Regular readers of SoccerCentric will be interested in a new local site – Northern Pitch, which will be covering Minnesota soccer as well as soccer throughout North America and beyond. For those familiar with the Star Tribune's TwinsCentric blog, it'll be launched under the same umbrella that the TwinsCentric guys live under at Twins Daily.

Minnesota United FC news and coverage will be a central focus of the site; it'll include Bill MK, Chris RB, Alex Schieferdecker and Wes Burdine from the former Loon Call, who have been providing absolutely top-notch coverage of United. It'll also include Bruce McGuire, who (with Wes) hosts the du Nord Futbol show; Joe Leyba and Dave Laidig, who run MLS4MN; and Kyle Eliason, who has written a ton of Twins and NCAA coverage and will now be adding his soccer fandom to his writing repertoire. We have also coaxed Brian Quarstad, who once wrote the excellent Inside Minnesota Soccer blog, out of retirement to join the site. And then there's me. I talked Twins Daily founder John Bonnes into this, and I'm just glad to be a part of the group.

As an example of what to look forward to from Northern Pitch, we have a couple of excellent stories up today. Brian looks at how the newest interpretation of the offside rule could have changed United's semifinal loss to Fort Lauderdale, and Alex covers all the bases on the team's signing of Cameroonian international goalkeeper Sammy N'Djock.

We hope you'll join us at Northern Pitch, on the forums, and on Twitter (@NorthernPitch) and on Facebook.