AN AMERICAN GAME
Some say that soccer is an American game. Okay, Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell say that, and it might sound weird if you’re an American soccer fan, and you’ve spent your whole life defending your love for the game to people who say the US has no soccer history.
But: soccer was in New Jersey before it was in Brazil. The US had a pro league before Italy or Spain. We were the first country to register for the first World Cup. In this series, the former teammates tell stories from the 150 years of American soccer history that even die-hard fans may not know. Tom is one of the pre-eminent historians of American soccer, and Kirk is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter, so it’s real history that’s fun to listen to.
With a World Cup coming this year, we want to give American fans a reason to stand a little prouder, cheer a little louder, and celebrate the generations of immigrants who brought their dreams, and the game, with them. Because it’s our game, too.
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Episodes
17 episodes
Jersey Odyssey: Our Visit to Soccertown, USA
From: Bank of AmericaTo: Tom and KirkSubject: Pre-World Cup screening of SOCCERTOWN, USAAnd so an adventure began: an invitation to meet up in New Jersey for a screening of our award-winning 2019 documentary, followed by a ...
Archie Stark and the Scotch Professors
Tartan Army, assemble!Grab your Walker's shortbread and Laphroaig and listen to a tale of your ancestors, who traveled over the ocean to the United States and Canada... as many of you will this summer for the World Cup (if world events a...
Atlanta 2.0 -- Back to the Benz
Last fall, Atlanta was one of our Starting XI of US Soccertowns. As it prepares to host games in the World Cup, Tom and Kirk take a look at how preparations are going in the literal home of US Soccer.Then we re-broadcast the Atlanta sect...
Our Family Versus Your Team: Inside the St. Benedict's Soccer Dynasty
Tucked in the middle of Newark, New Jersey is a small school called St. Benedict's Prep that has had a huge impact on high school soccer. For 40 years the Gray Bees have been the most dominant soccer program in the country...and one of the most...
A Boycott Is a Flat Circle: the 1980 US Olympic Soccer Team
"History rhymes" is a thing we say a lot, paraphrasing Mark Twain who was also probably thinking about soccer. With the threat of a boycott hanging over this summer's World Cup, we go back 47 years to when the U.S. Men’s Soccer Team qualified f...
It's a Duck, It's a League, It's...USL
In 2028, when USL Premier launches, the United States will have a Division One pro soccer league at the top of a promotion-relegation pyramid. Sexy!But we're in 2026, when a potential players' strike threatens the entire USL season. Not ...
AITA? I'm Co-Hosting the World Cup with Mexico and Canada
In 2018, when the United States, Mexico, and Canada were selected to co-host this year’s World Cup, it sounded like fun: three friendly democracies throwing the world's biggest soccer party.LOL. LMAO, even. T...
Generation VICTORY: A Tribute to the Greatest Holiday Soccer Film Ever Made
We’re back! Sort of. Season Two of AN AMERICAN GAME will be coming your way in February 2026, and we’ve got so many new stories to share about US soccer history that we’re burning one now. Hahaha that can’t possibly come back to bite us, rig...
Soccertowns: A Starting XI of US Soccer
If towns make a nation, we think our soccertowns make us a soccer nation. That’s kind of, like, our whole thing–it’s literally the name of the show. In our final episode of Season 1, we play a full 90 minutes (plus added time!) and dig into ...
Water Break
Look, if it were up to Tom and Kirk they'd just play through but, you know, Wet-Bulb Temperature, FIFPRO Players' Union mandates, blah blah blah.So while the team guzzles [ENERGY DRINK SPONSOR TK], enjoy this mini-episode where they foll...
Little Earthquakes: The First Women’s National Team
The US victory in the 1999 Women’s World Cup has been called “a tsunami hitting the shore” for women’s soccer in the United States. But the seismic activity that started that wave goes way back to the 19th century. (Surprised? You must be new h...
Lone Eagles: US Goalkeepers
Some of our greatest writers have been goalkeepers. Unfortunately, none were available for this episode, so Tom and Kirk dug out their Goalkeepers’ Union cards to celebrate the one position where the United States has produced world class socce...
AN AMERICAN GAME: Halftime
Peep! It's halftime at AN AMERICAN GAME, and we’re in the locker room making "tactical adjustments" (getting ice packs strapped to our bodies while guzzling ibuprofen and Gatorade.) So let's go over to the studio where Alexi- haha, no, where To...
The Original Denim Kit: The USA at the 1930 World Cup
What has steamships, chloroform, and the King of Romania? This episode of An American Game, about the US National Team's incredible performance in the first World Cup, hosted by Uruguay in 1930. Tom and Kirk take us back to that tough and talen...
Treasure Hunt: Where is the Oldest Trophy in US Sport?
Quick: what's the oldest trophy in American sports? Wrong. In Episode 2 of An American Game, Tom and Kirk tell the story of the AFA Cup, first given out 140 years ago (before the Stanley Cup) and, for decades, the top ...
Bullets: Father of American Soccer
How did a bullet change the course of American soccer? In the first of a new series about the long, colorful, and mostly-forgotten history of US soccer, Tom McCabe and Kirk Rudell--old friends, college teammates, soccer obsessives--join forces ...
