As you may or may not be able to tell from my avatar, I support Fulham and have done for...wow... 22 years. They signed American Eddie Lewis in 2002, were then promoted to the Premier League that year as well. Once up, they signed the great Brian McBride, Carlos Bocanegra, Eddie Johnson(bust), Clint Dempsey, as well as Kasey Keller at the tail end of his playing days in England.

Current USA players Tim Ream (ten years at the club) and Antonee "Jedi" Robinson play at Craven Cottage currently. They are managed by Marco Silva and play a very upbeat, "out-of-the-back" style which is exceedingly pleasant to watch, especially coming up on the left side from Antonee Robinson, up to Tom Cairney or Willian .

Their ground, Craven Cottage, is a mix of brand spanking new on the Riverside of the stadium which juts INTO the Thames, to the Stevenage Road/Johnny Haynes stand opposite. The JH was built in 1906 and has a wonderful look along with the club building or the "cottage" in the corner between it and the Putney end.

However, Fulham are derided as being very "posh" and while the Hammersmith end of the ground is pretty raucous, the ground is small, and opposing fans insult it as being a "library."

They reached the Europa League final in 2010, losing in 120 minutes to Atletico Madrid after a fairy-tale run, knocking out Juventus, Wolfsburg, Hamburg, Shakhter Donetsk among others. They deserved better from that match. May Diego Forlan be fricked.

As I mentioned they were the first club to take a REAL chance on American players, which is why I chose to follow them 20 years ago. Before that, I tried to follow clubs with Americans, but the few who were over there were often alone, and often just goalkeepers at each club.

Fulham have been a yo-yo club in the last five or eight years, but are solidly mid-table the last two years. They often boss the second division and struggled in the Premier League. However, these last couple, have been much better.

This post was edited on 2/14/24 at 4:33 pm