One Year on FanSided: U.S. Soccer Over The Last Year
By Doug Smith
The American Pitch is one year old today as a blog on the FanSided Network and we dedicated our 300th post to that anniversary. Pete and I started this before that on SetPieces with the idea to talk about something we enjoyed and hopefully spread the word about soccer in the United States. Full credit goes to Pete for getting this whole thing started. Regardless of where we came from, our mission remains the same. Here is a look at our first year as The American Pitch.
Back with our first post we hoped to focus only on the United States Men’s National Team. We have probably mentioned the name Clint Dempsey more than any other beginning with an analysisof one of his final matches with Fulham. Of course, he may be second to Jurgen Klinsmann, who I fondly refer to as the umlaut. That was until we were told that he doesn’t necessarily care for it. I will still call him that occasionally.
October 16, 2012; Kansas City, KS, USA; American flags and a banner decorate the stadium before the world cup qualifying match between USA and Guatemala at LIVESTRONG Sporting Park. USA won 3-1. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
We had a couple months of down time as Fansided switched their layout and we went through a lead editor change. The break allowed us to broaden our focus as we spent a good part of the summer looking at the Gold Medal winning U.S. Women’s National Team. We also created a section dedicated to Major League Soccer. To feed my nerd self, we’ve even done some posts of video games.
We hope you have enjoyed our coverage as we look to grow our coverage. We will keep sharing player profiles, extensive match recaps, and thought provoking posts. We are a blog that provides a straight forward coverage with a nice HUB on the right side of the front page for quick access to videos, pictures, and related links. We do not employ a lot of flash or gimmicks. We are still looking for writers, so if you like the direction of our site please submit your interest.
We had trials and tribulations over the last year. Klinsmann employed every lineup possible and they didnt included Landon Donovan together with Dempsey. Now we await the Hex and the road to Brazil 2014. Our hopes are high on a core of players and we still have questions about the back line. Young players like Joshua Gatt and Joe Corona show promise and give us optimism. We also wonder what that second line up will be and if those are the players we see in Gold Cup competition. We will be there covering all of it.
What else would you like us to cover and write on for you? We would love to hear from you. Reply below in the comments or get to us on twitter.
We would also appreciate it if you could spread the word. There is plenty of room in the U.S. Soccer blog realm. We’ll be glad to help out as well.