It's a common refrain from Seattle Sounders fans that the ownership of this team is
profit-taking, or not adequately investing in player payroll. Whether these conversations occur
here, on various message boards, over twitter or even through the most submitted question to not be
answered at the End of Year Meeting it may be the most common negative thought surrounding the
team.
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The aim of the award-winning international soccer blog Pitch Invasion has been to publish
thoughtful, long-form writing that digs well below the headlines, and explores the culture of
sport, the engagement of fans with the spectacle of world soccer and the game's forgotten
history.
Okay, Cup Final. You're the manager. This is the biggest game of your career. You've been
exchanging emails with Capello and reading Zonal Marking endlessly, searching for the answers that
will bring home the silverware. You've made a list of things to tell you players. Then you made
another list.
How is it that the global game, the people's game followed by billions is ruled by a fraction of
a fraction of an elite that plays by its own rules? The plutocracy have no need to be beholden.
They enjoy no term limits, need no financial disclosures, and bilk billions of tax free dollars
without qualm.
The Global Game: Watching The Premier League In Pakistan - originally posted on
Soccerlens.com
Earlier this week I came across the 'Global Game' initiative launched by Nick Harris (Mail on
Sunday, Sporting Intelligence). It's a great idea, hopefully it catches on and more and more people
from different parts of the world who follow football (and especially the English Premier League)
can contribute to it.
The Global Game: The A-Z Of How The World Watches English Premier League - originally posted on
Soccerlens.com
The English Premier League is easily the most watched football league in the world. Although
overshadowed by some of their Spanish counterparts on the pitch they still have a much bigger share
of international viewership.
Images: usaworldcupblog, Michael Buckner/Getty Images North America, Peter Kramer/Getty Images
Entertainment.
Offer us a male footballer to interview and we're firing off facetious questions like shots at a
free bar. Confront us with a world cup winning, gold medal wearing female football icon though, and
the Kickette office is suddenly filled with muttering and the soft pops of hip flask lids being
opened.
Within the past two free time days of ours, we had an epiphany. Vodka isn't an evil,
horribly-tasting means to our stressful week ends. No, it's actually water packaged up in pretty
(and chilled) glass bottles specifically made for fun people like ourselves.
We're so fun, in fact, that our gossip cheat sheet is insanely late and error-ridden due to our
post-alcohol shakes.
Preview: For those reading this (and that'd be you right now), this post is about more
than semantics in calling our sport "soccer" instead of "football". It is about defining our own
history with the sport and our own identity within the global game.
In the last few weeks we've been reading David Wangerin's (author of "Soccer in a Football World")
"Distant Corners" which chronicles the emergence of soccer in the United States.
By Darshan Joshi
Hype is like a phoenix. It is afforded life, it blossoms, it blooms. It peaks. It dies down; it
turns to dust; yet it remains deathless. It is as immortal as it is intangible. Its hyperphysical
presence experiences a ceaseless resurrection; it evades an escape from memory.
As I sit here watching Sky Sports News tediously round up a number of what will probably end up
being completely insignificant transfers, I can't help but think of the deals being rushed through
on the continent which could have a far greater impact on the global game.
Looking beyond the narrow gaze of our national mainstream media, I have highlighted three
continental transfers were noting and as intriguing as anything likely to happen involving any
Premier League club tonight.
By Kyle Morse, writing from Washington DC
The terraces are packed, and the chants are reaching a crescendo as the sides reach the pitch.
The passion and fervor is eminent in the air, so thick you could cut through it. The banners
unfurled and flares sparked.
A new era of US Soccer will start tomorrow, when Jurgen Klinsmann is formally introduced to the
media as the new national team coach.
Rob Hughes of the NY Times writes of the potential influence that Klinsmann will have on his
adopted nation.
When Jürgen Klinsmann took over as the German national team trainer before the 2006 World Cup,
he opened the eyes of his birth nation.
No matter how you feel about Bob Bradley, about Jürgen Klinsmann, about Sunil Gulati – and
opinions certainly are robust on everyone involved in the previous, fast-moving 48 hours of U.S.
Soccer news – there most certainly will be fascinating times ahead. Oh, and lots of umlauts ...
but that's a different story.
Fun and games at the All-Star Game: David Beckham and Thierry Henry share a laugh Monday
while practicing for Wednesday's game (AP Photo).
Regular readers know I'm no fan of the MLS All-Star Game, an American sporting tradition that
has no place in a global game. And after some of the antics and overall performances we've seen
recently at games between MLS clubs and foreign opposition, combining the All-Star game with an
exhibition against Manchester United is just combining two bad ideas.
When I learned that Everton Football Club would be paying D.C. United a visit earlier this year,
I wasn't sure how to feel. The diehard Liverpool fan in me boiled with tribal pain, but from a club
PR perspective I realized that this would be a unique opportunity for our fan base to see one of
the most historic sides in English football.
A long, long time ago we tried to start a soccer website; thought we were writers or
something....
It was called "Snorting the Endline" named after Robbie Fowler's infamous goal celebration and one
of our favorites of all-time. That site failed miserably. I mean who would want to read our
ramblings!
On the eve of the showdown between Brazil and the US, I thought readers might enjoy looking at a
couple early profiles of Marta - material produced before "that goal" (scored against the US in the
2007 World Cup).
John Turnbull's 2006 profile of the player is one of the best out there:
'Tis the season for tears: The extraordinary, untold story of Marta Viera da Silva (The Global
Game)
Almost everything on Marta tells the same story and was no doubt shaped by her press kit.
Editor's Note: We were asked to contribute a column to the Kicking and Screening Soccer
Film Festival a few weeks back. The festival, which runs from July 20 to 23 at the Tribeca Theater
in New York City, features some of the most interesting soccer films from around the globe. If
you're in and around the NYC-area don't hesitate to get tickets to this great event.
I am, some of you will doubtlessly be delighted to hear, taking a few days off to go abroad.
Over the weekend, though, we'll be keeping you on your toes with a mixture of old and new material,
kicking off with this resumé of old goal-posts.
One of the greatest blights of modern football is that it looks the same wherever in the world
you go.
Stuart Pearce is working for the other side, Kickettes. Be brave in the face of inconceivable
provocation. Images: Getty Images/Daylife.
As the fastest growing demographic in football support (Source: The Kickette Institute For
Shameless Self Promotion), we feel that the time has come for the governing body of the global game
to pay some mind to our more 'specialist' requirements.
He maybe a bit of a fascist but he's made the IOC a cleaner organization
FIFA is imploding from within as each passing minute brings about more and more details of
corruption with Jack Warner deciding to turn whistle blower. It's all a bit rich coming from a man
who has millions profiting from his position within the FIFA hierarchy.
In under 2 hours the 2011 Champions League Final kicks off, a game which has been dubbed as
"match of the decade" and that could be the case. It's a global game which may not be as glamorous
as the World Cup Final but the prestige is equally as important. Don't miss it! Two
talented, distinct managers go head-to-head (again): the visionary Guardiola vs the experienced
Ferguson, both possessing an army of quality players.
Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber was at the AT&T Sports Franchises and Facilities
conference, hosted by SBJ/SBD. He took part in a little Q&A and offered up some interesting nuggets
on expansion and TV ratings.
On expansion:
We are focused on New York.
- Chris Ballard
Last week, I wrote a post about choosing a team to follow in the forthcoming MLS season (and in
many future seasons). I tried to choose criteria that were important to me in order to eliminate
teams, and come the finish I was left with Portland Timbers. First off, I was surprised with the
reaction I got; I expected a bit of ribbing but not only did I get a nice welcome from Portland
fans, but fans of other teams criticized me for the way in which I chose the team.
If it hadn't have been for Warner Brothers President Steve Ross, the New York Cosmos and its
legacy may have been nothing more than a distant dream. Twenty-six years on after its disbandment
which left a brief yet storied legacy to football in the United States, one marquee name started
the jugular for the world's global game to kick off in the land of the opportunity.
There are very few moments so transcendental in a lifetime. Today is one of them as Hosni
Mubarak stepped down as president of Egypt after 30 years of despotic rule. Bowing to an
unprecedented show of people power. It is a revolution that promises the rise of a truly
representative democracy and carries the potential of a more balanced vision of Middle East
peace.
So as the 1970's came to a close, ending one of the most politically turbulent decades in the
history of sports, the world behld with horror the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979,
which....
...wait a minute. I'm forgetting something. There was a World Cup in 1978. And everybody came.
As an Englishman in... Sydney, it's become a frustrating experience to merely watch a game of
our favourite game. Firstly, it's a struggle to get access to a decent venue. You not only have to
contend with sub-standard appreciation of the true global game, but also the nonsensical "footy"
sometimes trumping the commentary and thus you watch with a Rugby soundtrack.
