Thank You du Nord

Music Bruce Likes


And on the Seventh Day He Rested
I’m sure you’ve all seen the news by now if you are like thousands of other Major League Soccer fans and make du Nord part of your daily stop. Bruce is officially going on hiatus, and it could be a permanent break. In his own words:

"I am definitely going to take a break from du Nord.
I have no idea if it will be for days, weeks, months or forever.
But I do know that I am burnt out, and need to step away.
As soon as I know more, so will you.
Thanks for all the great patronage."

With those words Bruce stepped away from his massive undertaking. Bruce, you rock. Thanks for bringing MLS news to all of us starved fans. We had a place to go that focused solely on the spreading of information that was pertinent and important to us. You celebrated all of soccer, but you celebrated the players, teams, coaches, and fans of MLS and American soccer the most.

Without you I would have never grown to love MLS like I do today. I would not know the inner workings of MLS that are discussed on the internet but not put into a comprehensive information package. You took the world of MLS and bound it together with impeccable organization and formatting. Thousands of people from all walks of life learned from your work. You spread the love of MLS like no other blogger.

You also were actively involved in the soccer community. Thanks for organizing bus trips, ticket packages, and watch parties.

And on the Sixth Day He Created Advantage Played
I am sure I am just one of many bloggers who was inspired to start their own project because of Bruce, but without the opening Wizards game last year and a quick meeting with Bruce there would be no Advantage Played.

I met the big man while hanging out at the cauldron tailgate. I recognized his great big bushy beard and chatted with him for 10 minutes. While we talked, I mentioned I was doing professional writing for a web company. Later I emailed Bruce and told him anytime he needed help, I was willing.

And Bruce gave me a chance. Without ever reading my writing, he let me fill in for him while he was gone several times, the first times I had ever written about soccer. With each article I published my confidence grew, so when Bruce encouraged me to start a blog, Advantage Played was born.

Of course, he linked me as one of his main stories of the day and put me in his Starting 11. Thanks Bruce, without you I doubt anyone would be reading this right now.

And on the Other Five Days He Worked His Ass Off
How much did he work? Let’s take a gander:

• 1,296 posts
• Four years of updates
• Five posts a week
• Around 1000 words per update
• Around 15-30 links per update
• Constant tracking of all major tournaments
• Constant tracking of major match ups
• A sweet schedule that puts mine to shame
• A generous list of soccer blogs

Let’s put some all time numbers together

• Links to over 16,500 different articles
• Over a million words written

Those are fucking big numbers. How about the time he put in? I have no idea how long each update took but I imagine from start to end they probably averaged 3-5 hours a piece. For my calculation below I’m going with the low 3.

• That’s a minimum of 3888 hours just on posts alone
• Or 162 days
• Or 23 weeks
• Or 5.7 months

And on the Eighth Day He Didn’t Get Paid
Oh ya and you did it all for free. You’re work is quality, and there are many information professionals who package information for a living. They command anywhere from 25-75 dollars an hour. Let’s put you at the 75 dollar range.

• That’s 291,600 dollars
• Or a decent house
• Or 14 elephants
• Or a whole USL team
• Or Two Cessna SkyCatchers
  
• Or 100 1991Volkswagen Bus/Vanagon GL

In other words, Thanks dude!

What is Advantage Played?

Listening to Dr. Dre – The Chronic While Reading

SeeqPod - Playable Search

Emo Update
Hey ya’ll. Today I’m going to go all whiny and emo on you and talk about myself and this blog instead of going on about soccer news like supplemental drafts and Peter Crouch and Generation Adidas Players. What exactly is Advantage Played all about? What am I trying to do here, what is my purpose in blog life? How do I fit in with all 'dem other blogs out there?

The Answers to My Own Questions
I started Advantage Played about three weeks ago because I love soccer and I love writing. I figured I had some free time on my hand (even though I’m in graduate school) and might as well spend it writing about soccer.

I started Advantage Played with a review of the MLS '08 season because it gave me something stable to fill in a week or two. It went OK. I tried to include lots of videos. I’m not sure Advantage Played will ever be about straight news.

What Advantage Played Is Not
Well it’s not a straight news site. Everyone else has got that shit covered. And it’s not like The Offside Rules because I’m not about posting single pictures or videos. So where does that leave me?

What Advantage Played Is
Advantage Played is about media and writing combined. I think without doubt the best articles I’ve done so far is my interview with Ruud Gullit and yesterday’s piece on Fabio Capello’s favorite art. I promise to include pictures with every update, videos when possible, and a seeqpod playlist when there are no videos in the update.

So what is Advantage Played? It’s a satire, humorous, informative, and in depth blog that is media heavy. And it’s only updated three times a week. Sue me. I know some blogs updated several times a day but each of my updates (except this one) take a couple hours to put together.

Besides just humor and satire I hope to publish a series of interviews with college soccer players soon. I’ll take you inside the world of college soccer and look at young American players who are moving unnoticed through the system.

What Do You Want?
And then it also comes back to you. I know there are people reading this (thanks Google Analytics). What do you want to see more of? What have you enjoyed so far? Please email me at grahamfox@gmail.com

Twitter
Oh ya I update my Twitter feed a couple times every day and link to Match of the Day torrents on the weekends. So follow me because I’m cool.

Christmas Updates
You’ll get a Monday update about God knows what. Probably a Wednesday update too but it’s going to get sporadic after that. I'll be back to regular posting for sure by the 5th of January.