US Soccer 101

That’s awesome that you’re excited about soccer and want to learn more!  Don’t worry about people giving you a hard time.  Most soccer fans will just be so excited that you’re interested in soccer that they’ll want to include you, not treat you like you don’t know enough. 

We (Katy & Faith, who run this blog) only got into soccer in 2010, so we were in your shoes not too long ago.  We just turned into total fangirls and learned everything we could about the teams & players we liked (and about soccer in general).  (=

The Soccer Book by DK Publishing is a really awesome book about soccer in general.  It explains how the game works, tactics, formations, history, and other stuff that’ll make you feel more like you understand what’s happening when you’re watching the game (or what people are talking about when they’re arguing about tactics).  There are lots of pictures and diagrams that make it easy to understand.

Also, Wikipedia & YouTube are your friends!  Just search for a team or player you like, and you can totally go down the rabbit hole.  US Soccer has a great YouTube channel.

We’d also suggest finding some blogs or twitter accounts about the teams you like, or about soccer in general, and following those.  Here are a few suggestions:

Yanks Are Coming and The Shin Guardian are great US-centric blogs with lots of in-depth articles & analysis of games.  They’re great for learning about the teams, players, coaches, tactics, etc.

Dirty Tackle is a hilarious and irreverent soccer news blog.  It’s sort of like getting your news from Weekend Update or The Daily Show…but soccer-y.  Great source for general soccer news, so you know what’s going on out there.

ONTD_Football is a great soccer community on LiveJournal.  It’s not as active as it used to be, but it’s a good place for finding other fans of the teams you love.  Then you can follow each other on Twitter and talk soccer all the time!

We also love the Men in Blazers podcast, but it might be a little heavy on the inside jokes for someone just starting out.  Definitely check them out when you’re familiar with the lingo!

Twitter and Tumblr also have tons of great stuff — just find the people you want to follow and keep reading!  A few suggestions:

Brooks Peck | Alexi Lalas | Soccer Gods | Men In Blazers | Roger Bennett | Michael Davies | US Soccer | Paul Carr | Grant Wahl | FuckYeahUSMNT | USMNTS

And last but not least, if there's anything you want to know more about, let us know!  The whole reason we started this blog was to give new fans an introduction to the US team, so if there's something you want to know, we'll do our best to tell you about it.  (=

What you need to know:

The US has badass goalkeepers. 

Tim Howard is just...a legend.  Obviously. 

But even our backup GK, Brad Guzan, is a beast. He's the first-string goalkeeper for Aston Villa, in the English Premier League, and he tears it up over there.

#13: Jermaine Jones

Midfielder, 32, Besiktas (Turkey)

What can we say about Jermaine Jones?  He's probably the player about whom people's opinions have changed the most.

When he first showed up on the scene, everybody kinda hated him. First of all, it was clear that playing for the US was his second choice, and he was only playing for us because he didn't make the German team.  It's understandable -- Jermaine was born on an Army base in Germany while his dad was stationed there, and although he spent a few years in the US as a kid, he moved back to Germany when his parents divorced, so he spent most of his life there.  But still, with so many players who were fighting to play for the US and would've considered it an honor, it was off-putting to see someone who saw us as his backup plan get called up.  (And this was before we had a German coach and like nine thousand players who were raised in Germany.  Jermaine blazed the trail for all those guys.)

Also, Jermaine's first US game was just after the 2010 World Cup.  It was a game where most people were expecting to see the players they'd come to know & love during the World Cup.  Instead, several of those guys got cut, and new guys (including Jermaine) got called in.  (Faith's hatred of Jermaine was fueled for years by the fact that her favorite player, Jay DeMerit, was one of the players who got cut, and Jermaine Jones wore his number in that game.)

And now we come to the reason that is more than emotional:  Jermaine Jones is what we call a red card magnet.  For a while there, he was being reckless and getting carded in EVERY GAME.  It made him a real liability for the team.

But if we're being honest, we needed a player who was willing to be more aggressive.  It's not really the US's style, which is awesome (hi, moral high ground!), but it means you get walked all over by teams that don't have that sort of ethic.  (See: Slovenia players bear-hugging US players before a corner kick.)

Over the years, Jermaine has really improved on the stuff people gave him grief for.  He learned English, so he can communicate with the team.  He's pretty hardcore America now -- he posts pictures of his kids decked out in red, white, and blue, and he's got a stars and stripes tattoo on his knee.  He's still an aggressive player, but he gets carded way less often.  And most importantly, he is consistent and solid in the midfield.  He went from being a player who made everyone worried to a player who makes people feel more confident about the squad.