If you'll let me take a break from the usual shenanigans for something very serious this morning I would appreciate it. Last night my grandmother told me about the children of a couple she once worked with at a hospital in my ancestral home of Lafayette, LA who were at the World Cup. Last Tuesday 24 year-old Nicole Murphy -a four-year starter for the 2007 D2 Championship U.

The Donovan talk, the Donovan debate, the Donovan backlash (in the direction Garber and the league, not Landon himself) is a swirling pool of putrid projection and condescension. You want Donovan to go back to England. Bill Simmons wants Donovan to go back to England. Your mom probably wants Donovan to go back to England.

It's time once again to take the pulse of American soccer, and this month "State of the States" is all about "F" words. Lest you get the wrong idea, I'm not going to engage in any obscenity-laced criticism of my poor DC United's front office. Instead, we're going to talk Friendlies and Flagship Franchises.

It's time for US Soccer to turn it's back on the Home Depot Center. It's time to stop this nonsense and start playing matches in cities that actually give a damn about American soccer. Alright I admit this isn't going to happen but that won't stop me from making the argument.
Let's begin with the most important black mark on the credibility of the Home Depot Center.

Photographer: Mike Strobe
I haven't even been to Red Bull Arena (yet) and I only was able to watch maybe 5 to 10 minutes of the match against Santos on Saturday. Despite that, I can safely say that every single soccer stadium in the United States of America is now obsolete. That's not to say that Crew Stadium, Pizza Hut Park, Home Depot Center and many others aren't great for the game.

Peter Wilt peers into the future of American soccer

I like to look at American soccer in decade long chunks. American soccer in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s looked different in each decade and each decade demonstrated growth over its predecessor.

The ‘60s was the last decade of soccer as strictly a foreign sport.

This week, the well-meaning folks at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank, published a story entitled "The Right-Wing War Against Soccer." It reviews some of the most recent anti-soccer rhetoric out conservative media folks like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck and others.
But to me, the alleged "right wing war against soccer" is immaterial.

Stuck at work trying to watch (surreptitiously) the most crucial match of your beloved national team's World Cup is a difficult experience. When they almost go down in the first few minutes, then conspire to miss chance after chance while you attempt to sneak a glance here and there, it's nearly enough to make you crazy.

First off, I don't hate the kid. I really, really feel bad for him. I don't think he's a bad guy and I don't think his choice to play for Italy was out of any malice or that it served as any great indictment of American soccer.
All that being said, I think Rossi being left off the team is a net plus for US Soccer.

That has to be the most brazen act of robbery since we took this land from the Indians. We owe England a couple of colonies for this one.
You know, I don't think I've ever seen a game of Russian roulette end in a tie before.
The one thing I'm disappointed about is that the potential for American soccer was squandered.

Fox Broadcasting will launch a new site starting March 1st called Fox Soccer Plus.

Announced on the Fox Soccer website, Fox Soccer Plus (FSP) is intended to complement Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) and complete the "ultimate soccer fan experience." The channel will be broadcast in HD.

Despite the amount of time that has passed, there remains a Giuseppe Rossi-sized wound in the psyche of American soccer fans. The New Jersey-born Rossi, son of Italian immigrants and an immense...

The summer of 1994 will always be remembered as a defining moment in the history of American soccer. The World Cup brought the game's international talent to a curious nation's doorstep in the form of Baggio, Batistuta and Stoichkov as legions of budding American soccer fans began to learn what soccer at its highest level was all about.

Head go boom. I find myself regularly saying something like "You'll know soccer is big in American when..." with various endings to the statement. Some of them relate to the media, others to the...

photo by Joe Toth/ISIphotos.com

Landon Donovan's strong World Cup showing was sure to attract interest from European clubs, and two of the better teams in England are interested in signing the U.S. national team midfielder.

According to News of the World, Everton is looking to reacquire Donovan, who enjoyed a successful three-month loan with the club earlier this year.

DC United academy product Andy Najar, age 17, battles against Landon Donovan
Photo courtesy of Nick Eckert, more of his work available here.
In the last week or so, we've been lucky enough to read two great pieces on the changes in American youth development by Bill Archer and Tom Dunmore.

Once thought of as the brightest hope in American soccer, misfit Jozy Altidore is set to leave Villarreal permenantly and head over to Turkey, where Besiktas are thought to be readying an offer on a long term contract.
I've always thought that Villarreal was too big a club for Jozy to start his European adventure, and when he came on loan to Hull City, I thought he would be a success, a smaller mid-table team.

How terrible would this be if it was real?
A statue of the late American soccer pioneer Lamar Hunt will be unveiled at Pizza Hut Park tonight as part of the pre-game ceremonies for FC Dallas' friendly against Inter Milan.
Hunt's place as a driving force behind American soccer make the statue more than well-deserved (no comment on what his son is doing to that legacy).

The saga of Freddy Adu, from his sudden explosion in the mainstream consciousness to his current sate of forgotten about super bust plying his trade in Greece for a club of which many have never...

So if you read this debacle of blog with any regularity you're either a friend of mine, an American soccer fan or both. And if you are the latter you're probably very familiar with the Santino Quaranta story. If he had lady parts his tale would make for a phenomenal "Lifetime Movie Event" but since he's got wedding tackle down there he only gets 7 minutes on Soccernet.

this is all five parts of the story. -

Sacha Kljestan throws up his hands. He did his best and doesn't know what else to do. Maybe it's time to quit. He's thought about it before. One guy can only do so much. So many factors go into success or create failure. The opponent is only of them.

Sacha sizes up his pre-teen cousin Moselle, who has her younger brother, Sterling, bouncing and banging up and down as she yanks harder on the back of his underwear.

Bob Bradley rumors to Aston Villa continue to swirl, and as Michelle Kaufman of the Miami Herald writes, Bradley's rise to coaching prominence only adds more credence to the fact that American coaches (as well as American soccer) has come a long way.

Is a U.S.-born coach ready to take on an English Premier League club?

The news of Bob Bradley returning to the US National team post for this new World Cup cycle is encouraging news for US Soccer. Paul Kennedy of Soccer America writes why retaining him for four more years became the only realistic option for U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati.
Spain victory trumps Ghana loss.

As we discussed in last week's podcast, the USA has 23 roster spots to fill for the coming World Cup. No one (including, it seems, Bob Bradley) is set on the number of players we're taking for each position or the overall look of the squad. Compounding the issue is that even the most hardcore supporters of the US Men's National Team have difficulty keeping track of all of the players currently listed on the website's Player Pool.

YouTube- The Future for U.S. Soccer.MTS YouTube- The Future for U.S. Soccer.MTS
So here's the presumptive next US coach Jurgen Klinsmann spouting about 700 different cliches when asked what American soccer needs to do to improve.

Where it has been accepted to bash American soccer recently by members of the American media, apparently Sir Alex Ferguson didn't get that memo.
As he prepares to bring his Manchester United team on a preseason tour of the US, Ferguson comments on the state of the American game.
"American soccer is starting to make an impact and it is so improved, " he said.

For those who watched yesterday's World Cup Final between Spain and Holland and wondered 'what does the US have to do to get to that stage?', a response comes from Bill George - Professor of management practice at Harvard Business School.

Whereas the Spanish and the Dutch focus on player development, the Americans focus on player selection.

Posted by Tim Patterson

In the second round of the English Carling Cup, Deuce got the 6th and final goal for Fulham against Port Vale. Represent American soccer well over there Clint!

And now, a message from MLS Commissioner Don Garber.

"(TFC supporters) helped teach Americans how to be soccer fans, travelling, being passionate about Champions League and international games. It's unfortunate that they haven't been rewarded with a successful team.

The 2010 South African FIFA World Cup is fast approaching. Fans from all over the globe will be flocking to South Africa to watch their countries compete. Excitement is building as the opening match approaches (June 11th). Football, or soccer (US), is the world's sport, and mounting anticipation can only be expected.

Season is over, and now the fun stuff can begin... First, a bit of self-advertisement, just wrote an article on Serie A Talk to check out on Parma and Guidolin, check that awesome stuff out here. Second, a bit of MLS migration news, it's interesting to see recent comments by Juventus midfielder Diego who said this about the MLS,

"I find Major League Soccer quite interesting and I could compete in it one day.

No one, perhaps even Landon Donovan himself, knows if he'll be around for the end of the MLS season. Surely someone in Europe, that land where they take their soccer seriously, wants the services of the American midfielder. Major League Soccer might even listen to a few offers. Perhaps he'll be sold.

Landon Donovan's return to Everton is looking less and less likely. After a successful loan spell this past winter, followed by an impressive World Cup, myself and probably yourself had assumed Donovan was destined for permanent Toffee-dom in January 2011.

American soccer fans are a special bunch. Some support MLS teams, some support USL teams, and some, usually foreign ex-pats, think that the game played in the US is a joke. There isn't a consensus wave of support for MLS as a whole, yet the spectre of an opinion exists that if you don't support MLS, you don't support American soccer.

Editor's Note: New MFUSA contributor David T. Hammons has impeccable timing, and presents his perspective on why "Soccer Talk Live" represents a step forward for soccer in the United States.

by David T. Hammons

Kyle Martino is on the verge of offering Fox Soccer Channel and the newly-found American soccer fans something that this sport desperately needs to keep them interested in "The Beautiful Game.

Miami FC, a USSF Divsion II team playing in the newly restructured North American Soccer League (NASL) has rolled out their new kit (uniforms). Former Missouri State Bear Lance Parker was featured prominently in the story ou can check out here. You understand why I chose this picture right?

The season opens for Miami the week after Easter when the Rochester Rhinos visit on Saturday April 10.

By now you are probably familiar with the gist of the new DP rule, in particular you've started dreaming of a Juninho, or a Deco, maybe an Henry. All of the speculation will be about players that are "one namers." Much of this focus will be misplaced, as it operates under the old paradigm when a team only got one bullet and so the shot a team
took had to be perfect.

Let the Bob Bradley scrutiny begin!

In the next eight weeks or so, with an increasingly "intelligent" American soccer public, Bob Bradley will be under the microscope unlike any American soccer coach in history. Of course, it won't compare to the pressure in England, Brazil, Germany, Argentina or most anywhere else for that matter.

Right at this very moment, the American soccer world is ready to canonize Landon Donovan. He scored the goal that put the United States in the knockout rounds, ending ninety-one minutes of protracted agony. Given the chance off a rebound, he didn't miss.
It doesn't matter if Donovan did his best Casper impression for some of the match.

Frustrated at not being able to join the coaching ranks of US Soccer or the MLS, former US International, and current Fox Soccer Channel analyst Eric Wynalda has joined Mexican club Murcielagos in the northern state of Sinaloa. His job title is President of International Operations. Eyebrows might be raised at Wynalda's choice of clubs to get involved with.