Tweety Bird What's the Word?
The growth of interest in soccer in America has lead to a unique relationship between what is rapidly becoming the most popular social media outlet and the beautiful game. Today is the day of instant information and then immediate analysis of said information, especially when it comes to major sports in the US. However, soccer still does not get that level of attention from the media, particularly when it comes to television and major sporting website coverage. Even the Fox Soccer Report, which is essentially soccer's own SportsCenter is hindered by licensing and rights to show highlights of games that have occurred, meanwhile they lag almost 12 hours behind when EPL games are early Saturday morning and one might not get a full scope of highlights until that evening US time. This has helped spawn the growing reliance on the internet to keep up with what is going on with both matches and players abroad, particularly those who may be of interest based on their relevance to the future of the USMNT. This is where this curious relationship between soccer fans in the United States and Twitter begins.
Twitter, for those of you who do not use it or have not heard of it, is a social media platform where users can update the world on what they are doing, thinking, feeling and anything else via 140 character text updates. Each user has a homepage, that show their most recent tweets, which can be update via text message, blackberry, iphone, the twitter website, and various other nifty modes. People generally follow others on twitter to receive updates on their most recent tweets and many people use it for many different reasons. I am a big twitter fan for a number of reasons, it helps us at Constantly Offside share posts and links we enjoy and update our loyal readers when we add a new post to the site, it helps us track other sites and know when they add new content and it allows us to follow our favorite soccer players around the world. You can scope our twitter, be sure to follow us to get the latest scoop on why Bob Bradley should be fired and why Chamo is the least valuable employee at CO. We also update with new posts and things we find cool, which I'm sure you will enjoy.
The true appeal to Twitter is getting that inside look at player's lives that we generally don't get as soccer fans. One of the roughest parts of being an American who enjoys soccer, both domestically and internationally is the lack of coverage that both players and games get in America. During the summer, ESPN and SportsCenter were doing a minimum of five minutes of coverage a night on Brett Favre and whether he would come back or not and updates on how his lawnmower was feeling and all sorts of garbage like that. Now I understand a lot of people love football, but that sort of coverage while the MLS is getting one minute for five games at the end of the show, and American players abroad are in the final stages of moves to international powerhouses like Milan gets almost no coverage is appalling and relatively insulting as a soccer fan and as a general sports fan. Certainly if ESPN has time for a weekly Nascar tonight show, it can fit a MLS weekly review show into it's lineup. This lack of attention for an emerging sport rapidly ignores many fans, myself included, and is rather short sided as soccer is really the last sports frontier in America. To ESPN's credit, they have launched EPL and La Liga coverage, so even though they may not always be keeping me up to date on the soccer world, they are trying.
The funny thing is that I knew where Jozy Altidore was going on loan just as quickly as ESPN or anyone else did via Twitter. Altidore had tweeted that he was headed to England and would announce where in the morning, so with Twitter's text messaging updates turned on, I awoke to a 5:30 am pacific time announcement that Jozy would be squaring off versus Chelsea in his first EPL match pending his work permit clearance. I was certainly excited to hear this, but was too tired to figure out who this actually meant he was playing for. Getting Mo Edu's injury report and health updates, Charlie Davies plans for his next goal celebration dance and Freddy Adu's reports on how the coach feels about his performance and when he will likely get a start gives us, the typical American soccer fan a level of insight and knowledge that we have never had before. This ability to have real time information on your favorite soccer player really makes Twitter stand above any other form of communication, because you can get information straight from the source, as most American soccer players abroad are not famous or rich enough to have someone do their tweeting for them. It establishes a bond between players and fans, as if you know them yourself since you get the inside scoop on what they are up to regularly.
Certainly tweetin it up isn't all soccer and business though. Some of my favorite tweets have to be when Stu Holden and Charlie Davies room together for national team games and trainings. It seems like they are constantly playing pranks on each other, making fun of each other, and showing off their purchases from trips out from camp. The camaraderie and friendship and the fact they both seem super cool makes it even more fun to cheer for them, as I could see them being guys that I would enjoy kickin it with. Updates on what guys are watching, doing, and thinking allows you to get to know players that you follow and cheer for week in and week out. This is something that fans in other countries have, where players are not only stars on the field but in the tabloids and the magazines. Twitter allows this interaction between players and fans, which is unique that you can get an inside look at what is going on with players that are half a world away, which is a very new possibility for the American soccer fan who wants to stay informed on the guys that represent our nation on the big stage.
Twitter isn't all fun and games though. Earlier this year, Brian Ching of the Houston Dynamo was fined five hundred dollars for this post game tweet after playing Seattle "Ref in seattle just cheated the dynamo. What a joke. Not even close. Ref is a cheat" Now I certainly don't feel that refs should generally be subjected to verbal abuse, but players do have the right to free speech. Unfortunately, this free speech went on Twitter and was distributed to the public, which the league was not keen on. Players have to remember that unlike a text message, when you hit up Twitter, you truly are expressing yourself to the whole world. Most of the world appreciates this, but you still have to watch your subject matter in case it could get you in trouble. When Darren Bent disparaged his club's owner via Twitter, he received a fine worth two weeks wages, or over $100k US dollars. He transferred teams quickly after that, so the financial impact was more of an symbolic punishment, but still it was a warning to players around the world that while Twitter is a great way to reach your fans, especially those in America, it has repercussions as well.
This Twitter phenomenon has been an unexpected blessing for most American soccer fans. Keeping up with your favorite player a world away is as easy as twitter.com/(insertsweetnamehere). Even if you don't tweet, signing up just to follow players is a viable option. You can get all the scoop about your favorite players in one place, not to mention the ability to get updates from your favorite soccer sites, governing bodies, and other exciting people. I have compiled a little list of my favorite people to follow on Twitter and you can easily add them as well by clicking on their names and then follow.
Twitter is the new standard of information for the well informed American soccer fan, and what a spectacular standard it is.
http://www.matchfitusa.com/2009/09/twitterverse-players-league.html