A truly global game

I am Dhaka for work and so missed the US v Spain game in South Africa, shown live locally at 1:00 AM. I had planned to watch it but got the time difference from South Africa wrong and woke up after the game had finished!

What a fabulous result and arguably the most impressive in the US national men's team history. I personally think it is bigger than that 1-0 win against England in Brazil in 1950 but I am biased.

As some great pictures from a UNHCR web site show, soccer, or football as it is called locally, is played in Bangladesh. The picture shown top left is courtesy of New Age sports in Dhaka, you have to scroll half way down the link page to see the coverage of Woman's national league after all the cricket news! You will see children kicking a ball around on any open land although sadly there is not a lot of that in this overcrowded city.

Now I have my game time right I will wake up to watch the final against Brazil on Sunday. Just check on how global that statement is. An Englishman in Bangladesh will watch, courtesy of an Indian TV channel, a live game from South Africa between the USA and Brazil.

Where ever I travel or have lived in the World, there has always been one language I could speak locally that people would understand, it's name changes - futbol, football, calcio, soccer- and it definitely played differently, but once the whistle blows its the same game planet wide.

Given how Brazil struggled against a very determined and tenacious South Africa, I think it will be very close and the USA has a real chance to lift its first international trophy.

Water water everywhere......

As this soggy spring soccer season slowly slides to a squelchy stop, the incessant rain looks like it will continue to plague our early summer. We certainly have had more rain than usual, with more games and practices canceled and fields unplayable even with the sun has come out. The heavy downpours have meant that the quality and capacity of our available fields has

been severely tested--and in most cases found wanting. Meadowbrook tops the list as the worst affected field, with local ducks getting more access than our own U-6 ducklings. Trench foot has now been added to the list of soccer-related injuries coaches need to look out for.

Joking aside, fields remain a very serious problem. Many thanks to the thousands of you who completed the different parent survey forms we shared. As we sift through the 17 pages of feedback from the recreational survey, it is clear that fields is the Number One issue on everyone's mind. This is what we plan to do about it over the summer:

• We will prepare a fields plan defining our current and likely expanded field needs as our programs continue to grow. We had a larger High School Division than in many years and could have added more teams from different parts of the city if we had had better field access. The plan will look at a mix of rental and lease options from public and private sources in DC and Maryland, including both grass and artificial turf. We will then identify new possible locations to serve our existing and potentially newcommunities.
  
• We will work with the very energetic new leadership at DC Department of Parks and Recreation (DCDPR) as they change the way fields are permitted and maintained. We are asking them for help in getting access to more District of Columbia Public Schoolsartificial turf fields at elementary, middle and high schools. We only had regular access to one high school field this last season, and given the nearly dozen fields the city has installed recently, that is not good enough. The lack of transparency in accessing DCPS fields is an impediment.
  
• We will review our DCDPR Premier Partnership agreement to see if the $120,000 we plan to invest in public field is being put to best use. DCDPR is considering increasing field use fees we will discuss their plans and try to ensure that this does not represent an additional burden to the club and you as parents, but rather relates to what we already spend in voluntary donations.
  
• We need to advocate for better access to fields in Montgomery County, given that a third of our families are from Maryland. Meadowbrook really should be left for the ducks with other alternatives identified.

I see fields as our main priority and we will work with DCDPR and the Maryland-*National Capital Park and Planning *Commission (M-NCPPC) to identify options for the Fall season.

We will also share on the web site analysis of the feedback we got from you.

Many thanks for your input and enjoy what I hope will be a dryer summer.