Brad McConahay

A couple years ago, I ran across a story on 60 Minutes that opened with, “Chances are you have never heard of Tim Howard, and if you don’t follow a sport Americans call soccer, there is no reason you should know the name.” It told of a mild-mannered goalkeeper dealing with Tourette’s Syndrome. And it told of his excellent first season at one of the biggest football clubs in one of the most widely followed football leagues in the world: Manchester United and the English Premier League (EPL). Shortly after, I discovered that one could watch Tim Howard and Manchester United play regularly on the Fox Soccer Channel. Having played a year of little league soccer in elementary school, I was already familiar with the particulars of the game … and thus started my recent slow road to Soccer fandom.

But by this time, Howard had found his way into the ManU doghouse and was only starting occasionally. Luckily, it turned out to be equally intriguing to follow some of the team’s other star players instead. Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo, in particular. This last season, my interest expanded even more while keeping tabs on other American players in the EPL, such as Brad Friedel at Blackburn Rovers, and Clint Dempsey at Fulham. (See Yanks Abroad.) That led to following other individual players on other teams in the EPL, such as Didier Drogba and Joe Cole at Chelsea, and Dimitar Berbatov at Tottenham Hotspur. Finally, I started reading up on the history of the English Premiership League and how it works within FIFA (the world), UEFA (Europe), and the FA (England). Especially interesting is the relegation of the bottom three teams to a lower English league every season. So cutthroat.

As the EPL season was wrapping up in May with a fantastic title by Manchester United, attention started turning toward Major League Soccer (MLS) in the USA. Despite trying, and failing, to become interested in the MLS last year, I decided to buy the MLS Direct Kick package on cable this year. My main intention was to follow the Columbus Crew as my home team. And since David Beckham will be coming to the LA Galaxy in July, I figured I’d follow them too. Between the EPL and the MLS, I started packing two DVRs with games every week – the wife accused me of becoming a full-blown addict!

Although the Columbus Crew have crawled along near the bottom of the league during the first couple months, they’re currently on a three game winning streak, unbeaten in the last five, and are moving toward the middle of the pack in the Eastern division. I’m optimistic with the likes of Frankie Hejduk, Ned Grabavoy, and newly signed Guillermo Barros Schelotto from the famed Boca Juniors in Argentina. The LA Galaxy aren’t faring so well and remain in the basement in the west. But, the arrival of David Beckham will be a fun circus any way you slice it, so they’re still a team to look forward to.

Even though Tim Howard was loaned to Everton, and eventually signed with them permanently, I continue to rabidly follow Manchester United as though they’re my home team. As the EPL starts up again in August, it will be curious to see if the new interest in soccer can compete with an already long-term interest in the NFL, and the long and sordid plight of the Cincinnati Bengals…