AN AMERICAN GAME – Details, episodes & analysis

Last fall, Atlanta was one of our Starting XI of US Soccertowns. As it prepares to host games in the World Cup, Tom and Kirk take a look at how preparations are going in the literal home of US Soccer.

Then we re-broadcast the Atlanta section from that Starting XI episode, so tourists (and natives) can get a quick hit of the long history of soccer in the Dirty South. It's only ten minutes, so maybe Mauricio Pochettino can find time to learn about the country he has the privilege of representing this summer. Just a friendly suggestion!

Special thanks to Atlanta historian Patrick Sullivan.

Also credit to Atlanta soccer writer Doug Roberson: https://soccerwithdoug.substack.com/

Tucked in the middle of Newark, New Jersey is a small school called St. Benedict's Prep that has had a huge impact on high school soccer. For 40 years the Gray Bees have been the most dominant soccer program in the country...and one of the most dominant high school programs, in any sport, ever.

How have they done it? Players like Tab Ramos, Claudio Reyna, and Gregg Berhalter helped. So have gifted international student-athletes. But maintaining excellence year after year, with the country's biggest target on their backs? That takes tennis balls.

This week, we dive inside the Gray Bees' hive.

Peep! It's halftime at AN AMERICAN GAME, and we’re in the locker room making "tactical adjustments" (getting ice packs strapped to our bodies while guzzling ibuprofen and Gatorade.) So let's go over to the studio where Alexi- haha, no, where Tom and Kirk give a quick preview of next week's episode, a fun fact about themselves, and a very dignified request to like and/or subscribe to the show if you like and/or don't want to miss it.

It's one click. You can do it. See you next week!

What has steamships, chloroform, and the King of Romania? This episode of An American Game, about the US National Team's incredible performance in the first World Cup, hosted by Uruguay in 1930. Tom and Kirk take us back to that tough and talented team, who wore the Stars and Stripes and showed the world that diversity is our strength--and that the United States is not afraid to change hotels if the first one doesn't feel right. Also, we use the word "worsted" for the third straight show. That’s not easy!

Quick: what's the oldest trophy in American sports? Wrong. In Episode 2 of An American Game, Tom and Kirk tell the story of the AFA Cup, first given out 140 years ago (before the Stanley Cup) and, for decades, the top prize in American soccer. But then the Tiffany-designed trophy disappeared -- dropped out of the historical record, along with so much of US soccer. Fortunately, like Indiana Jones in an SUV, Tom tracked it down.

If you want to see some of what we’re talking about (and what actors we look like) check out the video version: https://youtu.be/oyv5OHn22Bo

How did a bullet change the course of American soccer? In the first of a new series about the long, colorful, and mostly-forgotten history of US soccer, Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell--old friends, college teammates, soccer obsessives--join forces to tell the story of Thomas "Bullets" Cahill, the 'Father of American Soccer.' They follow Cahill from his tough St. Louis childhood in a patch of Irish immigrants; to wheeling and dealing across the country, sometimes at knifepoint, building what we now think of as US soccer; all the way to the royal box of the King of Sweden with the first US National Team. And they solve the century-old mystery of how he got his nickname (hint: it's actually pretty literal.) 

Want to see some of what we’re talking about? Video is here: https://youtu.be/djN50Ins9tA

A new series from the makers of the documentary SOCCERTOWN, USA about the long and colorful history of American soccer. Tom and Kirk are old friends and former teammates who share a belief that the United States is a soccer nation, and they're going to prove it, one story at a time. Fortunately, Tom is a leading scholar of American soccer and Kirk is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter, so it’s real history that’s fun to listen to.

"History rhymes" is a thing we say a lot, paraphrasing Mark Twain who was also probably thinking about soccer. With the threat of a boycott hanging over this summer's World Cup, we go back 47 years to when the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team qualified for the Moscow Olympics... and then had to stay home. 

It's another ugly collision of sports and politics, with Iran again playing a major role. Rhymes! It's also an excuse for Tom and Kirk to break out their Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan impressions. To paraphrase the Olympic Creed: "The most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to nail the impression but to make your dad stop the car and tell you to cut it out."

In 2028, when USL Premier launches, the United States will have a Division One pro soccer league at the top of a promotion-relegation pyramid. Sexy!

But we're in 2026, when a potential players' strike threatens the entire USL season. Not sexy!

Tom and Kirk look at USL's place in the US soccer landscape--at the intersection of small town dreams and big business--and, with the help of a wooden duck, explore how that tension makes it the most "American" pro soccer league. For better and, possibly, for worse.

In 2018, when the United States, Mexico, and Canada were selected to co-host this year’s World Cup, it sounded like fun: three friendly democracies throwing the world's biggest soccer party.

LOL. LMAO, even. 

To kick off Season 2 of AAG, Tom and Kirk take a look at our (longer than you think) soccer history with our northern and southern neighbors and put some color back on what’s become a pretty crude, black-and-white picture. Because despite all the recent division, we’re actually more connected than ever. And that's something to root for this summer!