American soccer development Archives - Generation Zero

Requiem for Match of the Day (and The Sanctity of Unspoiled Endings)

Hal Phillips — Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:29:21 +0000

There’s a wonderfully prescient exchange in Whit Stillman’s 1990 film, “Metropolitan,” wherein the know-it-all main character is interrogated on all the works of literature he can’t stop referencing. “You don’t have to have read a book to have an opinion on it. I haven’t read the Bible either,” he reveals, by way of defending [...]

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Irresistable Grant Wahl Delivers Billion Dollar Goal, From the Grave

Hal Phillips — Mon, 11 Dec 2023 22:57:33 +0000

It’s been exactly one year since Grant Wahl was taken from us, so the timing of his posthumous Paramount+ project, The Billion Dollar Goal, which debuts tonight, could not resonate more strongly with fans of U.S. soccer. That goes double for me, because this docuseries covers much the same ground showcased in my July [...]

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Garnacho Wonder Strike Stirs Memories of Bicycle Kicks Past

Hal Phillips — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 20:15:13 +0000

Garnacho’s wondrous overhead golazo against Everton on Nov. 26 reminded the world soccer community of why we find bicycle kicks so damned compelling. They remainthe most dynamic, daringly athletic maneuver in a game replete with them, and it doesn’t matter where on the pitch they might happen. Check out the images attached here. Defenders [...]

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Expect Change, Fireworks from USWNT Coach Emma Hayes

Hal Phillips — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 20:40:29 +0000

Color me extremely curious when it comes to USWNT Coach Emma Hayes. Her tenure as head coach of the U.S. Women’s National Team remains pending. 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 [...]

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Chapter 8 Excerpt: Bleak late ’80s brought Peak Popularity of Indoor Soccer

Hal Phillips — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 17:11:06 +0000

TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY U.S. SOCCER FANS may not realize it — or wish to contemplate such an unbecoming reality — but for a short time immediately post-NASL, indoor soccer was the American game’s dominant professional strain. Indeed, the peak popularity of indoor soccer, and for Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), took place during this period, [...]

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USWNT in Turmoil: Players Fend off Alumnae Expectations ahead of Swedish Encounter

Hal Phillips — Sat, 05 Aug 2023 15:59:13 +0000

Soccer and the national team movement here in the United States have stumbled into very new territory Down Under, and I’m not talking about a lackluster group-stage performance. Not entirely. While the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) has failed to win World Cup and Olympic titles in the past, their rare missteps have never produced [...]

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Hubert Vogelsinger created Youth Soccer Revolutionaries

Hal Phillips — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 19:42:12 +0000

Video evidence of the 1974 World Cup was not made available to me until July 1977. That was the summer I first attended overnight soccer camp, a veritable rite of passage for me and so many fellow members of Generation Zero, those American boys and girls born in the 1960s, then raised in the [...]

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USMNT Photo Mystery Solved; Roman Colosseum Shrugs Off Another Narrative Poseur

Hal Phillips — Sat, 20 May 2023 14:10:57 +0000

Let’s get straight to the point: It’s a fake. Each of the above images is a clever fabrication, but the team shot — commissioned by a certain sports outfitter to congratulate the 1990 U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT) on its history-making World Cup qualification — was not taken on site, in front of the [...]

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Women’s World Cup 2023 May Reveal New Balance of Power

Hal Phillips — Fri, 05 May 2023 21:17:12 +0000

[Posted May 5, 2023] From the moment women’s international soccer formalized itself, during the 1980s, The American Way has prevailed. This not-so-controversial historical judgment has traditionally held water on the two fronts that matter most: In the competitive crucible, the U.S. Women’s National Team has proved the finest side in the world for more [...]

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

Hal Phillips — Mon, 27 Mar 2023 17:29:51 +0000

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 [...]

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