All Blog Posts (230)

It's over. The waiting, the driving to hell and gone, the wondering, the money, the nights off Route 99, years upon years of effort and struggle. His and mine. Result....  The kid's going to play soccer in college, or that's the hope. He's been invited; he'll have to make the team, but he's been invited. No scholarship but he's in.....

And now a little advice.  Remember that the soccer-industrial complex is no different than say, the SAT-industrial complex.  The business model is the…

Spring rains in Northern California delayed the start of our soccer season; Parks & Rec doesn't want its grass fields ruined by cleats deployed too soon after a storm.

But this past weekend, the rains subsided, the sun came out, and the youngest head coach I know personally (or have ever seen in this…

A center back does not often get a chance at glory in the form of scoring a winning goal, but that's exactly what happened last weekend in a State Cup game in Brentwood, a former farming area turned suburb in Northern California.

On a cold, windy day, it was one of those games that seemed to be going all wrong…

How many times have we seen a player reach the end line of the field, make a great cross and no one from his team was there, ready to score?

How many times have we seen a team lose the ball in attacking and a couple of defenders have to face a counter attack from 3 or 4 opponent players because nobody else comes back to help?

How many times have we seen a team who's shape was 3 or 4 defenders in front of their own keeper, 3 or 4 players at half field and a couple…

I never saw scoring a goal by shooting..........out !!!!!

The title seems a “play” on words but...........it’s not !!!

I was checking some statistics of the Premiere League and I was shocked to read that a top Club (there is no need to name it !!!), not only didn’t score a goal for 2 games, which of course could happen in a very…

Without false modesty, I can say I was a good soccer/football player. Not unique or outstanding. Just good.

But, in one aspect I was unique: in 30 years, from 5 to 35 years old, not only was I NEVER expelled from the field, I NEVER had a yellow card and I played center forward in Italy!

If you know what it means to play in that position in Italy, you’ll understand my accomplishment. I accepted every provocation verbal and physical that a defender could say…

Here in San Francisco, the seasons are really just nuances, shades of difference, with one succeeding the another. There is no long, hot, sweaty summer like in Mississippi, for example; nor is there any real cold, cold winter, as in my home state of Michigan. We never get snowstorms, just as we never get extended…

This year I would like to wish you Happy Holiday by telling a tale..........

Once upon a time, more than 90 years ago, there was a kid who was living in a very little town in the Southern part of Italy in a region called Basilicata.

Considering the hard life in that area and the fact that it was almost a century ago, his family was of very modest means. Christmas and Holidays in general, were just days like all the other ones. On those special days, his father didn’t go to…

As his team battled their way through the fall season, this first-time head coach gradually gained his athletes' complete confidence, to the point they actually believed they could beat any team they faced. They didn't win any of their playoff games, however, this time around.

Nevertheless, he was drawing up…

As much as you repeat cliches like it's not whether you win or lose but how you play the game to your child soccer player, you both know that is only true, if at all, over the long run. In the short run, losing hurts -- a lot.

Yesterday, what had started out as a promising season for my 13-year-old…

David Beckham's contract with the LA Galaxy is almost up!  Where will he go next?

Well he could sign back up with the Galaxy but he has also had interest from Tottenham, the Queens Park Rangers and most interestingly Paris St. Germain.  So which will it be?

According to Beckham himself he will sign up with the team that lets him play them most and is most convenient for his family.  "People say that I will go to Paris Saint-Germain because my wife (Victoria Beckham) adores…

All kids deserve to have a lot of fun and to play soccer/football is one of the best ways. But playing basketball or baseball is also very fun, and swimming too !!!! And, apart from sports, playing the guitar or the piano is very fun. Or drawing or singing or dancing.

Have you ever considered that the top soccer/football players in the world, the top players on the NBA or MLB, before getting to the top, were kids too ?????

All the top artists in the world, painters, singers or…

It's reached that point in the season where the dreams begin to die. As hopeful as you might be early on, when the team you support is…

The other day as I watched my 17-year-old son wrap up practice for his U-13 girls team at Franklin Square in San Francisco, the twilight air was warm and the sky was turning a soft shade of pink.

Franklin Square is a turf pitch built partially on the site where the old San Francisco Seals baseball stadium used…

When is it really fair to blame the coach for a game result?

Some people say that when a game is won the players get the credit; but when a game is lost a coach gets the credit!  Well sometimes it is true.  The coach should get the credit.  If the mistakes are the same ones and a coach points it out and the players still make the same mistakes who is to blame?  The players or the coach?  As they say fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.   If the players keep…

When I talk about soccer with people at fields, knowing that I’m Italian, inevitably I’m asked questions about the difference between here and Europe. More generally, what makes soccer succeed all around the world, in the past and now, and why here it hasn’t yet.............................. exploded like it seems it should have.

Basically the questions are:

• What made soccer succeed in Europe and in general in the world, so that today it’s a main sport?…
  
  

Every time a new coach takes over a sports team is an opportunity to alter the chemistry, the culture, and the focus of that group of athletes. One of the most intriguing things to ponder in athletics is how a coach can help a team that has been losing for years suddenly start winning.

It's still too early in…

It's one thing to learn how to play soccer well, and another to figure out how to teach it. This past Saturday, a new coach emerged on the local scene. He just turned 17 a few days earlier, and he held the first practice for this U13 girls' team on Friday afternoon.

After that session, he told me his concerns.…

It seems like it happened yesterday, but this Sunday, it will be 10 years.

Life goes by to quickly.

When something so catastrophic happens, our lives change…

I grew up listening to World Cup games, yes there was TV, but we didn't own one and in addition I was the only in my family interested in the World Cup games; I listened.  Mostly we lived in countries that spoke Spanish and the announcers were great.  They were so good that I could almost see the game in my mind.  The player running down the side lane, the player pass being intercepted from almost out of nowhere by a opposing player coming in from behind, the GOOOOOAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLL!!! …