Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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By Alexi Lalas /   Do you REALLY need us to tell you who he is and what he does?

It hasn’t always been easy to love this game in our country. When someone says, “I’m an American soccer fan,” they often have the scars to prove it. 

But the history, culture, and lifestyle behind our sport is real, and it has helped us survive. And now, it will help us thrive. 

Soccer is no longer a niche sport in America. Yet it still remains an alternative to convention. It’s like Nirvana after Bleach — as cool and alluring as a hipster band, yet as dorky and naïve as a teenager.

Here’s what I believe:

I believe American soccer will only get bigger and stronger because it is becoming a way of life for more and more people. I believe that the game will increasingly influence the style, talk, politics and even morals of the American soccer fan. I believe that groups like the FBM and the American Outlaws are evangelizing fans in creative, organized, and intelligent ways that reflect the actual game. 

Because the experience of being inside the American soccer culture is unique, inclusive, and contagious.

I’ve been lucky to be a part of American soccer for a long time. I’ve seen the sport grow and I’ve grown with it. Through it all, I’ve come to realize that, no matter how hard we aim for the ideal, it’s not perfect and it’s not infallible. But it is ours. 

Eventually, the teenagers grow up and the best bands graduate to mainstream popularity. So I know that soccer will become an accepted major American sport. 

But for now, it is simply our way of life. A life we choose or maybe a life that chose us. Either way, it is a life we love. And now more than ever, we are not alone.

Get the NEW Free Beer Movement "Pint Glass" shirt! Only from Objectivo.com

Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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Local, live soccer. Austin, 2009. (Photo by Free Beer Movement)

By APR and Teucer / "Juggle the Numbers"


We take the "Why American soccer?" question a step further and ask: "Why local soccer?"  We live in a world of instantaneous communication, where we can all theoretically know about soccer results as they are happening. Indeed, as a pair of amateur statisticians we keep abreast of all the results in the leagues that
interest us. Every soccer aficionado has easy exposure to the best teams in the world, which means we can be fans of them from anywhere. If you want to watch the best quality soccer in the world, it’s at your fingertips; if we wanted to analyze the best and most followed leagues, we would be quite able to do so.

But we follow the domestic game, because we favor local soccer. There is nothing like being a part of the excitement and feeling a part, however small, of your team’s victories. A win for a team you happen to enjoy, playing in a stadium you will likely never see in your life, is far less engrossing than the energy of a supporters’ section at a local match. We rejoice in the tension of the buildup before a quality chance, in the unbridled joy that comes from the stands as the home team sinks a late goal to get a result, in the stunned silence that
follows a particularly damaging away goal. We delight in watching as the wins pile up and our local teams move up the table, and in the pain of watching as they are in near free-fall to the bottom, in the camaraderie that develops between your friends at the stadium and in the shared hatred of the local rivals. These are all things which have a much more profound effect when it is something you can identify with. Compared to the best teams in the Premiership or Serie A, we’re watching second-rate sides on second-rate fields - but as long as they
are our second-rate sides, playing at our second-rate fields in our hometown stadia, this will always be more satisfying than anything we might see on a broadcast from Europe.

Stepping back from "Why local soccer?" to "Why American soccer?", we can then take our passion for our individual local team, and use it to build passion for our "local" league.  Whether that league is a fully national league, or a recreational league in a small city or town, passion for the league will help it to grow and improve.  In the long term, that builds up the quality of play, and improves not just the local soccer environment, not just the national one, but the worldwide one.  A stronger local recreational league improves exposure and talent level on the local basis, which in turn increases it on the national level, and eventually up to the global level.  By having
better local leagues, we have the facilities to expose more people, young and old, to the sport.  As soccer becomes more ingrained in our culture, the quality of the top players produced by our nations will continue to improve.  If you are a fan of your national team, even if just for the World Cup, then it is in your interest to help improve your national league structure.

American soccer is nothing more nor less than the sum of all the local soccer in all of the United States. It unites thirty-two professional teams and their thousands of eager fans, along with countless amateurs competing on every level from backyard pickup games to the US Open Cup. To embrace American soccer is to embrace local soccer, and vice versa - and once you’ve dipped your toe in those waters, you never leave. We might have our favorite teams abroad as well, but it is our local clubs to which our hearts truly belong. We stand in our
supporters’ sections and chant, or we volunteer our time to help our teams make the season happen. We follow our teams by high-def television or by low-resolution webcasts, by busing to rivals’ stadia, by social media on the web and by the old-fashioned web of real social interaction with other fans. We endure torrents of rain we hope may let up any minute and summer heat we know will not break until the next game, if then - because when we feel our hearts race with every goal and every near miss, we know we’re precisely where we want to be.


Get the NEW Free Beer Movement "Pint Glass" shirt! Only from Objectivo.com

Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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"Why American Soccer for Chuck and I"

By Ted Westervelt / SoccerReform.Us

It’s almost embarrassingly American in scope and scale.  It’s an epic packed with gritty underdog performances, spectacular superclub failures, mind-boggling international upsets and it even features a few world record-setters.   It’s marked by spectacular club highs and bottomless league lows.  It’s a tragedy that our passion for the game and our great soccer legacy remains largely untapped, uncelebrated, and unrecognized.  It would be a comedy if we sacrificed that narrative for the financial needs of a few.

Like every sport, and every footballing nation, the story of our game – and Why American Soccer for Chuck and I, is rooted in old nationalist agendas, powerful passions and brash characters.  It’s also chocked full corny clichés and examples of our incredible stubbornness, remarkable resilience and dramatic passion for the game.   I wish we showcased a few more of them, and shrouded a few less.

Here’s one.

May 6, 1916 - Pawtucket, Rhode Island:

Coats Field stands filled to the gills for the third annual National Challenge Cup Final – a competition known today as the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup.The Fall River Rovers are in a pickle in the 89th minute.  Any Red Sox fan would recognize the anger building the partisan New England sports crowd.  Their team was in the process of getting robbed.    Bethlehem Steel, FC - the first great behemoth of US club soccer - had converted a dubious penalty nine minutes before to make it 1-0.   Since then, Charles Schwab’s Pennsylvania Steelmen, stacked with highly paid British talent, weathered wave after wave of underdog yankee pressure from the hotheaded Rovers - American born to a man.  On top of that, Pawtucket is barely twenty miles from Fall River, making it a virtual hometown crowd.  The referee looks down at his watch just as an attacking Rovers player is sawn down in the box…. And there is no whistle.

10,000 pour onto the field – some of them literally from the rafters.   The final whistle blows - in the midst of a full-blown riot.

That’s Why American Soccer for me.  It’s coffee with three sugars in a seedy diner, not lukewarm tea with curdled cream at your auntie’s.   No, it’s not New England hooliganism, or lax building codes, but it is scrappy underdogs fighting against all odds, not two teams limited in quality to produce a close match.   It’s a team of American club stars from teams like the Providence Clamdiggers and the New Bedford Whalers taking us to the semifinals of the first World Cup in 1930 – without giving up a goal.   It’s guys from teams sponsored by local laundries and car dealers in St. Louis and recent immigrants from NYC that stung the great English two World Cups later.   It’s a mullet headed mob of Cosmos fans that that led us back to the competition again forty years later.  It’s the lowly LA Blues taking a one-goal lead on David Beckham’s LA Galaxy in the 2011 installment of the competition, and the look on Bruce Arena’s face when they did it.  It’s the bloody mug of a lanky forward from Schaumburg, Illinois.   His left eye swollen entirely shut, he’s pouring everything onto the field in match between two teams limited by nationality, but not a salary cap.

We are separated from the star spangled events in Pawtucket - and Why American Soccer for me - by time, space, and philosophy.   In 1916 our first bona fide top-flight league, the ASL, was still eight years away.   Two years after FIFA sanctioned US Soccer, owners like Charles Schwab top were not limited to a certain caliber of club, or painted into a caste system of leagues. Leagues were simply amalgamations of teams – much like their European cousins. Teams moved freely in and out of them based on the quality of their play, support from fans, and the resources of their owners.   There is no evidence that our federation had official conversations on codifying this status quo with an official system of promotion and relegation.  Neither did they discuss any possibility of leagues owning and limiting the quality of independent clubs for competitive balance and a hedge against owner financial risk, like MLS does today.

Schwab built arguably the greatest club in US history - and a soccer specific stadium to boot – to make his company and community proud.  By all accounts, his employees and Bethlehem residents were pretty psyched that he financed the best soccer club in the US – and arguably one of the better clubs in the world.   As evidenced in Pawtucket, there no doubt whatsoever that Schwab’s superclub stirred the passions of rival supporters.  If you recognize his name, chances are it’s not for his fiscal recklessness.

According to some reports, Steel games were often sparsely attended - but Bethlehem wasn’t Pittsburgh or Philly in size and scope.   Wily old Chuck must have gotten something out of building that first US superclub.   He certainly didn’t subscribe to slow, responsible growth.   I bet he figured his shrewd supporters wouldn’t take to a club limited for parity and competitive balance by an agreement he signed with Rockefeller, Carnegie and Astor.   I think he was probably right.

Some may point to the demise of Bethlehem Steel FC a decade and a half later as an example of Schwab’s financial folly and the unsustainable nature of unlimited soccer clubs.  To them I pose this caveat:  On the eve of the Great Depression, European federations were lining up behind the FA to open their leagues and implement promotion and relegation.   It was a brilliant move that ushered in a period of remarkable stability.  Leagues couldn’t financially collapse if clubs were true independent entities.   Eighty years later, that system has never allowed the financial irresponsibility of any one club to collapse an entire league.

In contrast, after the crash of ’29, top flight American club soccer suffered a financial implosion so complete, even Charles Schwab couldn’t escape.   It would be the first of many.  By themselves, corny cinderella stories of rag tag local teams fighting their guts out against behemoth superclubs like Bethlehem Steel couldn’t sustain the US club game.

In order to maintain the Why American Soccer narrative that Chuck and I appreciate - and a stable system of leagues - brave leadership from our federation was required.
We’re still waiting.

It pisses me off that Europeans figured out how to accommodate Why American Soccer for guys like us almost a century ago.  It’s kooky that US Soccer still hasn’t.  Thank goodness the US Open Cup remains alive.  God Bless the Pacific Northwest for caring about it, because today our federation and leagues hardly lift a finger to promote the legacy-laden competition.  They even scheduled a regular season MLS match on top of the Final this year – an incredible oversight considering the fact that an MLS executive runs US Soccer in his spare time.

Mad as I am that Europe beat us to Why American Soccer in the age of jazz, I’m not going to hold it against them.  It’s time to be forthright and magnanimous about this, give them full credit, and come in last in the race to promotion, relegation, and independent clubs.  That way our unlimited teams can battle theirs for first place on the pitch.

Chuck wouldn’t send his team into a match limited for competitive balance.   That wouldn’t be Why American Soccer for him, and it definitely isn’t for me.


Get the NEW Free Beer Movement "Pint Glass" shirt! Only from Objectivo.com

Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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By Miriti Murungi / NutmegRadio.com

MLS has been around for almost 5,700 days. That’s it.

On Day One, April 6, 1996, the San Jose Clash squared off against eventual champions DC United. At kickoff, the Internet as we know it today was a pipedream, analog cell phones were only in the pockets a few people who had hobbies like collecting classic cars and wine appreciation, Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg was an eleven year old harboring dreams of being sued, and #Twitter was ten years from launch. So many products, services and ideas that are now integral parts of our existence were isolated in the minds of science fiction writers and dismissed by countless others as utterly ridiculous. But that’s the story of human history, isn’t it?

If you tried to articulate what American soccer would look like in 2011 back on April 6, 1996, your family and friends wouldn’t be crazy to consider checking you into a facility where you would share sessions with the Lindsay Lohan of 1996, Robert Downey, Jr. But time has a way of catching up, and soon, our ridiculous science fiction fantasies become reality. That’s true in technology and soccer.

In context, five thousand seven hundred days isn’t a long time. In fact, one hundred years isn’t a very long time. One hundred years sounds like an eternity for many of us who are only several decades old, but one hundred years is also the age of a number of really old people, people who have seen society evolve in remarkable ways over the past century.

My surprisingly mobile, Kenyan grandmother is at least one hundred years old, but probably closer to one hundred ten. Calculating her exact age, aside from being unnecessary, is close to impossible because she doesn’t have a birth certificate. Nevertheless, we do know that she has lived through seeing her first white person, which is the equivalent of a person today sauntering around a corner and running into a green person; she heard English for the first time, and then saw English, a language she doesn’t speak, become an official language of Kenya, which, by the way, wasn’t even a country when she was born; and she saw a plane for the first time when she made the full-day journey (now a three hour drive) to the airport in Nairobi where she saw off her sixteen-year-old son who was embarking on a very random excursion to go study in some place called the United States. The next time she would see or speak to her son would be almost a decade later because there was no money for him to get back home and she didn’t have a phone. It would be decades until she got electricity.

In her century-plus of life, my grandmother has experienced independent rural living, then colonialism and the end of colonialism, the rise of metal boxes cruising around without animal assistance, and grandchildren, born to her son and Kenyan daughter-in-law in a land far, far away, who began visiting her about sixteen years after her son’s departure, oddly, speaking a language that was completely alien to her at a point during her adult life. And now, she periodically rides in her American, English-speaking grandson’s rented Toyota Corolla with her other Kenyan grandchildren, telling us tales of corruption and asking questions in Kimeru (her native language) about Obama's foreign policy and why people flew planes into buildings. That's a hell of a hundred years.

What’s all this have to do with anything? Good question.

To think that anything is out of the realm of possibility when we are only sixteen short years into a growing league shows a lack of appreciation of history and time. If we’re being honest, given how much can change in a relatively short period of time, guessing what American soccer will look like in just sixteen more years is about as difficult as my grandmother predicting that she would be comfortably riding in a Japanese car with me and my cousins in the 21^st century.

Although the future is difficult to predict, we can recognize that American soccer has made phenomenal strides, morphing into a present that in many ways is unrecognizable from its form sixteen short years ago. We have financed and built major, sophisticated stadiums just for soccer. Real ones. That is unbelievable, science fiction fantasy on par with the Internet and personal cell phones to the average mind in the early to mid-1990s. It’s as mind-bending to an early 90s mind as my brother and I must have been to my grandmother.

These days, every summer, major clubs from around the world – Barcelona, Manchester United, Chelsea, Inter Milan – come to the United States to play our teams in our stadiums. We hear complaints, year after year, about how these friendlies are meaningless, and I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that similar mutterings have come out of my mouth, but the fact that they regularly exist is truly remarkable if we choose to operate with any measure of context.

In the last sixteen years, arguably, no soccer landscape has evolved as quickly as the US soccer landscape, a point those perpetually focused on shortcomings might miss. Of course, there is still work to do, but the foundation is already impressive. In context, so are the numbers. In 1995, average MLS attendance was zero (0). Today, league-wide attendance numbers hover around a much-more-than-respectable 17,000 spectators. In context, those numbers are at least admirable and, at most, fantasy numbers.

So, why American soccer? Because the greatest show on earth may be developing right in our backyard. That my sound asinine now, but perhaps not so much if you consider the rapid expansion and development that has taken place over the last sixteen years.

Twenty years from now, you'll be watching a documentary chronicling this period that's so compelling you'll wish you were there. Well you are. Now. Here’s how the documentary begins:

The growth of modern, professional American soccer is a fascinating tale of invisibility, failure, failure, North American Soccer League, failure, Major League Soccer, resilience, globalization, immigration, identity, curious models of competition, and meteoric ascension, all being told through a ball and some grass, or in the case of the Seattle Sounders, some sort of synthetic grassy stuff. At the beginning, few could confidently say that Major League Soccer would succeed; few could envision a US men’s national team consistently in the knockout stages of the World Cup; few could envision a Women’s World Cup. But against the odds, all of these fantasies have become reality, and we’re only at the beginning.

I’m not so sure my grandmother would enjoy the documentary. She doesn’t even have a television, and even if she did, her vision would prevent her from reading the subtitles, as would her inability to read. But I’m sure she could appreciate and attest to the value of supporting someone or something that has shown great potential and has made massive strides in a very short period of time, even if that person or thing at times seems thousands of miles away. As she is well aware, incomprehensible futures have a habit of quickly becoming reality, and the ride is often just as rewarding as the destination.

That's why American soccer.


Get the NEW Free Beer Movement "Pint Glass" shirt! Only from Objectivo.com

Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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By Abram Chamberlain / "Front Office Blog"

There’s nothing more American than bad sports movie clichés: the undisciplined team in search of a coach, the player who’s personal faults get in the way of his own success, and thelittle team who shocks the world.  Yet finding these tropes playing out in real life is difficult, if not near impossible.

As heroic as Willie Mayes Hayes looks jumping up the wall to save his team from a homerun, it’s not the same feeling we get while watching Carl Crawford do the a similar job. We watch sports movies and ignore their clichés, because we want life to imitate art, but it rarely does. Yes, we know that Woody and Wesley will always make up in time to beat The King and Duck, Hickory High School will always win the Indiana State
Basketball Championship, Ricky Vaughn will always get Clu Haywood swinging, but the climaxes are enthralling every time.

We care for these players and they're not even real.  In those worlds these fictional characters make less money than us. In those worlds these fictional characters make everlasting memories that get engrained in our consciousness.  In those worlds the actions of these fictional characters draw everyone, the crowd, the team, the communities, the families – except for Rosie Perez- back together.  The only sport that comes close to the clichés is American soccer.

This is why Landon Donovan’s goal against Algeria is better than Roy Hobb’s homerun.  It is why the 2009 Confederations Cup against Spain was more powerful than Rocky Balboa finally taking down Apollo Creed.  It is why RSL’s loss to Monterrey in the second leg of the 2010 CONCACAF Champions League Final was more devastating than watching the Permian Panthers fall just short of their ultimate goal -poor referring and all. And
while MLS is not the best league in the world I cheer for them, because as sports movies have shown us repeatedly everyone loves the rough, rugged runt. Just look at Tanner in The Bad News Bears.

Why American soccer?

Because everyone doubts America’s abilities as a soccer nation (Gridiron Gang).  Because Spain is better (Miracle).  Because of second half comebacks in the 2010 World Cup (Diggstown). Because of the failures at the 2011 Gold Cup (Sunset Park). Because of last second hail maries to Juan Agudelo against Argentina (The Replacement). Because everyone loves an underdog (every sports movie since the original Karate Kid).

Everyone loves the sports movie cliché, and no sport brings these clichés to life better than the beautiful game as played by Americans in America.


About Aaron


He is a soccer contributor for "Front Office Blogs". You can follow him on Twitter as well.

Get the NEW Free Beer Movement "Pint Glass" shirt! Only from Objectivo.com 

Brews and Views Essay Series: Why American Soccer?

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. Kicking it off (pun intended) we're asking our respondents the question, "Why American soccer?".

As inhabitants of the U.S. of A we've got loads of soccer viewing options and limited amount of time. We want our panel of essayists to make their case as to why the American version of the world's game is the one we should all invest in.

Regularly readers know where we stand on this issue. Buy American. It's ours. Build and shape it so it ranks as one of the premier leagues in the world.

The series will include such diverse voices as former U.S. Men's National Team player Alexi Lalas, The Shin Guardian, MatchFit USA's Jason Davis, Church of Soccer, Nutmeg Radio, FutFanatico, MLS Insider, and many, many more.

Interested in submitting your own answer to the question, "Why American soccer?", then send us an email with your response. Please keep your submission to under 1000 words (that's like 2.5 pages typed!) and include a picture that you feel goes well with your response. Send it to freebeermovement(at)gmail(dot)com.

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By Chris Billig / "Gay 4 MLS"

Why American soccer?

Because no other sports culture is such a testament to its nation’s great diversity.

America is a nation of immigrants, and true to that tradition, Major League Soccer is a league of immigrants. At the start of the 2011 season, 38 percent of players on the league’s rosters were born outside of the United States and Canada, adding the first players from China and Israel and representing 57 nations in total. These figures make the MLS the most diverse league in our country. Clubs get high marks when it comes to diversity in hiring in national studies. But forget the statistics; for me it’s more about the feeling of pride I get when I see the series of flags representing players’ home countries adorning PPL Park’s River End during Philadelphia Union home games.

It’s the pride in diversity through displays like this that really makes us special. Major League Soccer made “Embrace the Colors” the cornerstone of a past marketing campaign. The delegation making the case to FIFA last fall for a World Cup in the USA boasted the diversity of our nation and within the sport as a part of their efforts.  Even our Commander in Chief acknowledged the Colorado Rapids’ diversity when they visited the White House this summer:  “This is like a mini United Nations right here,” President Obama remarked. “You’ve got players from Argentina, England, France, Ireland, Jamaica, Japan, Scotland, and Senegal.”

The diversity in soccer’s fan base is something special too, even for the tensions it can sometimes bring. There are the vansful of suburban youth soccer players herded by their parents and coaches and the scores of latino fans who bring along the traditions of the soccer fan communities of Mexico, Central, and South America. And for me as a fan, diversity amongst the fan base means being welcomed as a gay man by the local soccer supporters groups to which I belong.  

And when it comes to the LGBT community, all sports have far to go, but America’s soccer community has taken some great strides this year and achieved some notable firsts. This July the Columbus Crew became the first American pro sports team to co-host a gay sports tournament with their Pride Cup. Chivas USA’s Michael Lahoud and Justin Braun are the first pro sports teammates to pose together for a NO H8 Campaign photograph leading up to Major League Soccer’s first Equality Night at the Home Depot Center. (Braun scored a hat trick against Houston that night.) The Sounders participated in a Seattle-wide pro sports video for the It Gets Better project and DC United became the first MLS team to make one on their own supporting LGBT youth. These efforts make me proud beyond words to be an American soccer supporter.

So from race and ethnicity to gender and sexual orientation, diversity within the sport will always be a work in progress. But right now it’s the biggest answer I have to “Why American Soccer?”

About Chris

Chris Billig is a soccer supporter in Austin, TX, where he helps run the city's American Outlaws chapter. He is working on starting a blog with a gay slant on American soccer, currently Tweeting at @gay4mls and posting at gay4mls.tumblr.com.

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