Search: ' Houston Dynamo'

Ian Plenderleith asks: How will football in America move forward without the newly crowned MLS Cup-winner David Beckham?

Major League Soccer has learned one major lesson from the big leagues in Europe it aspires to eventually compete with, and that is the ability to blow its own trumpet. Crowds are up! Sponsorship and TV revenues are up! New stadiums are being built! We are expanding the number of teams every season! Big name players are coming from abroad!

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Gavin Willacy tells the turbulent tale of USA team the San Jose Earthquakes, the club that refuses to go away

While British media coverage of the MLS play-offs started and ended with David Beckham and LA Galaxy’s exit at the penultimate stage to Dallas, a more interesting story was ignored in the other semi-final. San Jose Earthquakes came from mid-table to within one win of the MLS Cup final, losing 1-0 to Colorado in only their third season since returning to the league. The Earthquakes – football’s ultimate boomerang club – are back, again.

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Despite a respectable performance in South Africa some think the US could have achieved more. Ian Plenderleith explains why

When US coach Bob Bradley substituted Ricardo Clark 30 minutes into the team’s final World Cup game against Ghana, he whispered intensively into the player’s ear for several seconds before packing him off to the bench. As Clark’s sole contributions in his half hour had been to lose possession in the lead up to Ghana’s opening goal, and to receive a yellow card for an amateurish late tackle, there was much lively speculation about the words Bradley had directed towards the central midfielder.

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Having a famous dad can be good for your job prospects but sometimes a name is simply that. Caroline Bailey looks at the stuttering career of a stubborn footballer

When it comes to pushy parents, Kenny Dalglish may not be up there with Joan Crawford, but his son Paul’s privileged career in football has become something of a byword for nepotism. Despite not being able to get into the first XI at college, Dalglish Junior signed schoolboy forms for Blackburn while his father was the manager. He went on to serve his apprenticeship at Kenny’s old club Celtic, spent two barren years at Liverpool where Kenny had won three European Cups, and was then signed for Newcastle by – well, you can guess the rest.

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Everyone has a novel inside them, the cliche says, while failing to point out that most of them would be unreadable. A similar principle appears to apply to football podcasts and, as they are easier to produce than books, there are a lot of awful ones out there, though Ian Plenderleith does find a few worth a listen

 Are podcasts an important part of the brave New Media era, or just blogs with sound? I’m not that good with new stuff. I abandoned vinyl as late as was decently possible, and took a while to catch on to the idea of downloading music and having songs on your hard drive instead of on your shelf. Until a couple of years ago, I didn’t see what broadband could do for me that wasn’t already available through my dial-up connection. And neither had I listened to a single podcast, even though the concept had been nagging me unpleasantly for a while. As in: “I suppose I ought to listen to one some time.”

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