Generation Zero

Founding Fathers, Hidden Histories
and the Making of Soccer in America

Generation Zero

Founding Fathers, Hidden Histories
and the Making of Soccer in America

Author Home2022-12-08T20:14:28-05:00

Like Riding a Bike: Garnacho Stirs Memories of Wonder Strikes Past 

Garnacho’s wondrous overhead golazo against Everton on Nov. 26 reminded the world soccer community of why we find the bicycle kick so damned compelling. It remains the most dynamic, daringly athletic maneuver in a game replete with them, and it doesn’t matter where on the pitch they might happen. Look at the image attached here: Defenders of all skill level react similarly when someone goes up for a bike: They back away slightly, because recklessly contesting may mean a boot to the face. USMNT legend [...]

Emma Hayes Will Preside over Massive USWNT Change. Expect Fireworks

Color me extremely curious when it comes to Emma Hayes’ pending tenure as head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team. She won’t take the helm until spring, when her season with Chelsea FC has concluded. Still, the timing of her hire drips with big-picture import, none of which has anything to do with pay equity (though it [...]

‘… a MUST read for all soccer fans in the United States and beyond.’

“Hal Phillips has written a uniquely important and highly original book that simply represents a MUST read for all soccer fans in the United States and beyond. Using his own personal experience of growing up in the location (white suburbia) and the time (1970s) where and when soccer emerged from its dormant if not moribund state in American history, Phillips offers a most vivid and learned account of how soccer congealed into a structure and force in the 1980s which, in turn, formed the basis for its most diversified flowering in contemporary America. I learned so much from this evocative work that I found enriching as well as entertaining!”

— Andrei Markovits

Author of Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism, and the new memoir, The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness

Book of a
lifetime!

“It’s taken my entire lifetime for soccer in this country to move from obscurity  to the status of big time sport, and over those decades, Phillips was the journalist I knew who stuck it out and followed that fascinating ascent. Now he is ready to share the story with sports fans everywhere.”

— Larry Olmsted, NY Times Bestselling author of FANS: How Watching Sports Makes US Happier, Healthier and more Understanding

‘Masterly’

“Hal Phillips has done a masterly job of celebrating the players and ’80s era that set the foundation for today’s American soccer culture.  He has produced a valuable history of the players, who despite no pro league and myriad frustrations kept the game alive, and he pulls back the curtains on how they came together to create a national team that today ranks among the world’s most noteworthy.”

— Jim Trecker, Co-Editor 100 Years of Soccer in America

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