
AN AMERICAN GAME
Some say that soccer is an American game. Okay, Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell say that, and it might sound weird if you’re an American soccer fan, and you’ve spent your whole life having to prove you know the game–even defend your right to love it–to people who say the US has no soccer history.
But: soccer was in New Jersey before it was in Brazil. The US had a pro league before Italy or Spain. We were the first country to register for the first World Cup. In this series, the former teammates tell stories from the 150 years of American soccer history that even die-hard fans may not know. Tom is one of the pre-eminent historians of American soccer, and Kirk is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter, so it’s real history that’s fun to listen to.
With a World Cup coming next year, we want to give American fans a reason to stand a little prouder, cheer a little louder, and celebrate the generations of immigrants who brought their dreams, and the game, with them. Because it’s our game, too.
AN AMERICAN GAME
Bullets
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