Pitch Invasion - A Blog Exploring Soccer Around The World

Pitch Invasion Podcast Episode 4 – April 2012

Tom Dunmore — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 18:33:04 +0000

The fourth episode of the monthly Pitch Invasion podcast features interviews with Sporting Kansas City CEO Robb Heineman and Section 8 Chicago ISA Chairman Joel Piktel.

The Pitch Invasion podcast is based out of Chicago and Milwaukee, the respective homes for the show’s hosts Tom Dunmore and Peter Wilt, covering the world of soccer from a North American angle.

The show is available to stream or download below and is also on iTunes or available via RSS. Check out the PI Podcast archive here.

Please let us know your thoughts on the show in the comments below or drop us a tweet:
Tweet #pipodcast

Beyond the Blog? The Future of American Soccer Journalism

Tom Dunmore — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 13:13:33 +0000

Yesterday, the ubiquitous (and I mean that in a genuinely nice way) American soccer blogger/podcaster/twitterati Jason Davis tweeted “Randomly came across another old @TIAS post. Are we finally taking steps with @xiquarterly and @whatahowler?”

The post in question at This Is American Soccer (TIAS), one of the oldest and most thoughtful American soccer blogs out there, was entitled “American soccer media landscape needs to get beyond the blog.” It’s an incisive, intelligent exploration by Adam Spangler of soccer writing and the possibilities of forming new, in-depth coverage of the game in America “beyond the blog”.

Though dated February 2010, the questions Adam asks about how this can happen remain valid today:

Soccer journalism’s living death is a real problem, one we can only hope changes in the wake of a World Cup year (and bid for 2018/2022), increased MLS, USMNT, and national player success, and the overall consumer growth of the sport. In lieu of what sometimes seems like every blog trying to be everything to everyone—in the wake of the reshuffling of media names in the ever changing of world of journalism, what should it all mean?

We are not lacking for words on American soccer (can you keep up with the blogosphere?), and I am supremely sure the quality writers are out there, either underemployed (or not really employed at all, writing for nothing in their free time with the consequences this has for the type of coverage created, as interesting as some of the writing is), or churning out words at an obscene rate to attract enough eyeballs to keep the likes of goal.com in business.

We lack the publications that have as their defining marker what Adam calls “long-lead feature writing.” For Adam, this absence is particularly reflected by the dearth of stories that tell us more than the surface story about American soccer; in particular, of how a fan connects to and understands players. That requires spending time with the subject, and that usually means a cost is entailed, one few existing publications are prepared to pay for soccer stories. As Spangler says:

Players by and large aren’t millionaires, and they could use some attention both for the sake of their game and off-field marketing pursuits. Compared to other sports, more soccer players are highly educated, offering intelligent opinions but also, and more importantly, they have unique paths and stories (just stop asking them about how well the team did and begin spending as much time talking about off the field as on it).

Many readers are simply too young to know what they are really missing—that imaginative and telling narrative that brings their sports heroes to life and reflect the lives of readers while taking them into the lives of players. I don’t, for example, know a single thing about Blanco and his life in Chicago and MLS. That’s a shame. Angel in NYC? For real, America’s best soccer player, Landon Donovan, has never had a proper feature article written about him?

Adam is quite right on this. For me and for the other founders of XI, this is only one element of North American soccer that simply isn’t being told; at least since the passing of Steven Wells, most articles on fan culture – to pick my area of focus – scratch only the surface. Journalists and bloggers have only the most cursory understanding of the beautiful madness that drives fans to spend hundreds of volunteer hours creating elaborate tifo displays for MLS clubs owned by billionaires, or of how social responsibility should (does?) play into fan group activities, or of how North American soccer is refracted from ultra culture elsewhere, or of how MLS’ commercial emphasis threatens a co-option of a fiercely independent but fragile culture. In fact, even the surface of those stories have barely been scratched.

The same goes for women’s soccer; for ethnic identity and soccer; for the business of the sport; for youth development; the grassroots of the game at amateur and lower-league level; the way game the is administered; the way it is played; its tactical development on this continent. And so on, all so little understood, all so little explained by the people that matter to people who can write about it in-depth entertainingly and intelligently, in ways where an editor engages with a writer and shapes a story over weeks or months, in a fashion that is then visually laid out and presented to enhance the story, rather than to generate clicks on google ads.

To get back to Jason’s original tweet, hopefully the establishment of both XI and Howler are steps “beyond the blog”, with two quarterly print magazines giving writers some time, some space, some support in crafting stories that tell compelling narratives about North American soccer. Speaking for XI, a very specific niche will be filled; this won’t be a general purpose magazine telling timely stories, it will be one theme per issue, explored in eleven unique ways. I’m not sure exactly what Howler are planning, but I am excited to find out.

I’m also very interested to see if these new quarterly publications do indeed to prove to be steps toward more in-depth soccer media: it doesn’t, by any means, always have to be print, or even via the written word. It just has to be thoughtful, it has to be resourced, and it has to sell – or it’s unlikely to succeed. For XI, that funding has to come from the soccer community, using a resource for launch capital Spangler understandably didn’t mention over two years ago: Kickstarter, a rather fantastic way for creative projects to get off the ground. Hopefully, as soccer grows on this continent, its media will find more and more ways grow up with it.

XI: A New North American Soccer Magazine

Tom Dunmore — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 13:09:27 +0000

1,774 posts have been published to this blog, Pitch Invasion, since its founding in 2007. In late 2011, I decided to collect the very best of those posts in book form, in the unimaginatively titled The Very Best of Pitch Invasion. 39 essays were selected for it, and 39 very good ones they were, by two dozen writers exploring soccer culture around the world in long-form. It was the quality of those pieces – most of which weren’t by me, I’d like to make clear – that won Pitch Invasion much acclaim, including a gold medal in the When Saturday Comes web awards in 2010.

Look at those numbers again, though. 1,774 posts; 39 selected for the book, with perhaps the same number again of equal quality as those put into print. That’s something like 5% of the blog’s output. Now, the rest was still – I hope – interesting stuff: a lot of photography, quick analysis, your day-to-day link roundups. It became a grind, and everyone else starting doing the same kind of blogging. Producing the really, really good content – the kind worthy of ink on real paper – became an increasing challenge, buried under the avalanche of Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr (and I genuinely love Tumblr) coming at you all day, every day.

No time to breathe, to think, to write, to edit, to explore the bigger picture in truly thoughtful depth.

That’s why myself and two other bloggers who pioneered longform soccer writing in North America before I took my own crack at it – David Keyes (The Culture of Soccer) and John Turnbull (The Global Game) – decided in the fall of 2011 to create a new soccer publication. Not a blog, updated daily; not a topical news magazine, published weekly or monthly; but a quarterly periodical, giving us time to reflect on what we even want to write about before beginning. When it’s in print, every page will have been through many layers of consideration, its graphical look crafted by a gifted creative dedicated to that task, JL Murtaugh.

XI will offer an outlet for story-tellers to explore the game from a North American perspective as the soccer boom continues on this continent, and the game has gone from marginalized to its forthcoming ESPN-ization. There needs to be a space in which to examine the margins of the game as well as the mainstream; the millions of amateurs and how they play, the supporters’ culture still so readily misunderstood, the women’s game, the business behind the scenes, or the play on the field from an unusual angle. The story of soccer in North America is one with a deeper past than many appreciate – that will be a topic of importance for XI – and its present is a more diverse one than the daily media has time to consider.

The first issue of XI aims to illustrate this: eleven pieces (get it?) will delve into how immigration has shaped North American soccer, from the earliest times to the twenty-first century. The eleven pieces will not all be long-form essays: this story will also be illustrated in other arrangements, from photography to poetry. XI’s form will be flexible, its graphic design shaped by the tales it tells.

We hope that eleven out of eleven pieces will be worth treasuring in print in every issue of XI.

For this to happen, XI needs the support of the soccer community: the publication aims to raise $11,000 over the next four weeks to launch, and you can give whatever you can (over $2) on the XI Kickstarter page. Thank you for anything you can give, or any help in spreading the word (find XI on Twitter, Facebook, G+ and Tumblr too).

Pitch Invasion Podcast Episode 3 – March 2012

Tom Dunmore — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 14:19:04 +0000

The third episode of the monthly Pitch Invasion podcast features interviews with FC United of Manchester General Manager Andy Walsh and MLS agent Patrick McCabe.

The Pitch Invasion podcast is based out of Chicago and Milwaukee, the respective homes for the show’s hosts Tom Dunmore and Peter Wilt, covering the world of soccer from a North American angle.

The show is available to stream or download below and is also on iTunes or available via RSS. Check out the PI Podcast archive here.

Please let us know your thoughts on the show in the comments below or drop us a tweet:
Tweet #pipodcast

District Ultras: Small Numbers, Big Support In DC

Tom Dunmore — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:10:25 +0000

In the corner of RFK’s crumbling edifice, a small but experienced group of fans have in recent times been making significant shows of support for DC United considerably out of proportion to their actual numbers. They are the District Ultras, founded in 2010. Here’s what they did in their first year:

Many of the individual members of District Ultras are not new to DC United, or to DC United’s historically active supporters’ group scene – arguably the consistently strongest throughout much of the league’s 16-year history – but as a group they are a new addition to a scene traditionally powered by the well-known Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles groups.

Pitch Invasion asked Srdan Bastaic, one of the driving forces behind the District Ultras, where they had come from. ”Our core group has been around for much longer, handling all the tifo in the Barra for a long time, but as dominant as we were in, say, the 2005-2007 MLS period, by 2009 or so the supporter scene in US had become much stronger. It wasn’t just DC and Chicago anymore,” Bastaic said. “The DC atmosphere was already stagnating at that point and we wanted to be able to rival the new and old and improved groups. Successful groups need money to run and selling t-shirts and scarves to raise funds really wasn’t going to cut it at that point as it has in the past.”

Bastaic explained that this desire to take DC tifo to a new level and the required funding led to some intense discussions within Barra Brava. “So our tifo crew met, then tried to compromise and talk it through for several months and at the end we didn’t have a choice but to split into a separate group,” Bastaic explains.

This led to a breakaway group of tifo-mad ultras looking for a new section to call home at RFK, briefly floating amongst the other supporter group areas. “Nine of us walked and it was pretty funny for a few months,” Bastaic says. “We were all over the stadium, in the La Norte section one match, then in Screaming Eagles, then between sections. We actually did a few displays by walking into a section of regular fans and putting up these big 20 foot high banners, it was a pretty bizarre time.”

The District Ultras badly needed a space of their own. Bastaic continues, “Around the middle of the season, the DC front office figured we’re not going anywhere, so they gave us a far corner section in RFK. That’s when we started to grow, as people who were interested in our mentality had a stable section to come to.”

DC United versus Seattle, 7.15.10

DC United versus LA, 7.18.10

DC United versus Philadelphia, 8.22.10

DC United versus Columbus, 9.4.10

DC United versus Houston, 9.25.10

DC United versus Toronto, 10.23.10

That first year in 2010 – with a tifo display every game – was, as would be expected, something of an uphill battle since the District Ultras had to “build everything all over again from the ground up,” as Bastaic puts it. Relations with the club were also “rocky at the start”, though smoothed over as the front office came to understand the group’s purpose: “we’re on the same side after all,” Bastaic says. Support from DC’s Screaming Eagles – particularly helpful with tickets for away games – was a big boon for the nascent group.

In 2011, another smaller though older DC supporters group, La Norte, moved adjacent to the District Ultras, and the two groups have developed a strong relationship together. This helped the District Ultras reach a new level with their support in 2011.

DC United versus New England, 7.20.11

DC United versus Toronto, 8.6.11

DC United versus Salt Lake, 9.24.11

DC United versus Chicago, 10.15.11

DC United versus Portland, 10.19.11

DC United versus Kansas City, 10.22.11

Starting a new supporters group is a massive challenge, even for those with the experience of the District Ultras leadership. As DC United General Manager Dave Kasper mentioned on the recent Pitch Invasion podcast, DC United’s support may have to wait until the club moves to a new stadium before it matches the new standards set in MLS support in recent seasons, reclaiming the ground once held by Barra Brava and Screaming Eagles.

One suspects if DC’s support does take a fresh spurt forward, it’ll be in part from District Ultras’ imaginative tifo efforts: as Bastaic puts it, “We’ve got a good mixture of veterans and new blood, and we can really go anywhere from here, supporting our club and representing our city.”

Update: Here’s a roundup of District Ultras’ 2011 tifo efforts

All photos provided by District Ultras. Photos 7.15.10 and 9.24.11 by Neil Brandvold.

The Pitch Invasion Podcast Episode 2

Tom Dunmore — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:48:29 +0000

The second episode of the monthly Pitch Invasion podcast, focused on North American soccer, features interviews with DC United General Manager Dave Kasper on the club’s upcoming MLS season and general development, and a conversation with Jeremy Wright of the Timbers Army, discussing the growth and future of supporter culture in Portland and nationwide following the recent Independent Supporters Council conference hosted in the Rose City.

It’s available to stream or download below and is also on iTunes. Please let us know your thoughts on the show in the comments below, and you can also listen to episode one here.

Amateur Football In Germany

Tom Dunmore — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 21:18:35 +0000

SV Pfiffelbach vs. SV 1951 Gaberndorf. Ground: Waldsportplatz Pfiffelbach.

Pfiffelbach score.

SpG Glesien/Zwochau/Zschernitz vs. SpG Naundorf/Zschepplin. Ground: Sportanlage an der Mühle.

SG Gnandstein 49 vs. TuS Pegau 1903. Ground: Sportstätte Gnandstein.

BSV Halle-Ammendorf vs. Hallescher FC Landespokal Sachsen-Anhalt. Ground: Stadion der Waggonbauer. Banner is a protest against rising ticket prices.

Hallescher SC 1996 II vs. Post- und Telekom SV Halle 1. Ground: Sportplatz Brandberge.

SG Aufbau/ Tasmania III vs. SV Bruckdorf 1948 II.

Ground: Sportplatz Motor II.

SV Spora vs. SV Mertendorf. Ground: Sportplatz Nißma.

SV Teuchern II vs. SV Krauschwitz 1. Ground: Friedrich-Ludwig-Jahn-Stadion.

Naumburger SV 05 II vs. TSV Leuna 1919. Ground: Sportanlage NSV 05/Hallescher Anger.

The "Upper Ground" and the "Lower Ground" are seperated by a railroad. Grounds: Sportplatz Grün-Weiß Langendorf.

SV Eintracht Profen vs. TSV Leuna 1919. Ground: stadion des Friedens.

Ground: Erich Schulz Sportstätte, Deuben.

Ground: Sportplatz am Wald, Droyßiger SG.

Ground: Sportplatz am Wald, Droyßiger SG. The ground marks the edge of the wood of Droyßig.

Football ground of Fortuna Bad Bibra.

TuS Germania Schnelsen vs. FSV Dörnberg. Ground: Stadion Lindenberg.

TSV Geyer vs. BSG Motor Zschopau. Ground: Sportplatz Geyer II.

VfB Apolda vs. FC Carl Zeiss Jena. Ground: Hans Geupel Stadion.

All photos taken by and used with the permission of fchmksfkcb on Flickr.

Away Days: FC United of Manchester

Tom Dunmore — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 01:46:16 +0000

In 2005, FC United of Manchester was founded by disaffected fans of Manchester United. They created their own club, one that will forever be fan-owned, and began playing at the bottom of the English football pyramid, about as far from the bright lights of Old Trafford as one can go. From the beginning, FCUM fan Matthew Wilkinson has been traveling far and wide in support of the club and photographing much of their adventure as it has gone on. With the kind permission of Matthew, we present here a selection of his photos chronicling FC United of Manchester’s away days since 2005.

2005-2006

Stainton Park, Radcliffe. The home of Radcliffe Borough FC. Pictured at Castleton Gabriels v FC United of Manchester.

North West Counties Football League Division Two. New Mills 0-2 FC United of Manchester. Ewen Fields, Hyde, Greater Manchester.

2006-2007

North West Counties Football League Division One. Abbey Hey 1-5 FC United of Manchester. Ewen Fields, Hyde, Greater Manchester.

At Shambles Square on the day of the North West Counties Football League Challenge Cup Final. Curzon Ashton 1-2 FC United of Manchester.

2007-2008

Northern Premier League Division One North. Bridlington Town 0-3 FC United of Manchester. Queensgate, Bridlington, East Riding of Yorkshire.

Pictured at Fleetwood Town v FC United of Manchester.

2008-2009

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Kendal Town 1-2 FC United of Manchester. Lakeland Radio Stadium, Kendal, Cumbria.

Home of Djurgårdens IF Fotboll, Sweden. Pictured at Djurgårdens IF Fotboll v FC United of Manchester

2009-2010

FC Sankt-Pauli 3- 3 FC United of Manchester. Friendly. Millerntor-Stadion, Hamburg, Germany.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Ossett Town 1-2 FC United of Manchester. Ingfield, Ossett, West Yorkshire.

FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round. North Ferriby United 0-1 FC United of Manchester. Grange Lane, North Ferriby, East Riding of Yorkshire.

FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round. Sheffield FC 1-3 FC United of Manchester. Coach and Horses Ground, Dronfield, Derbyshire.

2010-2011

Friendly. Bala Town 1-6 FC United of Manchester. Maes Tegid, Bala, Gwynedd, Wales

FA Cup Second Round. Brighton and Hove Albion 1-1 FC United of Manchester. Withdean Stadium, Brighton, East Sussex.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Matlock Town 1-2 FC United of Manchester. Causeway Lane, Matlock, Derbyshire.

FA Cup First Round. Rochdale 2-3 FC United of Manchester. Spotland, Rochdale, Greater Manchester.

Friendly. Oldham Borough FC 0-0 FC United of Manchester. Whitebank Stadium, Oldham, Greater Manchester.

Northern Premier League. Mickleover Sports 2-0 FC United of Manchester. Mickleover Sports Ground, Mickleover, Derbyshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Matlock Town 1-2 FC United of Manchester. Causeway Lane, Matlock, Derbyshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Chasetown 2-0 FC United of Manchester. The Scholars Ground, Chasetown, Staffordshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Matlock Town 1-2 FC United of Manchester. Causeway Lane, Matlock, Derbyshire.

Northern Premier League. FC Halifax Town 4-1 FC United of Manchester. The Shay, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

2011-2012

Pre match gossip. Bradford Park Avenue 2-5 FC United of Manchester. Horsfall Stadium, Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Burscough 3-5 FC United of Manchester. Skelmersdale & Ormskirk College Stadium, Skelmersdale, Lancashire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Chorley FC 2-0 FC United of Manchester. Victory Park, Chorley, Lancashire.

FA Trophy Second Round Qualifying. Durham City FC 1-1 FC United of Manchester. Arnott Stadium, Durham, County Durham.

Friendly. Leek Town 0-2 FC United of Manchester. Harrison Park, Leek, Staffordshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. FC United of Manchester 1-1 Marine AFC. Bower Fold, Stalybridge, Greater Manchester.

Friendly. Winsford United 1-0 FC United of Manchester. Barton Stadium, Winsford, Cheshire.

Northern Premier League Premier Division. Worksop Town 2-3 FC United of Manchester. Sandy Lane, Worksop, Nottinghamshire.

See more photos by Matthew Wilkinson on his Flickr page

DIY Graphics: Portland Timbers Supporter Propaganda

Tom Dunmore — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 20:14:43 +0000

This was how it began:

Graphic designer Brent Diskin had long liked soccer, but grew up in a household proud of its support of Oregon State’s college football team, and that was his main sporting interest until very recently. So how did Diskin end up producing the posters above, upon the Portland Timbers’ elevation to Major League Soccer in 2009?

“It was through my eldest brother – an alum of Concordia College’s soccer team – that I became aware of the Timbers and was able to make it to a few matches,” Diskin told Pitch Invasion. “When the announcement of the Timbers’ promotion to MLS in March of 2009 was made, I was carried away in my brother’s excitement and immediately started making my first few propaganda poster modifications (with “MLS – You’re Next! “ being the first). That is when I moved from being a simple fan to a supporter.”

As so often happens to supporters who become involved with passionate groups such as the Timbers Army, a toe-in-the-water soon becomes an obsession. Though Diskin’s schedule and budget made it tough for him to make it to many games, he continued to contribute how he could with his graphics, and began building from the natural connection of the Timbers Army to war imagery.

Yet as his work has progressed and Diskin has become more embedded into Timbers Army culture, so has his output reflected the diversity of the group’s grassroots support.

“I understood fairly quickly that the Timbers Army has a strong DIY culture and my little efforts will always be in support of that,” Diskin continues. “While I love making them because they allow me to be creative and push my abilities well beyond what my day-to-day work allows, I make them because I love my team, my Army, and my community. Simply, this is one small way I can help support the Timbers beyond losing my voice at Jeld-Wen Field. It has always been my hope that they help keep everyone’s action and energy up, not only in the offseason, but during the year’s campaign. I’ll certainly take a pint, but never a dime for my support.”

Of course, a key part of any supporters’ culture is rivalry, and perhaps for nobody more in North America than for Timbers and Seattle Sounders fans.

Not just the Sounders, however.

Most of Diskin’s work is, though, positively natured. Away travel is promoted with this classy series.

And as Diskin concludes, ultimately it’s about support of the team on the field: “These days, I finally have a season ticket and that guarantee that I can make it to every match, but I’ll still keep up my efforts and support and do all I can as a supporter to support the lads and bolster the spirits of my Army. As Timber Jim is often heard saying, “Spread the Love”…and this is my small way of doing so.”

Like most MLS supporters, for Diskin, the 2012 season cannot begin soon enough: he’s just able to express it visually in a way most of us cannot.

Pitch Invasion Podcast Extra – Interview With Sean Mann of Detroit City FC

Tom Dunmore — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 17:12:53 +0000

The logo of Detroit City FC does not feature a cartoon soccer ball. In fact, it doesn’t say or show soccer anywhere on it: instead, in grand but subdued tones of burgundy and gold, the badge is dominated by a classy representation of the statue below, the Spirit of Detroit in the city’s downtown:

This is the identity that Detroit City FC have pinned themselves to. An instantly recognizable civic symbol of Detroit, and one that suggests sophisticated urbanism rather than suburban soccer.

One of the leading figures behind Detroit City FC, Sean Mann, spoke to Pitch Invasion this week about the new club, who will begin play at the fourth tier of American soccer in the NPSL this May.

You can listen to the full interview with Sean below, or over on iTunes.

Sean explains how Detroit City FC sprouted from an urban soccer league (Detroit City Futbol League) he began a couple of years ago: “When people think of Detroit, they think of a big blob of decay,” Sean said. “But in reality it’s a city with a whole slew of neighborhoods that often get overlooked. So my idea was let’s get people together, let’s build up neighborhood pride and neighborhood recognition. For me, the perfect vehicle for that was soccer.”

That vehicle, according to this piece at model D, quickly proved to be a great success:

Here is a puzzle. Create a program that can achieve the following results:

1) Rally hundreds of motivated, young Detroit residents around a single cause. 2) Highlight 22 different historic neighborhoods throughout the city, and create unique branding for each. 3) Get the crowd out to a different bar, in a different neighborhood, each week. 4) Double the number of participants by the second year. 5) Get 10 people to pack up and move to Detroit.

This sounds like a job that will need a lot of financing, committees and sub-committees, and months planning with a large team in place to implement, right? Wrong. This is what happens when you start up a soccer league in Detroit.

League Commissioner Sean Mann started the Detroit City Futbol League last year as a way to bring city residents together, to celebrate the rich fabric of neighborhoods that make up the city, and to bring the 18-and-over crowd together over something other than frustrating politics.

Detroit City FC aim, at the grassroots level of the NPSL’s essentially semi-pro fourth tier of American soccer, to tap into that urban crowd, and bring them together in the city to support a team consciously striving to appeal to adult supporters and participants already in love with the sport.

“Our core focus is on using this team to build the supporters culture, to boost the supporters culture that’s already here in Detroit and give them a bigger platform,” Sean explained.

Sean tells Pitch Invasion how Detroit City FC’s identity came about, who’s behind it and their hopes for the future. Give the interview a listen to learn about an unusual approach to building a soccer club in North America, and special thanks to Sean for joining us in a special extra episode of the Pitch Invasion podcast.

One correction: we mistakenly identify the Michigan Bucks as playing in USL Pro rather than USL PDL.