Just received @caitlinmurr The National Team from @printbookstore, so planning to read that and re-read the late David Wangerin’s Soccer in a Football World concurrently, with a mid-1980s to present timeline in mind. #ReformUSSF #ProRelForUSA

The 24-month period that defines the modern USSF:

Nov. 19, 1989: USMNT qualify for 1990 World Cup

Apr. 6, 1990: Chuck Blazer helps Jack Warner win CONCACAF election

Aug. 6, 1990: Alan Rothenberg elected USSF president

Nov. 30, 1991: USWNT win inaugural women's World Cup

Can’t stop, won’t stop.

Goal this morning is to identify excerpts from my home library (and a loan of Das Reboot from @_DMcDermott) to create a more in-depth timeline of off-field goings-on, shenanigans, and reforms since the mid-1980s.

Already, another defining date for soccer governance:

June 11, 1974: FIFA's election of João Havelange as president

There's quite a bit about the election in @Davidsgoldblatt The Ball Is Round, but this @FourFourTwo article is a good summary: https://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/election-changed-football-when-joao-havelange-unseated-sir-stanley

This excerpt from @kenbensinger Red Card previews why Havelange’s election as FIFA president in 1974 transformed that organization, but also can be read as a preview of the impact Rothenberg’s election as USSF president in 1990 will have on American soccer.

Remarkable similarities between the 1974 FIFA presidential election and the 1990 USSF presidential election, not only in the make-up of candidates but also the winning candidates' long-term impacts on their respective organizations.

Conservative, public service-minded incumbents ousted by more ambitious, business-minded challengers.

Amateur, financially-modest organizations not known for shady dealings changing almost overnight to professional, financially-driven organizations known for more shady dealings.

(Getting ahead of myself a bit, but this from Bensinger: United Passions, a movie lionizing FIFA bureaucrats, cost $27M and mostly funded by FIFA.

Final showing in the U.S. was on 40th anniversary of Havelenge's 1974 election and its U.S. box office was $918.

No typo: $918.)

(Here's the trailer for the movie: )

Okay, last one before chores and lunch.

An excerpt from The Ball Is Round that captures so much: Havelange’s political skill; the changing culture within FIFA re: financial and internal governance; and the rise of Sepp Blatter.

Have read and re-read this Wright Thompson piece about COVID-19, Italy, soccer, and food a couple times over the last week or so: https://www.espn.com/soccer/italian-serie-a/story/4079004/a-letter-from-the-coronavirus-quarantine-missing-serie-apasta-and-friendship

The article inspired me to start re-reading the late Joe NcGinnis’s The Miracle of Castel di Sangro.

The author spent the 1996-1997 season embedded with the club that represented the town of of about 6,000 in its first season in the Serie B.

The narrative of that season is engaging, but the post-WWII history of the club broken down in the fourth chapter is something.

Founded in 1953 as an amateur club in the country's 10th division, the club stayed in that lowest of divisions for thirty years.

Beginning in 1983, this club representing a town of about 6,000 steadily earned promotions until it peaked in Italy's 2nd division (Serie B).

I was born in 1983, and can only imagine what it would be like to be a supporter, a player, a coach, and/or an administrator of a local club with that trajectory.

Here in the U.S., though, we can't get beyond imagining that *opportunity*--let alone that reality. #ProRelForUSA