Soccer links for your weekend reading pleasure

I’ve posted some new items over at Beyond The Touchline as another extremely busy week of soccer in America comes to a close:

• The CONCACAF Gold Cup and the World Football Challenge both reach their culminations this weekend. Are events like these overloading an already gluttonous soccer schedule on these shores? One leading American soccer writer, who really, really loves the game, thinks so.

Soccer fans in Atlanta and Baltimore who have been starved for these events to come to our cities may beg to differ.

• Is an American soccer TV star in the making? I’ve linked to a profile of Fox Soccer Channel’s Christopher Sullivan, who’s truly a worldly observer of the game. If you’ve wondered about the source of his distinctive speaking style, you’re in for an interesting surprise.

• And finally, I round up the David Beckham brouhaha by posing this suggestion — and I’m not quite sure of the answer yet — maybe “The Beckham Experiment” is working after all. In some very unexpected ways.

Visit Beyond The Touchline for more on these stories and the game of soccer around the world.