The World's Game In The Heart of the Sun Belt

Former AFC Lightning and St. Pius X standout Ricardo Clark was selected as expected today for the initial 30-man U.S. World Cup roster by coach Bob Bradley.

Bradley must pare his final roster to 23 before embarking on South Africa. Clark recently made his debut for Eintracht Frankfurt in the German Bundesliga after coming over from the Houston Dynamo of MLS.

But he’s been battling injuries for most of the season, and there’s quite a bit of competition in the defensive midfield. It was Maurice Edu, the talented member of Scottish champion Glasgow Rangers, who was unable to go to the Confederations Cup last summer because of injury, paving the way for Clark to make his biggest international impression to date.

Not making the U.S. roster was forward Charlie Davies, who is recovering from a horrific car crash last summer that nearly killed him. Doctors wouldn’t clear him for action, and the only way he could play in the World Cup now is to get a special roster exemption that FIFA allows but that is rarely employed.

It was an own goal from Atlanta’s Leigh Ann Robinson early in the second half that produced the only goal of the game in Sky Blue FC’s 1-0 win on Sunday.

The expansion Beat is the only team in Women’s Professional Soccer to remain winless, but the opening of its new stadium at Kennesaw State was a rousing success. An announced crowd of 7,428 turned out on a Sunday night.

Another home game is set for this Sunday, May 16, when Abby Wambach and the Washington Freedom visit in a 6 p.m. game.

There’s been so much written and said about the new Kennesaw State University stadium that will be christened Sunday night in the Atlanta Beat home opener — and will become the first soccer-specific facility built with the women’s game in mind — that I’ll just share with you here all the linky goodness I’ve found:

• World Football Insider

• Goal.com

• SB Nation

• Atlanta Soccer Blog (check out the pictures from last Sunday’s grand opening)

• The Equalizer

• Soccer By Ives

I’ll keep adding more links as I see ‘em.

Major League Soccer isn’t giving any specifics, but there’s a press conference slated for Friday (we hear it’s in Montreal) for a “major announcement” (we hear it’s about expanding into Montreal for the 2012 season).

This is not unexpected news, nor is it a surprise that MLS commissioner Don Garber keeps saying Atlanta is on his mind for possible expansion some time down the road.

We’ve been hearing this, of course, since the inception of MLS in 1996. Atlanta has always been a market the league wants to capture, and the city is among those vying to make the final cut for the U.S. Soccer Federation’s 2018 or 2022 World Cup venue list. It’s one of the stronger candidates, in fact.

At some point, however, any discussion of MLS viability in Atlanta has to go beyond employing the usual buzzwords — like “market” — and touting all the ballyhooed numbers of youth players, various clusters of immigrant communities and the city’s history of staging big sporting events.

Atlanta also has to demonstrate that some kind of organic groundswell of a fan base exists to be worthy of having a franchise. It’s unlikely that anything like what has happened in Seattle will be replicated here, primarily because poorly-run (men’s) teams haven’t given Atlanta soccer fans much to cheer. Or, as the case is now, a team to cheer at all.

Seattle, Toronto and Vancouver — which like Montreal competed with Atlanta in the USL — have demonstrated outstanding turnout and organized, reliable team management.

To a certain degree, Montreal could provide something of a template for Atlanta since the Quebec city used big events as a springboard for the crowds the Impact have been drawing in recent years.

Somewhere, somehow, big-time soccer triggered fans to begin supporting the local team in big, lasting numbers.

Atlanta soccer boosters are hoping for the same, eyeing more big events, such as a post-World Cup friendly at the Georgia Dome between Club America and Manchester City.

In lieu of there not being a pro men’s team at all, there’s not a better option.

Longtime American soccer executive Peter Wilt (formerly Chicago Fire and Chicago Red Stars and now with the indoor Milwaukee Wave) projects the near-term landscape of the sport in the United States, and what it may look like in 2020.

My favorite (albeit tongue-in-cheek) scenario Wilt saves for last:

“American newspapers will all have soccer beat reporters writing regular features, columns and analysis….ok, just wanted to see if you were still paying attention.  This prediction of course is a joke, because we all know that there will be no daily newspapers in ten years.”

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

The bottom line is this: The sport’s in far better shape than the moaners claim. Wilt’s key insight — and one that should become obvious to anyone watching ESPN’s ubiquitous World Cup coverage this summer — is that:

“Media and society are mainstreaming soccer at unparalleled rates. Soccer bashing media members have been replaced with soccer knowledgeable journalists. American television and the internet have provided unprecedented forums for soccer coverage and discussion.”

This is probably the most dramatic development in American soccer in the 15 years since I first began covering the sport, and this will continue to proliferate even more rapidly in the coming years.

We’ve gone from soccer still being regarded in the mainstream as an exotic, “foreign” endeavor to one that’s getting nearly daily highlight play on “SportsCenter,” just to name one example.

(Although I don’t get why no American accents are allowed on ESPN’s World Cup announcing crews. To be sure, the Worldwide Leader is trying to impress others around the globe with its presence in South Africa, but this is a significant snub.)

As Wilt says, “the world is getting smaller.” For the growing, once-isolated world of American soccer, this is a very good thing.

The expansion Philadelphia Union have gotten off to an understandably slow start thus far in Major League Soccer. But former Cobb FC standout Jack McInerney has looked good in spite of his team’s struggles.

Over the weekend he became the eighth player in MLS history to score a goal before his 18th birthday in Philly’s 3-1 loss to Los Angeles Galaxy.

In all four games thus far for the Union, McInerney has come off the bench, but his playing time figures to increase. When the hard-to-please Paul Gardner says you scored the goal of the week, then that’s something to remember, even with his usual curmudgeonliness:

“Actually I found the goal memorable for another reason: because McInerney did not immediately spin off into a wild shirt-doffing celebration or lapse into a dopey dance routine. Thank you, Jack.”

For the second time in their respective brief histories, the Philadelphia Independence downed the Atlanta Beat 1-0 on Saturday, getting the lone goal of the game from Lori Lindsey in the first half.

It was the last road game for Atlanta before next Sunday’s home opener in Kennesaw, and there’s a grand opening today at the new facility starting at 3 p.m.

You don’t have to get all gussied up, or wear a fancy hat, or gulp down mint juleps — unless you want to — but there’s a little game down at Badgett Park in College Park Saturday featuring two Atlanta sides that might get your Derby juices flowing.

Okay, it’s only a exhibition, but Atlanta FC vs. the Atlanta Blackhawks is part of a full day of action on Soccer in the Streets Day. It’s the closest thing to a soccer Derby that we’ve got around here.

The SITS Under-12 team plays at 1 p.m., followed by its Under-14 team at 3 p.m. with the Derby-of-sorts (Battle of Atlanta?) kicking off at 5 p.m. The Under-19 squad plays at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free for the whole enchilada. Badgett Park is located at 3636 College Street in the heart of College Park.

Our good friend Jason Longshore of SITS talks to the NPSL Insider about his involvement with the FC.

The Blackhawks are back for their second season in the Professional Development League, which is under the auspices of the United Soccer Leagues.

Update: Final score is Atlanta FC 2, Atlanta Blackhawks 0.

Things appear to have settled down in lower-division North American soccer since last summer’s fiasco between the USL and some breakaway owners, including the Atlanta Silverbacks, who may or not be playing in the newly-formed NASL next season.

The AJC talks to the Atlanta-based Nu Rock Soccer Holdings duo who bought the USL stable, a transaction that set off the firestorm, but it doesn’t really express how hostile matters got.

The Atlanta Beat remains on the road tonight, playing Philadelphia in a battle of expansion teams. But the Beat’s new home is just about done, and they’re inviting everyone up to Kennesaw Sunday afternoon to have a look around.

Update: The Beat remains winless after falling 1-0 to the Independence.

Atlanta has been included among the 18 cities that will constitute the U.S. World Cup bid proposal for either 2018 or 2022.

The USA Bid Committee on Tuesday unveiled the venues and cities that will be submitted to FIFA this spring as part of its formal World Cup proposal. FIFA will select the host nations for both events in December.

Should the U.S. receive a bid for either of those World Cups, Atlanta might become the rare city to host most of the major global and North American sporting events. The city has played host to the Super Bowl, several Final Fours, a number of World Series involving the Braves and the 1996 Summer Olympics.

FIFA likely would approve games in no more than 12 of those cities, and the list does not have to be finalized until five years before a World Cup.

The Georgia Dome played host to two crowds in excess of 50,000 for international soccer matches last summer. But the Atlanta bid also stipulates that if a new stadium is built for the Atlanta Falcons, that facility could be the site for World Cup matches.

“The game is on!” said Gary Stokan, president of the Atlanta Sports Council, which spearheaded the Atlanta bid committee.

He said the committee will continue to work with the USA Bid Committee and prepare for a visit later in the year from FIFA representatives, who will be inspecting all 18 cities in the U.S. proposal.

“We’ve been on pins and needles about this, because it means a lot to our community,” said Georgia Soccer executive director Rick Skirvin. “I felt pretty good about our chances because of how hard so many people worked to support this bid. We were doing things right from the beginning.”

Perhaps the biggest signs of support were a petition signing-drive launched by Georgia Soccer and a compansion fundraising effort that netted $75,000. Keeping Atlanta in the World Cup mix also gives the organization, which represents 70,000 youth players and their families around the state, a chance to build further momentum around its events and tournaments.

“All the events we put on will have an extra touch to it,” Skirvin said, referring specifically to the Atlanta Cup, Georgia Soccer’s biggest event, a youth tournament held on the Labor Day weekend that is one of the biggest in the Southeast.

The Atlanta bid also includes an offer for the city, as a major transportation and media hub, to serve as the site for an International Broadcast Center for the World Cup.

There’s a real Sun Belt feel to this selection of cities, which include Miami, Tampa Bay, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix and — perhaps the biggest inclusion — Nashville, which had a crowd of more than 30,000 for a U.S.World Cup qualifying match last year.

The glaring absences: No Chicago, which recently lost its bid to play host to the 2014 Olympics. Not only is it the home of President Barack Obama, but also for the U.S. Soccer Federation.

The San Francisco Bay Area also was excluded after serving, along with Chicago, as a 1994 venue.

Cities that were 1994 World Cup venues and are on the list of 18 include Boston, Dallas, New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Also on board are Philadelphia, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Denver, San Diego and Seattle, which quickly has become one of the biggest soccer hotbeds in North America with the inclusion of the Sounders in Major League Soccer.

The USA Bid Committee will announce its final list of World Cup venue cities next Tuesday, Jan. 12, and Atlanta is among the 27 cities vying to make the cut.

The committee has spent the last eight months touring cities and stadiums around the country as part of the U.S. Soccer Federation’s bid to to land the World Cup in either 2018 or 2022. The committee will choose 18 cities as part of a formal proposal to be submitted to FIFA in the spring. FIFA will select the host nations for both World Cups next December.

Live coverage of the event begins at 3:30 p.m. ET on ESPNews.

Georgia Soccer and the Atlanta Sports Council have been spearheading the Atlanta bid, with the former raising $75,000 and generating a petition drive in a show of support that’s one of the major factors being considered by the USA Bid Committee.

A prominent American soccer blogger thinks the city should have no problem making the list:

“Atlanta, the other city in the top five, is a no brainer for any major sporting event after having so successfully hosted the 1996 Summer Olympics. With the Atlanta Silverbacks returning to the professional fold for the 2011 NASL season, the city is  a lock to host World Cup matches.”

Atlanta Sports Council president Gary Stokan said another component of the Atlanta proposal is having the city serve as the venue for the FIFA executive committee meeting that precedes the World Cup and includes the election of the FIFA president.

Here are some previous posts I’ve written on Atlanta’s interest in the World Cup.