Mr. Garber, Tear Down This Wall!
MLS has been “America First” for 20 Years. We’ve Walled Off Mexican Soccer Culture as a Result.
“I get this idea that there are people who think for the time being we as a country need to think about ourselves and the security of our country first and foremost. As a father of two young children, I can understand that. But ultimately, I truly believe the United States is a country that has always been about welcoming people from all over the world and giving them an opportunity for a better life, an opportunity they otherwise wouldn’t have.”
— Michael Bradley, U.S. Men’s National Team Captain, to Sports Illustrated
Michael Bradley, same guy as above, upon reflection, suddenly sounding#WokeAF on his rather ordinary, not-even-the-first-Mike-Bradley-insta-when-Googled instagram account:
Through Reluctant-Captain-America, U.S. Soccer soft launched its #WokeAF roar staunchly against Donald Trump’s immigration ban (#IsThisThingOn). Assuming anything less that total empathy of the European club soccer journeyman with the plight of refugees could be a bit of a non-starter. Soccer is a global sport after all; it would follow that gringo soccer fans are a global people (in theory). Solidarity with Mexico against the #FuckingWall and standing with refugees on Trump’s #MuslimBan is probably a given with our lot.
In U.S. Soccer’s attempts to integrate with the global soccer economy, however, one can’t help but notice the large wall separating American fans from the large 100-year-old soccer playing elephant next door. Especially considering Mexico has outplayed the U.S. in their last few showdowns. Rather convincingly, might I add. One can’t help but ask: what do they have that we don’t?
Furthermore, how do I know so little about Mexican soccer?
As an economic policy wonk (I’ve got the masters debt to prove it), this post is more an introduction and a statement of purpose toward future posts. Through my Gringo Samba platform, I want to chart a new course for soccer journalism through a data-focused lens that is uniquely mine. Here’s the primer:
How has U.S. soccer interacted with economic and cultural globalization? What can U.S. soccer learn? What can economic and cultural globalization learn?
More specifically, how can the rift between the U.S. and Mexico be explained by their soccer relationship? Using the data on the ground, what can the U.S., especially Major League Soccer Chairman Don Garber, do to #TEARDOWNTHISWALL and maximize the benefits of a globalized soccer market? And what would that look like?
First, we need to understand the political economy of the U.S.-Mexico soccer relationship. In lieu of an actual thorough data exploration (that’s for later), let’s get to know each other first. I’ll go first. Here’s a point of view that only my eclectic study of international economic history literature, soccer podcasts, data science, and rap battles can provide.
The Gringo Great Leap Forward: “America First” Soccer Since 1994
My selective, irreverent historical political economy review of U.S. soccer describes soccer culture in the free world as pretty much the opposite of #woke: isolationist, “America First,” proudly protectionist, and eerily socialist (but obviously completely incongruous with any recent world regime changes).
The USA’s 1994 World Cup signaled the Gringo Great Leap Forward. For once in recent history, America had their own generation of plucky soccer misfits characterized by lanky, athletic goalkeepers, blue-collar center-backs, and stoic defensive midfielders. We weren’t just watchers on the wall, waiting for the international soccer wildings to come to us. Look at that picture. We were the wall! We were the wildlings! Actually oh shit never mind Brazil is super good. What are you looking at me for? Defend! Defend! Defend!
After an acceptable loss to eventual champions Brazil (when even tiny creative midfielder Tab Ramos took a skull fracture for the Stars and Stripes), it became clear to new American fans (i.e., six-year-old me) the need to defend, nurture, and cultivate the next generation of wildling U.S. soccer culture. Our soccer brand was young and naive; it needed to grow and civilize. Moreover, it needed to be protected against the against swift-moving, high-transfer-fee, globalizing currents of world soccer.
Outside all of this were all the other geopolitical implications of 1994 I didn’t know about at the time: the Soviet Union was in the middle of a messy custody suit for all 15-ish of its satellite breakaway countries. The U.S. and capitalism just won the Cold War handily and are looking to cash in. Even more amazingly, after centuries of war, European Union countries signed the Maastricht treaty the year before, solidifying their commitment to move their trade union into a full currency union. This momentous change in global economics would live on happily ever after; the new currency and the interacting European economies, including the soccer economies, would have no future economic problems whatsoever, especially with far-right anti-globalists. The world was open for business, and in the soccer business, the world had a head start of more than a century. In the Premier League Coup of 1992, English soccer clubs earned the revenue to truly globalize their product in a brave new world of unknown comparative advantages.
Meanwhile, back stateside, most if not all Team USA guys topped out at amateur college soccer. Six Americans were playing on international pro contracts, maybe twenty of our boys were good enough to secure international contracts on their own merit, but probably not much more.
The U.S. didn’t have a professional league and no real pipeline for developing talent, and the last time we tried that we failed miserably. The first North American Soccer League was quite probably the least successful business ever, poking vulnerabilities all over U.S. soccer culture. Highlights of the Failed Pele Uprising include:
- Spent like a 1970s-Chinese-Super-League for in-form Pele, Beckenbauer, Best, Cryuff, Chinaglia, and a few other 1970s-era Carlos-Tevez-models. An All-NASL Team would have been World Soccer Greatest Hits Album of the late 60s, early 70s.
- The NASL was better known as the Pele marketing machine (or, to fit the political economy narrative, the Pele Uprising). NASL made no secret about using the star power of the world’s best player to attract soccer watchers in his twilight years. But he can only do so much in a team-invasion game: the superstar only won one league championship in his much-vaunted move to the U.S. Stop me if any of this sounds familiar.
- Unfortunately in America, pro leagues need more than 11 players to survive. The NASL player pools was like the poorly-managed USFL: all-time legends surrounded by mediocrity, and generally piss-poor attendance and TV revenues (no pun intended, Mr. President).
- Also like the poorly-managed USFL, the NASL went bust. But not because the product was relatively inferior (aside from Mexico, we didn’t get international soccer games on U.S. screens). American soccer’s failure was deeply structural:
- For one, Americans don’t have attention spans that last beyond basketball’s 24 second-shot clock.
- For two, there were no Glorious Leaders Sunil Gulati and Don Garber with private and still probably questionable accounting practices that guarantee some MLS credit scores that may still be rated a little too high.
Unlike the Failed Pele Uprising, the Gringo Great Leap Forward won much more early stage capital from hosting the World Cup. That said, U.S. Soccer realized the next stage, the Growth Stage of total market integration was pretty far away if they did not develop world-class talent at home and fast.
Also, British fans mocked American soccer fans for The Failed Pele Uprising in soccer message boards years later, and it really hurt the American fans’ feelings. Sometimes, it still hurts.
Shaking fists in tow, the U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) got down to business to show those know-it-all-jerks (i.e., the world) that we weren’t just narcissistic dumb-dumbs (Sorry, world. That last try didn’t work out). All the factors of production: capital, labor, and even land were mobilized in a way that would make Chairman Mao blush. There was an implied precedent that everything soccer-related in the U.S. from 1994 onward, be it public or private in administrative scope, would be focused on two “America First” policy goals:
- In a country that has dominated, like, every Olympics ever, develop a national team that can win the World Cup.
- In a country that has, like, the best pro sports leagues ever, create a pro league that can compete with the best in the world at home and abroad.
Easy. Twenty years. Tops.
Every coach from my volunteer-assistant dad to Bruce Arena and every player from 6-year-old AYSO Matt to Landon “Gringo Messi” Donovan got with the program. We were to horde around the soccer ball, chasing and kicking our way to greatness until we were like those bubbles in a Guinness pint rising to the top.
Greatness! This isn’t some bougie soccer mom fad, this is the American soccer working man’s revolution! Hard work, sheer determination, and devotion to country will make the U.S. Soccer bulwark strong! The bountiful grandeur of soccer culture will trickle down to all soccer-ballers who work hard enough! America First! World Cup Next!
This in mind, the “America First” policy made sense for the debut of Major League Soccer, which was the centerpiece of USSF’s Cultural Revolution:
- If we’re going to win the World Cup, we need good Team USA soccer-ballers to do it.
- While we’re developing our good Team USA soccer-ballers, why not also pit them against each other and make goal #1 our universal selling point for all things MLS and keeping this whole thing afloat financially? USA! USA! USA! And pay full price for tickets, comrade!
“America First” Soccer’s Industrial Policy: Import Substitution
Goal #2 looks a little weird at first glance. But Soccer United Marketing (SUM), the marketing arm of both USSF and MLS which totally has no conceivable conflicts of interest ever, had a pretty textbook socialist strategy to developing the American soccer industry. SUM’s “America First” MLS strategy represented import substitution industrialization.
For the non-economic policy wonks, that’s “stable growth in a protected market,” like the Trabant sports car of East German infamy. Don’t expect it to beat any speed, handling, or luxury records. Don’t even expect it to work every day or be a generally safe way of doing business (it was commonly known by West Germans as “a spark plug with a roof”). But definitely expect consumer demand in a country where import competitors are verboten. What? Calls to expand? Atlanta! St. Louis! Miami again! Tampa again! L.A. again but not all Chivas-y! Or maybe just San Diego’s sloppy seconds!
Moreover, the MLS has always been notoriously bad at subtle marketing (I mean, just look at those color schemes). You don’t necessarily have to squint to notice the “America First” policy at work in MLS. First, right on the MLS website you’ll get hit with some legal mumbo jumbo about a domestic player rule:
Now that isn’t to say, of course, that “America First” avoided soccer imports entirely. Consider that soccer catches the most American eyes every four years for a World Cup progress report. ESPN, Fox, and NBC were all jockeying for position on Premier League TV rights in the mid-2000s. SUM, after the Disappointment of World Cup 2006 and careful consideration of external factors, enacted the Halfway Open Door Policy of American soccer development.
The Halfway Open Door Policy’s general conclusion was:
“American fans like these Euro soccer dudes and teams, and the last time we were super-good was in 2002 when we almost beat good Euro soccer dudes and teams. I know! Let’s Google ‘good Euro soccer dudes and teams in 2002,’ buy them at a discount, and MAKE AMERICAN SOCCER 2002 AGAIN!”
And with that, Glorious Leader Garber announced the end of the OMG-David-Beckham-Thinks-We’re-Cool-And-He’s-SOOO-Hot Summit of 2007. Signing for the L.A. Galaxy and ushering in a brand new age where teams can designate three players to exceed the Wise and Honorable MLS Salary Cap restrictions.
Controlled deregulation from 2007 onward introduced a trend of ‘good 2002 Euro soccer dude’ signings, which included (in no specific order):
Old David Beckham, namesake of the Designated Player Rule,
Old Juan Pablo Angel,
Old Arsenal Invincibles Thierry Henry and Freddie Ljungberg,
Old English-midfield-disappointments Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard,
Old Andrea Pirlo, Old David Villa,
Old Kaka,
One-Hit-Wonder Robbie Keane,
Was-He-Actually-Good-In-Europe-We-Don’t-Know! Gio Dos Santos,
And pretty much continue the “washed up old guy trope” for the rest of the LA Galaxy international spots from then to now
We even got a really old legendary soccer dude, Jurgen Klinsmann, to coach Team USA for a while. That was great until Reluctant-Captain-America broke a five year of vow of silence and told the world Jurgen Klinsmann doesn’t really know anything about managing a soccer team. Whoops.
The Halfway Open Door Policy, in its new policy of “America First, Europe Helps, Shame Forgotten” was also a revolution of poorly-Googled European Naming Conventions. MLS after losing Floridian franchises Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny in the Great Retraction of 2000, sold club ownership similar to how blogs hawk ad space (literally in the case of Red Bull New York). In the name of “American soccer fans probably like Euro things and I got bills, bro,” history was rewritten and the names were changed. What seemed limited to Never-Again-NASL became the Euro-Imitation-Game:
- Dallas Burn to FC Dallas [cringe]
- Kansas City Wizards to Sporting Kansas City [double cringe]
- Houston Dynamo [cringe at misusing Eastern European convention — should be Dynamo Houston, comrade!]
- Real Salt Lake [who include within expenses an annual tribute to the king of Spain for protection, naming rights]
- New York Metro-Stars to New York Red Bulls [not even subtle, motherf… who am I kidding, corporatism is great! And so is Red Bull! Soccer is EXTREME!]
Every expansion from 2009 onward, even the good NASL throwback expansions, has involved some sort of vanilla British team-naming convention (e.g., “FC”, “City”, “United”). This includes Manchester City’s effective B-team, New York City FC, a team bought by the same billionaire oil giants that bought Manchester City. And by “effective,” I mean “literal”: when they bought Frank Lampard in 2014 for NYCFC and realized he might still be good at young guy soccer, the ownership group “loaned” him for the rest of the season to the Man City first squad.
By the way, JV Man City was introduced after the affront to gringo soccer pride that was Chivas USA, who for the first two years were managed like Chivas B by soccer owner and general ass-hat Jorge Vergara. MLS allowed what felt like a Chivas B-team to play second fiddle in Los Angeles of all sports cities (where second acts go to die), all in the name of “America First” National Team goals.(Correction: they had, like, four good years with Bob Bradley [2007–2010]. They still totally sucked, though, as both a marketing idea and a MLS franchise. #sorrynotsorry)
On the National Level, a near-miss at Confederations Cup 2009 and an acceptable Round-of-16 exit at World Cup 2010 prompted the revolution to shift “America First” inward. Discovering a rabid, uncontrolled, native strain of MLS fanbase in the Pacific Northwest, SUM adopted a “buy local” consciousness for future signings. Here’s an excerpt of post-2010 Beckham Rule signings of USMNT players, from the top of my head:
Clint Dempsey, from Tottenham to Seattle
Jermaine Jones, from Schalke 04 to New England/Colorado/LA Galaxy
Mix Diskerud, from Rosenborg to NYCFC
Ale Bedoya, from Stade Rennais to Philadelphia
Jozy Altidore, from Sunderland to Toronto FC
Reluctant-Captain-America Michael Bradley, from Roma to Toronto FC
MLS wasn’t just recouping their USMNT stars that still seem a bit too old to be as important as they are today. They also promoted American stars from within:
Kyle Beckerman, from Real Salt Lake Regular to Designated Player
Matt Besler, from Sporting Kansas City Regular to Designated Player
Landon Donovan, from LA Galaxy to NOT EVERTON BECAUSE YOU’RE WAY TOO IMPORTANT TO AMERICA! YOU’RE GRINGO MESSI WITH A RECEDING HAIRLINE. WANNA WASTE YOUR PRIME YEARS PLAYING SECOND FIDDLE TO OLD DAVID BECKHAM EVEN THOUGH WE THINK YOU ARE GRINGO SOCCER GOD ALMIGHTY? DOES 36-YEAR-OLD YOU WANT TO PLAY FOR REAL SALT LAKE AND GIVE US OUR FIRST JORDAN-TO-WIZARDS FIASCO?
MLS has continued this protectionist “America First” policy through to the present day, but mixes the central planning with a seemingly shameless pandering to Eurocentric soccer culture branding. Through this policy, Glorious Leaders Gulati and Garber seem quite keen to bridge a gap between their product and European soccer. Our Glorious Leaders definitively continue seek out international investment partners and are willing to sacrifice all national dignity to develop a stronger soccer reputation and develop a stronger soccer league infrastructure (i.e. Red Bull Arena, NYCFC’s Yankee Stadium Partnership). But has it paid off?
Lipstick on an Inefficient, Healthy, Sixth-Place Pig
There are many ways of judging the health and success of the USSF and MLS, but this response will focus on cultural success and TV ratings failure.
“America First” policy has paid dividends to American soccer culture, especially in recent years. Soccer went from 1990 World Cup results reported solely as fine print in major newspaper back-pages to a thriving industry that attracts millions of American soccer fans. Completing the Cultural Revolution are thriving independent, American soccer products across all digital forms of media, including:
- Podcasts like the Men in Blazers, Total Soccer Show, and World Soccer Talk to broadcast, build, and dissect English and American soccer hype
- Magazines like Howler Magazine (Howler and George Quraishi) and 8x8 dedicated to the longform thinkpiece and the soccer-Sartre hipsters.
- Blogs like theshinguardian, dirtytackle (Brooks Peck), yanksabroad, and to a much lesser extent, my previous soccer blog project, The Gringo Samba.
This all sounds great and gives me wonderful esoteric reading material. But remember the overall goal of import substitution industrialization is to make the MLS Trabant, a car of obviously inferior quality with an isolated single-entity market, competitive with the Premier League’s Bentley (completely open and free-trade market, no expenses spared, no finances questioned) and the Bundesliga Volkswagen (socially and democratically planned, nationalization-heavy). The prognosis, well, is about as competitive as the Trabi, if it were hit by West German imports 20 years before the wall fell:
This data table made me look in the mirror as a soccer fan. The last four months of 2016 was jam-packed for me soccer-wise: the tail end of the Euros, the front end of the Premier League, plenty of good international friendlies and qualifiers, and some compelling Sounder MLS soccer. But all of that was just obliterated by a league I barely watch: Liga MX.
Sixth place. Not even 10 percent market share on home soil. Liga MX is the undisputed champion of the U.S. soccer television market. Granted, Liga MX has more than a century’s head start and all the cultural advantages that come with a strong Mexican-American culture in the U.S. I’m an economics guy, I’m trained to see silver linings; I’m sure that 7% share is up from 3% in 2000 and that Liga MX 33% share is probably down from like, 50% or so in 2000. (Data is available, I’ll compile it and get back to you.)
But from our gringo side of the border, that margin might as well be 35 feet tall, 25 feet thick, covered concrete and razor-wire, and have a sexual predator head of state’s last name embossed in tacky gold (looking at you, Berlusconi).
This pain hits at a personal level. I am an aspiring soccer analytics writer who is literally building an encyclopedia of European and American soccer knowledge. Why can I only name maybe four current Mexican National Team players and six Mexican club teams off the top of my head? And that’s not a guess:
Layun, Oribe, Chicharito, Marquez, Ochoa, Goalie Guy with the Hair (or is that Ochoa?)
Chivas, America, Tigres, Pumas, Monterrey, Tijuana, Indios (because I read a book about them?), Veracruz, Atlas, Necaxa… wow.
Keep in mind I have detailed knowledge of a loyal gringo socialist partizan. I know the depth charts for the USMNT, Seattle Sounders, and a few PL teams. I could probably rattle off 75% of English league sides in the top four tiers, and that’s just from playing the FIFA video game franchise. I know where USMNT prospects play in Europe, whether they should be at that club, and generally who’s competing with them to start on Saturdays.
And I listen to the Total Soccer Show’s Christian-Pulisic-as-next-U.S.-Wunderkind-overwatch-but-also-strangely-rational hype train. I know my shit.
However, as a gringo growing up literally 90 miles from the Mexican border, I can’t help but feel more than a little ashamed of myself for not even introducing myself to the neighbors. Even the name of this blog, the Gringo Samba, equates soccer with a Brazilian dance using a Spanish adjective; it’s all kinds of Google-Translate wrong. Instead of sulking, I feel this personal crisis is an opportunity to explore why there is such a divide between U.S. and Mexican soccer cultures. Here’s the main hypothesis:
USSF’s “America First” Policy Has Created a Great Soccer Border Wall. Mexican Clubs Thrive, American Club Fans Pay the Price.
Compared to most gringos, though, I suspect my limited knowledge of the Mexican game is actually pretty good.
MLS has tried to reach out to Mexico before, but botched the marketing terribly (see: Chivas USA clusterfuck). Inasmuch as American soccer fans think globally and see themselves as world citizens, it’s hard to visualize us willfully ignoring a third of our viewer market without picturing a Great Soccer Border Wall. I suspect this bubble is a side-effect of the “America First” policy adopted by both Glorious Leaders Gulati and Garber.
More interesting still: despite “America First,” Liga MX is living the American Dream! Mexican teams have consistently and successfully raided the USMNT’s hottest prospects to play in Mexico. In fact, it’s in the rules that Mexican Americans are counted as Mexican citizens for Liga MX’s own domestic player requirements. This rule has also attracted an attractive set of mostly-border-state-based scalps for Mexican club teams:
Omar Gonzalez at Pachuca CF
Greg Garza at Club Tijuana
Paul Arriola at Club Tijuana
Michael Orozco at Club Tijuana
Joe Corona at Club Tijuana [are we noticing a theme?]
Jose Francisco Torres at Club America (remember him?!)
Johnny Bornstein at Queretaro
Ventura Alvarado at Tigres
USMNT-Designated-Survivor-Goalkeeper William Yarbrough at Leon
These players were either poached from “America First” MLS teams or had second thoughts about an over-valued “America First Success Story” MLS payday. And yet the only time I hear about them, or Mexican soccer in general, in English-language programming is on the off-chance a Liga MX Grand Final happens to be a compilation of #LitAF vinecasts.
Breaking Down The Wall: A Soccer Manifesto of Algorithms and Bad Jokes
I want to make one thing clear: The Great Soccer Border Wall isn’t a metaphor to me. It’s very real, but very intangible. It’s the cultural myopia we gringos have with Mexican culture aside from guacamole and Taco Tuesday and the Goal! movie franchise. It is literally a wall that hinders our inter-cultural understanding.
For sure this great divide was created by centuries of outside factors, but in strictly soccer terms, the Wall was crafted out of a double-edged necessity to build a soccer culture and development system from within, but through relative autarky, the U.S. and my beloved MLS now pays a heavy price in a soccer industrial complex running, at most, at 66.7 percent efficiency.
Now, using real data, the Gringo Samba can have a look at real solutions to #TEARDOWNTHISWALL!
This is not a bullshit opinion that looks good on a hashtag or a fascist red hat and lacks fact-based boundaries. This represents a personal revolution in response to a nation making large, dangerous overtures toward closed-mindedness. But the revolution can have a self-aware sense of humor. See the working motto:
Death by a thousand grating think-pieces. (How tragically millennial.)
As a data scientist, I am honor-bound to test all assumptions, including the ones made in this post. My wall-demolition tools are code blocks and detailed match data and nested for() loops and crazy Monte Carlo simulations and some goddamn progressive intersectional soul power! I want to take a look at what we already know, see if we can learn more, and find ways to use it to predict future events. And, not just future match results. All future everything.
The final frontier of sport analytics, soccer data has improved immeasurably over the past few years. Through companies like Opta, we can pinpoint player positioning, speed, quality of attack. Through Electronic Arts Gaming and sites like WhoScored and Squawka, we know generally how good these players are at soccer. I will be taking this blog in a direction that will attempt (probably both poorly and profanely) answer the following questions with not just a #hottake opinion, but actual substance to back it up:
- What is “America First” soccer policy? What international team do we look most like? How has MLS adapted to “America First” soccer policy? How does the league balance its own domestic/international player rules to maximizing player value?
- In the U.S.-Mexico National Team Rivalry, what cities are “America First” sanctuary cities? What are the politics of those “America First” sanctuary cities like? And how does this rivalry get shaped in the light of reactionary commentary about the gender wage gap and foreign-born American players?
- What would happen if the MLS were to adopt a more open trading relationship with the Liga MX player market? What stakeholders would stand to gain or lose financially? In the clubhouse? Even on the field?
- What is “NAFTA First” Policy? Does it look like the UEFA/EU relationship? What’s that relationship like? How did that work out for them? Could it work the same for us?
- How would MLS build this new trading relationship with Mexico, creating Soccer NAFTA? Through an allocation draft? Access lottery? Some other excruciatingly boring minutia of MLS over-regulated scaredy-cat soccer league rules? What’s the Mexican way of doing it? Is that better? Worse? How about just a good old fashioned soccer auction?
- What about that MLS Salary Cap? How would the import of Mexican players affect the wage bill and the salary caps of MLS teams? How disastrous would it be for the owners if they were independent? Is single-entity vertically-combined central planning in soccer’s favor as it was with hand-egg football, basketball, and baseball? Would contract and wage conditions for US players improve as a result? [P.S.: we could also do this for the current wage gap struggle in women’s soccer.]
- What does gringo soccer look like? What does Mexican soccer look like? How would new Mexican signings affect the play on the MLS field? They came from different formations/styles of play. They could add to different teams in different ways (luckily, the Football Manager video game franchise has probably done a lot of the math on that).
- What would the hybrid formation look like? What would be its style of play? Would there be benefits to improving a tactical weakness for either team that could be modified by a hybridized product?
Data has been posted for many of these topics; it just has to be collected and synthesized into an accessible visualization. Using the data science techniques that are being pioneered using R, D3, and other forms of data analysis software, I will attempt to give my best guess to many of these American soccer questions for the future.
This, I hope, is just the beginning of me sharing my interest in data science and my love for the beautiful game, as well as my ambition to use these two passions to explain global political economy issues. It’s a bit wordy, and it might start a bit awkward at first, but the soccer samba didn’t come easy to the Gringo Great Leap Forward in 1994. Eight years later they outplayed Germany in a World Cup quarterfinal.
I just want to see how far we’ve come since then. I want you to come along for the ride. Welcome to the Gringo Samba, where no one waltzes alone. Care to dance?
+gs