U.S. Soccer Archives - Sibling Rivalry https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/tag/u-s-soccer/ How Mexico and the US Built the Most Contentious, Co-Dependent Feud in World Soccer Wed, 01 Apr 2026 15:06:36 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Depth of Talent is a USMNT Game-changer https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/12/09/its-depth-of-choice-that-gilds-this-usmnt-cohort/ https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/12/09/its-depth-of-choice-that-gilds-this-usmnt-cohort/#respond Tue, 09 Dec 2025 23:19:34 +0000 https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/?p=4223 In assessing the inherent, overall quality of a golf course — not in comparison to another but on its own, in a vacuum — it’s helpful to start at the bottom: What’s the worst hole out there? Out of 18, how many objectively bad or fair-to-middling holes are there really? In other words, what's the [...]

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]]> https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/12/09/its-depth-of-choice-that-gilds-this-usmnt-cohort/feed/ 0 Envy & Scorn Furnish this Rivalry with Curiously Intimate form of Codependence https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/28/envy-scorn-furnish-this-rivalry-with-curiously-intimate-form-of-codependence/ https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/28/envy-scorn-furnish-this-rivalry-with-curiously-intimate-form-of-codependence/#respond Fri, 28 Nov 2025 13:42:08 +0000 https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/?p=4085 See below a brief excerpt from Chapter 1 of Sibling Rivalry, 400-odd words that help explain what 200 years of envy and scorn can do to a sporting rivalry. But first, a shout-out to photographer Tony Quinn, whose work is featured throughout the book. This image above captures the unalloyed bliss produced by yet another [...]

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]]> https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/28/envy-scorn-furnish-this-rivalry-with-curiously-intimate-form-of-codependence/feed/ 0 The Canonization of Graham Zusi, Patron Saint https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/25/the-canonization-of-graham-zusi/ https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/25/the-canonization-of-graham-zusi/#respond Tue, 25 Nov 2025 23:36:01 +0000 https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/?p=4171 Sibling Rivalry Excerpt: From Chapter 3: That morning of the October 2024 friendly down in Guadalajara, we weren't thinking about Graham Zusi, Patron Saint of the North American Derby. Still full of optimzism for US fortunes, my posse of New Englanders headed out for another outdoor brunch on a tropical terrace. Our stomachs well [...]

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]]> https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/11/25/the-canonization-of-graham-zusi/feed/ 0 Requiem for Match of the Day (and The Sanctity of Unspoiled Endings) https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/02/14/requiem-for-match-of-the-day-the-sanctity-of-no-spoiled-endings/ https://siblingrivalry.halphillips.net/2025/02/14/requiem-for-match-of-the-day-the-sanctity-of-no-spoiled-endings/#respond Fri, 14 Feb 2025 15:29:21 +0000 https://genzero.halphillips.net/?p=3681 There’s a wonderfully prescient exchange in Whit Stillman’s 1990 film, “Metropolitan,” wherein the know-it-all main character is interrogated on all the works of literature he can’t stop referencing. “You don’t have to have read a book to have an opinion on it. I haven’t read the Bible either,” he reveals, by way of defending [...]

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