Culture of Soccer

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Last Updated
November 18, 2008 12:12 EST
Added
February 25, 2007

May 8, 2008

Winthrop University’s Unlikely Ugandan Connection: An Interview with Assistant Coach Daniel Ridenhour

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It is an understatement to say that the path from Uganda to South Carolina is not well trodden. But in the past few years an increasing number of young men from Uganda have been making the unlikely journey to Winthrop University in Rock Hill, South Carolina to study and play for school's soccer team. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 07:19 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Africa, Culture, Ethnicity/Race, Interviews, North America

April 11, 2008

Player Focus: Alexis and Amber Hernandez

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The only thing more incredible than the fact that brother and sister Alexis and Amber Hernandez both play for youth national teams is the fact that both represent Mexico. The Hernandez siblings have lived their entire lives in California, but in the past year both have worn Mexico's famous tricolor. Children of a Mexican-born mother [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 12:59 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Culture, Ethnicity/Race, Immigration, Latin America, Nationalism/Identity, North America, Player Focus

March 28, 2008

2008 MLS Preview

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Ed. Note: I don't normally dabble in "news of the day" type articles so this is a bit of a departure. I wrote this MLS preview and submitted it to the Guardian for consideration, but since I didn't hear back, I figured I might as well publish it here. A couple of notes on this [...] Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 06:35 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail (Links: 1 in)
Tags: Culture, History, North America, economics

March 20, 2008

Global Political Economy and Team Selection: Mexico and Qatar

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The case of Chivas' Jesus Padilla is not the only example of a soccer team in Mexico struggling to define who is, in fact, Mexican. The national team has been embroiled in controversy for much the same reason. The previous national team boss, Argentine Ricardo Lavolpe, angered some in Mexico by using naturalized players for [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 01:32 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail (Links: 1 in)
Tags: Africa, Asia, Culture, Ethnicity/Race, History, Immigration, Latin America, Middle East, Nationalism/Identity, economics

March 14, 2008

Jesus Padilla and La Raza Cosmica in the 21st Century

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What LA-based journalists Luis Bueno and Andrea Canales uncovered about Jesus Padilla was not that big a deal. Their reporting showed that Padilla, a young forward for Chivas of Mexico, was born in San Jose, Calffornia, not San Miguel de Alto in the Mexican state of Jalisco, as stated on the club's website. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 08:45 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Culture, Ethnicity/Race, History, Immigration, Latin America, Nationalism/Identity, North America

March 12, 2008

Interview with Luis Bueno

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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 [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 10:12 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Announcements, Culture, Interviews, Latin America, Nationalism/Identity, North America

February 19, 2008

Interview with Andrea Canales

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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 [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 04:49 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Announcements, Culture

February 16, 2008

Ethnic Balkans Around the Globe

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When Kosovo declares independence on Sunday, the number of countries to have risen from the ashes of the former Yugoslavia will reach seven (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia being the other six). Kosovo's independence – supported by the US and many EU countries, but strongly opposed by Serbia, along with its [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 09:56 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Asia, Culture, Ethnicity/Race, Europe, Immigration, Latin America, Nationalism/Identity, North America

February 4, 2008

Explaining the Lack of American Coaches Abroad

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In the past few years, the number of American players plying their trade abroad has increased exponentially. It wasn't that long ago that knowledgeable American fans could easily count all of the "Yanks Abroad" (personally, I remember scouring for newspapers that would have a one-sentence blurb on the exploits of Tab Ramos at Real Betis). Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 07:49 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Africa, Asia, Culture, Europe, Immigration, Latin America, Middle East, North America, UK

January 29, 2008

Some Team Names Are All Greek to Me

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Many trace the origins of many aspects of Western society to ancient Greece (though not all: in his essay Anthropology and the Savage Slot, Rolph-Michel Trouillot claims that "Greece did not beget Europe. Rather, Europe claimed Greece" [21]). The beginnings of democracy, philosophy, and debate as they are practiced today, it is claimed, can be [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 09:55 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail (Links: 1 in)
Tags: Culture, Europe, History, Latin America, Religion, UK, language

January 23, 2008

Why Do They Play That Way?

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One of the joys of watching the World Cup is seeing teams from different parts of the globe play each other. The styles they employ are often a study in contrasts. Any time England plays Argentina, it is a battle of grit and determination versus technique and guile (there's also the wee matter of the [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 09:32 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Africa, Asia, Culture, Ethnicity/Race, Europe, History, Latin America, North America, UK

January 18, 2008

The Hermeneutic Circle and the Background Stories of Soccer

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Ed. Note: This essay is by Culture of Soccer reader Jason Murphy, who is a PhD student in philosophy at St. Louis University. I thank Jason for his contribution. If you would like to contribute an essay to be considered for publication here at Culture of Soccer, please write me at david [at] cultureofsoccer [dot] [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 01:08 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Conflict, Culture, Europe, History, politics

January 12, 2008

Q&A with Steve Menary, Author of Outcasts!: The Lands That FIFA Forgot

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Steve Menary's book Outcasts!: The Lands That FIFA Forgot is a fascinating read. In the book, Menary reports on the far flung "countries" that FIFA doesn't recognize. Steve Menary sat down to speak with me recently about writing Outcasts and the issues his book raises. Menary told me that he got his start writing for [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 09:24 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Africa, Asia, Culture, Europe, Interviews, Nationalism/Identity, North America, Oceania, politics

January 7, 2008

Review of Outcasts: The Lands That FIFA Forgot

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Greenland is an autonomous province of Denmark with a population of around 50,000. The Faroe Islands are an autonomous province of Denmark with a population of around 50,000. The Faroe Islands belong to FIFA; Greenland does not. A reasonable person might wonder why the Faroes are given membership into the international soccer governing body while Greenland [. Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 12:43 PM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail (Links: 1 in)
Tags: Africa, Asia, Culture, Europe, Latin America, Nationalism/Identity, Oceania, Reviews, UK, politics

January 2, 2008

Happy New Year and Thank You

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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 [...] Click to continue reading...
Culture of Soccer @ 10:13 AM EST | Blog Profile | Post Detail
Tags: Announcements, Culture