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

Only Now Recovering from ‘Berhalter Fatigue’? Time to Buckle Back Up

My own case of Berhalter Fatigue kicked in around Dec. 17, 2022 — a day before the World Cup final, 10 days into the Berhalter-Reyna Family Barbecue, and two weeks after Holland dumped the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team (USMNT) out of the tournament. The tawdry nature of Berhalter’s unprecedented bust-up with the Reynas could not be fully understood until last week, when the U.S. Soccer Federation released its third-party report. No one emerges unscathed from this full and seemingly fair accounting, though the manager’s [...]

Stamford Bridge 1985: Standing With Away Fans & Other Mistakes

Today, thanks to the stewardship of oligarchs both Russian and American, Stamford Bridge has been transformed into something of an all-seater jewel. I’ve heard older, more hidebound Chelsea FC fans deride it as a “bleedin’ galleria”. Back in the winter of 1985, when attending my first proper English match there, it was no such thing. Fans of Daniel Gordon’s [...]

‘… 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

Choose Your Device

DOWN ON PAPER PRODUCTS? NO TIME TO READ? NO PROBLEM. LISTEN TO GENERATION ZERO  — OR OPT FOR THE E-BOOK

The print and Ebook versions of Generation Zero are available right now! Click here to purchase. The audio version is coming soon. Click below to receive notice of availability.

Go to Top