Fox Soccer Channel today put out a press release on the growth of its ratings numbers over the past year, its first as a Nielsen-rated channel.

Among reports of increases in Serie A and English Premiership viewers, the statement also points out that "Major League Soccer audiences are up 89%, averaging 51,000 viewers last month vs.

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One of ASN's beat writers praises the Sounders' impact on the local sports scene and hopes the best is yet to come.

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Tom Hopper's The Damned United is a fun British sports drama based on David Pearce's novel of the same name. Starring Michael Sheen as Clough, the film opens in select U.S. theaters today (it already ran in the U.K. and Ireland). It tells the story of Brian Clough's tumultuous 44 days in charge of Leeds United in 1974.

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Major League Soccer displayed an uncharacteristic sense of levelheadedness with its announcement to break for the 2010 World Cup and move next season's schedule to a balanced, home-and-home structure. With any other professional soccer league in the world, these moves would not have even registered.

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First came talk of labor unrest when Major League Soccer's collective bargaining agreement expires next year. Then a corporate shake up at United Soccer Leagues. Now a report that a new professional soccer league might be formed to compete with USL and MLS alike next season. These developments, all within the last few months, threaten to shake U.

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...unless of course the U.S. win the game.

As we all know by now, the U.S. Men's National Team has never won at Mexico City's Estadio Azteca, a 19-game streak that dates back to the stadium's opening in 1966. It may not happen on attempt number 20, either. It may never happen. The task of winning at Azteca is Herculean, for reasons outlined by former USMNT head coach Bruce Arena (whose teams lost both their games at the Mexico City grounds).

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But this time Puerto Rico beat an MLS team in CONCACAF play, once again reigniting a debate which MLS apologists do not want to have.
I have to say I am somewhat offended that many of my colleagues and friends in the soccer blogger community have seemingly chosen to ignore the success of USL sides in CONCACAF competition while continuing to discuss MLS' failures in a vacuum. Click to continue reading...

The general strategy against the Sounders seems to be to hack at Montero and Ljungberg persistently and expect that the referee can't or won't make every call. Officiating has let the last couple of Sounders matches get out of hand because of the tactics employed. There needs to be more calls and earlier cautions. Click to continue reading...

'The Beckham Experiment,' the highly-anticipated book by Sports Illustrated senior writer Grant Wahl hit bookstores this week. It provides an in-depth look at David Beckham's two-year stint with the LA Galaxy, recapping a tumultuous period for the player, his team and Major League Soccer.

How did the Beckham experiment fare?

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The New York/New Jersey Major League Soccer franchise has been described as "cursed" or "snakebit," but those words do no justice to the team's shortcomings over the course of its decade-and-a-half history. Instead, the franchise has been nothing short of one giant case study in incompetence, be it by ownership, management, coaches, or a combination thereof. Click to continue reading...

The Red Bulls are in shambles and calls for Juan Carlos Osorio's head are nothing new. But patience is wearing thin with the team's supporters, one of whom penned this letter to Red Bulls general manager Erik Stover, calling for the removal of both Osorio and Red Bulls technical director Jeff Agoos.
We reprinted it here with his permission. Click to continue reading...

The lads and I were discussing the impact of the Beckham experiment on MLS and whether or not he's done anything to improve the game.
While it was agreed that the level of play did not improve with his arrival, given that Los Angeles didn't exactly compete for any honours, what he did provide was what MLS needed : eyeballs. Click to continue reading...

Clifton, N.J.-born Giuseppe Rossi has never been a favorite of U.S. soccer fans. His decision to play for the Italian national team rather than the U.S. was criticized at length. Now, after scoring (twice) against the U.S. Men's National Team in yesterday's Confederations Cup match, the critique is even harsher.

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If this one sounds like a no-brainer, that's probably because it is. It is high time for Major League Soccer to follow the lead of virtually every other professional league in the world and stop play for dates on the international soccer calendar.

International matchdays, for the uninitiated, are dates designated by FIFA and its regional confederations for national team play usually for World Cup qualifiers and other tournaments, but often for friendly games as well.

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The New York Times' George Vecsey is a fine writer who would probably be a decent soccer columnist if he actually knew a thing or two about the game.

Exhibit A: According to Vecsey's piece in Friday's New York Times, the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team's performance in Wednesday night's loss at Costa Rica was so bad it brought to mind some of the team's road performances from the 1980s.

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For some time now, the prevailing wisdom among Major League Soccer pundits in the U.S. and elsewhere has been to tie the league's viability to closer integration with Latin America. Specifically, competitions such as the Copa Sudamericana (which MLS teams can already qualify for, though they rarely do) and Copa Libertadores are said to hold the keys to the league's future.

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It isn't easy, this media business. Where once you could charge for content and get advertisers to pad revenues, nowadays you can pretty much forget about either one. Free content is viewed as a God-given right these days right up there with freedom of speech, of assembly, religion, etc. Meanwhile corporations take things that have always been free (water for example.

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Dear Mr. Levine,

Speaking on behalf of U.S. soccer fans everywhere, we would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your considerable efforts in raising the profile of professional soccer in this country.

We are referring, of course, to your comments lambasting Major League Soccer commissioner Don Garber, who had the gall to compare his pathetic little league to your employer, the mighty New York Yankees baseball club.

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We realize that power rankings are well-meaning efforts to bring some order to the chaos that is Major League Soccer. As such they are certainly a commendable exercise for bloggers everywhere. Unfortunately, they serve no real purpose.

MLS power rankings, which rank the league's clubs according to some individual metric (usually the blogger's own) are everywhere.

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"Did I look rusty? I looked pretty good, didn't I? So, I don't think so." New York Red Bulls goalkeeper Jon Conway, responding to whether he felt rusty in his first start after serving a 10-game suspension for a positive drug test last season. By all accounts, Conway did indeed not look at all rusty in helping the Red Bulls to their first win of the 2009 season Saturday night at Giants Stadium.

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Not this again. We thought we had addressed these "soccer is un-American" myths last year. Apparently, like so many other unwanted rights of spring (slugs, weeds and pondscum, to name a few), the "soccer is un-American" talk simply resurfaces by its own accord each year. This season, they have taken the form of one man, Stephen [. Click to continue reading...