“About a decade ago, a T-shirt became popular in American malls. In retro graphics featuring a 1970s-style monorail swooshing by, the shirt read: ‘Tijuana: City of Tomorrow.’ Its message was sarcastic and disparaging. A border city in a distant corner of the continent, Tijuana had a seedy reputation as an “adult playground” and as a haven for all sorts of criminality. For many Americans, the short hop across the border to Tijuana still carries connotations of murky vice and sleaze. Times have changed. Every week, Americans make the journey to Tijuana for an irreproachable reason: they cross into Mexico to watch their beloved soccer team, Club Tijuana. It may be located in another country, but the Mexican league side has become the de facto hometown team for San Diego.” Road and Kingdoms

“In 1859, an American farmer in the Northwest shot and killed a pig that was on his land. The pig belonged to an Irishman, who demanded $100 in repayment. Instead, the two men feuded for years, a squabble that escalated into an international conflict that eventually led to both American and British soldiers being called in to duty. No one fired a shot, and after a decade of periodic military huffing and puffing, the two sides resolved the issue. The absurd incident became known as The Pig War. A similar war has been ignited in the Cascadia region of the Pacific Northwest between the cities of Portland and Seattle. The battlefield is green turf with painted white lines. No pigs have been killed, but every week the armies suit up without ever stepping foot on the field that separates them.” SB Nation, Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers

“The year in American soccer was bracketed by bitter cold, which brought out the best in those who rose to the occasion and helped shape the sport in 2013. Way back in January, Jozy Altidore exuded dignity and determination during a Dutch Eredivisie game that featured snowballs and racial abuse cascading from the stands. In March, a beleaguered U.S. national team began its dramatic climb to the top of CONCACAF in a fearsome Colorado blizzard. And in early December, Sporting Kansas City and Real Salt Lake contested an unforgettable MLS Cup final that was hampered, yet somehow heightened, by a frozen field and record-low temperatures.” SI

“This weekend features the second leg of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference Championship, a winner-take-all showdown between the Houston Dynamo and Sporting Kansas City. The series is great for fans, not only because of the talented teams involved, but also because it’s being contested in the league’s two newest stadiums, Kansas City’s Sporting Park and Houston’s BBVA Compass Stadium. That may not initially seem significant, but when these two teams met in the Conference Final round just six years ago, they played in Houston’s Robertson Stadium, a decades-old football stadium that has since been demolished. That same year, Kansas City (then the Wizards) played home games at the Kansas City Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium, far from the ideal home for an MLS team.” Forbes

2002 World Cup in South Korea, John O’Brien
“John O’Brien was once lauded as the greatest American footballer of his generation. He successfully conquered Europe with his exploits at Ajax in Holland’s Eredivisie and drew many plaudits for his performances for the US national team at the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea. But for the Californian born soccer star, his career was left largely unfulfilled. Blighted by a history of chronic injuries, O’Brien never truly reached the level of performance that his potential promised, however, he did enjoy sustained success for a short time and his influence on football in the United States was no less important.” World Soccer

“By the time I arrived at the Stadio Olimpico for the Rome Derby this April, ultras had already knifed four people, cracked open someone’s head with a bottle, and terrorized an ambulance with rocks and explosives. Uprooted flagstones lay strewn about the foot of a lonely obelisk dedicated to Mussolini. Copies of Corriere dello Sport scurried in the wind like tumbleweeds in a spaghetti Western. Clearly, this was a showdown that mattered. Inside the stadium, over 50,000 AS Roma and Lazio fans were in full throat. Their teams were battling for Serie A’s final Europa League spot, not to mention local ascendancy. The Derby della Capitale promised to be one of those high-stakes contests that make Europe a crucible for the world’s best talent. It was the kind of match in which Americans appear too infrequently. And that was why I’d come: to watch the American.” deadspin – Howler Magazine (Video)

“There’s this Felt song called ‘I Will Die With My Head in Flames’ that I sometimes think of when I think of Landon Donovan. Not because he’d like it — it’s existential mid-’80s jangle-pop, and his taste trends more toward SUV-Bluetooth music, or whatever you want to call the Venn diagram intersection that includes both T.I. and the Fray. A certain type of SoCal white-dude uncoolness has become as central to his image as his rank as the all-time leading scorer for the U.S. men’s national soccer team; if you doubt this, please examine the covers of the first two 9-and-up children’s biographies to answer an Amazon search for his name.” Grantland

” In his nearly two years as manager of the U.S. national team, Jurgen Klinsmann has been anything but averse to change. Before Friday’s World Cup qualifier in Jamaica, Klinsmann had not started the same lineup in two successive games during his now 26-match tenure. He has repeatedly shown that individuals are subjugated to the bigger cause. Klinsmann’s unofficial excommunication of the country’s all-time leading scorer, Landon Donovan, has gotten the lion’s share of media and fan attention, but Donovan isn’t alone in feeling the wrath of Klinsmann’s detachment. Last fall, lead striker Jozy Altidore was left off the roster for the team’s final two semifinal qualifiers despite being in the midst of a breakout season at his club, AZ Alkmaar. The morning of the opening match of this year’s Hexagonal in Honduras, team captain Carlos Bocanegra was dropped to the bench. He’s not even on the roster for this series of June matches.” SI

“Maybe he needed to work more, meditate less. Or maybe the gray had finally started to show, taking years off his expiration date. But he still had the spark, or at least the kindling; he was sure of that. He still squared himself in front of defenders. He still lifted his head to survey the field. He still left a trail of pointed fingers and agitation every time he dropped his defender. Dip the shoulder. Accelerate. No-look pass. Keep pace. Bring it down. Chip it back. Goal. His game had never been about misdirection; the words of his coaches still rang in his head: ‘focus on fundamentals.’ Sure, the gap was smaller than the days when bleached hair and cut-off shorts were all you needed to turn pro, but he could still tug the string and leave defenders in knots.” futbolintellect

“Last month, Freddy Adu arrived in Salvador, Brazil, to meet with officials of what is now his latest club, Bahia. He had worn out his welcome in Philadelphia after two troubled seasons with the Union; the team’s management was just unwilling to keep paying him a star’s wage (rumored to be upward of $500,000) to play like a journeyman. Whether Adu was misused by his coaches, bored by the competition or weighed down by the city’s excellent cheesesteaks, he delivered a total of seven goals and two assists in 35 league appearances, hardly the kind of résumé you expect from a guy who dated pop singer JoJo and had a $1 million contract at 14. So, in a now very familiar scene, Adu packed his soft-sided suitcase of promise and headed to the airport.” ESPN

“Is Estadio Azteca losing its mystique? It seems like a crazy question ahead of the U.S.’s much anticipated World Cup qualifier here on Tuesday against archrival Mexico (10:30 p.m. ET, ESPN, Univision). After all, Mexico has lost only one World Cup qualifier at the Azteca (vs. Costa Rica in 2001) in the history of the stadium, which was built in 1961. Nor has the U.S. ever won an official game here, managing just one tie in 1997.” SI

Carlos Bocanegra went to sleep on the evening of Feb. 5 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, expecting to play his 111th game for the U.S. national team the following afternoon. Entering his seventh year as captain, the 33-year-old center back had been training with most of the projected starters and was by far the most experienced defender at U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann’s disposal.” SI

“Sad Landon, Existential Donovan, Forlorn Landycakes – call him whatever you like, there’s a lot of talk about Landon Donovan these days, and rightfully so. Start with tepid National Team performances under Jurgen Klinsmann, add in a less star-studded Los Angeles Galaxy, and dabble in concerns about the marketing prospects of MLS, and you’ve got a concoction that’s led us all to agree that the world is coming to an end, and that Donovan-mania – can we use the term Landonicism? – is our only refuge from the impending catastrophe.” futbol intellect

“On Sunday 27th January 2013 the final of the Copa Centroamericana was settled by a firm header from Costa Rican defender Geancarlo González. The hosts extravagant celebrations in their modern national stadium belied the fact that it’s not the most prestigious international tournament. Held every two years and featuring the seven Central American nations, the prize for the participants is obtaining one of five places at CONCACAF’s Gold Cup, held in the United States later in the calendar year. Such was the competition’s lack of esteem, beaten finalist Honduras’ domestic league had a full programme throughout, and the only European-based players called upon were those on a winter break.” In Bed With Maradona

“In the past few years, many Mexican clubs have taken an interest in American players. Several clubs have placed particular emphasis on youth players, scouting extensively in the United States for the next Jose Torres, Joe Corona, or Edgar Castillo. No club has put more resources into recruiting young Mexican-American players north of the border than Pachuca. In September, I sat down with Marco Garcés, head of scouting for Pachuca to discuss the phenomenon of Mexican-American players heading south in ever greater numbers (a larger article on this topic will appear in issue three). Garcés was in San Diego for a tryout, which brought players from throughout the area who hoped to get noticed by Pachuca.” XI Quarterly

“Those words came out of the mouth of some man—southern, reasonably-tall, and apparently the mayor of San Pedro Sula, based on some of the I’m-sort-of-a-regular way he tried to talk about the place—on our shuttle from the airport to the hotel. It doesn’t really matter that the driver’s name was Melvin—he got three letters right, at least—or that, after a back and forth, they decided that the coup happened no later than 2008. The coup happened in 2009, as Noah Davis, esteemed person-who-has-been-to-Honduras-once, told me from the back of the shuttle. And what matters here is just that the coup happened. It happened less than four years ago, and now I’m here, rolling through the streets in a van, navigated by a man not named Javier, who has no problem cutting through gas stations instead of waiting for a red light to turn.” Outside

“Part 1: Whither Lionel? A cruel accusation is often lobbed at America’s soccer powers that be: How can a nation blessed with a diverse population of over 315 million have failed to produce a single Lionel Messi? Or, for that matter, a few more Clint Dempseys and Landon Donovans?” ESPN

“How did a washed-up, written-off, tossed-away journeyman named Herculez Gomez become one of the most beloved members of the U.S. Men’s National Team?” What A Howler

“Joe Corona’s list of accomplishments with Club Tijuana keeps growing. It was Corona who scored in the club’s promotion-battle win over Irapuato in May 2011, as the then-relative unknown attacker helped lead his relatively unknown club to the Mexican top flight. Upon arrival, the U.S. national team midfielder scored Tijuana’s first goal as a top-tier side and turned in a productive year that helped Los Xolos remain in the first division. It’s no surprise, then, that with Tijuana remarkably climbing the league mountain in little time that Corona was a vital participant as Los Xolos were crowned Mexican champions.” SI

“It took Clint Dempsey just five games to stitch his name in to the tapestry that tells the story of Tottenham Hotspur. His first goal for the club, Tottenham’s third on Saturday and what was in the end the difference between them and Manchester United, broke a hoodoo that had lasted almost a quarter of a century. Spurs fans arrived in Manchester hoping to see something different but dreading another defeat after 23 years without a win at Old Trafford. Dempsey’s calmly side-footed effort for a 3-1 lead was greeted with delirium; even after Shinji Kagawa’s almost immediate reply put the score at 3-2 with more than half an hour to play, the traveling supporters gave in to the opiate effects of belief.” SI