So Iraq wins the AFC Asian Cup, with a 1-0 win over Saudi Arabia and advances to the Confederations Cup, to be held in June 2009 in South Africa. The US will be there as well, having won the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Want to start a betting pool on the US and Iraq facing each other on the pitch? How karmic would that be?

Reading the highlights, the AFC Asian Cup Final sounds like it was a very exciting match. Bouncing the tying goal over the crossbar after the keeper misses intercepting a cross? In the 92nd minute? Too bad nobody other then Setanta had the final. I guess ESPN thought the pick-up sticks quarter-finals were more likely to draw viewers at 8AM EST.

Over at the NC Soccer Forums, there’s a fun discussion going on:

From playnow:

With the recent boom of programs across the country (state youth academy, USSF academy, Red Bull, national premier league, super y league, region III premier league, etc.), I’d be interested to see what people had to say about youth soccer if they had to break it down to one short statement of what is most important to them. Mine would be:

Even with all of the programs and incentives and bells and whistles that clubs are competing to be a part of, it all still comes down to a player finding a team with a coach who will teach them well, and within a club that has a staff committed to giving that player the individual attention they need to reach their personal goals.

So what would you guys have to say if you had to give your opinion in one short statement?

Read the thread to see the many single sentence summations of youth soccer. My favorite so far? From MGLParent:

Pulled apart between those that say win at any cost and those that do not even want to have tryouts.

I think I’d replace ‘have tryouts’ with ‘keep score’.

How would you sum up youth soccer in a single sentence?

For many of you this will be a ‘Well, duh!’ post, but I’m behind. I admit it. So I’m sure this was news a few months ago…

SoccerBlogs has always been a great resource for readers of soccer blogs. However, as the number of blogs and posts grew, it was hard to keep up with the volume. Well, Oscar has been hard at work with a lot of new features (profiles, new theme, better ‘Top Posts’ algorithm, etc.) and now he’s given us the best feature yet. True tagging. Unlike the first attempt, where he had tags assigned by blog, he now aggregates the true tags for every post and allows you to navigate by them. Even better, you can subscribe to RSS feeds for each tag, so you can have a group of topics that you get posts for in your RSS reader instead of just the main firehose. Just browse to a given tag and look for the feed link. Sure, you can do similar things with Technorati, but you’ll get ALL blogs, not just soccer blogs. Well done!

Keep up the great work Oscar!

Adding: Just for fun I created a new sidebar box with common topics that will get you the latest posts for a given tag via Soccer Blogs. I’m sure I’ll add others over time.

Faced with increasing pressure from other beverage makers and the popularity of diet soft drinks, PepsiCo announced that Gatorade would introduce a low-calorie version later this year:

PepsiCo’s chairman and chief executive, Indra K. Nooyi, said consumers had consistently requested a lower-calorie version of Gatorade. While the drink is formulated for athletes while they are working out, she said the lower-calorie version would be marketed to athletes for use when they were less active.

The new beverage will be released later this year. A recent survey of 2,500 adults by Goldman Sachs suggests that there is a market: 43 percent of those who reduced their consumption of Gatorade said they were concerned with calorie content. While Gatorade remains a huge seller, it is competing with an ever-growing list of competitors, from new sports drinks to bottled water and "enhanced" water with added ingredients to increase its nutritional value. Coca-Cola is aggressively trying to expand its noncarbonated portfolio.

I can’t explain why, but ‘Diet Gatorade’ just sounds wrong. That said, I think there will be a market for it. As I’ve noted before, when I take teams to tournaments in hot weather, I bring Gatorade as a ‘treat’, but also to ensure they stay hydrated. Yes, water hydrates best. But the kids are more likely to stay hydrated with Gatorade because they’re more likely to actually drink it. But the calories in it are a concern. So any other time (practice and regular matches), I bring water.

Yet, as I’ve gotten more active coaching and playing pickup, I’ve found myself drinking more Gatorade, which has plenty of calories. While they claim the market is for ‘athletes when they are less active’, I think it would be just dandy to have some during activity too and know I’m consuming less calories. Yes, I could just drink water, but I just like it better than water when I’m active.

The big question is what it’ll taste like. A diet version of Gatorade will probably be worth doing if it tastes decent, even if diet Powerade didn’t sell well. How would you know? I don’t know many people who drink normal Powerade :). There’s marketing for you!

John over at Keeper Skool found the highlights from the recent South Korea-Iraq shootout (kicks from the mark for you purists). You really need to watch this, not for the shootout itself, but for the announcer’s enthusiasm. Watch the whole way through and once Noor Sabri makes the first save for Iraq, he really gets going. When they actually win the semi-final, he absolutely loses control, unable to contain his excitement. Unrestrained euphoria is understandable in any language.

I’m thinking ESPN should force Dave O’Brien and the rest of the announcers to sit through this a hundred times. Commentator 101 - Here’s What True Excitement Sounds Like. Why American commentators have to be so reserved and composed is beyond me. Have a little fun!

It’s always entertaining to read the reactions across the Soccersphere and the mainstream media when the US national teams play. In a country saturated in sporting events, you have the soccer fanatics in the soccersphere, as passionate as ever, while the majority of the country barely notices. We complain about it, but that’s the way it is and we just hope for gradual improvements. Nobody was dancing in the streets when we won the Gold Cup. Yet for many smaller countries soccer is the national sport. Success on the global pitch can be euphoric for a country’s citizens. Which makes Iraq’s success in the Asian Cup more poignant as a team from a country torn apart by war battles to win a major tournament. And yet when the wins come and their team advances to the finals, dozens of Iraqis are killed by bombs as they dance in the streets celebrating a rare positive note in their country’s horrific recent history.

There’s no political statement here. However, while incidents like the Mansour bombings are an almost daily occurrence, tragic stories like these can often put things into perspective for us as we lament our own latest soccer or even national woes. So I share it for that.

If there is a bright spot, it is the picture the NY Times chose for their article. Even in a country used to daily horrors, the victory of a national soccer team can still bring euphoria.

I’ve had a couple people ask which kit our travel teams finally went with for the 2007-08 season. We initially were looking at a striped kit to really stand out. However, a couple people were worried that if we went with, say, Black/Royal and White/Royal (the Yellow/Black didn’t appeal to most as an away jersey), a referee might not allow either against a team wearing solid royal. I didn’t think this likely, but they were nervous enough to go with a mostly solid kit. They chose the kit at the right from Joma.

It’s a nice kit. The picture doesn’t show it, but there is some additional alternate color design on the bottom of the sides (it’s tucked into the shorts in the picture). The yellow is also much more vibrant than it looks here. It’s almost neon, which is cool. Plus they were a great deal. Two jerseys, shorts, and socks for around $35 in quantity. Add in the lettering, logo, etc, it still is under $50/kit.

The only problem with the yellow one is you can see through it. But we already suggest our girls wear Under Armour, t-shirts, sports tops, etc. under their uniform to matches so they can easily change colors at the field. So this shouldn’t be a huge problem.

So that’ll be the MYSA this year. Yes - we’re one of those teams that often make the refs change shirt colors. 

The landscape of youth athletics is changing. Regardless of WHY parents want their kids to succeed (long shot college scholarship, living vicariously, or just wanting them to do their best), parents are always looking for ways to help their kids become better athletes. I know you hear horror stories all the time about psycho parents who burn their kids out, but in my limited experience, it has been the exception, not the rule. The parents who generally look for new ways to help their kids improve, are usually well grounded parents who have kids in love with a sport and want to help them be their best. Is it wrong to help your child improve as long as you keep things in perspective? A number of parents have decided it’s not and are discovering a new way to help their kids improve and succeed.

One recent trend in this area has been sending kids through strength and conditioning fitness programs. A recent NY Times article summarizes the trend:

BRACE yourselves, parents. Besides shuttling the kids to cello lessons, algebra tutoring, soccer matches and basketball practice, there’s one more activity emerging to give prepubescent go-getters a leg up these days: sports performance training.

Because many team coaches don’t have the time or the expertise in exercise science to make their troops faster and stronger, specialty programs - part gym, part pro-training camp - have stepped in to fill the need. For roughly $35 a session, they provide rigorous conditioning for any aspiring child, regardless of ability, using the kinds of practices that have set apart athletes like Tiger Woods and the Williams sisters.

Sports performance training is becoming de rigueur for ambitious stars in the making or unfit youngsters whose parents want to shore up their confidence.

The idea behind this is to let a professional trainer help kids develop better fitness, agility, strength, and conditioning while their sport coach concentrates on the art of whatever sport they are coaching.

» Read the rest of this post…

About a year ago I wrote about the troubles that non-profit organizations were facing communicating with their members. SPAM and virus email is a serious problem, but most ISP responses to it have made things harder for people to get legitimate email through. Solutions like Goodmail are great for companies that can afford to pay for email to get through, but for non-profits, even with a reduced rate, it can represent a significant expense. Plus there is something flat out wrong to pay for your email to be delivered because of spammers. Shouldn’t it just be as simple as sending the email and having it get to the person intended?

Well, just because we send the email doesn’t mean it’s actually getting there. I’ve encountered all sorts fun with email delivery failures over the past few years, across all sorts of ISPs, making it difficult to get information out to our parents.

» Read the rest of this post…

I think it was the tag line of Alive and Kicking that caught my eye. "When Soccer Moms Take The Field And Change Their Lives Forever" I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I was browsing around Amazon for some soccer books and figured for a couple bucks used, it was worth a try (it’s out of print apparently).

Harvey Araton, who is a sports columnist for the NY Times, lives in suburban Montclair, New Jersey with his wife Beth and their two sons. Like many American families, they have kids who play youth soccer. Then, with one phone call, Beth went from Soccer Mom on the sidelines to soccer player and Harvey came along for the wild ride of a number of Montclair women who decided it would be a lot of fun to actually play the game instead of always watching it.

This all begins one afternoon while Lisa Ciardi is kicking the ball around with one of her children. One of the league’s soccer trainers from the UK commented that she had good form. Both later approached a local coach who ran an indoor soccer complex about starting a clinic for women to practice soccer skills. Skeptical at first, he agrees and Lisa manages to recruit a sizable group of women to participate. As the group grows, they decide to form a league and play at the local indoor soccer complex. Sounds simple enough, right?

» Read the rest of this post…

One thing I haven’t done enough of is post reviews of various soccer products and books I’ve used/read. Initially it was because I just didn’t encounter all that much stuff coaching 4 year olds beyond a ball, whistle, cones, and a ball bag But now I’m coming across more things I find I’d like to write about. So there will definitely be some reviews coming. So far, these are all products I’ve purchased and used (or my kids have used). I’d happily review products sent my way, but I’d also make it clear that the products were provided for that purpose.

Soccer being the simple (*cough*) sport that it is - there aren’t that many different types of things to review and things like cleats/balls are often a matter of personal preference. But then there are the instructional books and videos for youth soccer, where they number in the thousands. So there’s plenty to wade through there. Where to start?

Every once in a while I come across something unique too, so those will be fun to write about. If you have ideas for a product to review, let me know!

In the endless debates about competition in youth sports, you’ll often hear that the kids don’t care about trophies, only the parents and coaches do. While there may be some truth to that with people who lose sight of why we all do what we do in youth soccer, most coaches I’ve met care about the development of their team and if they win some hardware - great! But it’s not all about the hardware.

Well the other day I found out it really IS all about the hardware. Simply for scenes like this…

I’m watching TV and typing away on my laptop when I hear cheers come from the kid’s bedroom. Curious, I look in and all four were in there with soccer balls all over the floor. They had devised some crazy game involving at least 3 balls being rolled around as they competed in the ‘World Cup’. When I asked why it was the ‘World Cup’, I got looks that screamed ‘How dense can you be Daddy?’ and #3 shouts "Becauuuuuuse Daddy, you win the cup!" and he points to the big silver cup Eldest’s Rec team won as finalists for the NCYSA Recreation State Cup.

Priceless.

So that’s why it’s all about the hardware for me - to have more props for the kids to create games around!

Yes, I’m kidding. Mostly.

I know, I know. Late to the party. But it has to be said. Why in the world did Bob Bradley think taking a team of players with so little experience to the Copa America was a good idea? 16 out of 22 players had less than 10 caps. Of the 166 total caps for the team, 100 belong to Kasey Keller.

Yes, I understand he really wanted to get ‘the next generation’ some international experience. But this wasn’t some random tournament. This was CONMEBOL’s premiere tournament which the US had snubbed invitations to for years (thanks Bruce!) and then we do this? To face the likes of Argentina and Brazil, who also lacked a few familiar faces but were still dangerous? Contrast that with Mexico, who still smarting from their defeat in the Gold Cup, brought a team to compete (over 738 caps), and advanced out of the group rounds without a loss?

» Read the rest of this post…

Ever since tryouts, the girls on my U11G Challenge team have been looking forward to the start of practice. A few have played some pickup together, gone to summer camp, played in 3v3 tournaments, etc. But this is a new team made up mostly of girls who have played coed in Rec, so they’ve been really looking forward to the season getting started playing with ‘all girls’.

So we have our first practice scheduled for today (agility and conditioning!), everyone is there except for a couple who were at a swim meet, and what does it do? Thunder and lightning and rain, oh my! We waited in our cars for a good 30 minutes hoping it would clear, especially when the sun came out halfway through the storm, only to slip away 10 minutes later. Needless to say, it didn’t clear up until much later.

Mother Nature is such a tease!

I know many in the soccer world rolled their eyes when they heard that David Beckham was coming to America. We all knew the media circus that would surround he and his wife Victoria. That simply couldn’t be good for the beautiful game in America. I was sitting in a bar recently (watching the USWNT beat Norway) when ESPN showed their arrival and the absolute media frenzy that surrounded their departure overseas and arrival here. Someone nearby wondered which movie star was causing ’such excitement’ and the look on their face when I said ‘it was a soccer player’ was priceless. When I said it was David Beckham, they said ‘Oh! So that’s what he looks like!’. Guess they were one of the 52%!

Personally, I think the arrival of the Beckham’s is great for soccer in America, even if it doesn’t translate into better ratings or attendance for the MLS. Like Mia Hamm before him, David Beckham is ‘cool’ to kids playing soccer (or thinking about it) and will generate excitement in their sport. That’s a good thing. If it also translates into adult fans, even better. So try to clench your jaw and tolerate the media circus. Soccer has a long history in America, but soccer just ‘arrived’ for many on an inbound flight from London. Just remember, when someone new to soccer talks about how ‘cool David Beckham is’ and how he’s made soccer interesting, that’s when you hand them a copy of Soccerhead or one of the many other books that deal with the History of Soccer in America.

Let the Beckham’s open the door. We can show them the way!

UPDATE: That’s On Point has a good media roundup of the Beckham’s arrival.