Purpose 

News roundups are intended as a fun, light, breezy, witty read that runs down the news of note from the soccer world and starts our readers’ days on a good note. Funny one-liners and wisecracks added as commentary are good. Long analysis and commentary are not. Have fun with these. If you do, our readers will too.

Content

• Philadelphia area soccer news — pro, semipro, college, high school, youth, notable adult amateur
• Game results for all MLS/USL/PDL/NPSL teams in the local area
• MLS and other domestic pro news of note (men’s and women’s)
• U.S. national team news of note
• Other world soccer news that you think is interesting
• Whatever great soccer read that you want to share with readers

Daily schedule

Aim to get roundups live at 9 am.

If it has to run later, let the daily editor know, because it can make things tough for a daily editor who might have to change the schedule for other posts. If they’re running past 10 am, it’s a problem.

What to search

If you’re searching manually, make sure to check the following things.

• Search for “Philadelphia Union”
• Search for “Bethlehem Steel”
• Search for “Penn FC”
• Search for “Reading United” (particularly during the PDL season)
• Search for “Ocean City Nor’easters” (particularly during the PDL season)
• Optionally search for other PDL/NPSL clubs in region (Junior Lone Star, West Chester United, Lehigh Valley United, etc.)
• Check http://www.MLSsoccer.com.
• Check http://www.FourFourTwo.com/US. (This may be less useful due to their layoffs, however. We’ll see how it plays out.)
• Check https://www.theguardian.com/football.
• Check http://www.si.com/soccer.
• Check http://www.goal.com/en-us/mls/287tckirbfj9nb8ar2k9r60vn.
• Check https://www.nytimes.com/section/sports/soccer. You’ll find some good features there.
• Check https://twitter.com/MLSTransfers. Great source of transfer info.
• Check http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/soccer
• Check http://www.delcotimes.com/topic/union.
• Check http://www.philadelphiaunion.com.
• Check http://www.bethlehemsteelfc.com.
• Check http://www.brotherlygame.com for youth/academy soccer news.
• Check http://papreplive.com/boys-soccer and http://www.papreplive.com/girls-soccer for high school news in the fall.
• Check http://www.nbcsports.com/philadelphia/union.
• Check https://www.socceramerica.com.
• Check Twitter accounts for reporters and writers who regularly write about the Union.
• Check for high school and college soccer scores/news during the fall.

Check for whatever else you think is interesting and relevant. Goal.com, ESPNFC, whatever you like.

You will all individually find methods that work best for you. When Ed Farnsworth did PSP’s daily roundups on his own, he set up Google Alerts for items of interest. It’s all up to what you prefer.

Formatting

• Subheadlines: Subheadlines should be set as Headline 5 and bold-faced. To find Headline 5, click on the dropdown menu that says “Paragraph”.
• Links/tabs: Set each link to open in a new tab. To find this when you set the link, click on the gear icon and then check the box for “Open in new tab”.
• Photo credit: If the photo is from the PSP archives, the PSP photographer must be identified (“Photo: Earl Gardner”). Otherwise the source must be identified (“Photo: Courtesy of Philadelphia Union”). This is the same as everywhere else on PSP. We can usually only use images produced by PSP photographers or MLS websites. Often, this might mean looking at what might be available at the Union of Bethlehem Steel Facebook and Twitter pages. We cannot use images that appear at US Soccer or news sites such as Philly.com or ESPN because of rights issues.

(Note: We used to set the headlines a different font, but it’s probably easier for everyone to keep it consistent with the subheadline fonts most commonly used in other posts.) 

Notes on searching

• News vs. commentary: Our emphasis is on news — i.e. newly reported information — not commentary. If you see a good commentary piece you want to refer to, you can link to it, but don’t feel obligated.
• The above list is not comprehensive. It’s a big world. Search whatever you want. Just find the stuff our readers want to read. And if you find good regulars for us to hit, let us know so we can update this.
• Follow your gut, instincts and intuition. And if you find links we should be checking regularly, spread the word, and we can add them to this list.
• If the roundup yesterday missed something relevant, make up for it and add it in the next day.
• For all days but Monday, you can probably narrow your Google searches to the last 24 hours. That said, if we missed it the day before, that eliminates your chance to make up for it. So maybe limit to a week’s worth of searching. It’s up to you!

The local area

For our purposes, the local area is centered on Philly but spans:

• south Jersey (Cape May to Trenton)
• Delaware
• Lehigh Valley and Reading
• southeast Pennsylvania

Time management

You should be able to bang roundups out in under an hour once you’re good at them. If it takes you longer, than you are spending too much time and should figure out how to do them more efficiently. For example, you probably don’t need to read every story you link to, and you don’t need to write a ton about each link.

Feel free to start your roundup the afternoon/night before it runs, if you want. News often breaks during the day, so by the end of the night, much of the news will be out there. Of course, you can also do it all in the morning. It’s all up to you.