Louisiana Soccer Association (LSA)

Internet Soccer Resources 

Last Modified    Mar 9, 1998   1:04

NOTICE - Added/Changed the following:

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There are a number of resources available on the World Wide Web (WWW) or Internet for soccer enthusiasts (actually, most of these exist for virtually any passion). I have attempted to categorize them into types below. I will explain how to use each and include a small number of samples but remember, the Web is a dynamic animal and changes minute by minute. For a more complete list of soccer-relevant Web Pages, see the page on "Interesting Sites"

e-mail

Web Pages

Audio

ListServers

Search Engines

Talk

NewsGroups

Agents

Chat or IRC Chat

Web Casts or Narrowcasts

Digizine??

Sam's Army and FanZine

E-mail

E-mail is an excellent method to reach all members of a team for communications purposes, keeping in touch easily both locally and remotely or arguing with a friend over long distances as to whose MLS team is better. e-mail requires the minimal connection of RS-232 and does not require SLIP or PPP TCP/IP although they are often used (don't worry if this sentence makes any sense - as long as you can get e-mail). e-mail requires a program to send, receive and allow you to compose mail called a "mail reader". It can either be a separate program like Eudora, Pine, mail or Elm, it may be embedded in your networking software (browser) like Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Explorer or it may be included in the software you use to access America Online, CompuServe Prodigy ... A quick check of my computer found 8 mail readers. You will probably want to pick a single program so all mail is in one place.

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List Servers

A List Server is a mechanism where many people can participate in group "discussions" using only e-mail. A List Server is a client/server service that one joins by subscribing - sort of like a subscribing to a magazine. Once you have subscribed, you will be able to participate in group discussions by e-mailing comments to the ListServer and these will automatically be sent ( or served ) to everyone who is a subscriber (client) on the list. About like Letters to the Editor - except everyone's get published You should be warned that some of these groups are very active and it is possible to get more than 100 messages a day. It may sound neat but wait till you leave town for a long weekend and return to 800 messages.

It is important to remember there are three e-mail addresses associated with a List Server

1) The address to communicate with the List administration- You will generally used this address very rarely and just to subscribe, unsubscribe, get help, find out who is on the list, find out what other lists may be offered ...
2) The address to mail comments to - This is the address up use to post
3) The adddressES of the other members of the list in case you want to respond personally - not thru the list where everyone on the list would get the comment.

I know of one case where someone meant to send their credit card number to an individual's address and mistakenly sent it to the comment address whereupon it was sent to every member of the list. Most e-mail programs have a "REPLY" but be sure to check the "TO" field to see who you are sending to. It can be either the individual who sent the post or the whole group depending on how the original sender filled out these fields. This is always clearer AFTER the first time you do it wrong. :-). When you subscribe, the List Server Manager will REPLY will explain how to POST and other details. Several excellent soccer ListServers are listed below:

  • The Official Catalog of Listserv 12,560 public lists out of 54,418 LISTSERV lists

  • North American Soccer Mainly US soccer and also the rest of the world.
    To Subscribe: na-soccer-request@hoplite.org - The BODY text is: subscribe
    Administrative: majordomo@hoplite.org - help in the BODY will get you a list of options

  • Soccer Coaches Coaching problems and solutions
    To Subscribe: LISTSERV@morgan.ucs.mun.ca - BODY is: subscribe SOCER-COACH-L

  • Women's Soccer All facets of women's soccer
    To Subscribe: majordomo@i-sol.com - The BODY text is: subscribe womens-soccer@i-sol.com

  • Referee Issues concerning referees
    To Subscribe: LISTSERV@uriacc.uri.edu - The BODY text is: subscribe SOCREF-L

  • AYSO American Youth Soccer Organization
    To Subscribe: LISTSERV@listserv.uic.edu - The BODY text is: subscribe AYSO-L

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    News Groups - also called UseNet Groups

    News Groups use e-mail to provide a centralized news service. E-mail messages are sent to a host computer that acts as a server. This server gathers into a central place messages about a single topic. People send e-mail to the server which stores the messages. Within an individual newsgroup, different sub-topics are being expanded constantly or simultaneously. To maintain an order, the Subject part of the mail header is used and the mail is organized by Subject or what are called Threads. The reason for placing Newsgroups at third is that they require special software - a newsreader. Many such readers are available either as separate programs or included with the Netscape Navigator and the Microsoft Explorer. Many school groups have News Groups. The last I read, there were over 14,000 NewsGroups. Newsgroups are stored at the discression of your provider so what is available may vary from user touser, however, most providers carry most?To get to them
    Under Netscape --- Window:Netscape News
    Under Explorer ---
    rec.sport.soccer
    alt.sport.soccer.european

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    Web Pages

    Web Pages are files that can be accessed via a browser such as Netscape, Mosaic or the Internet Explorer. They are accessible from all the popular groups like America On Line, Compuserve and Prodigy also. The Web Pages are files which are usually graphical in nature and contain hyperlinks to other related pages so it is possible to start at one place and "surf" or browse by simply clicking the mouse on a link. It is harder to explain than it is to do.

  • Individual - Pages of information provided by individual fans.
  • Womens Soccer World - Roger Roger's excellent source for all levels of women's soccer
  • Soccer on US TV - THE Place for Soccer on TV Information by Oliver Tse
  • College Game Scores and More - Soccer Information System

  • Link Pages - Wealths of resources, nice presented that are only a click away.
  • Mark Wheeler's US Soccer Page - Great Starting Point. Can probably find everything from here
  • Recent US Soccer News on the Web
  • Chris Brenner's NCAA Soccer Page - Excellent starting point for ALL college soccer


  • Organization - Pages published by various levels of soccer organizations.
  • FIFA - Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) On Line
  • USSF - USSF - US Soccer Federation
  • USYSA - USYSA - US Youth Soccer Association
  • USYSA State Soccer Associations - Nice List by USYSA
  • USYSA Sanctioned Tournament - Searchable List by USYSA
  • NCAA - National Collegite Athletic Assocaition - NCAA Online!
  • NSCAA - NSCAA - National Soccer Coaches Association of America
  • AYSO - American Youth Soccer Organization
  • MLSMajor League Soccer
  • USISL - United Systems of Independent Soccer Leagues
  • EISL - Eastern Indoor Soccer League
  • LSA - The Louisiana Soccer Association ( couldn't resist )
  • Local Soccer Associations - See "Interesting Sites", use Search Engines or just surf to find these

  • Commercial - Pages published in attempts to sell merchandise.
  • The Sport Source - Wylie Pub
  • SOCCER Index for SoccerNews OnLineŽIntermark
  • Official Sports
  • Law Five
  • BASF - Region III Sponsor
  • Eurosport - Region III Sponsor
  • Snickers® Home Page

  • Newspaper - Some of the few newspapers which regularly carry soccer-related stories.
  • The Advocate Online
  • NandO Soccer - Raleigh, NC News and Observer - Constant updates, Mostly international.
  • USA Today Sports Index - Daily coverage
  • NY Times
  • Washington Post
  • WBRZ-TV Home Page
  • NEWS - Newspaper URL's

  • Magazine - Magazines devoted to soccer.
  • Soccer America Online - Weekly magazine covering all facits of the game.
  • Soccer NewsNet - Soccer News - an in-depth monthly publication
  • College Soccer Weekly - Weekly TV College Game Highlights and Standings
    Televised on Fox but times vary in different parts of US or sometimes even in same part.
  • Sports Illustrated - Occasionally they will have some soccer news

  • Team Pages - Pages mantained either by the team or an enthusastic fan.
  • NOSA - New Orleans Soccer Association
  • CABOSA Caddo - Bossier Soccer Association
  • Gamblers - USISL New Orleans Riverboat Gamblers Home Page
  • Bombers - EISL Baton Rouge Bombers
  • Swamp Cats - EISL Lafayette Swamp Cats
  • American Universities - A list of university home pages.
  • also available are the URL's for most college campus newspapers
  • Many MLS Fans have set up Unofficial Pages for their teams and/or player
  • League Pages

  • Medical - Pages containing medical advice and suggestions.
  • Sports Medicine Online
  • Stretching and Flexability
  • Pediatric Orthopaedics
  • Injury Recovery, Stretching & Tight Muscles
  • Gatorade Sports Science Institute

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    5. Search Engines

    Search engines can be useful when you are looking for something in particular and do not know where to find it (its URL) on the Web. Because of the amount of information (Pages) on the Net, you will find it helpful to be as specific as possible (I looked up "soccer" earlier and the search stopped at 200,000 hits). One avenue of help is the use of multiple keywords when specifying the search criteria. Read the instructions for this on the search engine you are using as the methods vary. Asking for "college soccer" will yield fewer and more relevant hits that asking for "college" "soccer" (this is either or). Different search engines will work differently so it is hard to predict which touse.

  • metacrawler
  • WebCrawler Searching
  • Alta Vista: Main Page
  • Excite Home
  • InfoSeek Home Page
  • Infoseek EMAIL Search
  • TV Guide Listings Search
  • Starting Point
  • Galaxy-Searching Elsewhere
  • Search the Galaxy
  • Yahoo - Recreation:Sports:Soccer
  • Netscape Internet Search
  • The Open Text Index
  • Lycos, Inc. Home Page
  • AT&T 800 Directory
  • WWW Business Yellow Pages
  • Metasearch

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    Agents

    New to the scene is the idea of an Agent. An Agent is a program which will accept personalized likes and dislikes for its user and then go search the net for information which it thinks match your preferences. It then send the URL's or actual pages to the initialtor. While I think they will play a big part in the future, only one is around that I know of relating to soccer and wti was written and maintained by Mark Wheeler. He uses it to gather the latest soccer storeies every 3 hours and then poosts the results tohis web page.

    Recent US Soccer News on the Web

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    Web Casting or Narrow Casting

    As the volume of material on the Web increases, so does finding only what you want (finding a tree in a forest problem). I just looked up "soccer" in one of the search engines and it stopped at 200,000 pages found. One of the newest concepts to help with this problem is WebCasting. I consider this an electronic newspaper tailored to the individuals taste. The idea behind this is to allow a user to specify personal preferences (sort of like an agent) use the WebCast Program to contact the company, have the company "push" (transfer to your computer) you all the latest articles, maps, graphics, stock quotes ... that it finds in its sources that match your preferences.

  • Pointcast The first Webcasting program I have used. IT'S FREE - financed by a small displayed ad. Content is from CNN, Reuters, NY Times, Wired and probably will expand. The program runs on Windows 95 and the Macintosh and can be downloaded from Pointcast. You really should try this - if only to see the future (IMHO). Much of the below came from the Feb 24 issue of Business Week.

  • AOL - AOL plans to enter the world of Web Casting software which will be available automatically via their Driveway software this spring

  • Microsoft - Company will add channels to Windows 97 in the Summer.
  • Netscape - A browser named Constallation will debut in the Spring with Webcast capabilities.
  • Berkley Systems - Will combine its After Dark screensaver with webcasting
  • Ifusion - Similar to Pointcase and with more TV-like animation and video (how would like to get automatically "pushed" the goals from all televised games?)
  • Marimba - Castanet software can send programs with content.

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    Audio

    This is a relatively new form of data transmission where the user downloads an audio program and then can receive running audio descriptions of sporting events over the net to their computer. Audio flows only from the provider to the user (you). I do not know for sure if any soccer has been done this way but, it if has not yet, I would guess it will be.

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    Talk

    Runs via a program called "talk" under the operating system. This is a two-way data transmission which is old and very inefficient (from a computer standpoint). Two parties execute the "talk" program. After specifying the addresses of the party each is speaking to, each user sees a split screen with their typed dialog at the top and the other person's typed dialog at the bottom. Communication is duplex (2 way simultaneously). Remember though, only text is transmitted.

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    Chat or IRC Chat

    This is a new-improved version of TALK where multiple people can "chat". The soccer link below has a link to a very comprenhsive set of tutorials, software sources ... Actually there are at least two kinds - one is an application youdownload and execute on your computer and the other is a Web Page with an imbedded Java Applet that performs about the same functions. As a reminder - TALK in this case means READ CRARACTERS. -->

  • ISFA - Internet Soccer Fans Association - IRC Chat
  • Java Talk

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    Sam's Army

    Sam's Army - the Unofficial Fan Club of US Soccer
    Bookable Offense: the US Soccer FanZine

    Although not really a Net Resource, Sam's Army is a SOCCER resource that relies heavily on the Net for communication among its members. SAM'S ARMY wants enthusiastic soccer fans who will PARTICIPATE at games; they want people who will STAND and SING for the DURATION of the game, show their colors, bring original flags, give our team the home field advantage, and ENERGIZE the rest of the crowd. They want to make these events as fun as possible for everyone. The goal of SAM'S ARMY is to make soccer games a more enjoyable experience for everyone. Hooligan, racist, or violent behavior will not be tolerated. If you feel up to this challenge, then SAM'S ARMY is for you.

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    -http://www.lsa-soccer.org/netsoccer.htm-