By Ollie Irish

"Man on? I thought you said 'Mandon'?"

Landon Donovan, who has impressed in his two games so far for Everton, has in return been more than impressed by how vocal footie fans are in England. After his new team's 2-0 win against Man City, the MLS star said:

"The atmosphere completely surpassed what I thought.

Being a Sounders fan, it's easy to be lulled into the belief that soccer in general, and MLS in particular, are about the hottest thing in American sports.

We see posters all over town. It seems like every other business has a schedule posted in its window. There are many bars in town where you can simply assume soccer will be playing on the big screen.

[This retrospective originally ran last year. We recently updated some of the information and added some missing jerseys, so we thought we'd post it again.]

We're taking a look at the USA men's soccer jerseys of the last 25 or so years, not only to provide a bit of history, but also as a bit of a refresher before looking toward the future of the USA's kit.

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.

Posted by Eric Beard

I'm not one to get glued to Twitter, but sometimes the application proves to be a beautiful creature. I recently began following Optajoe, of Optasports, a European data collection service for sports. Now, as a philosophy major, I'm not one to get caught up with statistics, which tend to dominate American sports, but Sir Optajoe has done a wonderful job of conveying these stats to have such undeniable meaning.

By Chris Wright

Rumours swirling around the internet this morning are suggesting that Liverpool's new owners NESV are weighing up taking the £3 million hit it would take to release current manager Roy Hodgson back into the wild thus clearing the way to install Frank Rijkaard at the Anfield helm.

I knew ESPN was going to hype the United States-England match as much as humanly possible, but I didn't think they were going to go to the mattresses. I was wrong.

For a company that usually shies away from any kind of political controversy whatsoever, ESPN is taking a considerable risk with it's new World Cup ad, "Glory.

Even small victories matter when it comes to Major League Soccer's visibility in a crowded sports marketplace. Not only does the domestic soccer product compete with the Big Four of American sports (NFL, MLB, NBA, and we'll throw the NHL a bone), other less-popular competitions fight for the very same entertainment dollar and television viewer.

Awwwww, Major League Soccer. If anyone should be an MLS fan it should be me. I grew up playing the sport; I love watching the sport; I've covered the sport at the high school, college and professional level; I have a blog called IntelligentSoccer.com. If the MLS can't win me over there's something seriously wrong.

Hey Rick, shut it.
We get you don't like football, it's really ok. We get that the idea of ties offends your American sports sensibilities. We get that you likely believe you can make our beloved sport better by adding in stupid Americanized ideas of what a sporting competition should include.
But we don't care.

I am so tired of hearing all of the traditional American sports journalists debating whether or not soccer is being embraced by Americans. Walk into almost any bar or restaurant with a TV this Saturday and tell me what you see. Show up to any Seattle Sounders match and listen to 36,000 crazed fans, drive by any park in the United States on the Saturday and take a look.

During my last real rant, I lamented the treatment of soccer by the American sports establishment; I specifically targeted sportstalk radio, the only real place I hear any any of the general (albeit locally-focused) sports discussion anymore, but the anger could have just as easily been directed at columnists and talking heads with national profiles.

It's already been a year full of off-field news good and bad for Major League Soccer.

And it may be about to pick up again.

MLS and Versus are talking about a potential TV partnership after the league's current deal with Fox Soccer Channel expires at the end of this season.

Image via Kevin Winter/Getty Images North America

When we first heard about the ESPY Awards, we lost hours of our lives thinking about how we could blag our way in and receive thousands of award-winning spa treatments. Then (once sober) we realised we were confusing the American sports awards put on by ESPN with ESPA the beauty brand we want to marry.

Any rule or regulation that removes or tends to remove the power of money to make the difference in playing strength is a good rule.

So spoke Branch Rickey, Baseball's Ferocious Gentleman and a leading executive/owner in Major League Baseball at four clubs from the 1910s to the 1950s.

There's been a lot of talk these last couple of days about how Major League Soccer players and the league are stuck at an impasse over a new collective bargaining agreement. Players have made noise, on Twitter and in the press, about an all but unbridgeable gap between the two sides. The latest extension to talks is set to expire Feb.

By Annette Lyndon - Guest Writer on The Flat Back Four
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).

Over the last two weeks, ESPN has bludgeoned mainstream American sports fans with its outstanding coverage of the World Cup. This has included all platforms, including the game broadcasts, pre-game shows, Sportcenter, ESPN Radio, website and more. Other national outlets such as Sports Illustrated and USA Today have also provided extensive coverage of the tournament.

Perhaps you've been living in a nuclear fallout shelter for some reason, or have just avoided all forms of mass media over the last two weeks or so and didn't know that the NFL season starts tonight. Well, it does, and the super spectacular kickoff game features the defending Super Bowl champions versus the Brett Favres.

With all the news over the past few days concerning the MLS collective bargaining agreement negotiations, I decided to take a ride in my Jabulani powered DeLorean and report what I saw. So prepare yourself and remember to think fourth dimensionally...
"I have to tell you about the future" -Marty McFly
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

An odd headline right after the sides agree on the new CBA (details please!), but one thing that was clear during the ordeal is that Single-Entity is here to stay, now we get that confirmed for the next five years. This post is not about the new CBA, but instead is about how the lack of tradition should help MLS compete with global soccer leagues/clubs, or it could be titled

Soccernomics isn't about statistics

That trip I took to Cabo feels like a month ago, really only 1 week, and during the flights, the down time on a porch or pool I got to read the book that many claim is the reported entry of performance analysis (statistics of the sabermetric sort) into the realm of soccer.

One of the most fascinating aspects of soccer is its formula for declaring a champion. In no other sport (mind you I come from an American sports background) can a match that pits the team at the top of the league versus a middle-of-the-pack team be the game that goes further than any other in determining that season's champion.

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

First, read this:

Second, let me apologize for making you read that terrible attempt at humor. You see, Rick Reilly (who I hope runs unopposed for all those Sportswriter of the Year awards he keeps winning) has decided to write one post about soccer every four years to prove he knows that the World Cup (the biggest sports spectacle on Earth) is in full swing.

USMNT Fans Cheer Their Team On To A Memorable Comeback Against Slovenia.

Many football fans around the world, when they think of football, do not immediately associate it with USA. The game just doesn't seem to fit in with American sports. American football, basketball, hockey: superhuman men playing at a level that is untouchable to us mere humans.

It happens every four years, as inevitable as presidential elections and surging public interest in short-track speedskating. The big, bad, rich n' populous United States falters at the World Cup. Meanwhile, skillful foreign mighty-mites from futbol-mad nations the size of Oregon shine.

Some last thoughts on the World Cup. 24 million viewers watched the 2010 World Cup Final on ABC and Univision, the biggest ever US audience for a soccer match. Worldwide, more than 700 million people watched the game, making it the most watched match in history. Ratings were consistently outstanding with more than 19 million watching the US Ghana match and ratings consistently above expectations.

by Daniel Popko
Clint Dempsey's dribbler squeaked by Robert Green for the first of five (fine...seven) US goals in South Africa. In addition, he had a high work rate and was dangerous enough playing for the Stars and Stripes that, on top of the best season of his career with Fulham, Deuce became an in demand commodity on the European transfer market.

Evansville Courier & Press, August 8, 2010
We do a lot of video analysis with our players at the University of Evansville, which I believe to be one of the best teaching tools available. We have what I see, what the player sees, and the truth (the video), because the video never lies.

Last night's action featured the mother of all competitions in American soccer the U.S. Open Cup Final. The Cup, which has crowned the best soccer clubs in the country since 1914, has been one of the great constants in American sports.

And yesterday evening, a record-breaking crowd of 31,311 at Qwest Field, witnessed history, as the Seattle Sounders became the first repeat champions since New York Pancyprian Freedoms you remember them won it back-to-back in 1982 and 1983.

Snow may have wiped out football across the Premier League yesterday, but there are still millions in the United States this weekend who will sit back, relax, and watch that other football.
While the NFL has rarely, if ever, made an appearance on this blog - one major distinction that does draw me to the league for a few short weeks in January is the unpredictability of the single knockout playoff format.

A few minutes ago I got an email from Raising Cane's, because I am a Caniac club member, and they are running a promotion the next few days to win SUPER BOWL TICKETS!!!! Now, I am a huge soccer fan but I enjoy all American sports. Even more so when my hometown New Orleans Saints are in the Super Bowl!

Here's his opening paragraph (read the rest here):

Imagine you work at Burger King and you get sacked. Now, you want to get another job at McDonald's, but you're not allowed to unless McDonald's compensates Burger King. It seems absurd, but that's the way certain things work in MLS at the moment.

By Ollie Irish

Basketball legend Kobe Bryant has spoken out in praise of Barcelona star Lionel Messi.

"He is the most incredible player I have ever seen," Kobe told Sport.

"The truth is that it amazes me when the best player in the world continues inventing things that I have never seen before.

Filip Bondy's new book on the USMNT will get better with age

I almost put it down after the forward. In his 300-page book Chasing The Game (out now from De Capa Press), which interlaces player profiles and men's national team history with expanded game reports from the recently completed World Cup Qualifying cycle, Filip Bondy makes one thing abundantly clear: this book is not for soccer fans.

The other day on the Guardian website a rather innocuous article appeared it gave a topic that is currently being overshadowed some air... the ownership of the club.

Ever since last October, Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith has been employing a broker to sell her 15.9% of the clubs shares.

Author and columnist for the New York Daily News Filip Bondy has recorded the events and happenings of the US Soccer team over the last few years of qualification, friendlies and tournaments to ready Sam's Army and the rest of the American soccer viewing public for this summer's World Cup in his fantastic new book.

This video is hilarious and a great example of how traditional old school American sports fans love statistics and can only compare soccer to American sports like football, baseball, and basketball. It seems the tide is changing here even if all of you in Europe don't think so. Check out this very funny parody!

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence supporting theory the 2010 World Cup is grabbing a large portion of the American sports pie. Americans are discussing the World Cup around the office, media outlets are carrying increasing coverage and bars are filling at odd hours nationwide for matches involving all teams.

Was Wednesday the day? Was Wednesday the watershed moment U.S. Soccer has been waiting for all these years, the day American sports fans were finally infected with World Cup fever, to the point that they skipped work, packed bars, screamed at the screen, texted and e-mailed friends about the game, and spilled onto the streets in jubilation when Landon Donovan scored his dramatic 91st-minute goal to send the U.