My Blog - Generation Zero

McKennie Transfer Seals EPL Baton-Pass, from FFC to Leeds

McKennie Transfer Seals EPL Baton-Pass, from FFC to Leeds

By Hal Phillips|2023-02-01T09:17:36-05:00February 1st, 2023|GZ blog|

[Ed. — Sixteen years ago, I ventured to the SW6 section of London to report on the Yank-laden Fulham FC phenomenon for espn.com. That piece, posted below, lived a good long life online but sadly, now it's gone. Or I cannot find it (!). Either way, it has been reprinted below — just in time to serve as an EPL bookend, as Weston McKennie joins comparably Yank-infused Leeds United ... For those whose memories may fail them: The Cottagers would [...]

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Help Wanted: Creatures of the Federation Need Not Apply

Help Wanted: Creatures of the Federation Need Not Apply

By Hal Phillips|2023-01-31T09:09:27-05:00January 28th, 2023|GZ blog|

The departures of Men’s National Team Sporting Director Earnie Stewart and General Manager Brian McBride represent a post-World Cup housecleaning, but they also underline the stubbornly clubby, insular nature of soccer administration in this country. The installation of former players to coach and direct national team programs, to head up entire federations, is not uncommon in world futbol. For too long, however, U.S. Soccer has promoted strictly from within. For a time, this was the only option. In 2023, in [...]

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Dr. Rose, Abdul & the Cheeseburger Sub to End All Cheeseburger Subs

Dr. Rose, Abdul & the Cheeseburger Sub to End All Cheeseburger Subs

By Hal Phillips|2023-01-11T19:08:44-05:00January 11th, 2023|GZ blog|

In the pages of Generation Zero and here on the book’s companion site, we’ve spent a good deal of time and space examining exactly when, how and by whose efforts American soccer came of age. Before GZ was but a twinkle in my eye, I engaged with these important questions in an altogether different way when Dr. David Rose called my office, out of the blue, with a question: You remember that time we watched that World Cup game together, [...]

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June 20, 1975: The Night They Came for O Rei

June 20, 1975: The Night They Came for O Rei

By Hal Phillips|2023-01-06T14:56:32-05:00January 6th, 2023|GZ blog|

1. Hotbeds: When they came for Pelé that brisk June night, the locals ripped the shirt from his back. They absconded with one of his shoes, too, and tore his vintage Seventies-era short shorts. Global sporting icons deserve far more solicitous treatment, we can agree. But those American soccer fans of pitch-invasion age (let’s call it 18 to 25) didn’t know from matters of soccer etiquette, not back then, not halfway through the ever-so-brief Ford administration, not so early [...]

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USMNT Progress Plan: Keep Crowd-Sourcing Roster Development. In Europe

USMNT Progress Plan: Keep Crowd-Sourcing Roster Development. In Europe

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-30T15:08:18-05:00December 19th, 2022|GZ blog|

When America plays host to the next World Cup, alongside Mexico and Canada, it will likely field the most talented men’s squad ever trotted out by the U.S. Soccer Federation. And yet, to hear many American soccer fans tell it, our competitive place in the world game remains shamefully uncertain. Ambiguity, it seems, is a poor fit for cultures accustomed to hegemony. Internationally, futbol observers do agree the U.S. has finally amassed a bumper crop of young, potentially game-changing talent. [...]

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Soccer In, Hockey Out: Behold, American Sport’s New Big Four?

Soccer In, Hockey Out: Behold, American Sport’s New Big Four?

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-07T16:45:32-05:00November 18th, 2022|GZ blog|

No one is particularly fond of hedge fund managers, or the peculiar subphylum of Wall Street bullies and corporate scions who bestride world markets gathering sports franchises like baubles. But let’s be clear and clear-eyed: These guys aren’t pursuing National Hockey League franchises these days, or hockey clubs anywhere. Todd Boehly’s recent purchase of Chelsea F.C. means nine of 20 English Premier League clubs are today majority-owned by American-led consortia. Should Minnesota-based investor Maciek Kaminski consummate his recent offer [...]

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Puma v. Adidas, an Excerpt from Chapter 12

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-28T12:24:07-05:00November 2nd, 2022|GZ blog|

Throughout the tumultuous month of January 1990, the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) trained together in San Diego. Coach Bob Gansler, caught in the middle of all this fractious behavior, naturally feared how such dissension might affect his ranks. Fighting the U.S. Soccer Federation was one thing. Fighting amongst themselves was another. It was well known how close he remained with Federation president Werner Fricker, but Gansler did his best to support the guys, his team. He formed a five-player [...]

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Getting to Know Soccer Legends: Seamus Malin Edition

Getting to Know Soccer Legends: Seamus Malin Edition

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-07T16:39:23-05:00October 26th, 2022|GZ blog|

It’s not every day an American soccer journalist, even the author of a new book spotlighting the very futbol moment most associated with Seamus Malin, sits down for a drink with the man himself. Still, when he and I met for an early October libation in Cambridge, not a single note was taken. Instead we gabbed as friends might — about his daughter, the traffic, Shep Messing, Rai Copeland, Gregg Berhalter and my parents, who had courted right there in [...]

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Pack Life Revisited: The Indelible Marks of Posture & Gait

Pack Life Revisited: The Indelible Marks of Posture & Gait

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-07T16:48:45-05:00October 14th, 2022|GZ blog|

Several years ago I drove 20 miles east of my home, here in Maine, to the college town of Brunswick. It was Alicia Carillo who invited me over to Bowdoin College that autumn afternoon. She had grown up in my neighborhood (into a fine soccer player, at Harvard) before marrying a fellow Wellesley soccer product, John Sisk, who starred at Babson College during its D3/national championship heyday of the late 1970s. He also coached my club team for 2-3 [...]

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Munich 1972: Fifty Years Gone and Still, We Cannot Look Away

Munich 1972: Fifty Years Gone and Still, We Cannot Look Away

By Hal Phillips|2022-12-07T17:02:59-05:00September 25th, 2022|GZ blog|

In the spring of 1996, when I traveled to Munich for a trade show, naturally I set aside a Saturday afternoon to check out a Bundesliga match. Back then, as the Allianz Stadium remained but a twinkle in the eye of some insurance CEO, Bayern Munich still played its home games at the Olympic Stadium, and so did its local/lesser rival Munich 1860. Because Germany’s Big Red Machine wasn’t in town that weekend, I settled for 1860 home to Dusseldorf, [...]

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Recent Articles

Enjoy some of my casual writing here on my blog

February 2023

McKennie Transfer Seals EPL Baton-Pass, from FFC to Leeds

January 2023

Help Wanted: Creatures of the Federation Need Not Apply

Dr. Rose, Abdul & the Cheeseburger Sub to End All Cheeseburger Subs

June 20, 1975: The Night They Came for O Rei

December 2022

USMNT Progress Plan: Keep Crowd-Sourcing Roster Development. In Europe

November 2022

Soccer In, Hockey Out: Behold, American Sport’s New Big Four?

Puma v. Adidas, an Excerpt from Chapter 12

October 2022

Getting to Know Soccer Legends: Seamus Malin Edition

Pack Life Revisited: The Indelible Marks of Posture & Gait

September 2022

Munich 1972: Fifty Years Gone and Still, We Cannot Look Away

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