Children Are Our Future
Who the hell is Royal-Dominique Fennell? I have no idea and you probably don't either unless you
are Brian Sciaretta, Philneezy or German. Apparently though he plays for Stuttgart Kickers, his dad
is (surprise!) a U.S. serviceman and he's been called up to Caleb Porter's U-23's. That's pretty
much all you need to do to be named Afro-Germerican™ of the Moment so congrats Royal-Dominique.
Bam! There's another Afro-Germerican™ out there, which now leaves me one man shy of having enough
players for a Starting XI (thanks for the tips). His name is Jann George, he's 19 and he scored the
other day for Nurnberg's U-23's; I know this because Brian Sciaretta, czar of Americans Outsourced
to Europe™ reporting, says so.
Can you imagine how not-hopeless RBNY would be if only they were allowed to sign all these kids
from Jersey? They would A) have talented youth for days and B) corner the market on players whose
name ends in vowel. Add alleged Napoli-deserter and U.S. U-20 striker Vincenzo Bernardo to the list
with Rossi, Szetela, Duka and all of the other NJ boys that with a real youth system would maybe
make NY the Arsenal of MLS.
A profile on Sacha Vander MostvanSpijk, former head of Youth Development at Chivas USA. He is now
involved in the deeply-flawed, money-spinning enterprise that is US Club Soccer. Seems like a cool
guy though. Nice video as well, much more easily digested than the spelling of his last name.
Hey y'all I think we may have a new heir to the MLS hip-hop throne. Hell, he may even be the new
king really because it's not like anyone has fully claimed it for themselves. Steve Zakuani and
Michael Lahoud & his boys at Chivas USA are trying to lay it down but neither have thrown down any
that's unimpeachable.
If this little nipper's skills look familiar you're not tripping. It's because he's Juan Pablo
Angel's son Tomy. Anyone have an opening in their academy for the junior cherub? What say you LA or
NY? Can you take him in as a "legacy" player or is it only frats that do that?
When I was in elementry school we had the theatre students from the local community college
(Grayson County Community College, stand up!) come by and do a rendition of "Peter Pan." It sucked.
But the privileged youth of today? They get a cotdamn back-flipping, boogalooing, soccer-obsessed
lion to come to their auditorium and indoctrinate them into the church of MLS.
Y'all gonna hate me for this (if you don't already) but I'm gonna make you watch a TBS comedy. It's
the one where the antiquated, sometimes clueless Dad from Everybody Hates Chris plays the
antiquated, sometimes clueless Dad for some other family and tries to convert his precocious,
soccer-loving son into a gridiron fan.
Pele will be at ESPN Zone in Times Square to launch his new children's book, For The Love of Soccer
on Wednesday, May 26 at 6 p.m. Dude used rub elbows with Mick Jagger at Studio 54; now he's sitting
on a shelf next to Raffi in Borders. My how things have changed.
I've never read his work but hopefully he's a better writer than he was a player.
As a parent I get that sometimes you have to stop your kid from doing something that he shouldn't;
this past weekend, I had to get into a bouncey castle in public to physically extract my son from
it when he decided to occupy one of the rear corners of said bouncey castle in protest of his turn
in the dodgem being far too short in length for his taste.
Do you need a new book? I don't but I want one (I have 6 footie books right now that I have yet to
read but my megalomania will not allow me to pass up even a paperback so I'll probably buy this one
anyway). So let's read Amazon has to say about my future purchase:
Woodburn High's Bulldogs, aka Los Perros, started their 2005 soccer season with eight undocumented
students, a midfielder groomed to play for a pro Mexican team, a goalkeeper living in his third
foster home, three boys who spoke almost no English, and an Irish-descended white coach desperate
to lead all of them to success.
There is a certain type of nourishment that is typically served up in soccer stadiums. This is not
it. This is nourishment that is so much more vital, so much more important no matter how much of a
fanatico you are. If you can help, please do.
Even babies have mixtapes now. Next thing you know he'll have a Nike deal, a Campbell's soup
endorsement and set off an international storm of transfer speculation via Twitter.
It's so on; once the children get involved there is no turning back. I hope both Mr. (Seattle) &
Mrs. (D.C.) Washington both have damn good lawyers/fowards because this is going to get ugly.
If you have children in your life that you would like start down the long, dark, beer-soaked &
sun-stroked road to MLS superfandom, send them this link. With any luck it'll make them never want
to watch Drake & Josh again.
The story of 11-time New York City champions Martin Luther King Jr High School...coming soon to a
Wi-Fi connection near you.
Reason number 234 why MLS needs a serious, serious academy structure: there is nothing worse than
having your kid calling some rich, foreign guy "Dad". It's better than leaving them with R. Kelly I
suppose but still...
I don't know anything about goal keeping and I know even less about this Brazilian kid called
Vinicius. So I can't tell you if he is really any good and if this video he uploaded will help him
achieve his goal of playing collegiate soccer in the U.S.* If he can't get a gig though perhaps
someone will hire the guy who out together the video for him because it's edited much better than
most of the content produced by professional teams in this country.
You know what? Shalrie is kinda good with kids. He should maybe start a day care. There could be
nap time, story time, back-third thoughball time, advanced dread care & maintenance time etc. Real
groundbreaking stuff that could change the face of pre-middle school child care forever. So long as
the uniform does not have Chelsea or Man U.
An excerpt from Steven Goff's super-fine piece on D.C. 14 year-old Gedion Zelalem, who recently
spent 10 days training with Arsenal's prospects.
"Zelalem is not the first high school soccer player from the area to seek a pro career. Most
famously, Freddy Adu, a native of Ghana and a naturalized U.
Why anyone would let a New England fan into the RSL locker room for this commercial I don't know.
But you kinda can't blame her for wanting to drop a deuce in one of their lockers after they
dropped 6 on the Revs on Saturday. You know what they say, "Revenge is a dish best served in
plastic training potty".
So it says in the New York Post -America's second-worst newspaper- that the mother of Cristiano
Ronaldo's new baby boy is an American. And as I'm sure you know Landon Donovan has an alleged baby
on the way via some British lady*. Indulge my ridiculous mind for a moment and think about that for
a moment: two newly sired infants with the finest of attacking midfield qualities coursing through
their little, pediatric American veins.
Kid stuff (and wildlife) on the pitch in Florida.
The Rest
If it was possible to "win" Halloween, this kid ran away with it and grabbed a hat-trick & a clean
sheet along the way. Simply outstanding.
Spotted via TDK.
The cover of the Honduran magazine above says that "the gringos" are after Andy Najar. I don't
think they are talking about Arsenal but you never know. Tell you what though: I'd gladly hand over
their hero J Bo for the 17 year-old in an even trade, no questions asked.
I'm not sure whether or not these are actually out in the world yet but I have to say that this is
just fantastic from every perspective; from the design to keeping it green to the humanitarian
aspect, this is just outstanding. It's called the Dream Ball and it was created by Korean design
house Unplug.
This looks like something I would watch, a Survivor for the travel team set but without kids having
to eat a bunch of gross stuff. Instead they will have to endure something far more unpleasant and
uncomfortable in the notorious Houston humidity: swamp crotch.
Unfortunately I've no idea what (if any) tune-in information there is for this show; the website is
a little unclear as to whether this is an online show or if this is for over-the-air television.
Someone wrote a letter to the Portland Timbers front office asking the Timber's Army "where's the
line?" Now I don't bring this up as a condemnation of the TA nor do a I agree with many of the
points in the letter. I only bring it up because for me personally it's an interesting issue that I
will soon have to battle; how do I integrate my son into the real, passionate culture of the game
without having to explain to my wife just exactly why our son would like to fly over D.
