Those with some programming experience will recognize the weak joke in the title.

I've been invited by Dave to join him as a blogger on Sounder at Heart. In this first post, I'd like to introduce myself and give an idea of where I'm coming from.

First a little bit of my history (as far as soccer goes, anyway):

• The Sounders and I are almost exactly the same age, but they were born in Seattle and I was born in São Paulo, Brazil.
• I spent my first six years in São Paulo, and became a fan of Corinthians. My brothers and I were a microcosm of São Paulo soccer supporters with my elder and eldest brothers being fans of Palmeiras and São Paulo, respectively.
• When we moved to Seattle my soccer fandom went dormant for a while, but the 1994 World Cup reawakened my interest, especially with Brazil's historic fourth victory.
• Fast forward to 2005 and I'd been following soccer through the internet, cable TV, and whatever else there was available, when I discovered the Sounders were up and running. As an aside, the USL Sounders' marketing efforts were not what one could call overwhelming. They introduced me to the joys of live soccer, which is to soccer on TV as a Ferrari is to a Ford Focus.
• Since 2006, I've been living in the Bay Area and following my beloved Sounders from a distance. However, when the MLS team was announced, I put my season ticket deposits down the first day they were available. My long term plans are to return to Seattle, and I knew I wanted to be in on the new team from day one. We've made a few trips up to see games and I've also passed my tickets around to friends and family as Sounders evangelism. That's paid off and now the rest of my family will be sharing a set of season tickets next year.

In short, I'm one of those people Don Garber is talking about when he describes the fans that MLS needs to win over. I'm a fan of soccer and have been all my life, but MLS hasn't closed the deal for me yet, other than the Sounders.

Anyway, more than enough about me. Next post will be something interesting, I promise.