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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Happy New Year to readers of Culture of Soccer. I also want to point out that this is, more or less, the one year anniversary of this blog (well, I did a few posts in the fall, but then got too busy with graduate school applications until after Christmas). I am honored to have obtained a regular readership and although I’m not always able to respond to all of your comments, please know that I appreciate the how insightful they are. I wasn’t able to post as much in the fall due to starting graduate school, but I’m hoping that I’ll be back on a more regular schedule from now on. Again, Happy New Year and thank you.

For those of you waiting patiently for updates, there won’t be any until after Christmas. I’m currently taking part in a research project in Oaxaca, Mexico and won’t be posting until I return to Gringolandia.

If you’ll permit me a moment of self horn-tooting, I was recently interviewed by a Saudi journalist about a previous post I did on Why Saudi Arabia’s Players Don’t Go Abroad. While he may have slightly overestimated my knowledge of Saudi soccer, I am honored nonetheless to appear in the online edition of Aleqtesadia newspaper, which is an financial-focused publication. For those of us whose Arabic is a bit rusty, you might want to check out the always hilarious online translation of the article, in which “it should be noted that researcher David Keys attends a letter doctorate at the University of California at San Dyeju America.”

Salaam alaikum to my people in Saudi Arabia

Speaking of letter doctorates at the University of California San Dyeju America, that has been responsible for my lack of posts this past week. I have a couple interesting interviews coming up this week and I hope you will enjoy reading the results of them.

I want to let everyone know that I am likely to only be posting twice a week at least for the next couple of weeks. Having just started graduate school, I am focusing my energy on that endeavor. I am hoping that I will have it all under control soon enough and be able to return to my regular three posts a week schedule. Thanks for reading.