With the specter of a strike in the rear-view mirror we're serving up a few rounds for Major League Soccer for a great start to the new season. 
Yeah. Pretty awesome huh? We've got a whole lot more where that came from, too.
The similarities are un-mistakable. What you don't see it?
ts. We’re assigning each member of the Nats a beer that we think speaks mostly highly to whom they are as people and as players. It is random? You bet, but we’ve got nothing else productive to contribute to the American soccer community than tongue-in-check crap like this.
Goalkeeper - Tim Howard as Portsmouth Brewery "Kate the Great" Imperial Ale
Centerback - Oguchi Onyewu as Newcastle Brown Ale
Left Mid - Clint Dempsey as Lonestar
Center Mid - Maurice Edu as National Bohemian Beer
Right Mid - Landon Donovan as Samuel Smith Beers
Jozy Altidore as Stone Arrogant Bastard American Strong Ale
MLS First Kick 2010 Commerical from mlsinsider on Vimeo.
aybe, owner of Crystal Palace FC. According to several reports out of the British press (and a few domestic sources) the formerly named "Puffy Daddy Diddle Do" is looking to help out the cash strapped and administration-threatened club.
From the top of the charts to the backrooms and boardrooms of Washington DC comes a beer for Federal mediator George H. Cohen (standing behind Don Garber in light gray suit) who was the keystone in the Major League Soccer owners and Players' Union finding agreement to avoid a work stoppage the week the League was supposed to kick off its 15th season.
New York Red Bulls' Red Bull Arena. We're not sure if buildings drink beer, but maybe we'll just poor a few out at the front gate.
A consolation beer for MLS and the Los Angeles Galaxy as well. The loss of Beckham was tempered by the return of Landon Donovan, but there's still a huge hole in your 2010 marketing strategy. League rule changes and Galaxy owner's AEG's money brought a right-sided midfielder to your league and your team; however, you mismanaged the marketing of it leading the American public to believe that this would be the second coming of Pele. 
Lastly we're stopping by the headquarters of the Turkish Football Federation next time we're in their neighborhood and dropping a case off for them. Why buy a beer for our May 29th World Cup warm up opponents? Let's just say that they have an inflated sense of how big soccer is in the United States. At least that was the original thought through a series of Internet rumors.
We gathered two other teachers and another friend who had not been to a game yet together at the house of one of the fans before the game for the free beer part of the evening. We imbibed some imported Nut Brown Ales, Red Ales, and Golden Ales from Argentina to wash down a nice asado consisting of a large chunk of beef and some spicy chorizo. Having just discovered that these beers were imported they went over especially well as a change of pace from the national beers which all taste suspiciously like Budweiser.
Got your own "free beer story"? Send us it at freebeermovement @ gmail (dot) com and get a FREE Free Beer Movement sticker!
sports behemoth Nike recently launched its line of 2010 National Team World Cup jerseys, including those of the U.S. National Team. We're not here to debate the look of the brand new kits (beauty pageant, anyone?) we're here to praise the Swoosh branders for their environmentalism.Sure Nike has used child and sweatshop labor in the past, but let bygones be bygones! They're on the "green" bandwagon now! Seriously, though, this is a great move for Nike. Even if "caring about the slow destruction of our planet" is "IN" right now are you all glad that global sportswear companies are getting behind it? (Aside: Nike even dropped out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, who are active global warming deniers... take that!)Nike's bottles-to-T-shirts operation is fairly straightforward. Recycled polyester comes from a Taiwanese supplier that cuts up, melts, and spins plastic bottles into a yarn for the shirts. Each shirt will consist of 100% recycled polyester and approximately eight plastic bottles. The shirts are slightly more expensive to produce than standard jerseys, but Nike claims that the costs ultimately even out because less material is needed for production. And on the outside, players and fans won't be able to tell the difference between the bottle-filled jerseys and the regular polyester shirts worn by non-Nike teams.
Environmentally savvy soccer lovers will also have the chance to check out Nike's shirts--the brand is using 13 million plastic bottles to produce jerseys for fans. All in all, Nike's initiative will stop 254,000 kg of polyester waste from being dumped in landfills.
Speaking of the Nats, the Yanks might have an unlikely ally in Sir Alex Ferguson. According to a report in the Times of London the Manchester United manager has been in close contact with Coach Sweatpants (have you ever seen him not in them?) about the English contingent on his team along with several other Premier League managers.
“I have been in Europe a lot lately and I’ve had the chance to catch up with different people,” he said. “I appreciated those opportunities, whether it was watching training sometimes or communicating about our players.
“Occasionally, there are some managers in England who subtly let me know they will be rooting for us that day. You can guess that they were not actually born in England. That’s all part of it, I guess.”
The gum-chewing (obsessively almost) Scotsman gets big points for siding against the fish-and-chip face stuffing English and giving some help to Coach Bradley.
Carli Lloyd’s goal in the 18th minute was followed by a powerful header from Abby Wambach four minutes later, staking the U.S. to a 2-0 lead. German forward Inka Grings pulled a goal back five minutes before halftime, but a goalkeeper mistake from Germany’s Nadine Angerer allowed Lauren Cheney to make it 3-1 in the 69th. Grings finished her brace with a goal in 74th minute to make the end of the game tension-filled, but some tremendous ball-winning in the back by central defenders Amy LePeilbet and Rachel Buehler helped the U.S. hold on to the victory.Check out the highlights:
Hint: the Baltimore-centric FBM logo across the bottom!
It started after the USA vs Costa Rica game in Washington DC. The Original Winger did a write up and after it was posted it was linked to by the Go USA Bid for World Cup 2018/2022. When the did the brief write up/recap and linked to the original story, they titled it "MNT Superfan has her day in the sun (and rain)". My friends saw it...started calling me Superfan and it spread and ended up sticking. I went ahead and embraced it. There are worse things people could call me! . As far as retaining the nickname? I am just going to keep doing what I am doing...which is being passionate about the sport and my teams. There are plenty of other Superfans out there doing what I am and more. The more Superfans the better.
The camaraderie that comes with hanging around at a tailgate before a game and then marching into the stadium and giving it your all for 90 minutes...there is nothing like it. At the tailgates you get people from all walks of life. All nationalities and socio-economic groups are represented and the majority have two things in common: Beer and The Beautiful Game.
I love being around all the guys. They guys I hang out with know and respect me and always look out for me. They know I am passionate about the game and will give everything I have during the game. Being a woman and a fan...I'll sometimes meet guys who don't know me and find out I am a soccer fan. They will sometimes assume I know nothing about the game and are surprised when I do. I think an advantage is that I've got that group of guys that looks out for me. A disadvantage, like I said before, is when you go to an away game or the likes and you've got people who don't know you assuming you are there just because your with your husband or boyfriend. The assumption that I would only be there to be with a guy.
Let's see. My first USMNT game was last year in Chicago against Honduras. I had watched plenty of matches before but only last year REALLY started traveling for both club and country matches. From the moment everyone met up at the pregame bar before heading to the stadium, I was hooked. The atmosphere and passion was electric....and I felt at home. It was at that game that I KNEW I needed to go to World Cup. After that I went to the El Salvador game in Salt Lake City, Costa Rica in Washington DC and the last one I attended was the Honduras game in LA.
I respect our players and organization so much. Starting with the front office. They are always around and approachable. I've walked up to Oliver Luck at a few games to ask stadium and other questions and he is always open to answering them and talking to the fans. From the COO and Vice Presidents on down to the ticket reps. I have had nothing but great experiences.
I am a single teacher with a mortgage (and a house that flooded last year and was unlivable for 6 months! Whole 'nother story). This is an expensive trip. I knew others were doing things to help raise funds for their trips so I started thinking. I thought about a shirt...but that could get expensive to produce and ship and you have to deal with sizes, etc. Then I thought about what would represent ME and knew I had to do a koozie.
While the American soccer frets over the potential work stoppage that may destroying our nation's domestic game we're drowning our sorrows in beer. Luckily we've got a few bright spots in an otherwise dreary week for the sport in the U.S."Celtic-Rangers, the world's most bitter club rivalry. While soccer may have other hallowed matches—Barcelona-Real Madrid, Boca Juniors-River Plate in Buenos Aires, Roma-Lazio in Rome, Flamengo-Fluminense in Rio—none come close to matching Celtic-Rangers for a purity of hatred that involves politics, class and, above all, religion. In fin de siècle European sports there is no greater symbol of sectarian strife. Stabbings and bar fights in Glasgow, a city of 688,500, are regularly investigated for Celtic-Rangers links. And this year, as has often been the case, a Scottish championship was on the line. "There's nothing like it," says the 25-year-old Reyna. "All you can tell people is that you have to come here to believe it."
Believe this, if you can: 59,918 wild-eyed fans—neighbors, even—divided into two religious camps by a human wall of police. Two hours of eardrum-shattering noise, including chants about Catholic scum from one side and Irish Republican Army songs from the other. Hundreds of Union Jacks and Irish tricolors fanning the flames of nationalist bitterness. A referee beaned by a coin, his head spouting blood.
Imagine trying to play soccer amid all this, trying to clinch a title in front of a stadium full of people, most of whom hate you from the bottom of their souls. Only then will you have an idea of why Reyna sat slack-jawed at breakfast the next morning. "Sometimes you don't experience all those things in your entire career," he said. "They happened to me in the same game"
Welcome to the holy war universally known as the Old Firm, which has pitted Celtic's Irish Catholic faithful against Rangers' Protestant supporters for 111 years. A social organization founded in 1888 to aid Glasgow's poor Catholic immigrants, Celtic and its successful soccer team have aroused the undying resentment of the Protestant establishment, symbolized by blue-clad Rangers. It's why Rangers forward Paul Gascoigne famously celebrated a goal against Celtic by mimicking a flute player to commemorate William of Orange's victory over the Catholics at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. And it's why Celtic players take special pride in crossing themselves when they score against Rangers. "It's the last bastion of the sins of our fathers," says Ian McGarry, a soccer writer for the Scottish Daily Mail. "In the past the division represented itself in the workplace and in everyday society, but now the only place where it's still acceptable is a sporting occasion."
Speaking of David Beckham our next beer goes to the author of a book about the man and his ups and downs with the Los Angeles Galaxy, Mr. Grant Wahl. This is old news to the soccer world, but Wahl got a promotion from his employer, Sports Illustrated, a few weeks ago. He is now the magazine's full-time soccer beat writer. He previously split his time between soccer and college basketball.
