A south in the north: emplacing the south in the American national myth

Abstract

As part of a larger project concerning the men's World Cup of soccer in American culture, I examine media coverage of a single player on the US national team: Georgia Á born forward Clint Mathis. Texts constructed this player's persona through a discussion of his unique style and southern identity. I analyze the construction of American national and southern regional identity within this coverage underscoring how the formation took place on both an internal (national) and external (global) scale.

Comparing American soccer dialogues: social media commentary Surrounding the 2014 US men’s and 2015 US women’s World Cup teams

“…Various media coverage has documented the United States' slow adoption of soccer as a mainstream sport (Brown 2007;Buffington 2011;Novak and Billings 2012).…”