Welcome To Stars And Stripes FC

Hello all and welcome to Stars and Stripes FC, SB Nation's newest mistake blog dedicated to everything United States soccer. This is your home for the beautiful game, covered in chili and cheese and served with a beer.

We'll have everything on the men as they chase that elusive World Cup trophy and we'll settle for a few more wins over Mexico and a return to regional dominance in the meantime. But while the men continue to toil away, the American women just keep racking up gold medals and we'll have everything on our fine ladies here too. And then there are the youth teams, Americans abroad, Americans in MLS, the continued evolution of the U.S.S.F. and Brek Shea's hair, which is probably more important than all of the aforementioned things.

My name is Ryan Rosenblatt and I will be captaining this wayward ship. I am an unabashed U.S. fan who was in South Africa for the World Cup, watched the Mexicans lose dos a cero in Columbus and have withstood the constant abuse of being a U.S. fan from visiting fans who have been less than friendly and from our very own Americans, but luckily that faction is getting smaller and smaller.

I've been a part of the SB Nation network for years now, initially writing about college sports before working my way over to soccer. Now I write about Tottenham Hotspur at Cartilage Free Captain and am also the North American Soccer Editor over at the SBN hub, but while I am responsible for everything fabulous, I can assure you that anything wrong at either place is not my fault. It's Bob Bradley's.

I will be joined on here by Kevin McCauley, who is like me and needs a better hobby than watching 22 men run around in short shorts. He is also over at Cartilage Free Captain and is the World Soccer Editor at the SBN hub, while adding some egg-shaped football work to his already obscene workload.

We're lucky enough to also have Zach Woosley around these parts. You may know him as The Ginge and you probably remember him yelling at something on one of his podcasts or tweeting in all caps about Everton at such an early hour that you chalked it up to reading things wrong before you got your coffee. No, that really was him saying those thing and we are glad to have him.

Rounding things out on our team is Lauren Barker, who will be all over the women's team for us. She is all kinds of awesome, which you probably know if you read her stuff at All White Kit, World Soccer Reader or American Soccer News. If you didn't, shame on you.

The best part of SB Nation blogs is the community aspect of it. The format makes it easy for everybody to chime in, either in the comments, fanposts or fanshots. We encourage you to speak your peace. Of course, be respectful and follow the rules laid out in the agreement when you sign up, but this place is as much a community effort as it is work from the four of us so please, speak up. We want to hear that the Yanks would have won in Guatemala in June if not for Johnathan Bornstein, that Megan Rapinoe would have run for president (and won) if not for age discriminatory rules and that Brek Shea can do no wrong, so tell us.

Welcome one, welcome all. This is the land of Brian, the home of Brandi and the place for our Yanks.

Before any of you ask, all of us have had our long form birth certificates checked so we are all true, red-blooded 'Muricans. Fly your attack eagle somewhere else.