I’ll admit that I tend to read political blogs a bit more than is healthy. But you often find 2nd tier stories being talked about that you might miss from the MSM. The one thing they ALL have, however, is some level of dissent. Look around the Soccersphere and, well, we don’t.

No, I don’t think soccer blogs need to be like their political big brothers with vitriol being spewed from left and right. However, a little dissent can be a good thing. There is some incredible writing out there from soccer bloggers and a lot of good ideas. But with all that is going on right now, there’s no way we all agree with each other. Yet I find very few posts where a soccer blogger says ‘So and so had this idea and while I agree with some of it, I think this might be a better option.’ The beauty of this is it adds insight and further ideas to the debate AND gets the debate in front of more readers and bloggers.

So I was thrilled to see D at the DCenters being a true dissenter. Debate the ideas. If you don’t agree with some, well that’s cool.

And that’s what I’d like to see more of: Make the case. Even if I think you are wrong, at least you will have offered concrete steps which are implementable actions, not platonic ideals. Why and What are great places to start, but recommend the How. That’s the challenge for all of US Soccer at this point.

Damn straight. Don’t hold back when you have an idea – if you care enough to write about it, make the case for it. Does that open you up to dissent – sure it does and that’s a good thing. The risk is some may fall into fits of anger and start to attack the bloggers themselves (like many political blogs do). I hope we’re smarter than that, because healthy debate can be a good thing.

With two different carnivals coming up this Monday, we’re going to see a lot of interesting ideas floated from a lot of different blogs, some of which have been published within the past few days. Many of you are bound to disagree with some of the things talked about – so say so. We all just need to make sure we keep the debate civil lest we fall into the same trap many political bloggers have or some posters on other *cough* ‘Big’ sites.

Are you game?