespread global profile and exposed a new generation of potential players to the game, but the latest FIFA tournament, the African Cup Of Nations, has failed to catch the public's imagination.

Not even one of the faces of African soccer is immune to punishment of the harshest kind.

The Cameroonian Football Federation banned captain and star forward Samuel Eto'o 15 matches for his role in a players' strike last month. Eto'o can appeal the punishment over the course of the next two weeks, but if it is upheld, the ban could signal the end of the 30-year-old Eto'o's international career, considering the length of the ban and the bad blood between player and federation.

An American in Cairo: Bob Bradley aims to revive the Egyptian national team (AP Photo).

Associated Press Writer Ahmed El-Sedaway is the latest to try to make a silk purse out of Bob Bradley's sow's ear quotes:

CAIRO (AP) -- Bob Bradley isn't interested in talking about the man who replaced him as U.

With this piece by new contributor Matthew Pentz, TSG kicks off it's African soccer coverage.

The Forgotten Footie Continent

The African Champions League exists mostly, if not completely, on the periphery of the soccer world. The tournament blends a strong history, passionate fans, and an up-and-coming class of young players, however, and its semifinalists each have a bit of the underdog in them.

By FRANCO PANIZO

MLS wasn't the only team to lose something during All-Star week.

Manchester United forward Javier 'Chicharito' Hernandez will miss the next two weeks of preseason preparations after suffering a concussion during the club's practice session on Tuesday.

We somewhat superficially addressed the topic of trafficking in soccer at Run of Play a few months back. Luckily, as the video of the trailer for Soka Afrika suggests, some pretty good filmmakers have tackled the topic head-on. The film, which has a twitter handle as well, follows the stories of two young African soccer talents: one a promising thorough-bred who goes the traditional route, the other a talented youngster who gets swindled by an "agent"

Eric of A Football Report did a splendid full review of the film here.

When sports journalists describe Equatorial Guinea as an unknown quantity, I wonder if that's just their way of saying they haven't wanted to look too closely at the team and the country's football association.
Since they upset Nigeria in the 2008 African Women's Championship, they haven't been much of a mystery to followers of African women's football.