While Major League Soccer teams head into the final weeks of preseason and players in the North American Soccer League and USL PRO teams are finalizing their 2012 plans, Aaron Hohlbein (Middleton/UW) is in Madison working to get healthy and hoping for a shot with one of those teams later this season.

Images courtesy of the man himself, Lance Parker.

Footballer and male model, Lance Parker, is obviously cool with posing in his underwear.

Coincidentally, we are too.

Since he seemed down for our interview games and uncontrollable flirting tactics, we decided to spice up our Q&A style a bit.

The Montreal Impact announced on Friday that more than 25,000 tickets were already sold for the home opener at Olympic Stadium, March 17, against the Chicago Fire.

The Impact are hoping to create a new record for attendance at the Olympic Stadium with additional sales leading up to the home opener.

Featured image: Bobby Moore, Gerry Francis and Pele before the Team America vs. England game at JFK

The news that PPL Park will be host the 2012 MLS All-Star Game means that Philadelphia will be the host of a major pro sport All-Star event for the first time since the NBA came to town in 2002.

Welcome to episode #20 of the IMSoccer News North American Soccer League Podcast. This is the first IMS NASL podcast of 2012. It's also the 2nd of a 2-part broadcast covering the last several months of activity in the NASL. Gerry Wittmann , Jay (Yankiboy) Long, and yours truly, Brian Quarstad, review the happenings of [.

Welcome to episode #20 of the IMSoccer News North American Soccer League Podcast. This is the first IMS NASL podcast of 2012. It's also the 1st of a 2-part broadcast covering the last several months of activity in the NASL. Gerry Wittmann , Jay (Yankiboy) Long, and yours truly, Brian Quarstad, review the happenings of the [.

The US Soccer Federation has approved a major change to the US Open Cup. A change that will certainly enhance how the tournament is played in the US.

The competition will feature a Modern Professional Era (1995-present) record 64 teams, including every US-based professional club in the American soccer pyramid from Major League Soccer (16 teams), the North American Soccer League (6 teams), and USL PRO (10 teams).

Mmmm, Tuesday's looking up isn't it? Images via Greg in Hollywood.

We've been jonesing for brand spankin' new (and naive) man meat to profile on our humble little site, and boy did our wishing, hoping and bartering with God pay off!

Allow us to introduce you to Lance Parker and his abs, who both play for FC Edmonton in the North American Soccer League.

By J Hutcherson - WASHINGTON, DC (Jan 6, 2012) US Soccer Players -- During its glory years in the late 1970's, the original North American Soccer League expanded from 18 to 24 teams, increasing the regular season schedule from 26 games to 30. By 1980, those 24 teams were playing 32 games. The number of regular season games stayed the same through 1982, even as the number of clubs dwindled to 14.

No, not me. CONCACAF announced that Tim Howard has been promoted from deputy general secretary to acting general secretary of the confederation. He was previously involved with the original North American Soccer League in the 1970s and early 1980s, and held executive marketing positions with Ohlmeyer Communications (formed by fomer sports television producer Don Ohlmeyer) and the NBA before joining CONCACAF in 1998.

16.12.2011 - Mas de 40 años pasaron desde que Nesuhi y Ahmet Ertegun (dueños de Atlantic Records) fundaran la franquicia "Cosmos" (New York Cosmos) y pasaron 36 desde que Steve Ross firmara el ampuloso contrato de explotación (u$ 7 millones) en concepto de marketing y retransmisiones para (con la ayuda de Henry Kissinger) mostrar reunidos a Pelé, Beckenbauer, Chinaglia y Carlos Alberto en el mismo equipo.

I never know quite what to make of the Cosmos, the Poltergeist that never stops haunting our domestic soccer community.

I plan to write more about that in the near future. For now, I'll just pass along something interesting that MLS commissioner Don Garber just said.

Garber was talking to myself and Marc Stein, co-host of our weekly radio show/podcast, Soccer Today.

The North American Soccer League announced today their 2012 opening weekend schedule. The season will kick off Saturday April 7th, with four games across North America. The opening weekend will be highlighted by a matchup between the reigning NASL Champion Minnesota Stars and 2011 NASL Regular Season Champion Carolina RailHawks at Mall of America Field [.

The Montreal Impact (French: Impact de Montréal) is a Canadian professional soccer club based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1992, the team will move from the North American Soccer League (NASL) to Major League Soccer (MLS) starting with the 2012 season. A longtime powerhouse in Canadian soccer with seven Voyageurs Cup / Canadian Championship [.

Legendary coach Manny Schellscheidt has been a pioneer in American soccer for decades, and on Monday he retired from his long-time profession, stepping down as Seton Hall head coach after 24 years.

Schellscheidt spent nearly a quarter century in charge of the Pirates, but he had already established an impressive coaching resume even before that.

A Spokesperson for U.S. Soccer confirmed on Monday afternoon that the North American Soccer League (NASL) was provisionally sanctioned to run second division soccer in the US for the 2012 season. U.S. Soccer held their November Board of Directors meeting this past Sunday morning in Los Angeles, California, site of the MLS Cup final.

The following is a breakdown of the rules of the 2012 MLS Expansion Draft, rule-by-rule based upon how each rule affects the Philadelphia Union's protection list choices. The Montreal Impact, a now former North American Soccer League team, will draft 10 players from various MLS teams.

• MLS Clubs may protect 11 players between their On-budget and their Off-budget Roster.

If you constantly read everything you can about MLS like I do you'll see them in the comments section. Go on to a forum and read for a while and you'll see posts by them. What many people refer to as "Eurosnobs."

Eurosnobs basically argue that MLS would be infinitely better if we "did it like Europe.

Last November, the USSF provisionally sanctioned the North American Soccer League (NASL) to run 2nd division soccer in the U.S. for the 2011 season. But just 6 weeks later the organizing body of soccer in the U.S. rescinded that sanctioning after feeling that certain financial requirements had not been met.

Lower division football in the United States of America has been going through some difficulties of late, with some difficulties that will sound familiar to some of our British readers. Elliott Turner reports on the peculiar case of the RGV Grandes.

What if we could create a Frankenstein football league that patched together the worst parts of English and American sports?

14.11.2011 - Empieza a jugar en Urquiza cuando el equipo de José (Racing), trae la primera copa intercontinental a Argentina. En 1972 pasa a préstamo a San Martín de Tucumán, juega el Nacional (72) y vuelve a Urquiza. En el verano de 1973 va a Estudiantes de Buenos Aires (préstamo), juega 6 meses, es devuelto a Urquiza y ahí queda libre.

The NSC Minnesota Stars is professional soccer club based in the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area in Minnesota, United States. Founded in 2010, the team plays in the North American Soccer League (NASL), one of two leagues forming the second tier of soccer in the USA. After a sixth place league finish in the 2011 season, the [.

Welcome to episode #19 of the IMSoccer News North American Soccer League Podcast, a special NASL Championship edition and the final show of 2011. The second leg of the NASL Championship was played in Fort Lauderdale, Florida and just like last years USSF D2 Pro League Puerto Rico Islander who came from the last playoff [.

BLAINE, Minn. (Nov. 2, 2011)—Minnesota Stars goalkeeper Joe Warren has earned North American Soccer League Player of the Month honors for October. The award is the first player of the month honor for a Stars player this season and also serves as the league's playoffs Most Valuable Player award. Warren made three shutouts in five [.

After a long hiatus (for a number of reasons), here are the final (in most cases) attendance figures for the primary men's and women's outdoor soccer leagues in North America for 2011. As always, corrections and additions are welcome.

THE MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER G Total Avg. Seattle Sounders 17 654,431 38,496 Los Angeles Galaxy 17 396,693 23,335 Vancouver Whitecaps 17 346,909 20,406 Toronto FC 17 344,535 20,267 New York Red Bulls 17 335,740 19,749 Portland Timbers 17 320,051 18,827 Philadelphia Union 17 310,401 18,259 Sporting Kansas City 17 302,776 17,810 Houston Dynamo 17 300,796 17,694 Real Salt Lake 17 299,047 17,591 DC United 17 258,332 15,196 Colorado Rapids 17 252,248 14,838 Chivas USA 17 252,102 14,830 Chicago Fire 17 242,648 14,273 New England Revolution 17 224,770 13,222 FC Dallas 17 218,636 12,861 Columbus Crew 17 207,147 12,185 San Jose Earthquakes 17 201,587 11,858 MLS TOTAL 306 5,468,849 17,872 NORTH AMERICAN SOCCER LEAGUE G Total Avg.

The 2011 North American Soccer League champions, the Minnesota Stars, will be at Brit's Pub in downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday night, November 1st. Stars players and coaches will be on hand to celebrate the Stars' triumph in the first year of the re-launched NASL, and the Soccer Bowl trophy will be on display beginning at [.

The 2011 North American Soccer League champions, the Minnesota Stars, will be at Brit's Pub in downtown Minneapolis on Tuesday night, November 1st. Stars players and coaches will be on hand to celebrate the Stars' triumph in the first year of the re-launched NASL, and the Soccer Bowl trophy will be on display beginning at [.

Norfolk, Virginia – The Norfolk SharX have announce that Admiral, the Original British Football brand to American and England's top teams, will be the official uniform supplier to the Sharx for the 2011-2012 Season. The SharX play in the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), the highest level of indoor soccer in the world.

Seattle Sounders fans who traveled to Sandy, Utah for the first leg of the MLS quarterfinal tie between the Sounders and Real Salt Lake are either showing their disdain for their opponents or signifying the number of goals their team has now scored in five all-time MLS Cup Playoff games since 2009.

After greatly enjoying my last NASL match in Fort Lauderdale, I was happy to follow the Strikers' surprisingly making it to the final of the NASL championship after defeating the huge favourites of Puerto Rico Islanders in the semifinal. The other finalists were also an upset, namely the Minnesota Stars, who defeated the North Carolina Railhawks, who had been the best team in the season.

We are an hour and half from the second leg kick off of the North American Soccer League championship. It's been raining hard on and off the last 24 hours but right now Lockhart Stadium is holding up well. Darren McCartney, Operations Director for the NASL said Lockhart field has a good sand base and [.

So the first match of the Wildcard games are over. Shockingly, at least to me anyway, the New York Red Bulls steamrolled FC Dallas 2-nil. Given each's season I thought for sure FC Dallas would win, but I suppose that's the beauty of the play offs... one game can change everything.

In anycase, it sets up a fantastic conference semifinal with the New York Red Bulls facing off against the LA Galaxy.

Champagne, bags of bank notes and Adidas balls: these were amongst the gifts Macedonian Blagoje Vidinić received during his African odyssey in the early 1970s.

This was a man who presided over the joint-worst World Cup performance of all time, but also a man who as a goalkeeper had once rivaled Lev Yashin in many eyes, who had played in Los Angeles, San Diego, St Louis in a pioneering era of American soccer; a man who as coach took two African countries to unprecedented heights and managed to change the course of world sporting history, by tipping off Horst Dassler just in time for the Adidas head to back the right man in the 1974 FIFA presidential election.

Steven Goff of the Washington Post writes of the unique American ties that the staff of the Iran national team share.
During a recent lunch hour in Tehran, Carlos Queiroz, head coach of Iran's national soccer team, turned to his assistants and asked: "What do we all have in common?"
Omid Namazi knew the answer right away.

Welcome to episode #18 of the IMSoccer News North American Soccer League Podcast, a special NASL Championship edition. The first leg of the NASL Championship has been played in Minnesota with the home team securing a 3-1 win over the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The IMSoccer News Podcast staff of Jay (Yankiboy) Long, Gerry Wittmann and [.

The North American Soccer League unveiled their championship trophy on Friday night at Brits Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota in advance of the first leg of the championship series which starts this evening. Rishi Sehgal, an executive with the NASL, unveiled the trophy in front of Minnesota Stars fans. Supporters then had a chance to have [.

On Friday evening, October 20th at 8:00 p.m., Brits Pub in Minneapolis, Minnesota will host the reveal of the new NASL Championship Trophy. (See below for a Q & A with designer Rich Levy where he reveals some of the details of the trophy) The trophy was commissioned by the North American Soccer League and Rich [.

The Minnesota Twins, Minnesota Vikings and Minnesota Wild have purchased tickets to the first leg of the North American Soccer League Championship Series between the Minnesota Stars and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The Twins purchased 500 tickets to the game, and the Vikings and Wild each purchased 250.

Welcome to episode #17 of the IMSoccer News North American Soccer League Podcast. The 2011 NASL semifinals are history. The top two regular season teams have been eliminated and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers and Minnesota Stars are headed to the Championship series. The IMSoccer News Podcast staff of Jay (Yankiboy) Long, Gerry Wittmann and yours [.

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.