on the (personally) awesome soccer month of march

This month is shaping up to be an excellent month for me on the soccer front. MLS is (supposed to be, at least) starting up again, and that makes me happy. But it's not just that. Let's start at the beginning.

I got the new USMNT away jersey in the mail last Thursday (along with a free Jabulani mini replica ball!) and honestly, it is a good looking jersey. I know a lot of people think it looks like a ~beauty pageant sash~ or whatever, but I think it looks awesome, especially against the navy. Adding to my jersey collection is always exciting. I have quite a few, and maybe one of these days I'll go through and talk about them individually. Actually, that would be a really good post. So I'll do that eventually.

I spent a decent amount of time the last few months trying to convince my parents that we should go up to Columbus for a Crew game. Unfortunately, that didn't really pan out. But when US Soccer announced the send-off series finale against Turkey in Philadelphia on May 29th, I decided this was the game that I wanted to go to. So as soon as the game was announced, I set out to convince my parents that we should go. 11 hours in the car won't be that bad, we can extend our trip and do some sight-seeing up north since we've never been there, and most importantly, it'll be the last game before the World Cup so the atmosphere should be great. They were iffy at first, but on Saturday my mom caved and bought us all tickets. I'm a bit disappointed we won't be sitting with the American Outlaws, but we're supposedly right along the tunnel where the players come out, so that should be pretty awesome. Regardless of where I'm sitting though, I'm finally getting my first cap!

Finally, I will be going to my first "MLS" games in 10 days! I say "MLS" because it's just preseason, and only one of the games will feature two MLS teams (Toronto FC vs. Real Salt Lake, then DC United vs. Charleston Battery), but it's still just as exciting. Especially since it's the last weekend of preseason and the teams should be pretty much full strength. I can't wait.

The Crew play tonight in CONCACAF Champions League, so I have a couple extra weeks of excitement to get me pumped up for First Kick on the 25th. I'll still be home for Spring Break so I'll have people to watch the games with (my family, but it's better than nothing). Basically, March is shaping up to be exactly the kind of month it needs to be to get me back into soccer after I spent most of February obsessing over the Winter Olympics.

on being a crew fan in georgia

I guess I have to start this off by stating, for those of you who didn't know, that I'm a Columbus Crew fan. Through 2007, I just sorta casually followed MLS, watched whatever game was on, not really cheering for anyone in particular because I didn't have a team within 9 hours of me, so there really wasn't much of a reason to. At the beginning of the 2008 season, however, I decided that I was going to really get into the league and pick a team and stick with them. It was a couple of weeks into the season when I settled on Columbus- they had US National Team players I liked (Frankie Hejduk, and to some extent Robbie Rogers), they had players I knew I would like (a crafty Argentinian midfielder, a Scotsman who scored a rocket of a goal, a keeper who looked like Ricky Bobby, a goofy blonde kid who looked like a Cabbage Patch doll, to name a few), they played a nice passing game which I respected, and, just as importantly as the other reasons, they wore yellow, one of my favorite colors. So I started following the Crew, and either I'm good at picking winners or I was actually their lucky charm; regardless, the Crew won the Supporter's Shield and MLS Cup and I was a content fan. In 2009 I was still a Crew fan. They only won the Supporter's Shield this season, but at least that's something.

I'd become really attached to the team, which I suppose is a good thing, but being a fan of a team nine hours away from you can pose some problems. For one, I've never met another Crew fan. Actually, I can broaden that by saying I've never met a fan of any MLS team outside of my family, who I've pretty much forced it on, but that's a whole different story. So other than a couple people on Twitter and, if I dared, Big Soccer, I don't really have anyone to talk to about anything specifically Crew-related. (My mom will listen to me rant and ramble, but I doubt she takes most of it in.) Another downside is that I can't just decide I want to go to a game and then go. I'd have to get a plane ticket and a rental car and a hotel room and find someone to go with and as much as I'd love to go to games all the time, it's just not feasible.

I had a nice long paragraph here about not being able to find Crew merchandise, but it just sounded really whiny so I scratched it all. I only have one piece of Crew merchandise, and it's the MLS Cup Champions t-shirt. It's also a mens large, since that's all they had in stock, so I can't wear it out anywhere. I plan on getting a jersey when the new ones come out in February, but I have nothing now. Recently, however, I took up knitting, and I bought yellow and black yarn and knitted myself a Crew scarf.

It's my first project, so it's not at all perfect, the stripes are different sizes and the stitches are loose in some places, but it's something at least. Of course, everyone is going to assume it's just a Georgia Tech scarf, but they don't know any better.

obligatory "why should you read this blog?" post

In my first season playing soccer, I only got the ball once. Somehow I ended up with the ball, and dribbled it for a few glorious moments...until it was taken away from me by one of the boys on my team. In my last season playing soccer, eleven years later, I could typically be found in line with the last opposing defenders, but rarely marked, because the other teams made the (generally) correct assumption that nobody was going to pass the ball to the girl. Boys will be boys, right?

Those eleven years of soccer weren't filled with glory and championships (every trophy or medal I have was based on participation), but they instilled in me a love for the sport itself that has grown even stronger since I've stopped playing. Unfortunately for me, I live in Georgia, so opportunities to share my love of the game with others are limited. That lack of opportunity led to the creation of this blog. I've grown accustomed to sharing articles and USMNT/MLS info with the rest of my family whenever I get a chance, but although they may start off paying attention, I usually go into far more detail than they care about, and I really hate to be bother them all the time. So this blog will give me an outlet to ramble about the latest USMNT roster or how our Yanks Abroad are doing or whatever happens to be going on in MLS.

tl;dr, who I support and why
In terms of support, my number one team is and always will be the US national teams. I couldn't have picked a better time to grow up as a girls soccer player. My earliest non-documented memory is watching the 1999 Women's World Cup final between the US and China. I would put that game as the main reason that I love US Soccer as much as I do today- for the first time I was just so inexplicably proud of my country, and I loved it. The WNT players of the late 90s, early 2000s weren't just a team for me- they were idols. I was within 10 yards of Mia Hamm after an Atlanta Beat game once and it's still one of the greatest moments of my life. I don't remember exactly when I started following the men's team, but it was at some point during qualification for the 2006 World Cup because I knew who everyone was when I watched the Send-Off Series. After the 06 World Cup, my focus shifted more to the MNT than the WNT, but I still have tons of love for the women, especially now that the Atlanta Beat are coming back next season!

The 2006 World Cup opened up a ton of doors for me because after my parents saw how mesmerized my sister and I were by televised soccer (somewhat of a rarity on cable), they added the sports tier to our cable package, and suddenly, between Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV, I was watching 4 to 5 games per weekend, across the EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, and some MLS. I was hooked. I would schedule plans around games I wanted to watch live, I'd watch one game on my laptop while watching another on TV...I remember one time during an international break, I had the US vs. Poland game on the TV, the England game on my laptop, and either a Spain or Germany game on the desktop. It was madness, but in the best way possible. As for support, I'd classify myself as a Fulham fan- six months ago I would have added Arsenal to that, but I found myself caring less and less about their results and more and more about Fulham's results, and the whole big-4-dominance is getting pretty old. In the other leagues, I'll watch pretty much anything just to see a good game.

As for the MLS, I don't really have a local team to support. Up until the 2008 season, I was just a casual fan, watching games when I happened to be home to watch them, then engrossing myself in the playoffs. At the start of the 2008 season, I decided that I was actually going to get into the league and pick a team or two to follow. I'd always kinda liked FC Dallas after playing with them one season on FIFA, so I picked them in the west, but it took a few games for me to eventually choose Columbus in the east. Besides the fact that they wore my favorite color of yellow, they were playing the same attractive soccer that Arsenal were playing, which pretty much sold me. I ended up becoming far more invested in them than I thought, especially since they ended up being both Supporters Shield and MLS Cup champions.


Some basic background stuff...I'm from Augusta, Georgia, and I go to Georgia Tech, where I major in Nuclear and Radiological Engineering. Other than a couple of Atlanta Beat games back in the day, I've never been to a professional soccer game, although that will change after I see AC Milan play Club America in the Georgia Dome in 8 days. This can mostly be attributed to the fact that teams never play within reasonable driving range.

My claim(s) to fame in the soccersphere? 2 years ago Jimmy Conrad answered my question about Landon's pre-penalty kick ritual at around the 9-minute mark. Also, I was the first person to have their 6-in-60 questions asked during FSC's MLS broadcasts (which was made even better by the fact that my questions were answered by Danny O'Rourke, a Crew player, and Brad Evans, a former Crew player), and I have some pretty sweet FSC swag to prove it.

Tl;dr? In summary, I'm pretty legit. For a girl.