Can soccer really be an American sport, that we American’s will embrace and excel compared to the rest of the world? I believe the United States will continue to struggle until we accept our cultural problem. Yes, United States soccer/football has a cultural problem. The game in the United States does not have a true development plan. Major League Soccer and USL leagues are focused on winning and creating development academies as part of their business structure. Americano’s are too goal oriented, to worried about being stronger, faster, more powerful, to worried about making sure their overall enterprise is profitable. The game of football is very simple, it starts like baseball with playing catch, run-down and batting practice. Instead of mastering the entire game all at once, learning to practice with the ball and play small games to sharpen skills is all part of the development. Until we learn to appreciate the simplicity of moving the ball back and forth and finding joy in just playing with the ball we will never be able to succeed on the large scale game. This is why I love futsal/sala/5-aside. The smaller game forces players to develop the 1v1 skills, to play with the ball and learn to master the basics of the global game. That is why I support futsal in the United States. This past weekend was definitely a contribution to the futsal community in the United States. Over the past few years, under the growth of the game initiative there are now multiple organizations hosting futsal tournaments: US Futsal, USYF, United Futsal

I survived the entire weekend– approximately 12 miles on the plastic pitches per day, no red cards were issued, not even a 2nd caution– Of the cautions issued by me 70% were for shit eating tackles, 15% for delaying restarts/substitution violations and 15% for dissent. No major injuries occurred on my courts and I worked with referees from many different states and three countries. Here is my personal photo dump from the weekend.

Day 1- first kickoff 14:00

Day 2 first kickoff 08:00

Day 3 first kickoff 08:00

Day 4 first kickoff 08:00 for me, last one before the airport 15:00.

Sending this one out to Roger, since he’s never seen Of A Revolution.