We continue our new series on the Free Beer Movement. It's called "Brews and Views" and we pose a question or topic to various prominent soccer persons and, well, they give us their view on it.
We've got loads of get people that have already responded to our call for essay submissions and each week we'll feature a unique perspective on the current topic/question at hand.

"Empty feeling:" U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard reacts after Saturday's Gold Cup final defeat (AP Photo).

Soccer fans in the U.S. like to think the sport is growing and it is, incrementally.

Last year pubs and bars in LA were packed with soccer fans watching World Cup games, last week a stunning 45,000 or so showed up for a regular season MLS game in Seattle and last weekend there were more U.

In a recent interview, German national team captain Philip Lahm said that "An openly gay footballer would be exposed to abusive elements. For someone who does [come out], it would be very difficult."

Sadly, it is hard to argue with Lahm's conclusion, though it should be noted that there is now an openly gay footballer Anton Hysén, son of former Liverpool player Glenn Hysén (who coaches Anton's fourth division Swedish team, Utsiktens BK).

Concerned by the growing number and impact of foreign athletes — some with sketchy amateur credentials, many older and more mature than the freshmen and sophomores they compete with and against — the nation's 500-plus junior and community colleges have charted an admittedly tricky path.

Starting next year, they'll impose strict roster limits.

The coming week will presumably bring more twists and turns in the now explosive question of racism in the midst of the French Football Federation. Already, as Libération reported this morning, one high-ranking member of the Federation specifically named in the Mediapart article that broke has been suspended, and an internal investigation launched.

While drawing players from various parts of South America and naturalising them as citizens through their parents or grandparents, Italian football has benefited hugely over the last century from the repatriation of numerous members of the Italian diaspora. Raimondo Orsi, Jose Altafini and Omar Sivori are among the most famous members of an ever increasing group of immigrants to don the famous.

I found this video, produced by the Qatar bid, to be a fascinatingly constructed piece of work, transforming Zidane's biography into an endorsement of the need for a Middle Eastern World Cup. In it, Zidane returns to his childhood home and talks about his career, and repeatedly refers to the difficulties he faced because of "his origins" as a child of Algerian immigrants.