The Jameson Pub to Pitch bus program is back this season!
Enjoy a roundtrip experience to select matches from five partner bars around the city.
🌟🚌 chicagostars.com/tickets/bus-program
I love this mascot and I especially love that it made me search “do birds have belly buttons” because I was pretty sure no, but here I have learned something today.
P.S. The answer is mostly no, but also kind of yes.
@soccerwisehq.bsky.social talked exclusively with Gregg Berhalter. Breaking the news on the schedule release for the Coachella Valley Invitational 2026. It’s his second year with @chicagofire.bsky.social, and he has a lot to say!
I’ve been working on this for a long time and I’m excited to finally share it publicly! Follow along as we get everything ready @soccerhouse.com or join the mailing list at soccerhouse.com! Can't wait to welcome everyone through the doors in the spring.
There were many really important stories that Grant Wahl covered. This wasn’t one of them! I really enjoyed talking to him about one of my strangest/best tales working at US Soccer (over a decade ago!). www.si.com/soccer/2015/...
Get those notifications ready 🔔
The First Touch World Cup Draw Live Show goes live at 11:45am ET tomorrow. Use the link below to make sure you don’t miss it!
www.youtube.com/live/bVPzMAt...
SCENES
Buy stock. Record sales coming in June.
Golazo network whip around at the end of CONCACAF qualifying is fantastic.
It really hits you in the face how badly they dropped the ball that this isn’t starting in July of 2026. IT WAS RIGHT THERE
I’ll argue it’s better for Chicago, not just the league. February/March weather sucks the energy out of what should be the exciting start of the season. Start strong in July, build momentum through the fall, and if the team is good, people will come out when it’s chilly for the playoff push.
It’s a little purposeful. “Don’t separate rivals” is fundamental to this, but when you stink, the shine on rivalries comes off. Also those two teams lost their “traditional” rivals (RBNY and Galaxy) to cross-city rivals.
And obviously we’re going to make cups for each division, right?
Notes:
I hate splitting DC from the rest of the northeast
I think you have to keep SoCal together at the expense of SJ
I think the MLS schedule change is mostly (definitely not entirely) good. More fun however is to speculate wildly on how they will split into five divisions! Some things are obvious, some are not. Here’s my shot at it.
The man wore crocodile boots, a white cowboy hat and a belt buckle the size of a license plate. Clint Dempsey doesn't remember his full name—hell, nobody in Nacogdoches, Texas, does—but you couldn't miss him on the sidelines of Nac-town's Mexican League games, amid the cigar smoke and the fajita carts and the horchata peddlers. He was the guy betting cash money on the cocky 15-year-old gringo to beat men more than twice his age, proud men from Mexico and El Salvador who'd throw you to the East Texas dirt for trying a fancy move on them. Sixty, eighty, one hundred dollars! The man kept wagering, and Dempsey's team, Zamora, kept winning. "He called me," says Dempsey, "his Little Rooster."
At least a couple times a year I'll be doing research for something related to American soccer and I'll come across an old Grant Wahl lede that stops me dead in my tracks. www.si.com/soccer/2020/...
GET INVOLVED IN BRACKTOBER!
The Great American Soccer Postseason Pool! We'll crown the ultimate soccer pool winner, with a combined pool for #MLS, #NWSL, #USLC and #USL1! You MUST enter with MLS by Friday to be eligible for the grand prize.
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
Hallowed Ground probably rightly is Bethlehem Steel’s stadium.
BUT, for this kid growing up in Pittsburgh, Edinboro University and the annual PAWest Open tournament was it. One glorious weekend a year staying in the dorms with your team, a million fields, multiple games per day… it was the best.
An incredible Decision Day race I didn't notice until reminded by Vikas in the @soccerwisehq.bsky.social discord:
D.C. United (29 total team goals in 33 matches) vs. Lionel Messi (26 individual goals in 27).
Coming down to the wire, folks. Messi has outside chance of chasing down D.C. United
The article says “it would give players a full summer to train and/or play with pro teams — or to pursue normal internships.”
I love the idea of college soccer as a more integrated part of the American soccer “pyramid.”
www.nytimes.com/athletic/672...
Kickback Soccer Media is proud to announce a new partnership with the American Outlaws and the Philadelphia Union! ✨
Together, we’ll spotlight fans experiencing their very first U.S. Soccer match and bring them along for the ride leading up to the 2026 Men’s and 2027 Women’s World Cups 💪 ⚽️
Definitely going to need to hear touchline fashion expert @susannahfuller.bsky.social on this one for @kickbackcommittee.bsky.social
Pittsburgh Riverhounds are building the Bombonera on the Monongahela… the Monbonera!
The keeper up for the corner and scoring is the best goalie-related moment in sports, narrowly edging out the NHL emergency backup goalie entering the game.
Forget just NC, this is America’s most hallowed ground… www.nytimes.com/athletic/144...
Oliver Kahn with the flow and bonus points for him on this one with the Chicago ‘94 World Cup cap.
I’m Garret
Santino Quaranta fan here!
