, and beyond...

Any association football (soccer) fans here? Anybody follow an overseas club?

I've been a Queens Park Rangers' fan since I was a kid (Football Championship Division) and also a Portsmouth FC supporter (Football League 2).

Been a fan all my life ... lived in Latin America most of my youth and grew up with the game in my blood. The only team I ever felt any kind of kinship with was Colo Colo in Chile, because a native Chilean friend was as passionate about them as I am about the Redskins. It rubbed off on me. Haven't followed them much in recent years, but do still perk up whenever I catch the name.

Tried to love DC United, and enjoyed the wild early success the club had, but it's been a rough road recently and I've not kept up.

Mostly, I enjoy following the men's national team. Having grown up in Latin America in the 60's and 70's, I can tell you that "American soccer" was something of a joke in the circles I ran in. Never more so than in Argentina when I lived there during the runup to the World Cup in '78. Our utter insignificance on the global football stage was a source of much mirth and derision, and I had no answers.

Watching our slow and methodical rise to relevance has been a prideful thing, and I revel in simply being part of the international conversation.

I have this page bookmarked and visit it often...particularly in and around World Cup years.

Yeah, I got to know some of the SA clubs because of Univision and Telemundo when they first showed up on cable. I could catch La Liga games and get to see some of the other clubs down there. They would also show a lot of the international games that our networks weren't covering.

But overall it was a hard slog back in the day, broken only by the NASL and CBS (as I recall) coverage of it. I'm also a DC United fan and they have become the most difficult team to watch and root for lately. But I'm trying, Ringo. I'm trying real hard...

I've got some good friends in DC who are huge Arsenal fans, so I half-heartedly follow them. I like Tottenham b/c Dempsey plays over there, but mostly when it comes to soccer, I follow only the USMNT & USWNT. Its a lot of fun watching them, hoping one day they'll have their breakthrough moment.

My dad was a Gunners fan, and they are the closest club to where I was born. But for some reason, perhaps filial opposition, I went with QPR instead.