This World Cup inspired mural is the product of California artist and designer Mark Paul Deren (aka MADSTEEZ). Nike commissioned the artist to create something spectacular for the rooftop of the Ricardo Montalban Theater in Los Angeles. MADSTEEZ painted the enormous 80ft x 30 ft mural in 6 days and said it is his “one of his most proud pieces.”
Check out some shots of the process, the final product, and the genius himself.
Someone please tell De Jong that this latest Nike video pimping the Dutch team is quoted as saying, “Break Their Hearts” not “Break Their Legs.” I officially blame Nike for Stuart Holden’s injury now. It’s their fault for getting these dudes all hyped up like they were Flavor Flav at a Public Enemy concert.
Last night at around 9:45 EST The American Outlaws sent out an email to their members stating that they had reached an agreement with WFD and Steven Cohen in which
“-First, The first 25 AO folks to sign up for WFD get their first month subscription for free.
-Second, host and mastermind Steven Cohen will be a guest on the AO podcast this weekend!
-Third, the WFD crew will be at the Los Angeles Chapter viewing party on Wednesday for the Netherlands game.“
Today around 2:18 they tweeted:
“We are canceling anything involved with WFD & Cohen. It is not “Uniting” US Soccer fans and that is our only goal. We represent our Members”
This is due to some complaints about a relationship with Steven Cohen who has been the target of a lot of Liverpool fan’s anger after some controversial remarks he made about the Hillsborough incident in which Liverpool fans were killed.
The American Outlaws are an unofficial supporters’ group for the United States men’s national soccer teamand have been described as “a raucous group of U.S. supporters” by ESPN.Founded in 2007 by a group of fans from Lincoln, Nebraska, the group set out to better organize supporters at United States men’s national soccer team games.
10Shirt.net will be posting a weekly digest of what we find to be the best tweets about our favorite game here in the US. Of course there are limitations. We can only track those people that we know about, so if you think you are spitting out footy genius on the regular and want to get noticed follow @10_Shirt and @Jrodius. We will follow you back and see what you have to say.
Also, since we can’t see every tweet in all of twitterdom, feel free to use the #10s tag on your best stuff. We will review everything that uses that hashtag, guaranteed. And, as always, we recommend you follow everyone on this list in order to ensure that you will always be a part of the best US Soccer conversations happening everyday.
The US soccer community is an interesting animal. It seems to never lack good ideas, what it lacks is follow through. Videos and Blogs come and go each day that have so much potential. A year ago one such concept was published and within days was on almost every American soccer site on the web. It was a trailer for a little-documentary-that-could called The Soccer Project. It has since shed it’s working title, assumed it’s feature title of Pelada, and seems determined not to be one of the great ideas that falls by the wayside.
We at 10Shirt were able to secure an interview with one of the makers of this film Gwedolyn Oxenham. Gwendolyn is one of the two people this documentary follows, as it whisks around the world documenting the pickup games played on the dirty streets and alleyways in every corner of the globe. Now with their premiere at Austin’s South By South West set, Gwendolyn sits down to answer our questions.
If you are new to this project we encourage to watch the attached video of the trailer, as well as visit their site and donate to their grassroots efforts in making a film the entire soccer world deserves to see.
Now with the SXSW premiere of Pelada near, looking back, how close is the final product to what you envisioned when you originally set out to make it? Or did the vision change as the experiences did?
From the very beginning, we were all sort of reverent about pick-up—we knew the game would have a lot to offer. But I don’t think there’s anyway to prepare yourself for stumbling upon World Cup stadium builders using their helmets as goals, or eighty-year-old Brazilians who play barefoot and knock the heck out of each other, or Iranian firemen who play in front of 1940s Mercedes fire-trucks. What we found was even more incredible than we had expected.
Has Pelada secured a distribution deal yet? Or is that what you are hoping the exposure of SXSW will be able to do?
We’ve signed with PBS international for foreign TV, but most of our rights are still available, and yes, we are hoping SXSW and the film festival circuit will help us secure a deal!
Are there any plans for any other film festivals in the future?
We’ve recently found out that we were selected for the Independent Film Festival of Boston. We’ve applied to quite a few others and will know more soon.
I know much of your film was funded by donations on a very grass roots level. Is the movie now paid for? Or are donations from the soccer community still needed?
This movie could not have happened without the support of the soccer community. We are still frantically raising money, as post-production (audio mix and color correct) is incredibly expensive. So donations are HUGELY appreciated.
What was the MelroseMac contest?
Melrose Mac is an apple store in Los Angeles that ran a contest for $10,000 worth of editing equipment; we submitted our trailer and received the most votes, allowing us to win the systems that enabled us to finish the film. We love Melrose Mac.
What did the MelroseMac contest win mean for Pelada, both in terms of the technology it secured for the movie, as well as the support the soccer community showed you?
We received around 1000 more votes than second place, thanks to the soccer community rallying around us. What it meant was that we could finish our film: completely broke, I have no idea what we would have done if we had not won the equipment. We’ve spent the past six months editing in our bedrooms.
At what point did you realize that the original “Soccer Project” trailer had gone viral? I know I saw it on at least ten different soccer websites.
Haha, I’m not sure I have realized we’ve gone “viral.” Soccerbyives posted our trailer on his site during the Melrose Mac contest and we suddenly saw our trailer triple in the number of hits: that was a pretty exciting day. When you’re dirt poor, eating peanut butter sandwiches every day, working really weird side jobs to pay the bills, and sitting on each other’s unmade beds as we huddle around the computer at three in the morning, it can get pretty impossible feeling, so to see the soccer community take an interest was really encouraging.
I think most people by now are familiar with Luke and yourself, but what did the crew for this project consist of? How many people were actually on location as you traveled the globe?
We were just four kids with a big dream. Ryan and Rebekah are behind the cameras and Luke and I are in front and we are all co-directors. Rebekah was my teammate at Duke and Ryan was my camera partner—they’re both fantastic cinematographers. After three years around the world together, we know each very, very well J.
What type of equipment did you film this movie on?
We used two Sony HV1Us; it’s a relatively small, unobtrusive camera that allowed us to look more like backpackers than a film crew. We also had one HDcam that is extremely small that we used when we felt we needed to be really covert—whether that was crossing the border between Israel and Palestine or wandering into a ghetto for the first time.
Can you talk about the song you chose for the trailer?
The Young Giant (formerly The Jakes) is a local band that went to high school with Lisa, a senior at UCLA who has been helping us with post-production. After an appearance on MTV’s The Real World, they’ve started to blow up and we feel so fortunate that we were able to use “Cough Syrup.” We’ve gotten so many comments saying how much people love the song, and of course, we think the band is fantastic.
Has the fact that the band formerly known as The Jakes changed their name caused any problems for you folks from a licensing standpoint?
We hope not J. The band manager is a huge soccer fan and couldn’t have been nicer in helping us with contracts, so we don’t envision any problems.
In most of the world the sport of football is the sport of the people. After taking part in such a unique experience, can you still appreciate the business oriented, and perhaps, detached version of professional football that is broadcasted into or homes each day?
As a player who spent all of my playing days lusting after a professional career, what we’ve seen on this trip has helped me get over that: you know you hear about professional players whose favorite memories are the back alley games way back in the beginning, and I’ve got to spend three years seeking out those games, so I sort of feel like the most lucky girl in the world.
But of course, I’m just as excited about the Champions League game as the next person.
Amid the different cultures and languages the world over, was there any one thing you find the same everywhere you went?
There’s always a goal, whether it’s made out of beer bottles, construction helmets, rocks, trees, bicycles or drawn in the sand. There were some other common themes and we have a section devoted to this question in the film.
Here’s a couple quick questions:
What city/region had the best food?
Brazil (Staying with families most of the time, we ate an incredible amount of homemade food. And the barbecues are to die for.) What city/region had the best night life?
Tel Aviv (Although we only went out about once per continent, so I’m not sure we could really be considered experts.) What city/region surprised you most?
Iran (The government and media’s portrayal of the country is very different than the actual country) What city/ region had the friendliest people?
It seems like every day we were declaring a new person “the nicest person we ever met.” Everywhere we went, we were met with absolute kindness.
What city/region had the most political tension?
Jerusalem (but we were there during a terrorist attack so that obviously escalated the tension) What city/region had the highest level of technical ability? (in terms of soccer)
The best singular incidence of skill was in a game in Marseille, France. Brazil was the country where every single player you met, whether eight years old or eighty years old, could make you look foolish. If you could move to one of the places you filmed, which would it be?
Ooh, fun question. Montevideo, Uruguay or Marseilles, France
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