Due to the myriad ethical, moral, and logistical issues, the 2022 World Cup left one very important question unanswered: was the World Cup an appropriate celebration of Middle Eastern soccer? Seeing Morocco advance to the semifinals and Saudi Arabia giving Argentina its only blemish suggested that, yes, the World Cup was a coming out for Middle Eastern […]

Street art is an increasingly appreciated form of expression, especially in the United States. Artists modify buildings and surfaces to express opinions on people and events. This unique representation is hard to replicate elsewhere. Painting the face of Lionel Messi with Argentine colors in his hometown is a statement of love and affection. People simply […]

I remember the first time I played futsal. I joined an adult league for exercise and fun, and thought trying indoor soccer would be a good idea. Watching the Continental Indoor Soccer League allowed me to know, more or less, what to expect. What I experienced was completely different than what I had in mind. […]

How did you learn soccer? If you ask a child today, they will likely say it's through playing with a friend/family member, watching highlights online, or playing video games. Probably none will say they learned by reading a book, which is how some of us learned about the game especially if we grew up without […]

When was the last time a soccer book began with a quote from the Pope? One of the newest and best genres of sports writing is how sports intersects with society. Going beyond the bounds of a game's rules and tactics, this genre shows (and in many ways justifies) our passion for a sport. If […]

All sports have their myths, and soccer is no different. Fans will passionately argue that England/Italy/Uruguay cheated to win the 1966/1934/1950 World Cup. Or that England/Italy/Germany/Scotland is the parent of modern soccer. The game thrives on myths especially when its margins are so thin; one goal scored is often enough to change the history of […]

The cliche is that a picture is worth a thousand words. Often we rely on biography and narrative to convey how important an idea is but sometimes a perfectly taken picture does the job better. Think of the famous image from 1982 of a young Diego Maradona facing six Belgian defenders. I can spend paragraphs […]

When we think of great books about soccer fans, we think of the fanatics. Fever Pitch – which spawned a soccer AND baseball movie – tells the story of a fan so passionate about Arsenal it almost ends his romantic relationship. A Season with Verona is about an American writer following his adopted Italian team […]

In the U.S. soccer world, the women’s game has more success than the men’s game, but rarely does it receive more attention than the men’s. This month and the months to come may change that. As the men’s team transitions to another coach and generation of players, the women’s team prepares for what may its […]

Author Alejandro Perez has long been an observer of the European club game. Currently he works for Telemundo, the Spanish language right-holders to the World Cup in the U.S., but he is also a long-time blogger and former ESPN employee. He sees the games millions of us watch every weekend and applies a keen strategic […]

As a soccer fan, you have the advantage of being able to see any number of game day experiences at any number of stadiums and leagues. As a worldwide game, almost any location theoretically has a soccer field you can visit hopefully on a game day and have a game day experience unlike one you […]

Sports and science have often intersected over the years in memorable ways. Whether it's a player or team hiring a therapist to overcome a mental block, a beverage being refined to maximize physical recovery, or new medical techniques to speed up healing, we as sports fans have become accustomed to getting regular science lessons as we follow […]

Two college professors, Chris Anderson and David Sally, decided to write a book titled The Numbers Game: Why Everything You Know About Soccer Is Wrong to go over famous philosophies in the sport and use data to determine if notable ideals were true or just results of people falsely waxing poetically. The rise of analytics has […]

One of the things that bugs me most about popular culture is the lack of quality fictional moves about soccer. Bend It Like Beckham may have been the last good fictional account where soccer played a prominent role, and even that is not that wonderful of a movie. Arguably The Damned United is fictional (and there […]

As MLS and the U.S. Soccer Federation try to create a modern soccer history, complete with its heroes, stories, and even villains, they often set aside our nation's soccer past to complete their narrative. We often forget that the United States had an incredible soccer history before 1994. Before the Seattle Sounders won three straight […]