Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #576: Broadcaster & journalist Sebastian Salazar joins the pod

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

Sebastian Salazar built Futbol Americas from scratch with Herc Gomez and now he hosts ION's NWSL studio show. He's veteran of covering soccer in America, a native of D.C., a lifelong El Tri fan. He plays the game, he's coached the game. We spoke on Thursday and he was very generous with his time. Great conversation.Still a couple slots open for our trip to Rome in May. Here are some details: https://earthlydelights.notion.site/Italia-25-with-Scuffed-1a3f3f1e0145804793e8e83e982168fdAnd here is how to get in touch with George Quraishi and nail down your plans with us: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfp2O1bIr5KNSymt3ayP3ctERCooDo3ADM5Kf_kSHpmr6ITMg/viewform Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, this is Bells. We've got a Monday review coming today on the patron feed. The public episode this Monday is an interview with Sebastian Salazar. Herc Gomez's partner with Football Americas, up until recently. Now a studio host for Ion covering the NWSL, a veteran of covering soccer in this country. We got into everything. It's one of my favorite conversations on scuff so far, so get ready for that. If you want the Monday review where Waki, Vince and I have a lovely Pulisic goal, a haji hat trick, camp arrivals ahead of this. big match against Panama, and much more to discuss. Join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. Now, here's my conversation with Mr. Salazar. Welcome to the scuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Very special guest today, the former host of Fouple Americas, with Hurt Gomez, been covering soccer in America for a long, long time, playing, coaching, supporting DC United through thick and thin. Just this week, it was announced he'll be studio host for ion sports coverage of the National Women's Soccer League, which as it happens kicks off this weekend. Sebastian Salazar, welcome to scuffed. Thank you for your time.

Had it, man. Great to be with you. Great to be with the scuffed crew here and all your listeners. I appreciate things that have been built up from scratch as I story with Football America as I think attest to. So super appreciative of what you guys have built up and how successful it's been. It's really impressive. Thanks, man. So first of all, let's get right to brass tax. You scored nine goals. and recorded 12 assists as a player for the Westminster College Titans, which of these goals or assists is your favorite? All right, easy answer. I scored the best goal of my life against Bethany College,

which was one of our arch rivals. It was senior night, my senior year. I played mostly defensive positions my first two years, and then I walked in the coach's office once the guy, when the number 10, it graduated. And I said, I'm going to be number 10, and I'm going to be a center midfielder. And he was like, this is definitely not what's best for the team.

But go ahead, Seth, that's fine. So I played 10 for a couple years. And then my senior year, we had an injury in defense, and I went back to defense. I'm playing right back, get a ball in the right wing, take a step. I hear my boy, who actually was the guy that got hurt whose spot I was taken. He was like, hit it! And I hit it. And you know, sometimes you hit a ball, and it just does a thing in the air that you can't really explain.

It bent out and bent back in. And it was under the lights. And it was a really emotional moment for me because my dad was there on senior night. and we'd have like a really rocky relationship. And I called him like the morning of the game. And I was like, hey, man, I just like, I want you to be here tonight. And he got in his car right after a shift at work. He worked at the Naval Hospital.

And he drove. And he literally got there as they were introducing me. And then I hit that goal in front of him. So, yeah, it was an awesome moment. So of the nine goals, there weren't many. But that one against Bethany was definitely special. And it's not, it's a, if I'm correct, Westminster is in like the northwest corner of Pennsylvania.

So that's a bit of a drive for dad. Like if he was coming from D.C.? Yeah, it's like a four, I think I remember clocking it in college. The fastest I ever made it was four hours and 18 minutes, you know. Man, that's faster than I would have, you know, four and a half hours, probably not stopping a pee. I mean, he was, he literally, I'm with my mom on the field, you know, the senior night thing. And he caught us like, because there was a few guys in the out. put that ahead of me. So he got in line as we were going. And it was a really special goal for me

on like a lot of levels. But to have him there was, was cool. And the way it all came together was awesome. Incredible. I didn't think we would start on my college soccer career. Where'd you find those stats? My God. Oh, I got other, I dug up some other stuff too. Just wait. But yeah, I think it was like a press release about you getting hired by CSN Comcast or some Comcast. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or no, it was when you got, it was when you were picked to cover the Olympics. In 2016, yeah, Westminster probably did like a release or something on that. That's right.

Yeah. Awesome. So you, I saw you say you learned the game from your mother. Can you talk a little bit more about that? How did she get so into the game? Sure. So I know sometimes people think I look young, but I'm 41. So I'm born in 1983.

My dad was born in the United States in 1949 in like rural Western New York. York. So he has pretty much no contact with soccer, no idea of it until he meets an English guy in college. They played it in physical education. There was an English kid at his school. And, you know, that was his first, you know, actually seeing it, hearing of it, really. But my mom, you know, she didn't come to the United States until she's like 25 or 26. And so her whole life in Mexico is very much, you know, diehard soccer fan. The families are huge Club America fans. My great-grandfather would skip her out of school in elementary school to take her to watch America games back when Azteca wasn't even built yet. This is like when they played at

the Estadio Olympico where Pumas plays now. And, you know, she loved the sport, but as an adolescent girl in Mexico in the 60s, you know, there's no outlet for you. Right. That's what I'm thinking. That's why I'm asking, you know. Yeah. So she, it's interesting, right? So she really kind of puts this deep love of soccer in her back pocket and goes into academia, right? And it's super successful in Mexico, so she kind of gets to a point where women can't even in academia progress. And so she leaves to the United States. That's where she meets my dad at USC pharmacy school. What was her field? Like pharmacology? Yeah, she was a review chemist for the Food and Drug Administration for 30 years. She's a chemist. Yeah. My dad's a radio pharmacist. They always like, we always say like,

they handed me the DNA to like cure AIDS or cancer. And I was like, cool. I'll talk about sports. So, but she like, she definitely kind of put that love of soccer in the back pocket, I think, for a long time. And then when I was born and started to like show interest in it, she kind of re-engage. And I think when I started to show an interest, she was like, okay, like let's watch, you know, in the early 90s, there wasn't soccer on TV unless you were Mexican. Yeah, you, I mean, you can find some other things here and there. but early to mid-90s, like, if you were a Mexican soccer fan, you had all the soccer you wanted. But if you weren't, so, like, I got just exposed to a lot of, like, Mexican soccer, national team soccer, and then the 94 World Cup hit. And Mexico played two of their three group-based games in RFK.

And my dad's super smart. Like, before they knew the draw or anything, my dad in like 91 was like, hey, we're not doing any family vacations for the next two years because I'm buying the full RFK packet for the World Cup. And it just happened that Mexico played two of their three group phase there, games there. And so those, I was like a huge sports nerd before that the World Cup hits. And then the 94 World Cup hits, I see Mexico play three of their four games, two in RFK. I see him get knocked out by Bulgaria at the Meadowlands. And I'm telling you, man, at RFK, Mexico's down one-nothing, last game of the group phase against Italy. And you need a tie.

You're done. And Marcelino Bernal, who was a player who my mom, and I had always kind of dogged, scores a goal from outside the area to beat Baluka. And I wrote, just remember this was like the moment. I turned to my mom and I'm celebrating like it's a soccer goal and she's weeping. And then I start crying as a 10-year-old kid, not really understanding why I'm just seeing my mom cry knowing that it means a lot to her. And then I'm like, oh, like this is so much more than like my Buffalo Bills fandom or my

Buffalo Sabres fandom or like my whatever fan. There were, I was like, this is so much more. And I think after that, my, like, obsession, my sports obsession really turned to soccer. And so my dad fueled that. He was a coach. He was, like, always around. But it's really my mom that kind of hooked me to that, that, like, tribal, you know, attraction to the game, I think.

Yeah. Why do you think she was weeping? Was it just, like, her connection to her home country? Yeah. Yeah. I think if you, you know, like Mexico plays here a lot, right? now it's a huge cash cow for everybody involved and they milk that cow and I think until it's going to run out of milk frankly.

But, you know, I think when you're, I can't speak to this because I was born here. But I think if you're an immigrant, a lot of times, like as non-immigrants, we don't appreciate what's been left behind. You know, what is it like for a 20, you know, my mom was not a child. She wasn't brought here against her will or not knowing. What must it be like for a 25-year-old person with a career. a family, a life to pick up and go. What are they leaving behind? And when something that symbolizes that is put in front of them in a meaningful way in their homeland and they can feel like they're

back home. Yeah, I think that's why she was crying. I think, you know, when you leave home, it's hard. And you always want to kind of go back there in some way. So I think when the Mexican national team did a big thing in her new city in front of her, you know, it was probably like healing some of that, the wounds of that distance of what at that point had been 20 years, you know, since she'd really, I mean, she goes back, but since she lived there. Yeah. Just real quick, what part of Mexico is she from? Mexico City, yeah, Mexico City, like right in the heart of, right in the center.

But actually, the family's house is like a five-minute walk from Cruz Azul Stadium. Okay. At the Stajal, further from Azteca, but it's kind of right in the center, south center of Mexico City. So somehow from that, that sounds like, extremely formative experience in 94. You ended up, your family ended up supporting DC United, or at least you did. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, I mean, I think as a kid in that time, you know, I was 12 in 96 when MLS launches.

So I'm, you know, I've seen the World Cup. I've seen now great players like playing in front of me. I'm still watching the Mexican League, but there's not a ton of soccer on TV. And like I remember going to like Maryland DeBays games, APSL games. APSL games, like professional games being played in high school stadiums. That's like what I thought professional soccer was. So to see DC United come into RFK, which to me was, it was where the Redskins played at the time, it was where the World Cup had been played.

Like, that's where the big stuff happened. Yeah. And so when DC United pops up in 95 with the marketing materials and John Hark's on the side of a bus with, you know, I still remember it vividly, like with a ball on his head. you know, I was, I was like fish in a barrel. You know, I was like ready for it. Immediate like Pops got season tickets. We were always going to RFK.

And like I think for me, one of the great things about DC United and RFK specifically was at that time, if you were truly a part of like the soccer community in DC player, ref, manager, administrator, whatever your role was, parents, you were kind of at RFK on a Saturday night or it was. It was like a gathering place for the D.C. real soccer community. And that included not just the whites, but the huge Latino, the huge African, like, populations of D.C. gravitated towards this team. And it was like, I got to be honest, even after the first decade wears off where, like, MLS was, you know, I think had a lot of buzz around it and there was some decent crowds. When I came back from college, so this is like 2005 to 2010, D.C. is playing the RFK, which is a dump at the

this point, it was still a cool thing to do. Like, you knew you were going to go out, have a good time, hit 8th Street afterwards. It would be a lot of, like, good-looking people of all races and all genders. And, like, it was kind of a party fun scene. And so I just remember, like, enjoying it as a kid, RFK. And then as I would go back as an adult, enjoying it in a different way. Like, you'd take girls to RFK as like on like a date almost. Like, hey, come with me. We'll walk by the bar, bra. I know some guys over there. Like, yeah, I'll get down on a field. You know, it was like for me it was like a really cool way to kind of like you know i couldn't take girls for like an important club so i could take up to rfk maybe that's why i was i wouldn't get married till i was at 38 whatever

that's that's cool is do you feel like i've i've heard other people say that about dc united in the early years or even in the middle years it being like a kind of a melting pot and uh i mean the fan base being really diverse do you think some of that has kind of been lost oh i Like totally, 100%. We could do a whole podcast just on that. And I'll tell you, the first time I noticed it, it wasn't me, right? It was my dad who looks like me, but is the whitest dude you know, right? Rural Western New York literally grew up in the snow.

I mean, he's a white guy. We left Audi Field sometime in their first year there. And my dad turns to me and he goes, a lot whiter crowd than it used to be, huh? And I, like, hadn't really noticed it because I'm taking in the stadium. and, you know, I'm like, and I looked around and I was like, whoa, yeah. And then as I would keep going back to Audi over the years is why I didn't end up renewing my season tickets. And I don't go as much anymore. That sense of not just diversity, but the community that like I was going to run into an old ref or an old teammate or an old coach or an old this.

That totally got lost. And I think, you know, what's happening in sports generally, certainly in soccer in America is the, you know, soccer is kind of a blue class. a blue-collar sport, like globally. Yeah. If you go to Europe, you can get into any championship game. Like, it's not a great seat, but 30 euros. Bat, pat, pat, a Adleti. Dude, you go to Spain.

There's always a cheap seat available. I love Spain for that. Yeah. You can't really get into DC, you know, like, it's DC United, first of all. You can't get into a DC United game now for less than like $100 with like feed. Forget like parking and food. And so the clientele that they're chasing are different. They're the people who are on Capitol Hill who want a night out.

It's the people who go. to Caps games and Wizards games on like a corporate, you know, that's who DC United, and MLS, I think, to a larger extent, wants in their stadium now because you can squeeze more dollars out of those people. And when you only have 20,000 seats, you've got to squeeze max dollars out of the people there. You're not worried about the Bolivian guy who's going to come every single time Marco Echever plays and he's going to bring his whole family because he's not, you're going to squeeze as much money out of him. And so I think that, the, you know, Sports is business. I get it. But that total shift, Major League Soccer is only a business, truly. I think it's not, it's a soccer kind of, it's a facade of soccer against like a real estate business play, right? I don't think I put soccer first. And I don't think, you know, DC United in this case, like there's no cheap seeds. There's like there's diversity still because DC's a diversity. But the socioeconomic diversity that you used to see at R.K, which is what I'm really interested in, right? Put a bunch of rich people to go, who.

cares. But, you know, put me in contact with people that are not, like, living in the same level as me that are above me or below me. And now you have a melting pot. And that, I think, you know, frankly, it's gone. Like, outy field is not the same experience that RFK was. And for me, it's, I would say, one-tenth is enjoyable. You know, it's not, it's not comparable. And I, I, as a consumer, have left because they've lost that. Now, they picked up somebody who's going to maybe spend more money than me and my dad did. But, you know, I'm not there anymore. I'm not scream and maybe the people there are screaming, but I was watching

what was it two weeks ago? No, they're a week ago. Yeah, the home game last past weekend. And there was nobody there. There was nobody there. And I know it's D.C. It was like 45 degrees, but like these MLS teams are

really, at least I see it in Washington, falling really far behind the relevance because they've chased this non-fan dollar, both in person, and I think the Apple TV deal has also kind of taken them out of the conversation out of the mix. Yeah, we could do a whole podcast on this. Let me ask you.

That podcast, by the way, will end with me not working for anybody in the industry ever again. Let's do it next year. Yeah, exactly. So after college, you worked as a sports reporter in Dalton, Georgia. Yeah. And that's not too far from where I'm located. I mean, you're in Atlanta right now, right? I'm in Atlanta right now for this work gig.

I know we're talking about that later, but I saw your area code is 4-2-3, which is Chattanooga. I remember that from my Dalton days. That's right, yeah. So I'm just south of Chattanooga. It's actually the town is called Chickamauga. Yeah, Chickamauga. There's a Chikamaga County in Georgia, too, I think, right? No, that's, I'm in Georgia.

So I'm like 40 minutes from Dalton. Gordon Lee High School? Is that you guys out there? That's just down the street. How did you know that? Yeah. Well, I covered them for one. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Wow, small world, man. I know. So I wonder, did you ever cover El Classico, Dalton versus Southeast Whitfield? Totally, yeah. So, I mean, for people that don't know, there's a great New York Times article from like 2022 about this little town in Dalton in northwest Georgia called Dalton that is, you know, has become a real soccer hotbed. I was there as the WDNN is the television station in town, as their sports guy for 2005 and

2006. It was my first job out of college. I just wanted to be on-air doing sports. And this was the first place that gave me a crack to do it. They paid me 15 grand, no benefits. So it was, but I was only there for 16 months. It was like a master's, I would say. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like a stipend. Totally, totally. And it set me up beautifully for where I would go. And one of the reasons they hired me is because I was bilingual and, you know, Mexican. And I was like, what? What? And the guy explained to me, he's like, yeah, there's a huge Mexican population here because of the carpet industry. And I was like, what carpet industry?

It's like, it's a carpet capital of the world. And we make 90% of the world's flooring is made within 10 miles of Dalton or whatever. And so I get there. And, you know, I had grown up in D.C. We're like, there's a lot of Latinos, but not necessarily a lot of Mexicans. And then I went to Western Pennsylvania. There are no Mexicans. And then I go to Georgia and they're like, they're like, yeah, there's a huge Mexican population here.

I said, what? And so I get there and suddenly like I see that yeah, like this, this really beautiful city in northwest Georgia has like half really, really, really rich, third, really, really rich white people, like the most billionaires per capita in the United States because of the carpet industry. You've got kind of like the African American community that you find up typically in a lot of like southern cities. Yep. And then you had this third like the Latinos that had come in in the last like 10, 15 years.

And so like the football team was like Latino kids or into black kids or like laterally into white kids. There was something really you wouldn't think of this in the South. I think a lot of times we think of like, you know, progress happening in, you know, these coastal areas. Right. I saw something beautiful there in Dalton, man. And I remember being like, damn, the high school soccer here is really good. I'd want a state championship in Maryland. Like I've been a decent college player.

And I got down there and I remember calling my coach and being like, hey, you got to come recruit these kids. Like they're unbelievable. And so, yeah, like all these Mexican. kids that started coming into the high schools. And the high schools were getting really, really good. When I was there, Dalton, the Dalton Catamounts, they were the big powerhouse, and I think they still are. They hadn't gotten to the top yet.

Like, Dalton was still growing as a soccer community. They'd go down to the burbs, and they'd lose to these, like, rich white kid teams. And it was a huge frustration for them because they were like, this is our sport. Like, we got to be able to get past. They got to the finals, I think, you know, 3 and 04. And then, like I said in 2022, every Georgia high school classification, winner was from like the Whitfield County or like the Dalton area. It's crazy.

And yeah, so I was, it was a wonderful place for me just broadcasting, like, you know, first chance. But on a personal level, I like, it was the most Mexican I'd ever felt. I was going to like Gin Senators. I was playing on like Mexican soccer teams. Like my buddies were Mexican. I never really had that in my life. So, um, yeah, Dalton Georgia, man.

What a, what a like random cool spot. And, you know, I just did a similar like video like this interview. Like, would they have a. soccer show in Dalton, Friday night football. And I thought, dude, how many cities in the United States have a local linear soccer show? And to me, that says what kind of soccer. So it's like on the, it's on the radio. You can tune it on your car. It's on TV. It's on TV. Yeah, they used to be on WDNN. WDN, I think, is now being bought out by like a big, like a company, like a television company, Gray, I think it is. So they've gone to the cable channel in town, off the link or

whatever it is, and they got a soccer show on Optaling. And like, it's sponsored and this and that. And like, that tells me you're a real soccer community when not only are you caring about your MLS team or the national team, but you're talking about your high schools, that's grassroots. Like, that's the thing that this country needs. And that's why I think, you know, oftentimes people are like, why are you so anti-MLS? No, no, I'm anti-MLS. I just like us to see what else is out there. You know, MLS is never going to Dalton, you know, Atlanta United might put a mini pitch in there and that's cute, but they're not going to Dalton. The people of Dalton deserve some type of professional football, you know, that allows them

to dream of something. Because imagine how great that soccer community is, but it's not accessed. I don't think it's not brought forth in the way that it could be because it's just kind of isolated out there doing its own thing. Yeah, yeah. They don't lose to those teams and the Burbs anymore. I bet they don't. They're not very often, at least.

I bet they don't. I bet they don't. And I remember it's like a huge, and I feel this is kind of on the Mexican side of my Mexican-Americanness. When my Greengo buddies are like, I used to be big Mexico versus US. Oh, it was like, Mexico, Mexico, Mexico.

I'd be like, dude, you guys got basketball, you're freaking baseball. You invented football. Like, shut up. You know, like for Mexicans, like having soccer over Americans is like a big thing. And so when that gets challenged, you get a very, very guttural, like, response, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm sure you guys have seen some of that. that, you know, in the rivalry as you kind of covered it out of the pot. For sure, yeah. So let me ask, Jamie Hill, like a big friend of the pot, asks, how does it feel? I just watch, I got to say, I just watched this clip again this morning and it's incredible television. How does it feel to be told to get lost by Bradford?

Dude, great. Honestly, best thing ever. You know, I love. confrontation. You know, I think, like, I'm not saying I like fighting. Like, I don't like to walk. I was never like a bar room brawler, you know. But if something needs to be said, say it and do it when the camera's rolling, you know, especially as a TV person, like, I can't tell you how many times covering MLS and the national team. Somebody's called me or what really has upset me in the past called my boss and tried to get me in trouble. Let the red light roll, say it to my face,

let's make content. Yeah, that's why we're here. I don't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I I don't care about Bob Bradley in any way on a personal level. I'm here to make content. He's just another person to make content with. Well, the interesting thing is he's using you in that moment, too, right? He's like sending messages to Carlos Vela. To Carlos, sure. He's doing it.

It's a performance for him, too. So why? I mean, it's a win-win, right? Yes. And I think it was, it was definitely from my perspective, like a win-win. It was not for Bob, I don't think. And he'd have to talk about it. I think he was either embarrassed, but he held on to it for a long time.

And like just, I'll say the truth here, I was taken off a game the next year because LASC was complaining and worried that there'd be a problem. And I said, hey, tell Bob to call me. I got no problem. And I got no problem face to face over the phone, that, that, that, but like this. And to my great disappointment, the bosses at ESPN, who are no longer there, chose to bow to the pressure of LLL. AFC. And at that point I said, you know, I don't know how much more longer we'll be working together. A guy thought I was on the way out. They ended up being on the way out. But, you know, I think that was always the way to deal with MLS and soccer. Like, well, what do they want?

And to me, it's always like, what do I want? What do we want? Like, MLS and U.S. and U.S. soccer have been trying to get ratings on television in this country for 25 years and the number and I know it because I worked at ESPN. I saw every number. Okay. So we, you, you just made a downward motion with your hand just to be. clear to everybody. Yes, yeah. It's down. Like, MLS ratings, go back and look at what they were pulling in 96, 97, 98. They're not getting anywhere near that now. So we need to understand that if like, if soccer on TV is going to work, which is really,

when we, has soccer made it? Soccer's made it. What we're talking about is the soccer made it on TV to the point where it's, A, super accessible and B, super profitable, right? Because we judge leagues now on their TV contracts. So you need to be relevant and watched on TV. and when Bob Bradley gets upset at Seb but has his lackey call my lackey and do something about it, there's no interest around that. When Bob tells me to get lost,

you better believe that the next game, because they won that game, funny enough. He wasn't pissed after a loss. They'd won. I'm not saying that everybody tuned into Seattle, L-A-FC to see me and Bob. I'm not making that point. Yeah.

But I bet you that there was some drive to, if you'd watch that game, And he were like, I got to go back because I got to see when Seb and him go getting into another interview, what happens? You know, I got to see that. And so, you know, I loved it. I loved the fallout of it. I think in a lot of ways when that explosion happened, I needed a place to talk about it. We needed to keep fueling that fire and not having that place really kind of created some level of urgency towards the Football America's project.

because it was like, we could be doing this every day, you know, instead of just like once. And so I think that was to me one of the impetus moments of like, hey, I want to create something juicy and edgy. But you can't just do it once a year or once every three or four months and think that that's going to matter to people. You kind of got to do it all the time. And I think Bob yelling at me somehow kind of inspired that in me to be like, hey, let's get more of this out of these people. Oh, you're willing to yell at me on camera. Cool. let's do it more because that's more interesting than what we've been doing for the last 20 years.

Yeah. We're going to take a quick break, but this interview has only just begun. We're going to get into the Pachitino era, American soccer culture, how to get the sport to grow more. Stick with us. We'll be back. But first, the Rome trip is coming up in less than two months. There's still some spots on the roster available. Even if you weren't on the preliminary roster, you can still get on this roster.

Last year, when we went to northern Italy, there were people joining. a week, two weeks before, and we had a wonderful time. For this trip, we're going to go see Roma, Milan, and Lazio Juve, and consecutive weekends. We're going to fill that week in the middle with all kinds of history and art and antiquity and great food and pick up soccer around Rome, and we're going to try to visit a clubhouse of either Lazio or Roma, and we may be able to go to the Coppa Italia final, which is in Rome, and it's in the middle of that week. That would be amazing.

At a minimum, we'll be in the area. So something has shaken loose, and you may be able to join us. Please do, hit the link in the show notes. We would love for you to join us. I mean, so many thoughts about this. I've been watching, well, Paschitino had a press conference yesterday. I came away thinking, like, we need more of the press corps to be more aggressive with him. Yes.

Or more. I don't even know if aggressive is the right word, just more, a little bit more, provocative or something just to get him to have to react. Yeah. Like one of the things I thought that there's been very little pushback on is like, you know, he's floated these ideas about effort and like that in Argentina, the guys like want to play for the shirt. And I can't like, the immediate question to me if I'm sitting in that room is like,

so the American guys don't want to play as much as the Argentina guys for the shirt? Like your big plan is effort. Like that's, you're going to get Americans to try harder. Like, and I know that a lot of it, I think he's been told by people at U.S. soccer that, like, American fans don't know soccer. When I see him speak, I feel like he's talking to, like, the Midwestern. He's not talking to you. He's not talking to me. He's talking about, like, American grit and effort.

He's talking to people who I don't think are listening to him. But I think that's what he's been told who he's presenting to. Hey, this is a country that doesn't really know the game. You think so, huh? Yeah. Have you heard him really talk, like specifics, details, anything? I think my sense with everybody that he's interviewing with in English. Now, in Spanish it might be a little different is that he's explaining things to them.

And I got to tell you, I don't need Mauricio Pocetino to explain things to me about, like, how the American player tries. I think, you know, he's talking in platitudes and generalities that we've moved past here as a media. Yeah, yeah. It's not to say that he has a bad coach or has bad ideas, but he needs to be talking in the way that, like, we're ready to hear. And we are advanced. We're not, you know, a country that just learned about the game yesterday. And I felt a little bit of that in his presentation and in his rhetoric so far. I feel like it's not really been, not respectful, but he's not aware of the American soccer intelligence.

Well, it's not being demanded of him, I guess, in the press conferences, which is all our fault, I guess. It's interesting you see it that way because I've been a little more. of the effort talk because, you know, a touchstone for us on our podcast over the last year so has been that Copa America final, Copa America final between Colombia and Argentina. And just, I don't know if you call it effort, but, bro, that was a absolute knife fight. I mean, people flying around the field for 120 minutes, like, they were bleeding, you know, for how hard they were playing. And I was watching that game trying to imagine our national team. Just forget about skill.

Just to play with that level of intensity for that long. I don't know. I don't know. Do you think, let me ask you this. Do you think that that's because the Colombian Argentina coaches fired them up beforehand? Or do you think maybe it's more reflection of what our pool is made of? And I think what their pools are made out. And if you think globally, you think,

of like soccer is a super blue-collar sport where the people who are competing for the opportunities, it's their only way out. It is life and death. And it's not life and death at 18, 19, and 20. It's life and death at 12 and 13 and 14. So the players have come through a cauldron that, you know, doesn't really exist here in that way. And then on top of that, you know, the players here are more affluent. Our players come from a less, um, Socio, our team is less socio. Actually, diverse is not the word. Our team is just more affluent, I think, in how it was raised, than most international soccer teams. And I think, you know, it's not comfortable. If you grow up comfortable, if you grow up with soccer as an option, you are a different type of player than a guy who grew up in a soccer culture where if I don't win the practice today, I get cut. And if I get cut, my family's, future is markedly different. And so I just think, you know, we're asking suburban kids to have, you know, comfortable suburban kids to maybe act in a different way than they are. So I don't think

you're ever going to get a suburban American kid to, you know, go crazy in the way that you're talking about, which you see like Argentina and Colombia. They're going to give it their all, but it is going to be different. And so I think if you want a national team, that dies for its shirt and its colors, you need to have a national team that is somewhat similar to the other national teams that pulls from a more blue-collar pool. The reality is here, youth soccer is not set up for that. Youth soccer is totally set up as a profit business here.

And so you're never going to go into the inner cities. You're never going to go into rural areas because there's not money to be made there. So soccer clubs are, they're just profit machines now. They've got A, B, C, and D teams. There's no way you're developing a U8D team. You're just charging those parents. And I live in Bethesda, Maryland now. I just moved out of the city.

It's where I grew up, Bethesda Rockville area. There's a youth soccer club. There's like a thousand youth soccer clubs within a five to ten minute drive of my house. Ask me how many there were when I was in D.C. How many? Zero. Zero.

There was one that had an office like 10 to 15 minutes away, D.C. Stoddard. There were at least rec options, right? Not really. Not really. What I ended up doing when I moved into the cities, I ended up volunteering at the elementary school in my neighborhood through a program called D.C. scores. And we created a team at the elementary school because that's the access point. It has to be free.

It has to be in the elementary schools. You can ask parents who are working two, three jobs. or, and I saw this in my schools, heaven forbid, dealing with, like, things that are way more hard than two or three jobs, violence, drug use, et cetera. Those, they're not driving kids to practice two and three times a week. It needs to be in their neighborhood at their school all the time. And, yeah, that's how you access these communities. Like, people are like, when is the U.S. going to win a World Cup?

You know when? When kids in the inner city start making the national team. You know when that's going to happen? Never. because U.S. soccer has this system set up that's perfect for everybody who's trying to make a buck off it, but they never go into the cities. They never serve these kids.

They never give these communities an opportunity. And what I found in my experience was like, oh, so I had a school that was kind of like, it was on like a fault line, old black D.C., which has been there forever. Within the last 20, 25 years, new Latino wave that comes in. And then the gentrifying wealthy white, which was coming in.

It was all like on my, on this elementary school. And so it was a, it was a really cool mix. But I could also like, I could see the Latino kids, be like, all right, you're on the team. I want you to go home. And they would go home and practice. And there was a culture of watching soccer. With the black kids, it was tough because they would love soccer at school. And then I'd be like, I like, how do I, like, how do I, your parents aren't watching?

Like, there's nobody in your family who's a fan. And so, like, I would give some of the kids my ESPN Plus code so that they could, like, watch stuff. And, like, that's literally what you have to do. You have to take kids to DC United Games. You have to coach them. And, like, that's what I did because I sensed that it was a need. And I think, like, we can talk about how hard our kids play, but our kids aren't hard. We're not picking from the hardest kids.

Yeah, that's true. And that's the thing. If you really want to, like, Mauricio Pochitino is not going to make Christian Polisic try harder. I think that's what we need to, like, get at. And I think if you want a national team that looks more like, what do you why? Pick kids that come from the backgrounds like, what do you,

then you're going to find that. I guess I mean, my one thing to add to that is like, you know, I had Paul McGlynn, Jack McGlynn's dad on the show earlier this, like last week. And he said he's tired of hearing people talk about pay to play

because like there's no club that if there is a good player won't make an allowance for that good player to play on their team. I think that's so short-sighted. But the problem is that, yeah, I agree with you. But the problem is that, like, you're not going to get any good players coming out of the inner city because there is no soccer for them to play. But I think that's more. It's exceptional. But that's more about the lack of popularity of the sport, you know?

It's just not popular enough, don't you think? Like, yeah, we could have, like, a New Deal style program where you were going in and providing soccer everywhere. But that's not going to happen either, right? I mean. It's not. I mean, Japan put a program in for their elementary. schools and look what they've done. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Good point. I mean, and I'm not saying every elementary school. I've said this to people at U.S.

soccer because they're like, people get super offended when I say anything. I say, oh, show me what you've done. Where did you volunteer in the inner city? Like, tell me about your experience. Okay, I have. So I can speak to, I can speak to what I've seen at least. I'm not an expert, but I can, I can like speak to what I've seen. I say, you know, you guys have all these deals with corporations, da-da-da. Why don't you do a deal where you pick 10 cities and you pick like the most underserved part of those cities where you've got population density, and you just flood those cities with facilities, coaches run through the elementary schools. Because every kid has to go to elementary school.

Why don't you just do that? Why don't you do what they did in Iceland? That's what they did in Iceland. They flooded a small space with qualified coaches and facilities. And that's how you do it. And you make it as free or as cheap as possible. And I understand the idea of like, hey, if you're a good enough player at 12, 13, 14. I'm not, that's, sorry, Mr. McGlynn, you've missed the point. Like, of course,

the standout 15-year-old Latino kid that walks out of the woods, Andy Nahar, is going to get picked up by DC United when he walks onto a field and a tryout, of course. But what about the chubby Latino kid at eight years old who's amazing on the ball, just needs somebody to get him to run. Just need somebody to get in shape. Or the, whatever the profile that you want to build in your head, it's their force, but you need to be put into it. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I accept that saying pay to play needs to stop is too simplistic. But to say that the issue of the cost of soccer and where it's being and why it's being kind of given to the people it's being given to is to ignore the core issue with our

soccer experience here. Like how can we, it's an international sport. You guys are talking about the national team. How can you compare what we're doing to Germany and England and all these places when we do think so fundamentally different and then be like, well, why aren't we winning a World Cup? You're talking about promotion or allegation because rich kids play the sport here. Yeah.

Yeah. Fix those two things and like it'll be a different story. One more thought. One more thought on that. So you know a little bit about Chickamauga. I know a little bit about dog. Hell yeah. So there's, there's, I coach rec soccer here I have for the last five years.

And nobody here is going to be, it's just not a soccer community, you know? Nobody's going to be great at soccer. I mean, I'm doing my best. We're getting a lot of touches on the ball. It's just five and six. But like, I guess what I'm saying is there's some socioeconomic diversity here, but it's maybe like it skews a little bit, maybe slightly above average income. And then what is the likelihood of a kid from here getting good at soccer versus a kid whose parents work in one of the carpet factories in Dalton?

The kid from Dalton is much more likely to get good at soccer because they come from a soccer culture, you know? Their parents love the sport. So do we just throw our hands up and say we can't create soccer culture? If it doesn't exist already, like, we can't make it? I think what you're doing is exactly what I tried to do. Make a soccer culture. Now if I go, if I go back to that elementary school, the cool kids are playing soccer. And in five, ten years, like the cool kids in Chickamauga will be the soccer players, not the football players at Gordon Lee. Maybe, you know, as these things shift. And that's, and then maybe it's none of the kids that you worked with. but it's a five-year-old who sees the kids you work with win a state title at Gordon.

That has to be the way I think about it. Or it's, man, I'm probably never going to make the national team, but I could make my fourth division team in Dalton. Like, that could be, if I'd have that goal, dude, I'd probably still be ratting around in like the fifth tier of American soccer, you know. But I didn't have that accessible to me really. So to me, if you can dream of like an accessible professionalism, that's where it starts.

And I think if you look around the world, when you're a 12-year-old kid, you can be like, hey, there's a, it's real. It's a real path for me. And that's powerful. Yeah. You can make a little bit of money. You can have some,

there's like some sort of respect in it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So to the national team, the U.S. national team first. Burrhalter and Pachitino. You've interviewed both at various points.

We've already talked about Pachitino a little bit. So take this how we, you want. But how's the, how's the team going to be different under him than it was under Burrhalter, do you think? So I think my understanding of Greg is that there was a great rigidity, you know, that there was a lot, and it may have waned towards the end, but that basically, you know, we were going to see pretty much the same approach all the time, with a few exceptions, you know, because you will, like, there's such a gap in international football between, like, the top teams and the bottom teams that obviously your approach is going to be different.

But I feel like with Burrhalter, we pretty much saw the same thing. I feel like with Potch, there's definitely a little bit more. Fluidity is such a throwaway word, but almost like unpredictability, right, in the attack. Like, okay, this guy's here, but then he's popping up here. I think the one major, like, tactical thing that I noticed early on was Anthony Robinson, like, moving inside. Like, that's such a, that's such a, like, brain explosion. like, oh, wow, like, what are we doing now? That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, it was like, okay, did we just stumble upon equals MC squared? So, you know, I think they'll probably be a little bit more like tactical diversity. But I, you know, I guess like the pool is still very much the same. And I should say, I think there's some things that are happening in the pool that will make the team look vastly different from like 22, 24 to 26, just in terms of like where guys are. what's happening at the centerback position, who's the nine of the moment? I mean, we do the show like two months ago. It's like, Peppie's got the job.

It's his to lose. Like now, it's George's got the job. It's, you know, it's his to lose. And so I think, you know, the team will fundamentally look different because it'll have different pieces. But I don't really know. I think I think I have to see,

you know, to me, Concaf Nations League, really true competitive matches will be a good, like, chance to see, you know, what POTCH is really about. I feel like this is, not to say that the quarterfinals, like, weren't.

I know what you're saying. True competition. But this is like, this is, you know, real and you got to get results. And if you don't, there's going to be some, you know,

some heat or some complaining. And not that he's going to lose his job, but like, I think, you know, he's, we're going to see a lot about this team in, you know, on March 20th and March 23rd.

Like that, I think that's a real true good look. Because the other thing, too, is like all the times we've seen him with this group, it's like half the guys aren't gone, it's a January camp. Like there's always an asterisk guy, I feel like. And I feel like Pepey aside and a few other guys made,

it's pretty much, I feel like it's were pretty much. Yeah, Baligan, Baligan would be nice to have. Yeah. But yeah, you're right. Everybody's there except for Balagan and Pepe. And Tillman, but he hasn't really made much impact yet. How would you summarize the reasons that Pashtino took the job? I mean, it seemed like such a coup, you know, when he was hired.

From his perspective or from the U.S. soccer perspective? From his perspective. Like why he would take it? Yeah. I think it makes sense. I think one of the things that we had talked about in like our ESPN circles is that the, like, he didn't just come to international soccer. He also chose to leave the club game. And I think it's like important to acknowledge like where was he and his.

career trajectory. How would his last few jobs gone? And so maybe the gig that he wanted at the club level wasn't there. And then I think there's also been a scaling back of like managerial salaries at the club level. So he's gone from making like Spurs money, which is probably pretty good to like PSG money, which is probably like hella good. And then like Chelsea money and Chelsea payout money, which is also like pretty good. And now all these clubs are starting to hire like younger managers who are more like up and coming. They're not maybe paying as much. The days of the mega manager. So I feel like maybe it was a combination of like, okay, the space that I'm in is drying up a little bit, both in general terms and maybe for me. I'm not as hot as I had been.

And then the other reality is like international football is for the burnt out from a managerial perspective. And like look at what he's been through. Like with spurs, all the success, but incredible tension right till the end. PSG must have been a freak. and nightmare, you know, dealing with that and the expectations. And Chelsea, I feel like, I actually look at what he did, certainly in the last few months, you say, and you're like, oh, he seemed to have like, I thought there was a lot that, you know, you could point to positive about Chelsea, but I don't think it was an enjoyable experience for him, right?

I think there was clearly like a tug and pull with the ownership where, so he's probably saying, like, all right, international soccer gives me a break. The United States is a, like, a great place to semi-live, because, Yeah, I don't think he's going to really, I don't see this. I don't know if he's going to get an apartment here in Atlanta anytime soon. Yeah, we talked about that recently. He's not. Yeah, you got a home world cup.

So, like, great opportunity there. Great opportunity to market yourself in a more global way. And I think, truly, if you look at this U.S. national team, there's a lot of reasons as a coach to be excited. You've got a young group that, by the way, just underperformed. So, like, you're coming in with the mandate, right? Like you're coming in, hey, you just flopped in a home tournament. So you got to listen to me. And he's coming in with a full mandate from not just the team and the fans,

but like U.S. soccer as well seems to be clearly like paved this path for him. And so I think, you know, when somebody wants you, there's going to be a little bit easier cadence of work. It's something new. They're going to let you take all your boys with him, which we know is huge for Posh. Like he's like, it's me and my guys. It's not just me. It's me and my crew.

You got to pay them. I think, you know, it makes total sense. It's kind of like a not a really. rehab stint, but it could rehabilitate a little bit of his coaching image, but also it's a rehab stint, I think probably for him as a person. You know, like you see men, we saw Yerkin Klopp, burnt out, literally the best in the business, burnt out. Like you see Pep Guardiola scratching his face in games.

These people are not healthy. Yeah. You know, this is, it's, think about NFL coaches, head coaches, like, these dudes are not living like healthy, sustainable lifestyle. So I think on a human level, he probably looked at this as a good human opportunity. Not to downplay the soccer side of it or to say he's only here to relax. But I just think you have to think about that when you think about the pressures that these guys are under in these gigs. Burhalter seemed to prioritize recruiting dual nationals.

And I guess I get a sense POTCH seems maybe a little more old school about it. Totally, totally. Okay, I was asking what do you think. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, you know, I just think it all like, it all comes down to like where you're from, right? And so, like, Greg Burhalter is United States grew up here. He knows this is a melting pot.

Like, it's very easy for us to think of somebody who's never lived in the United States as American. Like, that's, you know, that's normal as I think as an American, like people that we, I think it's different in other parts of the world. And especially when the rhetoric is so much about representing the shirt and feeling the badge and that, if that's in his head, then absolutely. if he talks to a guy like Ritchie Ledesma, I mean, I don't know that this was a case, although Ritchie has flashed like the Mexican passport, so clearly there's some level of gamesmanship, I think. Of course, yes, there is.

I agree. And there should be. Play the cards, you know, play the hands are dealt. But if I'm the national team manager and my ideas, which my ideas are not, but I understand that Pocetino's ideas are like this, you know, in Argentina, this would never happen. In other countries, this would be a huge talking point.

in Mexico when stuff like this happens, there's still that, you know, that vein of xenophobia that kind of shows itself on, on the talking head shows of, but is he Mexican enough? Will he truly, you know, that, that, the thought. And I think there's some, like,

there is definitely, like, a vetting process. I think, like, you can talk to people and you, like, it's not to say that just because you were born in the United States or whatever the qualification is, is that you feel the team. You could talk to somebody born in the United States, meet whatever qualifications you want.

You could be like, you know what, this dude just cares more about his club than the national team. And so that's, I think, more of the evaluation that should be happening. But I think in Poch's mind, it's very clear, like, oh, are you thinking about playing for another national team? Then I definitely can't trust you to give the thing that I'm saying I need most, which is full commitment and total devotion to the badge. If you're thinking about playing for Mexico,

how possibly could I ask that of you for the United States? United States. I think that's, just to use your words, I think that's a little bit old school. I don't think that's reflective of the current reality. And I also don't think it's reflective of like what's best for the United States. This is the United States. We got to play the cards that we're dealt. We are a melting pot. And to in any way lessen that weapon, it's a weapon in soccer would be foolish. I mean, if competing is the point, right? And then you can go and you can say, oh, I don't think Timmy Chandler's committed. Oh, okay, that's a Timmy Chandler thing. But don't you dare say, oh, that John Brooks and that da-da and that

if you think that there are two or three of those guys that aren't committed, don't call those two or three guys. But I think you really need to, like he says, have contact with the player beyond just the assumption of like, oh, this guy's dual national. So he doesn't really love the United States as much. I think the truth is like we need to move past the love of the country. It's not a country thing. It says nothing. It's a total soccer decision. and you have to start looking at it that way. I think it's so easy to get caught up in both and both the negative and positive sides of it being like,

well, we don't know what these kids feel. They're both Mexican and they're both American. Just make a soccer decision and we'll respect it. Yeah. It's no problem. If Richie Ledesma thinks he's going to play in a World Cup from Mexico, go do it, bro. Go do that.

What player hasn't grown up dreaming of playing in a World Cup? You know, and somebody gives you the opportunity, you go take it. And then if that coach doesn't think you're committed enough because you grew up in the United States, that's a problem over there, right, for the Mexican team. But I just, to cross somebody off a list before you really, really truly know is just foolish. For something that we have a lot of them do, we have a lot of guys with choices.

So now we're going to question all guys of choices about their commitment to the team. Well, shoot, now you're really slicing into a pool. And I just don't think that's a good way to do it. So maybe he'll get, you know, maybe he'll, I know the him and Burrhalter talk. maybe that'll be a conversation down the road. But yeah, I do see it as a different approach. And I also think that Greg had the luxury of working with a very young group towards the 2022 World Cup. Like, Parch's, he can't, I think there's not as much wiggle room and runway here for him to be like, let me find out if this dude's committed.

Right. If in his mind, it's a question, like, you don't got two or three years to include him in the group and da-da-da. Like, we got to start working and having everybody on the same page right now. So if eliminating the dual national problem for the next 12 months helps him be more successful in the World Cup, then maybe that's his prerogative. I would say it's not a problem. It's an asset.

It's a thing that we always need to be engaging with. That whole idea of contact of touching and feeling the players in camp, being present with them and sort of assessing them mono-e-mono. How unique is that to Potch? Is that like, I mean, to be, not that it's something that's important. Of course, it's important to ever come. I think it, yeah. I think it's super important because when we were going through the January camp,

and we've done this segment on Football America's like a million times, like, why are we doing the January camp? What is this for? You know, so they can put another game on Turner, rate, whatever. And then around that discussion, I remember thinking, well, like, okay, but it's Potch. So, like, he needs to get eyes on guys, and, like, he can spend two weeks. Now, it's not the real guys. I think that's kind of the unfortunate thing.

But I was down, I was actually down in Miami. Yeah, they were inner Miami. And I watched one of their training sessions. And I remember thinking, like, well, if this isn't just like a waste of time and like just a sponsorship play to get these games, then like maybe he really is seeing something. We'll see in, we'll see in March. Because in March, when the games really matter, if he calls dudes in from this, then like, I guess that contact did matter. Yeah, it did. Because there's no way that some of the dudes who got called in.

And I look at some of the guys on the roster, and I'm like, must have had a hell of a January camp. Like, you must have been awesome in training, bro. Because, like, you've just come out of, you know, these guys have kind of come out of nowhere. And so I think, I guess my question, I guess my question is how unique is it for him, the way he talks about that. He's like, it's like all he talks about almost. It's almost all he talked about in the press conference two days, two days ago. Yeah. Is that, how unique is that?

I don't think it's that unique. I think it is just more reflection of the timing and the situation. He has very little time just in general to the World Cup and then very little time in these micro windows to work with players. So I think for him, like he's going to evaluate guys on what they're doing in club for sure. But he has these, they're like gold dust, these windows to be with the guys, not just in terms of him laying down what he wants them to do, but also him evaluating them before he asked them what they can do.

So I think it's just more of, it's a, it's, It's happening in this way. He's so because he has little time and because he doesn't know the pool. That's the other thing. He does not know this pool. There's no way he was managing Chelsea and had a clue about, you know, anybody other than like one or two dudes in the American pool. And so I think he's cramming.

You know, he's doing his homework. And maybe in some of that cramming, that contact has weighed a little bit more heavily than it should. But, okay, you know, it's March. It's not the summer and it's not next summer yet. So he's got time to kind of make some of these decisions and do some of these evaluations. And I don't think that it's that rare. I just think there's more urgency around it for him because of the nature of when he took the gig. Okay.

I'm counting on you for cold-eyed assessment here. What's the realistic high end of how the U.S. can do at the World Cup in 2026? Like what level can they make it do? Yeah, quarterfinal. I think quarterfinal is like the line of demarcation. I think you have to get to a quarterfinal. frankly, like, especially with a poach hire, right? When you, because to me, when you pay somebody six million bucks a year, like, you got to move me. And so we know the format's going to be different,

right? There's going to be a round of 32. So I look at that, like you got to win an elimination game, but I don't look at that round of 32 is like a true elimination game, right? To me, the round of 16 is when you get to like, you're going to be playing somebody who's either elite or really hot. and you're going to be at home, so you should have the edge. Your goal should be to win that game in a home World Cup. So I think, you know, you get past the round of 16, you get to the quarterfinal. And then, like, your South Korea in 2002, right? Like, maybe it happens.

You know, maybe you win another game and get to a semi or maybe, you know, maybe you win in penalties. But I think the quarter line is the line where I'm like, all right, if you go out in the round of 16, more of the same, you know, and we paid more for it. If you get to the quarterfinals, I say, man. Success. Success, yeah. Success, you can't really pick at it. If they get killed in the quarterfinal, you can mope about it for a little bit. Say he got out coach, but you can't pick at the – you can't pick at him for the work,

and you can't pick at U.S. soccer for the higher. Yeah. And I like to pick at U.S. soccer. Yeah. Is a semifinal possible even? Is it possible? Yeah, of course. Of course.

Of course. I mean, you're at home, and I really – like – I really – I think the American town pool is so good and so deep. Like, as somebody who's just loved Conca Cap forever, you know, super following the Mexican national team especially, I don't know there's ever been a pool like this in this region. And so I think, you know, like, and it's only trending up. There's only more guys going to Europe every day. Like, I think this team is exciting.

It's pretty, in my opinion, I know it's not going to play out maybe in the Nations League this way. I think they're the best team in the region. region. And I think that should show itself in a home world cup. So I think, I think, you know, once you get to the quarters, it's all matchup dependent and luck. Yeah, for sure. You know?

Matt Turner stands on his head, you get to the semis. Matt Turner has a howler. You lose three nothing to Brazil or whatever, you know, it might be. Then you're in the situation to the actual matches. But I think, I think quarterfinal has to be the non-negotiable target. Okay, okay. Let's take another break. Stay with us.

We'll be back in a minute with a discussion of what ails the Mexico national team, a related subject in promotion and relegation, what happened to Sebi's role with Football Americas and a lot of other stuff. We'll be back. All right, we're back. Hey, what's happened to Mexico over the past five years or so? I know I'm sure you've talked about this a lot. Yeah, yeah.

Can I honestly, and I know it may flow back into our conversation or back to the conversation we had earlier in the United States and something I bring up all the time. You know, if you look at the evan flow of the rivalry, right? Mexico from about, you know, 2009, it's a B team for the United States of that Gold Cup, and it's Vela and Giovanni dos Santos playing for Mexico team, and they kill the U.S. in the final. That's when Gio scores that really nice. No, that's 11. That's the next year. So 11 is the one which is two A teams.

Gio does the chip on Tim Howard. They fire Bob Bradley, and then they tell him got Bob Bradley to get lost a week later and how to get that. trying to get that in there. And from that time on, Mexico is dominant in the rivalry. Like Mexico, like, won the big games, didn't really lose a lot. Maybe lost in Columbus, but then eventually won in Columbus in 2016. They kill the U.S. doesn't make the World Cup in 18. In 19, there's two games.

The Gold Cup final and a friendly in New Jersey were Burrhalter as a coach, and they just get destroyed. The final, I think, was won nothing. But the game in New Jersey was a bloodbath. Three-nothing, could have been five or six. I remember. And I remember to that point being like, yo, Oh, Burrhalter might not make 2020 at this rate.

Something critical happens in the pandemic for a lot of businesses. They do all the ugly things, and they blame it on the pandemic that they wanted to do and couldn't get away with before. The leaders in Liga-Mecchi strew away with promotion relegation. That was their move. They were like, this is the moment we're getting away from it. Now, if Mexico was like the United States and had a ton of their best players, playing in Europe, no problem.

The level of the Mexican league drops. It's not going to affect the national team as much because there aren't as many guys on the national team. If the level of MLS dropped in the next year or two, would it hurt the U.S. national team right away? Probably not, because there's not a lot of dudes playing in the national team. Unfortunately, there's a lot of money in Mexico,

especially in Mexican soccer. So a player in Mexico stays in Mexico because he's paid well and because his value to his club is a lot more. If you're a player for Toluca and you're Mexican, PSV might value you at 1.5 million. But Chivas is going to say you're worth eight, okay? And Tigres is going to say we're seven.

So these players never left for Europe because of the comfort of Mexican football, but financially, I think, in large part, the comfort that they thought. There wasn't an ambition from a lot of these Mexican players. They preferred to, Rodolfo Pizarro, man, preferred to go to Monterey, preferred to go to Miami than ever go to Europe. Yeah, I mean, he was such an exciting young player.

And never left because of the money. Never left because. So you have the league stopped doing promotion relegation. And then you have not a lot of European guys. So almost the entire national team now is League Ameckis. So the level of Liga Ameckis takes a precipitous drop, a massive drop. Because without the urgency of promotion, once you have, have relegation to take it away, then what's the point?

So now you had this bottom half of the table that just basically plays out the string the rest of their season. And so the urgency of the, like, League of Meckis games have, like, attendance is dropped off in the last five years. Everything's gone to crap because the urgency, the games are not as good. You get a great game in a semifinal when Tigres and Drea, or America and Cruz Azul have a classical. But watch League of Mekkes in the regular season.

And it's a bore. It's a snooze fest a lot of the time. And that eventually, that comfort, that lack of urgency affected the players who then affected the national team. And I think, you know, as easy as it is to say, the Mexican players, there's not as many Mexican players in Europe. That's why Mexico is not as good. There's some truth to that, but the bigger issue is that there's too many Mexicans playing in a lead where there's very little stake now. There's very little at stake. And so those players are unable to when it comes to international level and the intensity generate that as easily because they're not doing it in all week and week out basis in their league.

So there's a million things that people could try to paint the picture of why Mexican soccer is where it is. But the specific precipitous decline of the last five years, I think you can point exactly to the elimination of promotion and relegation in League of Mekis. Wow. Wow. So is there any chance? I don't follow the politics of this. Is there any chance of going back? I mean, it's hard to go back to promotion relegation when you've done away with it, isn't it?

Hard. So the way they talk about it in Mexico is that it's like on hiatus. And then they're like, then we're going to cancel it for good. And then there's like a little bit of an uproar. And then they kind of, the rhetoric is, well, they're now trying to find what they call places or sites, right? They're like, well, we need to have 40 sites then or 36 sites that can support first or second division football and there's this argument that's like that they haven't found that yet in

Mexico like sure you could put four or five teams in Mexico City but like Medi that can't support a team which is bullshit I think many that could support a team if they wanted to but there's this idea that like until we find enough plazas we can't go to promotion relegation and I think I'll probably always use that as an excuse you know I think they'll never really take it off the table but yeah I mean it's just hard it's hard to imagine breaking something apart and then putting it back together. What would have to happen is there have to be a lot of rich people in Mexico who decide they're going to buy second division teams or League IMEX's Expansion teams, whatever, teams

that are not in League IMEXs and put a lot of money into them with the hope of kind of forcing a merger in a discussion. And, you know, that's happened here in American sports before. Like, it's not unheard of. But that's like, that's a hope. You know, you're like hoping as the AFL that the NFL will eventually like, buy you out, right? And I think that's business people.

I just don't know if big business people move like that, if that makes sense. So it's like, yeah, is there a possibility? Sure. But the steps that it would take to bring pro rel back in Mexico, I think are just hard for me to imagine. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to imagine it in the U.S. too.

I mean, at least with MLS. Do you imagine it, though? I do. I like to imagine it, but it feels like fantasy, you know? I guess, I think in the sense of like a true. open system. Yes. I think, I think that feels like kind of a fantasy right now. I do, what I would say is like I think there's more people like Jesse Marsh and Bob Bradley and these people, like, they talk about it now and they like don't care. Like they used to not talk about that stuff

because they knew MLS would be unhappy about it. People talk about it now. We kind of openly say it and talk about that it's an issue. I don't know if you think of it as an impossibility, of the way the politics are here. I think I might agree with you there. I think MLS has effectively taken over the Federation. Yeah, I do think the Federation is in some way subordinate to MLS. Totally. And until the Federation realizes that that's not its job and that it should be supporting

all soccer, you know, I don't think that'll ever happen. Could I see, though, could I see something where MLS, because USL is owned by like one guy? It's like one family, right, that owns USL and then they like franchise it out. Could MLS buy that dude out? Could they then make their own like second and third divisions with USL and it still be like somewhat closed but appear to be open with some movement? I think that would be better than what we have now. Yeah, that would be better.

I agree. So is there is there a way where, and I think the cell. to this is, because I think about it from like an ESPN TV standpoint, right? If you're ESPN and MLS comes to you and they're like, hey, we get like 200,000 people a game, we want $350 million a year. You're like, you know, we can't do that. But if MLS is like, hey, like the people in Dalton might watch this game because they've got a fourth tier team in our league too or because one of their guys got sold up into this or whatever. There's a, there's a pathway and infrastructure. There's something here.

Or the people in whatever second division town, like, the reason people all over England watch, Birmingham, boom. The people who watch all over the Premier League, but they love their local club, but they feel a connection. And so I wonder if MLS's ratings and really American soccer ratings would not explode if, one, you added the stakes of promotion or allegation. But two, you added the viewership of engaging everybody in the same story. Right. And I think that's maybe what's missing in such a big country is that you can live in a place like Chattanooga and maybe feel detached from MLS. It's impossible to feel attached to MLS from Chattanooga. So that's actually a better way to say. It's impossible to feel attached. And that's we will never be a country that watches our men's first division or women's first division, you know, like we're obsessed with it until we all feel like.

Somehow we have access to it. And I think that's kind of the underlying benefit, even from an MLS perspective, to promotion relegation. Like, you want the whole country to watch. I don't, I don't know what else you can do that's going to engage everybody, like, make them feel like they could be playing here one day. Yeah, yeah. Man, that's a great point.

And forget about, forget about, like, all the investment. Like, Bob Shaw, the guy who owns like, I don't know, maybe he's dead now. So Bob Shaw's kid, whoever owns Shaw Carpets Adolton, that dude's a bazillionaire, right? Yeah. Why couldn't that dude just be, oh, you know what? I'm going to build a baller team in Dalton and, like, see if I can get us up to the second division. You know, like, and then what would that mean for the kids in Dalton and Chickamauga? And, like, we have so many communities that are kind of activated, but not really activated when it comes to soccer.

And I'd love to see that. Yeah, it'd be so cool, man. What's happening in the media landscape right now? I mean, maybe that's too big of a question. What's, what happened to Football Americas? Like, why did it get changed? It's changed. It's changed. It's still on. I want to be supportive of the people that are still involved. I got a lot of friends. Sorry, my mistake. Still at the show. Yeah. So I've been working at ESP. I live in Washington. You know, I don't live in Bristol. And I've been working full time for ESPN in Washington for a long time.

I should make an important kind of clarification here. So I work for ESPN International, which is different than ESPN domestic, like what you see as Sports Center in first, take and all that. When I joined ESPN, I joined as a domestic employee because ESPN domestic at that time still had a pretty significant soccer presence. As you've seen over the last few years, like ESPN lost the US soccer package, the MLS package. So the domestic part of ESPN soccer kind of like dwindled. And at some point I got moved to international for kind of headcount purposes. International is going through some kind of like 30,000 foot

ideological restructuring where they basically said we want all employees of this category to move to Bristol. And I couldn't. Like I literally just built a house in Washington next to my parents. They're getting older. I'm the only kid.

Like it was just not really a thing that was tenable to me. And I thought, okay, we'll make exceptions. Like maybe I'll work less or whatever, but, you know, maybe I don't need full-time benefits. Like, we'll sort something out to kind of keep the show going. The bosses at ESPN International were, like, really adamant and started to kind of say, like, no, like, you have to move to Bruce. So I think they thought they could convince me to move, perhaps by, like, threatening, you know, to take away the show. I couldn't move. Like, it was just not, again, I'm not a thing.

You also have a kid, right? A two-year-old kid. Just born. My wife just got a big job at the Washington Post. She's a director of social media over there. That's right. I saw that. My duties, my responsibilities to the home front are now more, you know,

because my wife is carrying a little bit more of the professional burden. So it just wasn't going to work. I didn't think we all needed to cut off our nose despite our face. You know, the bosses did feel that. And so they did that. It's their decision to take. At the end of the day, it's their show, even if I created it. Like I created it for ESPN.

I was super, you know, heartbroken and disappointed. I think anytime you get taken off a show, it's one thing when you make the show. I can't imagine. It's hard. But there's also, I should say, man, Adam, like I always said with Football America, is like my goal was that it would exist after I was gone from ESPN. You know, I know I was going to die working at ESPN. I wanted to make a thing that would survive.

I just thought it would be like 10 years or 12 years, not, you know, four. So there is some pride that it, like, that it continues. But, you know, I was very sad to, to. to see my role in the show and the way that it did. And, you know, I kind of wish that there had been another ending. But I think, you know, negotiations, sometimes things kind of go sideways. And, you know, I don't, I think I realized how kind of entrenched they were in their position. I don't think they realized how entrenched I was in my position of, like, not being able to move.

And so I think once they'd made the threats, there was only one thing to do, and that was follow through on them. And they did. And, you know, we still, I still have a part-time deal with ESPN, so I don't want to speak like disparagingly. But, you know, that's kind of what happened. They made the decision. It wasn't what I, you know, wanted. But in that way, too, it's also kind of not my decision to explain. I feel like bosses make big decisions.

They get paid big salaries for that. And there are big consequences when those decisions don't go well, especially I would think at the worldwide leader of sports. So, you know, I look for. forward to those explanations when they do come to light. And I hope that people who have the courage to make big decisions have the courage to explain them. It's wild. It's wild that they did that.

I mean, you made the show just fine from D.C. Like, what was the, what's the, what's the, yeah. And I think the truth is, if I really kind of pull it back, I told them, I said, I come to Connecticut as much as you want. It's a 54 minute flight. Like, if you need me to be here twice a week, so the show is in studio, I love being in studio with her. Are you kidding me? Like, yeah, I have no problem to do the traveling.

It was literally the moving of my family to Connecticut that was this kind of like unmovable block in the negotiations. And I did. I like, I went to, you know, I kind of had convinced myself like, damn, is this the thing? We really knew to go to Connecticut. And when I sat down with my family and really with my wife and my mother-in-law and my Mexican mom, you know, with her only grandson, I said, am I going to take my grandson away from my mother? Like, dude, there's not enough money in the world. I love football America's.

Like, truly I do. But of course not more than that. Yeah. So a little bit, some stuff on the craft. Yeah. And I mean, it's a shame what happened. I'll just say that. You know, it's shame of your, you can't be doing that.

It's a great show. So you've been, and I'm sure it still is, you've been very versatile. Produced Football America's, created it. You do actual, you've done actual shoe leather journalism all over the place, sit down interviews, play-by-play. Of all of those, to me, play-by-play seems like the hardest thing. I don't know if you agree with that or not, but how did you learn to do that?

How did you learn to do play-by-play? Honestly, on other sports, you know, I started, and when I was in college, I called probably over, I knew the number at one point, it was over 100. It was like 123 basketball games, high school and college. So, like, the play-by-play of it, I think, is something that I started to fine-tuned very early on in my career. Then I kind of went into like the anchoring world.

So I got away from play-by-play. And the other thing is 2005 to like 2015, there wasn't a lot of play-by-play opportunities like in American soccer television, you know, certainly not for me as I'm working my way up through the ladder. So my play-by-play skills kind of come from other sports. And then I think, you know, the thing that I enjoy most about play- by play. I think I'm best at hosting, but I like play-by-play the most because it's the most, you're the most, you're the closest to the action.

Yeah. Is the, like, the enthusiasm you can have, the energy you can bring, like, you can be almost a fan in that way, an appreciator of the game, it's not a fan. And so I love it. Like, I love, you know, I love calling games. I don't know if it's hard. I think hosting, hosting's very complicated. Like, play-by-play is an easy prep. Like, if you do it all the time, you're just like, all right, who are the teams?

my list of 11. That, that, that. I got a two-hour show. Usually I'm not on camera. I just focus and call the game. You're talking about hosting a, hosting a football. Hosting a show, a pregame or football America's. And there's so many moving parts and this and that and changes.

So Play-Bow play-play might not be harder. You know better than me. You know better than me. But it is the most intimate, both connected to the audience and to the action. So I think it's definitely the thing that I don't do a lot of it now. and I would like to do more. But it's the thing that when I see that on my assignment schedule, I'm always like, yes, let's go.

You know, that's going to be a fun one. Well, there's this balance you have to strike where you have to fill the silence to some extent, right? But you don't want to talk too much. It's tough. It seems really tricky to me. So it's tough too because a lot of people will be like, well, John Champion doesn't talk.

And it's like, well, yeah, because John Champion is calling Premier League games. And so John Champion has a track behind him. John Champion doesn't have to talk. Have you ever called an MLS game in Houston in July? Like, it's crickets. It's dead silence. If you don't talk, it's silence. So I think American soccer broad, like, if you compare us to English broadcasters,

we talk a ton. If you compare us to Mexican broadcasters, we don't talk at all, right? Mexicans are stuff. If you watch the, like, Aliga on Mecki's broadcast, they got like four dudes in the booth, like two on the sidelines. Everybody's open mic the whole time. So I think it really kind of comes down to like your preference. But what I would say is like there is a fine line.

And I think you have to acknowledge kind of like what it is that you're calling. Right. Like we have La Liga games on ESPN Plus. Those announcers don't need to be talking the whole time because the Metropolitan is buzzing. But if you have a USL game where the crowd isn't great, like you do need to do a little bit more storylines, a little bit more telling people why it's important because the crowd isn't, you know, doing it on their own. the crowd is kind of like, it's kind of waiting, is they're waiting? And so you need to be like, hey, there's something happening here, and here's why it's important, and this dude doesn't like this dude or whatever it is.

But yeah, I also, I absolutely appreciate there's a line. I literally will write this to myself. I leave myself that note of less is more. Because what you do a lot of times when you prep for a broadcast is you'll spend, you know, hours and hours on teams and players. And like, I know 15 things about this player, but like they don't all need to come out. And they don't all need to come out in this day. And so it's like finding the one or two things and not being like, I got to empty the gun here.

I got to like empty the clip, I think is the expression. I'm not a gun guy. So empty the clip. Like a lot of times what I see in people and I probably been guilty of this myself, it's like you do a lot of research and you feel like you've got to show it. And I think the research is just pretty. you to feel confident to be present in the moment. And so I, but I fight, I fight that fight with myself and my opportunities as well that like, I want to keep you interested, but I don't want

to talk you to death. And it's a fine line to walk. You know, it's not easy. Yeah, yeah. Okay. What's the trick when it comes to getting coaches to speak plainly with you? I mean, you got Bob to speak plainly with you that one time. Get him mad. What have you, what have you learned in your career about penetrating that veil of coach speak? Yeah. So I think, think one thing is that what I found in American soccer is that there's a lot of like obvious questions that aren't asked. And sometimes I feel like those questions aren't asked because people feel like what's so ridiculous, like I'm just going to get a ridiculous response. But a lot of times the ridiculous response is the real response. And like somebody, as a person asking the

question, you can't be worried about the judgment on your question. Who cares? I'm trying to get something out of you. If your reaction is, that was a stupid question. Like, that's great, you know, that tells me that, like, whatever the thought was behind my thing, you really disagree with it and you're going to go at it. So I think it's, like, kind of finding those topics which you think will draw a response from somebody and then kind of pairing that up with the right moment and the direct question.

I think it's a direct question. Like it doesn't, a lot of times you see post game interviews and like I'll see it in a bar. And I like, I will clock this because the thing that bothers me. So there's no volume. You see the person and they're like, all right, I'm here with the coach. And then they hand the mic. To me, it's how you feeling? Like, why are you talking?

Like these 45 second windups to a question that's basically like, are you feeling in the moment? Yeah. So I think you have to avoid things too, right? You've got to get like direct to the thing that you want, find the moment to ask it. And then like, you know, be willing to get yelled at a little bit. Like I have no problem.

It's so the Bob thing, just to go back to that quickly. The Vela question was the setup. That was the cupcake for what was coming, which was the thing I thought would get the reaction. He had had a beef with Slaton all years. Latton had run over in front of like the L.A. FC bench and done like the crotch grab. when he scored a goal, he was hot between them.

And I knew that knocking Slatan out was meant a lot to Bob. And I wanted to get that. But my thought process, so everybody knows, I think I've actually explained this to Bob, was that I was going to, Carlos had had a good game. So I wanted to tee him up to talk glowingly about his superstar. So then I could hit him with Slatun on the end. And he would feel like, well, this kid's not just trying to tee me up to golf on Slaton. he's got me wound up about my guys and da-da-da-da.

I didn't get to the slatan question because he got, you know, he got lost. But, you know, so that's in that moment, that was kind of my approach, right? Like, I know what the thing is. I know what, like, nobody is going to ask about. How do I get to it? And unfortunately, that time, you know, I failed, I guess, in some way. I didn't get to it. I mean, man. Bob has some snowflake allegations to beat at this point, you know?

He does, man. He does. It's so funny because, like, in face-to-face, like, he does give off this very, like, tough demeanor. and stuff. And I kind of wanted him to back that up by like going at me more. And instead, like I said, he kind of had other people try to handle it for me and get me in trouble at ESPN. And like, eventually he came on Football America's one time when we did a thing.

And you could tell he was like, I know you still got Twitter. And you're talking about it. I was like, all right, dude, you're still like, he hasn't totally let go. Yeah, yeah. It's okay. It's all right. Okay. Was it a directive from ESPN to format Football Americas to be a bit.

more hot takey, or did you try to model it after football Picante a bit? Yeah, great question. No one above us ever told us what to do with Football Americas in any way. I don't think they cared. I'll leave it at that. Unless it was a good, unless something had popped in the news and we were getting, then everybody wanted to cloak themselves in the Football America's trial. There was never a directive from above.

So anything is my fault or Herk's fault. Got it. Nobody above. I think, just to be honest, I grew up on football Picante in a professional sense. I watched probably every night from, I don't know, when it started in like 07, I think, through 15 or 16, I would watch every night. And that show to me is the gold standard. It's the show of record in Mexico. They say whatever they want. And the next night, the guy who they shit on comes on and yells back. And that's what I wanted. I always wanted that. And I think to get that, you kind of have to do it first, right? You have to be it first. So I think for us, there was never a like, let's make a hot take out of this. Yeah. But there was a, we are dramatic people. There's a bit of sensationalism to what we care about this thing.

It's important to us. And so are we going to be excited about something in a way that maybe other people can downplay it for sure? But it was never like, let's manufacture this take. And I don't believe it at all. right like it was like ooh sevi's hot on this let's feed him hirks hot on this let's feed him um and and and we kind of got those hot takes but i'll admit like we definitely were born and inspired by football picante and and you know people might call it hot takes but people might

just call it takes because when you say hot takes it feels like you're trying um when it like trying to be hot when it's just takes like it's just takes and you have to have takes otherwise what's the point? Right. You know, like criticizing somebody for a hot take is kind of being like, criticizing for doing something good. Like, I don't know. So, you know.

But how do you manage? Yeah, I totally agree with that. Like, what's the point if you're not going to have an opinion about something? Yeah. But how do you manage the balance? I mean, because some days you come in, you plan the show, you don't feel that strongly about some of this stuff. You know, you do, I mean, you use the word manufacture.

But to a certain extent, you have to manufacture a little bit of something there. you know, how do you think about that balance between like, you know, sort of big picture truth and, you know, actually making something that people want to watch? Yeah, I think, I think we were always guided by the topics and the content. And then, like, whatever we did within that, producer Beto Herk and I, the thing we spent the most time on is deciding what we were going to talk about, not how we were going to talk about. Okay. The how is very kind of individual. What did you research? What do you believe? what do you want to bring to the table? But perhaps we pick topics and content that would lead us into those places. And I think that's the difference, or what I saw is the difference, that we manufactured segments, not takes, if that makes sense.

Yeah, that makes sense. Your passion always has to be there. Your research has to always be there. But maybe producer Beto is forcing you to do a politic topic today because that's the thing that everybody's hot on. And maybe you're like, there were definitely days where I'd be like, dude, we just opened the last two shows with Polisic. Like, I don't, I don't want to make this the Policic, you know, football Policicic. But knowing our audience and knowing, like, that's what they were, that's that what they were hot on.

Then it was kind of like, all right, well, shit, like maybe, maybe we do it. And so I think that the hot take part of it more applied to the topics than actually anything that actually came out of our mouths. Although those might be hot takes, bad takes, good takes, whatever you want. I guess I'm interested in how you think about it like big picture, almost more than just football America's, you know, like in the media landscape where you and I are not going to save democracy here today. But I mean, there's this sense in which like if you're going to be popular in American culture today, making content, you have to be a little bit sensational or something. Like you're not going to get, unless you get a job at the New York Times covering like foreign policy or something, it's just going to be really difficult to make substantive content that is like super, super responsible. This is not for you and me to think about.

We're sports, you know, we're covering sports. But I do, I do think it sort of, it bleeds into our worlds a little bit, this need for, for, for the numbers. Yeah, the numbers. Like you, the numbers. Clippable social media stuff, you know. Yeah, when I was doing the, so a lot of this. It is actually, it probably worked itself too much into the show, not to bring it back to Football America's entirely,

but we could, like, the way we proved that the show would work was YouTube. And so what we would do is, like, we did segments on our own, Herc and I put them on the ESPNFC YouTube, YouTube, producers. And we would do topics and do headlines that we thought would get numbers because I was trying to build this case. And so I think to some extent, every time we had a conversation around football Americas or the content or the topics,

we did always have that in the back of our mind. Like, how's this going to, what's this going to do on YouTube? And that is a very dangerous thing because what ends up happening is a little bit of what I feel like has happened with a lot of, I'll just say a lot of American soccer coverage. But it's like, you got to talk about messy. So we're going to talk about messy all the time because we know that that will get numbers. And what you end up missing there is that there are ways to get numbers talking about other things, right?

Like what I found is that, and this is probably why it survived so long within the narrative of the show, one of the guarantees when we were doing these YouTube videos to get numbers, like we could talk, because we were still doing it only within like North American soccer, right? So we could talk the biggest things in MLS and maybe they'd get something. we did a lot of pro rel videos at that time, 50K and up always, because that's a thing that people care about, cared about online. So it was something that kind of always, whenever there was a pro rel thing or a USLE one or whatever,

I was always like, oh, we got to do something on that because I know it'll do well on YouTube, maybe thinking, maybe not thinking like, does the audience that is actually watching care about that? Do they care about the politics of American soccer and the pro-Rel debate as much as I do or maybe people on YouTube do? and so you end up kind of serving the numbers.

Your content decisions a lot of times are like, well, I know this will do well, so we got to put it in the A block. And maybe that's something for you guys. I feel like you guys are much less, you guys are a much more calm, like relaxed talking vibe. It's also a different,

it's like a different outlet TV and primarily podcast, right? Sometimes too sleepy, though. You know, I mean, we do need to be more, a little more, thoughtful about, you know, just spicing it up. I think that word right there, like, yeah, you guys could be more thoughtful about spicing it up. Perhaps the me's of the world could be a little bit more thoughtful about drilling down in a way. Like, I think everybody could look at what they do and improve it. But what I'd say is, if it's working for your audience, it's working for your audience.

You know what I mean? And like, you guys have a role. Like, you guys clearly have a role within the American Soccer. dialogue. People love you. People go to you for not just podcasts, but kind of other content. I think that's what I felt like we had at Football Americas, but we don't have to have the same role, if that makes sense. I could see somebody being a fan of Scuff and being a fan of Football Americas, even though they probably, you know, it's different. It's a different experience, those two things, totally different, right? And I could see somebody enjoying them both equally,

but very differently. Yeah. And I think you guys, I mean, it was news to me that the USMNT was like your, you felt like USMNT fans were kind of a key part of your audience. We've never been bigger than we were at the World Cup in Qatar. I mean, the numbers we pulled were ridiculous. Ridiculous. Like the ESPN Plus people would see an uptick.

So Fox would go to their first commercial break because they really weren't doing, I don't know, everybody wants to hire me as a consultant for American Soccer Television. I'll fix all your problems. Fox really didn't put much effort. effort into postgame, even on like US, or they'd send it to another channel. And so there would literally, there'd be like a login rush to ESPN Plus about five minutes after the final whistle, especially on US games. Yeah, you guys would do a postgame show.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we were live after like every game because we were ESPNFC. Again, they chose to go on their normal production time, which was 6 p.m. Eastern. But the games were wrapping at like three. So we were like, oh, we'll be the first show on ESPN plus after the games end. Like, we'll take the numbers from that. I remember we would do postgame call-in shows on our Discord server,

and then people would be like, all the callers would be watching Football America while they're talking to us, you know. It was the best. It was the best. So I got to get you out of here. You got rehearsals for this debut on Saturday. Just to be clear, I'm not sure this is – this episode's probably not going to drop until Monday, so we're talking about the Saturday past everybody. What are some of the most interesting storylines in NWSL for you right now?

I mean, overall. Yes. I mean, so just for people that, like, didn't, don't know the story, I'm going to be one of the co-hosts for Ion for their NWSL coverage this year. Probably a lot of people haven't heard of Ion. They're pretty new to, like, the sports space. But if you have basic cable, they're like Channel 11. They're right and mixed in there with, like, all of your local and, you know, kind of cable channels there. So it's very accessible, which I think is interesting.

It's actually the most accessible of the four broadcast partners the league has. and every Saturday night they're going to have a double header. Actually, there's one week we have a triple header, but there's a double header every night with a dedicated 30-minute pre-game show for the first one, and softball's never going to run over and collapse us. Tennis is never going to run over. It's Blue Bloods reruns or CSI reruns. So 7 o'clock, we're on 30 minutes till kick.

Game one, we do a bridge show, wrapping up game one, talking to players from there, get you out to game two. every Saturday night, with the exceptions when the NWSL isn't playing from here until mid-October. So it's going to be... You and Kylan Mills are going to be... Run in the studio. Yeah, but we're going to be... And she's a great broadcaster.

It's done a lot of NWSL, work in recent years, calling games. So she's going to partner with me. And like, I think I was telling you this before, in American Soccer TV, especially like linear, right? Not ESPN Plus, Paramount Plus, not the streamers. you just don't get windows like this. You don't get windows for a game and a pregame. And you definitely don't get windows for a pregame, a game, a pregame, and a game.

I mean, as a host, it's just a dream to have this much time to talk. So to your question about storylines, man, there's a lot. I think always with the NWSL, it kind of goes back to the U.S. women's national team. Unfortunately, right now, the three stars are kind of not around, right? The triple espresso. Mallory Swanson's out for the beginning of the season for personal reasons. Sophia Smith, who's now Sophia Wilson is pregnant, so she's not going to be around. Trinity will be around for Washington, so there's some star power there. But I think really at this point, you're kind of watching the league to see, all right,

Sophia's gone, who's going to take that job? I mean, it might be Catarina Macario, but she's not in the league. But the player might come from NWSL. And kind of seeing what the next wave of this national team ever, evolution under Emma Hayes looks like and those players. But then also, to me, the great thing about the NWSL last year was this just incredible investment in stars, specifically like the African stars. These are just incredible players.

Temo Chowinga. It's like you don't need to know anything about soccer. She's like Reggie Bush or Messi, like in those sports where like you can see the thing on the TV and you're like, oh, that's different than everybody else. Like I'm watching it. Same with Barbara Banda. Rachel Kundananji is another one. I want the NWSEL to spend more, bring more of those big players in.

But like, Toinga came in last year. Nobody heard of her, and she scored 21 goals and broke Sam Kerr's record. Yeah. A few more games, whatever. But there's an elite level of player that's coming here. And if the NWSL is sharp, I think they could very easily, you know, now there's a debate. But they could very easily be the best women's soccer league in the world in five years, you know, if they want. There's a lot of people to think it already is.

you know i think i think but it's a debate yeah there could be no debate in five years if if if if they you know do smart things now they got the best americans i think they can keep most of the best americans um they have lost a few right like we've seen emily fox go oh we saw naomi germa go but um i think they can raid europe europe's not paying that much no they're not they're not the old uh chicago red stars owners and the old like seattle rain owners who are you know just making ends meet. They're billionaires. They're millionaires and billionaires and they got money to invest. And you could make super teams, super league in the women's game with relatively little investment compared to other sports. So I think it's what Michelle Kang sees in Washington.

She's like, dude, I can build a dominant global brand for pennies on the dollar relative to what it would take in the men's space on top of all the good that I'm doing, you know, in the women's space by funding all this stuff. She's going to have an economic powerhouse on top of the social powerhouses that she's creating. What's actually happening with Mousal Swanson? Do you know? Like, Lauren Donald's quotes a couple days ago, very odd?

Everything. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't know. I had heard over the off season that something like this might be coming. But the person who told me was working with another person. and it was kind of like, you know, second or third degree. But it was interesting.

What they said to me is that they're talking about triple espresso. And they said that Sophia and Mallory were different than Trinity. That Trinity was like, they used the word dog, kind of like an obsessed professional, like only wanting this thing. And that they saw Sophia and Mallory as kind of more complete people with interest and other things. And that's not a value judgment on either. But just to say, I think we see it with Sophia now.

Like she's talked about being a mother. She's chosen to take this time in her career to be a mother. And maybe, you know, I don't know if it's motherhood, but maybe something similar with Mallory. That just, it's a moment. And I think there's a lot of, you know, we saw it last year after the Olympics. There's a lot of like, all right, we come down. And I think there's a lot of like, do you still want to do this?

And don't forget with somebody like Mallory, she's been in the limelight for a decade. Like, she was on the Olympic team in 2016 as a teenager. That was unheard of at that time. So, you know, I think you always have to think of these people as people. And when they say personal issues, like, who knows what it could be. But I think that, you know, and the Donaldson comments don't clarify it at all. But, you know, I just wonder if 10, 11 years in a career is, it's like a lot.

Like, maybe we're getting towards the end of it for some of these players. You know, I think we have to remember that, like, Mallory's been through a lot for somebody that's her age. She has. And she just scored a game winner in a gold medal match. Yeah. I mean, motherhood, when you said that, I was like, motherhood does come to mind as a possible. Yeah, like, totally. I had it with my wife and my friends who are women, you know, there's always this kind of like societal pressure and timing pressure around that stuff.

And you just never know what people are dealing with. And I think it's like one of the crazy things about the women's game that like, like the decisions about family and parenting for men are so easy. Like I got these dudes in there. Like, oh, I got two kids at home under four. I'm like, what? Like, how? I don't sleep. Like, how are you a professional player?

Like, oh, my wife's got it. Well, on the motherhood side of that, there is no that, you know? So when you see a woman come back from motherhood to play professionally or be on the national team, it's like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. What an incredible achievement. Yeah, for real. Is there anything else you want to talk about with the ion stuff? I mean, I've kept you for like almost two hours now.

No, I think, you know, I think I would just say I'm really excited about the commitment to time. You know, as a talker, clearly from this podcast, like if you want to have good soccer conversations, like football America's scoffed, you've got to have time and space. And I think for me as a TV guy, finding that time in space was always difficult. It's one of the reasons we created Football America's and then Football W. So to have this much space, I think, is something that we really, as like American soccer fans, shouldn't turn our noses up at, especially on such an accessible platform. So I hope people give it a try.

If you're not an NWSL fan, you know, come for the halftime shows. We'll be talking about soccer around the world. Like, we'll be covering it all in the women's space anyway. And so I think we'll have a little bit of something for everyone. And we'll definitely make it interesting. You're going to be hearing from like the stars of the league. And it's cool. You know, it's cool to work for somebody else.

I think I always thought of myself as an ESPN guy. And now I'm a free agent. And I've seen how things are done in other places. And it's exciting. You know, it's exciting. Like I felt at the beginning of Football Americas and probably like you felt when you were launching this, there's a lot of enthusiasm at the beginning. Like there's a lot of dreaming and like what could we do?

And I definitely want to make it a something similar, like a show of record for NWSL fans. excited to see what you do and how you do it. I guess I did want to mention one other player. You know, Jaden Shaw just made the move to North Carolina Courage. What do you expect from her? She's a big favorite of our podcast. Yeah. Had kind of a rough year last season.

Who didn't in San Diego? I think San Diego is its own kind of like dumpster fire that needs, you know, anybody having a bad year in San Diego, I blame on San Diego. Like, not on them. I'm super interested in the move to North Carolina. like they're probably the most patient possession team in the league. So it's like a markedly different style like just generally from what we see around the NWSL. So interested to see her there.

I'm curious about the her. And I'm like curious in a good way, but also like a little bit of a question about her and Ashley Sanchez. As somebody who like wanted to be a 10, you know, I like love seeing tens and players who are pseudo tens or kind of tens. But how do they fit together? like that could really pop or or maybe it might take some time to get going but I I see a player like that and I feel like if you'd have gone back to before the Olympics like we were making the case that she could be a starter at the Olympic Games so I think that's her like that's where she fits into the national team discussion like will she become a starter and maybe now when

you know and I got to think that if she's made this move we're going to see a much better Jaden Shaw club level North Carolina than we did San Diego. We can already tell Emma Hayes values her. Obviously, maybe not in that Sophia Smith role. Sophia is kind of the nominal nine in that fluid

three. Maybe there's a space there for Jaden either there or around it. There's going to be openings, you know, whether it's Malice position, whether it's Sophia's position. Maybe you move Trinity up into the nine and like, there's just so many ways for you to mix and match

there's a lot of depth in those attacking positions with the women's national team, but I think a healthy Shaw and a good club position, it's probably more a matter of when than if for her to become a starter under Hayes. Yeah, really excited to see how she performs. Is it Nejas, is the name of the coach? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Hey, thank you for being so generous with your time.

Of course, of course. Sebi. And thanks everybody for. for listening. We'll see you.