The web is making it easier to be an American soccer fan

Posted on January 14th, 2008
By Hosam El-Aker in Sites, Website review

Let’s face it… soccer has been a flop in the United States, especially when compared to, well, the rest of the known world, where it’s more-or-less religion. The country isn’t totally devoid of fans though. Those who do care seem to be pretty hardcore. Luckily for the Americans that do follow “the beautiful game,” the internet offers whatever you need to get your soccer, the real football (just kidding, I’m an NFL fanatic as well), fix.

ESPNsoccernet is the perfect resource if you’re into the usual (English Premier League, La Liga, Italian Serie A, and of course the UEFA Champions League). Goal.com is another staple in any soccer fan’s browser bookmarks, offering coverage of the game worldwide.

Some of the web’s best-kept secrets - if you’re not all about the European game – include BBC’s African football coverage. If Asian soccer is more to your taste, FootballAsia is the place to be. The site is currently being overhauled, but their homepage still links you to Asian soccer’s top competitions. And if features and breaking news aren’t enough for you, myp2p links you to live matches with a few mouse clicks, though you may need to download a few peer-to-peer applications like Sopcast. The myp2p homepage tells you all you need to know.

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Comments

kenneth

January 14th, 2008 at 7:40 pm

Espn is far from the perfect resource.
They’ve only recently updated their site so that it wasn’t restrictedlocalized to you content.

They, like CNNSI, get thin in content once you move away from the Premier League, UEFA, and Italian leagues. CNNsi made up for some of that by hiring more columnists, eg Luis Bueno to cover the Mexican league, etc. The downside of CNN’s site is the horrible truth-n-rumors feed, but it can pan out now and again.

soccernet still suffers from being under the espn umbrella- stupid video ads, but better pics.

uefa.com is a much better resource though that you should’ve mentioned- content localized for mobile phones including a great video podcast that synchs/plays-on w/ iphones quite nicely

now, as far as soccer being a flop in the US, what are you comparing it to? The NFL? then maybe so. But compared to the NHL and in some markets the NBA, it’s not a flop. Over the past 10 years they (the mls) has proven that they have a viable competitive product. sure they’ve had to pull back from some markets (Florida), and then back in to them (SJ), but other ones consistently do quite well in attendance (your own town of DC).

so you should perhaps qualify a bit more of what you’re saying is a flop- the overall giving-a-crap of the average american when it comes to following soccer, or the organized leagues. I think you’re meaning the former even though that’s changed a lot in the past ten years
The Gaffer

January 28th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Good article. It’s true, thanks to the Internet it is so much easier to be a soccer fan. I can’t imagine life without it (at least following the sport).

For me, I’m not a fan of ESPN Soccernet and I much prefer the soccer blogs instead where the information is uncensored and more interesting.

The game in the States is growing but it’s going to take ages to convince some of the neanderthals out there that the sport should be taken seriously.

Cheers,
The Gaffer

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