It’s been a while since I last posted. A long while. I originally started this website shortly after the 2006 World Cup when blogs were relatively new things and soccer coverage, particularly from North America, was just beginning to explode. I kept Culture of Soccer going for close to 2 years continually and loved every minute of it. To be able to explore the intersections between soccer and the rest of society and find others who enjoyed talking about these connections was  a dream.

In 2007, I moved from Washington, DC to San Diego for graduate school. While I had hoped to keep Culture of Soccer going while in school, I found it challenging to do so. My time became extremely limited as I threw myself into my PhD program. Culture of Soccer went on hiatus for about a year. I tried to restart it but school continued to get in the way.

Five years later, I’m still in school but much farther along. Having completed coursework, I am now focused exclusively on my research (on the growth of youth soccer in the United States). With this transition to a new phase of school, I began to want to return to writing about soccer. I thought about restarting Culture of Soccer, but the idea of doing something new intrigued me even more.

Late last year, I approached Tom Dunmore of the website Pitch Invasion and asked if he might have any interest in working on a magazine together. Having seen the growth of soccer in the United States and Canada in recent  years and the emergence of a dedicated fanbase, I thought there would be a place for a magazine that does in-depth coverage of North American soccer.

Over the past few months, we’ve been joined by John Turnbull of The Global Game, a website which was an inspiration for Culture of Soccer, and Liam Murtaugh, whose work as art director has been invaluable.

Together, we’ve created a new magazine, XI Quarterly, which we’ve just launched. I’ll keep Culture of Soccer up as an archive of work that I’ve done over the years, but my main creative energy will be dedicated to this new project. I hope you’ll check out our website as well as our Kickstarter page, where you can support the launch of XI.

Thank you to those who read Culture of Soccer over the years and I hope you’ll enjoy XI Quarterly in the future.

Ever since I moved to San Diego in 2007, I have heard rumors of the existence of an African Soccer League. My attempts to find it had proven unsuccessful until recently when I found a “Somali mall,” chatted up the guys who run a barbershop there, and had them put me in touch with their friend who runs one of the teams. He gave me the information I was looking for, and this past weekend, I finally got to go see the league in action. The existence of leagues like this one — completely under nearly everyone’s radar — that convince me that, contrary to popular perception, soccer is in fact quite popular in the United States, if you only know where to look to find it.

Below are some photos that I took of two games between African League teams. I was told that the games were friendlies and that the league itself will start next weekend. I will be returning to the league to do features on several of the teams. Check back soon for that!

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In 2008, I featured a piece on siblings Alexis and Amber Hernandez. Mexican-Americans who have grown up in the Central Valley of California, they had at the time both recently been called up to play for Mexico’s U-17s. Today, I return to this story by focusing on the club which helped them to develop. The South Valley Chivas Academy in Porterville, California has, for the past several years, been developing young players against tremendous odds, including poverty, isolation, and cultural differences. Yet despite these challenges, the academy has succeeded in developing several promising young players, including Amber and Alexis, and become an official academy for Mexican powerhouse Chivas.

The academy formed as part of Chivas’s sangre nueva (new blood) effort to develop young talent. While at a player identification try-out in 2005 for young players that Chivas Guadalajara put on in San Bernardino (it drew 15,000 players and showed the top brass in Mexico that there was the potential for a US-based team; later that year Chivas USA was founded), Alexis was identified by then scout Dennis te Kloese. Esmaldo and Gilbert kept in contact with te Kloese and when Chivas decided to establish actual affiliated academies in the United States, South Valley Chivas become the second one.

Photo: South Valley Chivas Academy

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Two encounters with foreign fans inspired Los Angeles-based filmmaker Pablo Miralles’s current project, the documentary film about the US-Mexico soccer rivalry called Gringos at the Gate. The first came at the 2006 World Cup in Germany, where he was on assignment for Los Angeles television stations. An English fan he was interviewing said to him, “You know what I’m most scared of? I’m scared that Americans will actually start caring about this sport.” The thought of this clearly spooked the (slightly inebriated) English fan, who proceeded to start crying. Which led Pablo Miralles to wonder: What was it that would lead a fan halfway across the world to shed tears over the possibility that the US would become a soccer power?

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River Plate’s young midfielder Diego Buanotte is currently in the hospital, recovering from injuries he suffered in a car accident in which he was involved on December 26. Buanotte was lucky; three friends traveling with him in the car were killed. Buanotte’s father told the media that, in addition to fearing for his son’s physical health, he worries that about psychological trauma that young Diego will likely face.

Diego Buanotte’s car after the accident (photo: Olé)

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When England recently announced the potential host cities that will host games if that country is awarded the 2018 World Cup, one stood out: Milton Keynes. The MK Stadium that would host games is home to MK Dons, among the most controversial teams in England. MK Dons are controversial, of course, because they are the first “franchise” club in that country. As Tom Dunmore has chronicled extensively at Pitch Invasion, the club formerly known as Wimbledon FC was taken over, moved from London to Milton Keynes, and attempted to claim the club’s long history (ultimately unsuccessfully). What makes MK Dons – and thus the potential staging of World Cup games at its stadium – so controversial is the novelty of its history. It is the only team to have broken the longstanding connection between clubs and the community in which they grew up. Indeed, this connection is part of what gives many clubs in Europe their unique character (think, for instance, of Barcelona’s Catalan identity). So strong is the connection that Premier League trial balloons about the possibility of staging 39^th games around the globe were shot down by outraged fans, incensed that clubs were putting profit over everything else.

The Football Supporters’ Federation protest sign against the 39th game (photo: Football Supporters’ Federation)

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