Ah yes. Another April weekend, another bunch of postponed matches. Normally I wouldn’t mind because the grass on the fields was coming up and the more water the better. But our recent cold snap knocked it back to brown pretty quick! So we start over again. Here’s hoping we avoid the washout on the last weekend of the regular season that we faced last year. We played in some really wet conditions trying to get those last games in since the turf was firm, but very wet on top. Not looking for a repeat of that!

April showers mean Advil for the league match scheduler! As for me? No matches this weekend mean I can write more posts. Which I did - but I still need to polish some a bit.

Yes, I know the actual ’soccer’ posts have been few and far between recently. Not unusual during the youth soccer season - but worse when I’m neck deep in multiple projects. So my apologies. Today’s my day to recharge so I guess that’s a better time than ever to write!

So what exactly have I been doing these past couple months? Well, besides the paying stuff? Soccer, soccer, soccer!

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Two years ago I fired up WordPress and decided to give blogging a go. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it 6 months. Granted, I don’t post daily - just don’t have the time. But hopefully I’m posting enough to keep it interesting for all 20 of you including you there in the back. I’ll admit I’ve enjoyed tinkering with WordPress almost as much as I have writing content. But in the end it’s the content that’s key, so hopefully I can ‘keep it fresh’ and ‘keep it real’!

Here’s to making it another two years! Care to come along for the ride?

Well, we’re on our new web host - hopefully the only thing you notice is faster page loads. If you notice anything wrong, missing, or unusual, post a comment or drop me an email.

Just a heads up that I’m planning to move On The Pitch to some new hosting digs in the next few days. Hopefully you won’t notice anything (except faster response times!), but worst case, you may not be able to get to the site for 15 minutes or so. Once we’re at our new home, I hope to start working on the new theme and moving to v2.1 of WordPress (finally).

So Lisa over at LDSM, Soccer Mom decided to tag me for music I’ve been listening to lately. Let’s just say Soccer Dad isn’t the most musically inclined person to begin with, but with four kids, most of the songs I hear these days come off of DVDs with cute little animated characters on them. (heavy) Sigh… So lets see how badly I can embarrass myself here.

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Who knew the Easter Bunny was a soccer fan? Soccer Mom outdid herself - finding stuffed bunnies holding a soccer ball AND chocolate soccer eggs. Happy Easter!

Josh over at ThroughBall linked in to a fantastic interview that Christian Franek recently did with Eric Wynalda before the USMNT v. Ecuador match. I know I normally quote a bit here and there, but the entire article is quotable. Go read the entire thing if you haven’t already.

I have to say I really enjoyed reading the interview and it’s classic Wynalda. He makes some very direct statements about US Soccer, the MLS, and how soccer can grow in America. His insights related to MLS branding are fantastic. Can’t resist picking my own fun quote:

Now what happens if Sunil Gulati gets off his ***** pedestal, calls Don Garber and says, "That’s it. We now mandate that nobody is allowed to name their team the Butterflies or Grasshoppers or the Little ***** Litterbugs or whatever they want to call them.

Seriously. I encounter a lot of people who don’t know soccer or only know soccer through their kids and are looking to watch more soccer. One of the most common questions is "Why are the team names so pathetic?" Not just in the MLS, but the USL as well. It subconsciously re-enforces the idea that soccer is a sissy sport or a non-contact sport. Every year, as kids in our league move into U10 and U12 where the play gets more physical, I have parents irate that their kid got taken down hard (and usually it was ALL ball the defender trapped) or caught a flying elbow. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard "Why are you letting our soccer program degenerate into a contact sport" or "I never thought soccer was a contact sport". Um, yeah, it is, even with 10 year olds. When you have athletic kids chasing the SAME thing at full speed in cleats - contact is going to happen.

Our youth league has 65+ teams in it where the coaches and kids pick the names. Storm, Thunder, Strikers, Eagles, Dragons, Rockets, Fury, Lions, Fusion, Flames, etc. Why are the MLS and USL so worried about naming teams with local historical significance? The Pioneers? Battery?

Eric’s insights about the marketing to kids are spot on. When I see kids in our league, the ones who live and breath soccer, wearing jerseys, they’re almost always EPL or USMNT jerseys. A few have national team jerseys that they think look cool. That’s a marketing aspect the MLS is completely ignoring.

So grab a cup of coffee and read the entire interview. Then print it out and send it to Sunil and Don with some helpful hints written on the margins

I happened to be looking at my access stats (bored much?) and noticed an incoming hit from a site ‘ballhype.com’ that I didn’t recognize. So I decided to pay a visit out of curiosity. I’m glad I did! BallHype is a social networking site similar to Digg that is dedicated to all things sports. However, instead of relying just on user submitted stories, it also aggregates stories from sports blogs across the internet. Add to that common social networking features such as groups, discussion threads not only for each hyped story, but also for user groups, and a customizable dashboard, you have a pretty cool service for sports nuts.

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Yes, if you tell them this, they really WILL do this. Been there, done that.

Those of you who frequent political blogs are likely familiar with the ‘The Great BlogRoll Purge of 2007‘ that Atrios started. Well, agree with it our not, I’m not even close to the C-list, let alone the A-list. However, even my BlogRoll was getting long and outdated. Many of the sites listed haven’t been updated in months, if not years, and others I just wasn’t reading anymore. So I’ve gone ahead and pruned it a bit. I’ve always been adding new soccer sites I find interesting, but hadn’t been removing any.

So starts the Great BlogRoll Purge - SoccerSphere Style. Remember, you heard about it here first!

As anyone with kids in U5 or U6 soccer knows - the kids are out there to learn some basic soccer skills, but also to just have some fun and develop a love of the game. My son started playing U5 this Spring and after his first match, his coach sent out eCards to them. She picked a fun pair of characters called Hoops & YoYo, who were created by Hallmark and have become very popular. Sure, eCards are just a way for greeting card companies to sell stuff, but my 4 year old doesn’t know that. When he saw the eCard playing on the screen and listened to the little dialog (click the flower), he just grinned and laughed. He loved it. You can see the specific eCard here.

So if you’re coaching a group of really young kids and most of the parents have Internet access, something like this can add a little ‘fun factor’ to their soccer experience. Very neat idea. Thanks Coach!

The IRS is considering some proposals that could significantly add to the paperwork and record keeping overhead of youth soccer leagues (most of which are non-profit corporations). According to a recent article a CNN/Money, the IRS is hoping to increase it’s collection rate from businesses. However, the proposals will require many more 1099s to be filled out and unfortunately won’t have the financial impact on collection rates that would justify them.

Possible changes in the tax law would require:

• Filling out 1099s for service/corporate contractors - things like field maintenance (TruGreen, etc), bookkeeping (how ironic), online registration services, etc. The $600 threshold would still apply, but many leagues pay corporate and service contractors $600 or more per year.
• Validating all Tax ID numbers of independent contractors with the IRS. Referees, paid trainers, etc.
• Require the withholding of taxes for any independent contractor that requests it.

These could have a significant impact in record keeping for larger leagues and will just be more paperwork for the smaller ones (we were happy to only have to file three 1099’s last year, though we expect that number to go higher this year).

Clearly there is a problem:

IRS data show that independent contractors report 96 percent of the income for which they get information returns (Form 1099, for example), but only 46 percent of income for which they don’t.

The billion dollar question is does that shortfall result primarily from income under the $600 threshold or the lack of documentation for service contractor payments? Unfortunately, only time will tell and we’ll all be doing more paperwork to find out.

Here April Fools Day came and went and I didn’t put up a single post. I’m so ashamed. What fun it would have been to write "US Soccer brings Bruce Arena back into the fold as lifetime head coach of the men’s national team" or "Dave O’Brien banished from soccer announcing by FIFA decree" But alas I was on the road to a makeup soccer match for Eldest.