Bunk, Brian B. From Football to Soccer: The Early History of the Beautiful Game in the United States. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2021. Pp. 296. 33 illustrations. $24.95 paper and ebook. Dure, Beau. Why the U.S. Men Will Never Win the World Cup: A Historical and Cultural Reality Check. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. Pp. 246. $29…
By Patrick Salkeld Certain years stand out in history, such as 1945 with the end of World War II or 1980 and the presidential election of Ronald Reagan due to his populist-nationalist campaign and the evolution of neoliberalism as the prevailing ideology of the United States government, because of their historical significance. The last twelve months…
By Colleen English Without World Cup or Olympic tournaments, many might not consider 2017 to be a significant year for women’s soccer (a sentence I write with full awareness that these kinds of things are rarely said about major men’s sports). Germany’s Olympic victory at the 2016 Games and the US women’s national team’s (USWNT)…
By Patrick Salkeld I attended my first NASSH conference in 2016 at Georgia Tech University. I met many scholars, found a home within the community, and spent much of my time talking to other soccer historians such as Zach Bigalke, George Kiousis, Chris Bolsmann, Chris Henderson, Gabe Logan, and David Kilpatrick. The soccer historians in…
By Patrick Salkeld Every year soccer fans experience the US Open Cup, the oldest soccer tournament in the United States. It started in October 1913 after FIFA sanctioned the American Amateur Football Association (AAFA), which renamed itself United States Football Association (USFA) that year and is now the United States Soccer Federation (USSF or US…
By Zachary R. Bigalke Major League Soccer (MLS) kicked off its 22nd season over the past weekend, welcoming two new teams into the fold to expand the league into two 11-team conferences. Fifteen years after the league contracted its two Florida teams, the long-term plan executed by Don Garber seems to have fully flowered. Having…
By Patrick Salkeld Controversy surrounded Jürgen Klinsmann’s tenure as the head coach of the United States Men’s National Team (USMNT) since nearly the beginning. He created tension between himself and Don Garber, the Commissioner of Major League Soccer (MLS), about implementing promotion and relegation in the United States and the quality of American soccer in…
Sport in American History 