Back in 2010 Ryan Shawcross was big news in English soccer. Not, sadly, for any act of soccer brilliance.

So Phil Neville will be Inter Miami's new coach. Is this, as the Miami bosses would have us believe, the beginning of an exciting new era in soccer (well, American soccer, or maybe just MLS soccer, come to that)?

Soccer's reaction to the concussion issue has been a joke. But it is much worse than that. It is a disgrace, and a dangerous one at that.

My sincere thanks to the United Soccer Coaches for handing me their new award -- their Media Career of Excellence award.

I treasure memories of both those guys. I saw much more of Pele, spending a month filming with him in the summer of 1972, in Santos, then later being close at hand as he played in New York.

Our opponents were always teams of working class boys, rather scrawny-looking lads, not as comfortably bred, or as well-fed, as us.

The world of pro soccer is not where you go if you're looking for objectivity, and unbiased opinions. Fan loyalty, club loyalty, player loyalty, regional loyalty ...

The idea is to make the words interesting, even downright fascinating. Of course, things can go too far. Deplorably, guru-talk, has run away with itself.

It happens in every game. The referee goes up to a player, or a group of players, and delivers what looks like a stern lecture.

The MLS Is Back tournament, championship, extravaganza, whatever it was, worked out pretty well, I thought. I mean, given how hastily it was concocted.

If there's one factor above all others that thoroughly incenses me about VAR, it's this business of dictatorial offside decisions based on millimetric measurements.

When Atlanta announced that it had signed Frank De Boer as the coach to replace Tata Martino, I called the appointment a "betrayal."

If you were a season-ticket holder with a big club and found that, seated next to you at every game, there was Taylor Twellman, how long before you requested a different seat?

Some years ago I read an article in the English press that greatly irritated me. I tore the page from the newspaper and put it aside for further study.

Another episode of quarantine-induced nostalgia has surfaced. We're going back over 70 years for this one ...