New Blog!

So I understand that probably nobody is reading this right now and perhaps no one will be reading it for quite some time but, in the event that eventually someone might want to check out my blog I suppose an introduction is in order.



I go by Dave. I am an American. I love soccer.



While I do agree that the proper name is "football" I am not going to be one of those snooty Americans who refuse to call it soccer. That's just what we call it here, get over it.



Enough about me. More about my blog.



I started this blog basically because of my love for The Beautiful Game and my lack of someone to talk about it with. Did I mention I'm an American?



This will just give me a space to articulate my thoughts, opinions, and analysis (amateur though it may be) about the sport that I love. I rather enjoy talking about soccer but rarely do any of my friends engage in conversation about it and the non-Americans I try to accost at the market I work at rarely stick around to chat. This will be my outlet.



I will try to present a comprehensive look at soccer around the world but this will surely prove to be an exhausting task. And of course I have my biases so I might as well be up front about them now. For starters my coverage of domestic leagues will probably heavily favor the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A. These are the two leagues I follow the closest because A) They are prominently featured by my go-to soccer channel FSC and also the leagues of my two favorite clubs: Liverpool FC and AC Milan. I will be biased towards these two teams hopefully more in terms of the amount of attention I pay them and in my hopes for their success rather than in my analysis of their players, chances, tactics, matches etc. There are very few teams, if any, that I can say that I hate. If I had to choose, Chlesea and Inter Milan would be the natural subjects of my scorn. I also love international soccer and seeing as how World Cup qualifiers are in full swing I should have plenty of opportunities to cover that as well. My favorite international squad is, without a doubt, Italy. I am also a fan of U.S. Soccer but my feelings for them are more complex and I plan to address them another time. I will also certainly cover important competitions like the Champions League and UEFA Cup. Any other leagues and stories will be covered when they interest me or when I can.



What are my credentials? I have none. I graduated from a fine Jesuit Catholic university in Chestnut Hill, MA with a degree in History. I have no formal journalistic training. I have played soccer since I was about 6 years old and for the vast majority of that time plied my trade as a goalkeeper (so there will definitely be some bias favoring them too). I have loved watching soccer ever since staying inside for a month in the summer to watch the '94 World Cup in the US. The result of the final crushed me, but I was hooked.



I'm very excited to have a forum to share my thoughts and I hope anyone who stumbles upon it will feel free to share theirs in the comments as well.



Peace.