Man, Euro 2020 (*2021) was sure fun to watch. And Copa América was too! And we here in the United States now get to watch our own continental championship: the Gold Cup, which is a poor imitation.

For the Star Tribune, I wrote about what the United States can do about this. The answer probably isn’t a change of circumstances, but a change of attitude

For all the talk about tactics, international soccer will never be a playground for the same smoothly-purring machines that we see in club soccer. The teams are one step beyond all-star teams, but the games are so meaningful that we love them anyway.

At the Star Tribune, I wrote about why the teams aren’t as good, how the U.S. Women’s National Team is an exception to this rule - and why we love international soccer all the same.

The European Super League would have concentrated all the money and all the power in the hands of a few elite superclubs in Europe. Now that it’s dead, possibly forever, we’re left with a system where… all of the money and all of the power are concentrated in the hands of a few elite superclubs.

For the Star Tribune, I wrote about how the European Soccer League is dead, but the current system isn’t really that much different.

I don’t like that MLS plays games during international tournaments like the World Cup and Copa América and the Gold Cup, but its spring-to-fall schedule virtually requires it. The league needs a summer break for tournaments, and a winter break for weather - so I’m thinking it’s time to go to a two-seasons-per-year schedule, like Mexico.

Christian Pulisic is off to Chelsea, and Soccer Insider - back for 2019! - couldn’t be more excited.

On the way to Sunday’s Twins game with my brother, I mentioned something offhand, that I’m sure a lot of people were thinking on their way to Target Field: If this was going to be Joe Mauer’s last game, I was glad we were going to be there for it.

I have made as many Mauer jokes as anyone, all of them centered on his ability to be private in public: Joe is bland. Joe is boring. Joe is too decent and polite to be interesting. Back when the Twins used a scoreboard to show lightweight biographical facts about players, I remember Mauer’s biggest fear displayed as “disappointing his parents.” It all seemed too normal.

That was Mauer’s persona: normal. It never seemed forced or calculated or cunning, like it does with some athletes, especially the greats that want to come across as Everyman for marketing purposes - just guarded. Mauer, who was inarguably great, just seemed normal. His defining characteristic was his lack of defining characteristics. He seemed exactly like the ten thousand other Minnesotans I’ve met, even though he’s been locally famous since he was a teenager. All my jokes were, really, a wish for intimacy, a desire to know Mauer’s genuine, authentic self: please, Joe, we want to know who you really are. Tell us what you’re really like.

I knew how good he was, the numbers spoke for themselves. It wasn’t until he signed his contract extension, and started becoming the subject of endless ill-considered and mean-spirited criticism, that I started really pulling for him. I felt protective of him, I guess, because it seemed so unfair that some people treated him so poorly – a sense of injustice that only multiplied when a concussion cut his catching career short.

As Sunday’s game wore on, I wasn’t surprised to find myself rooting hard for him to do something good on his last day, since it suddenly seemed so obvious that he would retire after the game. Unexpectedly, the Twins pulled out the stops to honor him; his twin girls were on the field pre-game, the scoreboard showed a few old favorite advertisements he’d done, and every time he came to the plate, he was greeted with a standing ovation.

He hit a couple of ground balls – more fodder for the critics, I squirmed internally – and when he came to the plate in the seventh inning, it was obvious that this could be his last time up. What if he struck out? One final at-bat, and it felt like it was a referendum on his entire career, and after all that had happened to him, the worst thing would be if the critics won, in the end.

When he lined the ball to left field, I was afraid it’d be caught. When it landed, and he rounded first base at speed, I was terrified he’d be thrown out. When he slid safely into second, I was overwhelmed by relief – he did it! – and then not properly on guard for the outpouring of emotion. The crowd was ecstatic. Mauer gestured to the dugout and the fans and touched his heart. Of course it was a double to the left-center gap. Could it be anything else? I had tears in my eyes.

I thought that was the end. I thought that the Twins would let him take the field in the ninth inning, then put in a defensive replacement, to give the fans one more chance to express their gratitude and appreciation. When the fans nearest the Twins dugout started roaring, before the ninth inning began, with the field completely empty, I knew I was wrong.

Players always want a chance to go out on top, and fans want that too, but in some ways Mauer’s goodbye was better. Alone on the field, with his catching gear on, behind the plate where he had always wanted to be. He fought back the tears, and won, sort of. The camera found plenty of fans who lost that battle.

Maybe Mauer’s most impressive accomplishment, in the end, was getting a bunch of stoic Minnesotans to cry in public.

It was cathartic, it was heartwarming. He was happy, and knew we loved him; we were happy, and knew he loved us.

It occurred to me then that I’d been wanting Joe Mauer to show us who he really was for two decades, beyond the politeness and the respect and the niceness and the normality. I’m the same age as Mauer, give or take a year. My friends and I played every sport we could and went to Minnesota high schools and married Minnesota girls, and now we have kids and are dealing with oft-failing, creaking bodies and graying hair. Joe isn’t one of my friends, but he always seemed like he could have been, and like the rest of my friends it’s not so important who they claim to be as who they genuinely, authentically are.

What I had failed to realize until Sunday is that maybe the politeness and the respect and the niceness and the normality was Mauer’s way of showing us who he genuinely, authentically was, all along.

You can even find American soccer fans that insist on calling the sport football, not soccer, and talking about matches and tables and pitches instead of games and standings and fields. And that’s fine, call it what you want, but one word isn’t more proper than another. Soccer Insider is about our football / fútbol / futebol lexicon, how those words came to be - and why they matter so much to people.

Fall is right around the corner - where has September gone?

For the Star Tribune: the soon-to-debut Miami MLS team introduced its rather complicated name, and I wrote that names like “Inter Miami” make the league seem more fake, not more authentic. I previewed the NWSL playoffs, focusing on North Carolina and Portland, which thankfully turned out to be the right call. And I wrote about why I love the Champions League this year, and in general, since the soccer world’s biggest competition kicked off recently.

On the Minnesota United side of things, for 1500 ESPN, I graded the ten most important personnel moves of the MLS version of the franchise so far, a post that could have run to 20 moves and 2500 words, if I had the space. And, in an attempt to be positive, I wrote about the most positive thing I could think of: that the team even exists at all.

The college football season starts this week. I’ve always maintained that, done properly, soccer looks a lot less like the NFL and a lot more like college football. Here’s a couple of things soccer can learn from its college gridirno brethren, in the Star Tribune.

When sports leagues do things that are barefacedly anti-fan, I get a little bit peeved. Enter La Liga and MLS, both of which are doing their best to make it hard on fans.

Side note: This is the first week of something new, in that the Star Tribune is going to post my column on Friday during the day, rather than waiting until Friday evening / Saturday to post it online. So far, the extra interest that this is garnering has been pretty nice to see.