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.

A lot happened in the time I was gone, including the rise of Twitter. In an effort to keep up with the times, I have established a Culture of Soccer twitter account. I think I’ll mostly use it to post articles of interest to me, but am open to suggestions about how to use this new-fangled tool. Hope you enjoy!

I did a piece for Tom Dunmore’s excellent blog Pitch Invasion today about how I became the obsessed soccer fan that I am. Kudos to anyone who can name a player for the Dayton Dynamo!

First of all, I want to apologize for the sudden disappearance of Culture of Soccer last year. Starting graduate school ate up most of my time, and I couldn’t keep up the site. However, now that I am a couple of years into my PhD, I find myself with a bit more time and I am happy to announce that I will be restarting Culture of Soccer shortly. I will likely do updates about once a week and I hope to regain many of the fans this site had developed previously, as well as attract some new followers. I have many ideas for stories to write and I will come across new ideas as part of my studies, which will focus on the role of immigrant soccer leagues in the United States. I’m also happy to hear suggestions from readers. If you have an idea for something I can write about on Culture of Soccer, please email me at david@cultureofsoccer.com.

Following up on my interview with Andrea Canales a few weeks ago, my interview with her fellow LA reporter Luis Bueno is up now on This is American Soccer (TIAS). Luis writes for Sports Illustrated, MLSNet.com, the Press-Enterprise, in addition to running his Sideline Views blog along with Andrea. Most of my conversation with Luis focused on the role of Hispanics in American soccer. A few interesting quotes are below and if they tickle your fancy, cruise on over to TIAS and read the whole thing.

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This past weekend, I had the opportunity to head up to Los Angeles to speak with a couple of prominent soccer writers there. Andrea Canales and Luis Bueno are the duo behind the Sideline Views blog, and they also write individually for various publications. Both interviews were done as part of a joint project with Adam Spangler of This is American Soccer (TIAS) and will be published there.

My interview with Luis focused on about ways in which US Soccer and MLS are reaching out (or not) to Hispanic players, fans, coaches, etc. The write-up of that interview with him will be up on TIAS in the near future.

The transcript of the full 50-minute Q&A with Andrea is up now on TIAS. Here are a few quotes to whet your appetite before you head over to TIAS to read the entire thing.

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