Soccer Experience Hey all you MLS fans. Couple questions for you guys…. 1.What kind of soccer experience do YOU have? Did you play as a youth, have you coached, how many years? 2.If you never really played soccer until you got older (your skills and knowledge are not as developed as they could have been) so my question is what drew you to the sport and the MLS? Thanks all feedback would be appreciated.
I just got into the sport about a year ago. One of my friends went over to the WC in '02 and told me all about it. We get Fox Sports World on our cable package, and I started watching all the matches. The beauty of the game, and the atmospheres in different stadiums around the world drew me to the sport. I also bought a pair of cleats and a soccer ball and had a blast kicking it around. I love the sport now! GO CREW!
I attended a small, rural high school in central Virginia in the mid 1970's. Organized soccer was non-existant. I do remember getting together with my brother and three or four friends for a kick around one time. I also recall watching "Soccer Made in Germany" on PBS. Otherwise, I lived in ignorance. About seven years ago, my wife signed up my five year old son for recreational soccer. I agreed to help coach and was very fortunate to work with a guy who had some knowledge of the game and also understood that the first goal of recreational soccer was to be sure the kids had fun. The rest is history. I've coached for the recreational league ever since. I'm a certified referee and my son and I go to DC United games when we can. (We live about three hours from RFK. We had a good day yesterday - 6-2!) Lionel Bienvenue introduced us to the EPL and we are now Fox Sports World subscribers. The local Adelphia cable "service" doesn't offer Direct Kick. Yahoo Sports is fabulous, however. It's now hard for me to beleive that I was only dimly aware of the 1998 World Cup, yet by 2002 I was waking up in the middle of the night to watch USMNT games. Regards,
I just play for school, I don't take it seriously and neither do a lot of the people on my team. We're all out there to have fun, get PE credit, and stay in shape, of course there are some ppl who are really good and take it seriously but they play outside of school. I'm not even planning on playing after high school, I'm not that good at it as i said and i'm too short. I actually didn't even pay much attention to soccer until the world cup 2 years ago but since then i've been watching MLS and stuff and it's become my favorite sport, much to my parents dismay.
I'm 20 and I started playing when I was 14. Loved World Cup 94. But then I lost interest. The 98 came. Started following US national team and MLS more closely. Got hooked and decided I got to get myself a soccer ball. Now I'm addicted and no other sport comes close.
As a 118 pounder with a cholestrol level that goes beyond high, I was too lazy to run and dribble so I decided to score right back by pulling off a Jovan Kirovski chip. Hehe.
I grew up in Dubai, UAE, and started playing soccer there. Actually played at U-13 level for a local club, mainly right back. Missed most of high school soccer because I was almost constantly injured for about three years straight. Played at a pretty decent level senior year of high school, with a club consisting entirely of players from my high school who hadn't been allowed to try out for some reason or another - we played about a dozen matches against local high school teams, including two against our own junior varsity team (L 3-4, W 6-1 a month later) and one against our varsity team just before they went to the state tournament (L 1-2 on last-minute goal). Went to Caltech, was on varsity team for 3 seasons, only got into 7 games in this time, mostly due to injuries. (Only played about 30 seconds of freshman season before suffering a broken ankle, for example, and missed all but last two games of senior season with pneumonia.) I still play pickup games, but I've been generally avoiding contact recently since I'm trying to avoid being injured again before I get back in shape.
I have never played a second of soccer, organized or not, in my life. I played football growing up and in high school, but I didn't even know people played the sport professionally until WC 94. I'm an LA/Orange County sports fan and have at least a casual interest in following every team that plays here. I started following the Galaxy when they built the Home Depot Center and have been a season ticket holder for the last two years. I learned the rules by bugging the poor guy who sat next to me at the first game, took a while to really grasp off sides. Honestly if LA didn't have a team I wouldn't follow soccer at all. I think football, baseball, and hockey are far superior sports and I personally believe the rest of the world got the short end of the stick with the "world's game," but I suppose it's to late to educate them. No problem. Are you gathering this just for personal interest or for something else?
I'm 29 and started playing when I was 6...played club and highschool as well as college. I stopped playing my junior year to work as the goalkepper coach at my university and after graduating played for several local mens league teams...unfortunatley two knee surgeries and no cartilage in my right knee have cut short my playing days...playing anything other than golf or swimming for that matter...so the closest I get to the pitch is at MLS matches or with my x-box.
played in high school and college and have coached at the high school level for the past 9 years since graduateing college. nothing else comes close for me as a sport. no commercials, no timeouts, 3 subs. no interuptions with one exception. can we not be like europe/south america and get stretchered off the field and then hop up as soon as i get off the field. sorry wrong forum, there is my experience
Mine is a different story. I'm now 60. I discovered soccer and computers when I was 22(senior in college). My roommate's German teacher challenged another to a soccer match. The only field was a field hockey field, with tiny goals. It was a coed group with 25% girls, 50% guys who'd never played before, and a few international students and teachers who knew how to play. We'd play several hours then journey to the Bier Stube (back when 18 year olds could buy beer). A great time. After college, I went to work for IBM in upstate NY where they had an industrial league. 4 teams with about 25% American guys that were new to the league. I loved the challenge from the beginning, and played against numerous players with considerable skill. Skipping forward to age 32 (1976), I moved to Iowa, and saw an item in the paper with a number to call if you're interested in soccer. I called and ended up coaching a jr. high team that fall and starting the Urbandale Soccer Club that spring (1977). I've coached, reffed, and played OTH for the last 28 years. I followed NASL, but was too busy raising kids and a career to get to a game. I've followed MLS since the beginning and get to as many Wizards games as I can.
Where in rural Virginia did you go to high school? As for me, I played once when I was 6 years old. Lynchburg Roadrunners. I only remember this because there's a picture of me in the shirt hanging in my parents house. I grew up playing football, baseball, swimming, etc. I watched Mexico '86 on NBC that summer because I had a broken leg. A friend took me to see the USA soccer team back in 1988 or 1989 in North Carolina somewhere. I followed Italia '90 and USA '94, but it was MLS and DC United that got me hooked. Sachin
I played in AYSO as a kid, not sure what age... but not very much: my first year (fall season), I played the whole season and we lost every game. Then in the spring of the next year, I joined a team that had a pretty even record and after I joined it, we lost every single game. At the time, I thought this must be my fault so I refused to ever play sports again. Looking back, I realize that our coaches were nothing but babysitters with whistles, and it was just little kid soccer anyway... but at the time I was devastated. 2-4-6-8 my ass. In high school one year I was in an English class with a teacher who was from England, and he used to spend a bunch of time in class talking about the soccer on Spanish language TV with some of the jocks. I don't remember much about it though. I knew about WC'94 in the USA but didn't care about it at the time. It wasn't until 2002 that I started watching, and after the first couple of rounds I watched every single game of that tournament. What got me watching it was the Earthquakes, though. They brought the MLS Cup trophy to the lobby at Oracle where I work, and were handing out info about the team. I started watching WC'02 on TV after that, and when it was all over, started going to Quakes home games and watching MLS on TV. I got FSW so I could see more games, and when MLS was over, I started watching EPL and other international soccer on FSW. Now, I'm totally hooked - season ticket holder for the Quakes, watch ESPN2 and FSW all the time, and am even starting to get my wife interested in the game. But other sports (football, baseball, basketball, rugby, etc.) leave me cold. I only care for the Beautiful Game. I played in a pickup game once, earlier this year, but I'm way too out of shape to play soccer. I'm hoping to work on that soon though, mainly so I could play soccer.
The 2001 Cold War on ESPN and I haven't looked back. Played since I was 12, stopped a couple years ago, reffed for a year and now I'm a full time fan.
I've been playin for about 10 years.. i am 16 now.. i have always enjoyed playing this game.. its very up beat and soemthing that i have always been able to really get into. soccer has always been a major passion of mine. i have also couached some. its was a fun experience. MLS has also helped me alot,watching how they play and tricks they do helps me learn more and more.
Arial Black Its nice to see someone with such devotion.. im very glad to read that you are so into the game.
The extent of my "organized" soccer experience is playing in an IBM Poughkeepsie intramural league with several of my friends. It was a lot of fun, great exercise and provided a great excuse for the after-game night of drinking and similar endeavors. Bonus: we even managed to win a trophy in our third year or so. Going to a 1994 WC match - Korea vs Boliva at Foxboro, the only scoreless draw of the tournament - and the subsequent establishment of MLS made a real soccer fan out of me.
No experience whatsoever. But you know what, what I couldn't do in my childhood (due to lack of exposure), I'm hoping to infuse the passion into my kid. I love running around with him in the field teaching him to kick around the ball. Of course he's too little right now. But hopefully as time goes by, it'll be fun.
I started playing soccer when I was 10. I attended a German school for 4 years and we would play soccer every day at recess, 10.5 months out of the year. I also became a US Army Europe certified referee during that time. After returning to the US, I played three years of high school soccer and my first two years of college. All told, I've been playing, refereeing, coaching, and following soccer for 30 years now The first World Cup I remember watching was '78 in Argentina. I watched a few NASL games on TV, but it was hard to follow the US Nats back then because so few games were televised. I did watch the '89 US vs Trinidad WC Qualifier on live TV, in which Paul Caligiuri scored his famous goal, and have followed the US Nats fairly closely ever since.
Been strapping on the boots since I was 5, that started 18 years ago and hasn't stopped. I, like most children of the 80s was signed up for AYSO in my youth. I stayed in AYSO till I was 11, but started playing on a traveling team at age 10. From 10-14 I played on my club teams indoor squad. I remained on my club team till my freshman year of high school and then due to high school soccer and my need to work, I had to end my club days. In highschool I started at left back all four years. Played on the freshman team my frosh year, the sophomore team my sophormore year (we finished 15-2-3 and won our conference for the first time in school history), my junior and senior years I played for the varsity team (we won conference both years, but both years lost 1 game short of the state finals). I played 1 year of club soccer in college, where I tweaked my knee and had to take it easy my freshman year. My sophomore through senior years I played on no less than 5 differnt intramural teams (varying in skill from ex-players to recreational). After graduation I have tried to play with friends and on men's leagues in and around Chicago, but haven't played nearly as often as I would like.