Phillyist spends a lot of time (more than it should, honestly) reading a range of British and American soccer magazines to keep up with the latest soccer news. Specifically, we read three publications from each side of the Atlantic.

From over here, we like Soccer America, 90 Minutes and Striker. Soccer America is the longest established American soccer magazine, and it deals as much with youth and collegiate soccer as it does with the professional game. Of the three aforementioned magazines, it is the most straightforward, with an emphasis on analysis and commentary but not as many features.

90 Minutes and Striker are more edgy and have more features. 90 Minutes' advantage is that it is published monthly, whereas Striker experienced some financial difficulties coming out every two months and took a sabbatical before the current World Cup preview edition. Striker has the better writing, though, and is edited by Lang Whitaker of the widely read SLAM! basketball/culture magazine.

From the other side of the pond, we read World Soccer, FourFourTwo and When Saturday Comes. World Soccer, as the name implies, covers the game across the world, with experienced correspondents in just about every country you could come up with where a soccer ball is kicked. As such, it is also the best place to go for expertise when major tournaments come around.

FourFourTwo's biggest strength is its player profiles, as it gets a lot of exclusive interviews. It is also known for helping to feed the mammoth hype machine that churns out unreasonable expectations whenever England's national team takes the field. But it is also something of a culture lesson for us Yanks, because many of the ads in it are for British companies. They are a nice diversion from the almost 125 pages of articles that come in each month's issue.

When Saturday Comes has a mix of contributions from fans and journalists, many of whom root for lower-division English teams. They are thus perpetually disappointed that their teams never get the recognition or success of big teams like Manchester United and Chelsea. This leads to a lot of self-deprecating humor and reminiscing of times when the order of things in the world was such that teams in industrial towns dominated English sports. If that kind of a sporting landscape sounds familiar (or desirable) to you Eagles/Phillies/Flyers/Sixers fans, then WSC is definitely worth your time.

Most of these magazines are available at Borders or Barnes and Noble. Phillyist, however, prefers to buy its magazines from Avril 50 at 3406 Sansom Street. It's a tiny store in a rowhouse next to New Deck Tavern, but it has a big rack of international sports publications that we often spend time perusing.

Next: Philliyst gives props to the local boys made good.

Photo taken by the author.