SoccerWise - MLS/USMNT Edition: Paul Tenorio On Berhalter In Chicago, MLS's Future Plans & Pochettino's USMNT

Episode Date: October 10, 2024

Paul Tenorio (The Atheltic) live from Austin ahead of the USMNT's first games under Mauricio Pochettino. Before talking about the national team David & Paul dig into what the Fire will look like now with Berhalter. It also opens the door for a little "Allocation Disorder" conversation around what the next few years look like for MLS. And finally the guys chat about Pochettino's job this week as he starts as the manager of the USMNT. 4:30 Chicago Fire 26:10 How Should MLS Grow Over The Next 2-4 Years 40:00 How Long Will Messi & Friends Be Around 49:35 USMNT ChatSoccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

what's up everybody welcome back to soccer wise once again a thursday show breaking down all things mls usmnt gonna do a little canada next week well. But you know the deal. Of course, no Tom Bogert. Tommy Scoops still out celebrating his wedding, celebrating his nuptials in Italy. I believe he has already acquired two Division III teams on the Italian coast. And he is torturing his now wife by making her go to stadiums that he runs in football manager for lower division teams just to see what it looks like in person. So in his place, who else to bring in to talk USMNT, to talk Greg Berhalter to the Chicago Fire, but the man who broke the news himself, Paul Tenorio. Paul, do you not have a nickname?

I don't think so, but I do want to talk about, first of all, the two things. First of all, you didn't pipe the intro music into my ears at first and you were dancing and i was completely completely left out i had no idea what was going on i had no no shot at dancing with you and the second thing is how lazy is tom boger you can't you can't call in from your honeymoon and do this show like what's going the tom bogert i knew okay would have been doing that all right no i'm happy he uh he he scales from i'm gonna do a live ama at 11 45 after uh uh i think it was a cake tasting from his wedding to i can't talk to you for three plus weeks sorry i'm on my honeymoon like that's something important i told him if i even see him in a group chat he's in trouble that's how much i want him off of his phone. So he yeah, he's locked in, but it gives us a chance to have you on the show, which I am very appreciative of.

Obviously, we have many listeners who are allocation disorder, like looking for something. So now they get the opportunity here, Paul, for us to do it all over again. And I'll be Sam in this. You can be yourself. I think that's a very straightforward one for you and I'll be Sam in this you can be yourself I think that's a very straightforward one for you I can be Sam if you want I'll just interrupt you a few times and I'll you know I'll just uh that I I think I can play the Sam role pretty well I think you probably could too all I know is every time I imitate Sam on this show I do get a text a day or two later

being like oh really you don't think I'll text you? You don't think I'll hear that? So shout out to Sam, who I believe is actually on vacation right now. Yeah, Sam's in Japan. I'm not worried about Sam seeing this show. Yeah. What a fake trip, dude. Go somewhere far. Don't just go to Japan.

Make it a big one. But we miss him as well. We miss Tom. Thank you to all of you for listening and being here. If you haven't gone back yet, so far this week, myself and Jordan Angeli did our NWSL show yesterday, reacting to the Orlando Shield win, talking through the Angel City salary cap violations as well,

and their punishments and previewing the weekend. So you can go listen to that on Tuesday. I had Hercules Gomez on to break down a lot of things that we've seen in Major League Soccer to talk inter- supporter shield win especially. So you can go listen to that one as well. And tomorrow I've got the mailbag episode coming with an interview with Ben Pierman, who's head coach and technical director of the Charleston battery.

I think it's one of the most fascinating projects in North American soccer. They have now sold a player to major league soccer. They had three players last year who now play in MLS and they've sold a player now to the segunda uh in spain in nick markanich who's going to win the mvp for a small club in a small city they're not coming through their academy it's really interesting stuff uh so i appreciate the time ben gave us and make sure to look out for that one coming up tomorrow but let's dig into it today because we've got usmnt to discuss panama and mexico around the corner mariso pochettino's first uh opportunity with this team as head coach uh paul no one covers that team better than you so i'm excited to dig into that but we're going to start on the mls side because you were the one that broke the news that the former usmnt manager greg burr halter is taking

over as the director of football i believe the term term is, so let's get European on this, and head coach of the Chicago Fire. It means he doesn't have to move himself, and it means the Chicago Fire finally have a way forward with a lot of these pieces leaving. Let's start on the club side, because you are in Chicago. You know this club very well. We know the struggles that there have been, and then we'll talk a little more on Greg's side of things.

But what do you make of the potential for this move and the process of how it's all gone down over the last year? I mean, the potential for the fire is massive. The market is thirsty for good soccer. And whenever soccer comes to town that's not the fire, you see it, right? Like the Real Madrid friendly this summer that i went to gold cup finals national team games copa america centenario like people will come out and watch good soccer but and and even the fire when i was a sideline reporter for the fire in 2017

when they finished third in mls and david akam was was running up and down the left side and schweinsteiger had arrived and nikol was the golden boot winner. They actually played good soccer after Schweinsteiger arrived and the crowd showed up. It was like there was like a first pop to see Boste play. But then people were like, oh, man, like this is actually fun and attractive soccer. We're going to stick around. And I think that's like what Chicago can be. But they haven't been that at all beyond, you know beyond three quarters of a season in 2017. They've made the playoffs just twice since 2009.

In a league that is built to make sure everyone gets to play in the playoffs, like everyone gets a trophy, like that's MLS, the Fire have been the team that doesn't take advantage of it. Like, it's crazy. It's actually much harder to do what the Fire have done, I think, than it is to do what, I don't know, LAFC did or Columbus or Seattle or Toronto when they were good for a long time. Like, it's harder to be this bad. It's harder to be that bad that the percentage less teams don't make the playoffs.

Like, actually, statistically, I think it's harder considering how many teams make the playoffs and I'm less. So that just speaks to, like, there's nowhere to go but up for Greg Berhalter. And I think, you know, that informs this hire because I would say that I don't think that in today's MLS, you should have the same sporting director and head coach. The league has moved past that. It's a different league than Greg Berhalhalter worked in 2018 2013 to 18 with columbus where i think it was possible to be successful in that dual role you have you know obviously you still have dp spots but now you have three u22 slots maybe four depending on what you

do where you can spend a lot of money you've got increased amount of targeted allocation money which or allocation money in general um you've got second teams that you have to run. Even if, you know, very few people watch those games, you've got, I'm, I,

why am I taking so many shots? I should stop being so derogatory. But you did say this is allocation disorder, right? I get a little loose on these podcasts. Yeah. Let her rip. No,

I just think there's more to do. There's more to do. There's more at stake. There's more money on the line. You know, Yeah, let it rip. the budget was now he's going to be working under an owner where the budget is massive where he's going to be able to go and buy the level of dps that he's never bought before in his career so it is a bigger challenge than it was for him in columbus and the league is much different so typically i would not endorse this like at all even though i think i think greg is going to be successful with the fire i think that and so to get to that i think the what the fire need is different than pretty much every team in mls because they've been so bad for so long like in my opinion what the fire need is somebody who's going to come in and you you basically are essentially paying to

kind of guarantee a floor a basement right and i think like you need competence yeah with greg berhalter i think you know what you're going to get like he's a process oriented person he's going to set up the organization kind of the way he wants over time i think he's going to create stability and i don't think that they're going to be what they've been for the last seven years of missing the playoffs certainly not the last five years under George Heights and Sebastian Pelzer where they had, in my opinion, in many of those years, the worst roster at MLS. I think you're going to get more than that.

The question you have to ask yourself if you're a Fire fan or if you're the Fire is like, could you have hired a top sporting director and Greg Berhalter or a top sporting director and Patrick Vieira and still had that level of stability? The answer is probably yes. I just think that they they wanted to kind of, you know, they felt like they had somebody in their market who fit the bill, who they liked and who they felt confident in. And it was kind of like, look, we're going to we're going to do this because we we know

what we need. We need to at least get the basement up to here and create stability. And I do think Greg Berhalter will do that. I know there's a lot of hate around Greg Berhalter from his time with the national team. But if you look at his tenure in Columbus, he made the playoffs four out of five years, made an MLS Cup and an Eastern Conference Final.

He went to the national team. He won a Gold Cup. He won two Nations Leagues. He went to the World Cup. Obviously won a gold cup. He won two nations leagues. He went to the World Cup, you know, obviously got knocked out in the Copa America in the second go round. I think, you know, say that with the caveat of I think in this league in general, it's critical to have two people doing those two separate jobs. If you want to win when the fire get to a certain point miami they have to compete they have to have somebody who can do john thornton's job as well or better than john thornton and steve trendolo's job as well or better than steve trendolo and it's really hard and i would say damn near impossible for one person to do both of those things yeah they um i think the the, though, where you get to is right now in that conversation, Greg Berhalter has the bargaining chips.

Right. He's available and he has other openings. We obviously Tom reported the San Jose conversation. Austin is now available. Atlanta still hasn't made a decision. We know Club America's interest in the past. So Greg has options. And as much as he probably wants to stay in Chicago because it's an easy one, his family's there and all of that, he doesn't need the Chicago fire. And if they wanted him right now, they don't have those bargaining chips. Maybe in four years when they've done well for four years.

And the question is, how do we become the next Columbus if they maintain this or LAFC or whatever it is at that time, then it becomes, well, can we find someone else? But I do think you mentioned the process-oriented part of Greg. And I think from what I know of him and what I've talked to people at U.S. Soccer who have said the way he thinks about organizations and leadership and people, I would trust of all the coaches that could set this up well, that he will have a system where there are people in the front office who are doing the day-to-day tasks at the right level, that he doesn't need to be involved all the time, as well as the coaching staff as well, where a lot of head coaches, I mean, Ben Olsen's not drawing head coach's role as well. And there's a space in there where, as you said, this team can at least come up and start to compete and start to build to have the building blocks to say, OK, what's the future of the Chicago Fire? Yeah, I mean, I think also, yeah, like, look, Greg, I've now covered him day to day, essentially, since 2019. You know, like I've been around the national team so much.

I'm like constantly on the road with the u.s and like i know this team and this program better than anything else at this point and and so like i had an up-close point of view on how burr halter worked with the national team and and obviously before that with columbus as well i i knew it a little bit more from a distance um i i believe that greg will go out and hire somebody as a sporting director or GM or whatever title you want to put on it that will work under him, but will be kind of running that department day to day. So in my mind, it's going to look a little bit like what Kansas City used to look like.

They say that they don't look like it now, but like, so we'll take them at their word, but like what they certainly what they used to look like with Peter Vermees over top of everything as the coach and the CSO, Brian Bliss kind of running the sporting department day to day and Peter still running the coaching, but also being Brian's boss. And, and so you can look at Kansas city and see where some of the pitfalls are, right? Like typically one of the best parts about having two people in those two different jobs is they check each other, right? They are controls on each other's power and influence. And, you know, I think when somebody is doing a really poor job, like you need somebody else to balance it. And it's hard, right?

It's hard to be somebody's coach and then go and and go into an office a few weeks later and say look we really really value you i just told you that the other day coming off the training pitch but like i'm not giving you a raise you know like that that causes problems we're not upping your contract but also you are vital and i believe in you like you're my guy and like you know but like also like sorry i have no money left in the budget like and that's like something that peter vermes has had to confront a lot and acknowledge that that's not easy. And I think even when you bring Brian Bliss in to do that job, there's still an understanding of who's in charge. Even if it's not you having that conversation, the players know who's making the decisions.

So that's like a part of the problem. But I think when it comes to building the roster, like if you get the right people in place to help scout, build the team, handle negotiations, work on the budget, take a lot of those things away from Berhalter's plate, you know, he's going to have a plan of how he wants to play, what the positional profiles look like, what kinds of players he wants. And those, by the way, those are like, what kinds of players he wants.

And those, by the way, those are things that have not existed at the Chicago Fire for a long time. Just the idea of somebody coming in and saying, this is what we look like as a team. This is how we're going to play. And not just saying that, but then having somebody on the sporting side take that and actually put it into the scouting and how they sign players and who they sign like that part like those two things working together that hasn't existed in the chicago fire for a long time so for that reason i think like this can work but i

understand there's skepticism for sure in the league the league that the fire, you know, that they compromised too much by giving this full power at a time when no one in the league is doing it. I just think that the fire are in such a unique position, having been so bad for so long that there's no comp here. There's no other team you can look at and be like, oh, like, I guess maybe San Jose. Maybe. But even then, like, it's been really bad for a really, really, really long time. The part that I struggle with and I've said over the course of the last few weeks is, like, San Jose, they have not spent to be bad. They don't spend and they are bad. And it's like like this is kind of

the reality the fact that chicago has broken records with the amount they've spent to then be bad is where it is unique with them which is like okay where are we like is this an endless checkbook from joe monsueto because if it's not you got to start making sure that he thinks it's worth it soon and on the other, it's just a waste. Like, it's brutal. And so if this is what you have to do to raise the level up at the start, you go for it. In saying that, let me ask you, in the scale of Shaqiri's to Kucho's to Fakou Torres to Hernan Lopez, where do you think the spending, the profile, the backgrounds of the players that Greg sort of is able to target early on will be for this club?

Yeah, I mean, look, I think, first of all, I want to say, like, Joe Mansueto's biggest faults have clearly been, like, his loyalty and his patience. Which, if I were to draw up a list of, like, flaws on owners, that would be at the bottom, okay? For sure. Working with Joe Mansueto is, like like probably one of the most attractive things about the Chicago fire job, right? He's going to give you time to, to do what you need to do to build something. And, and, you know, I think for too, too much with the previous regime, but like, that's just how he kind of works.

He's a, he's a good person. He kind of, he, he sold on the long-term vision of the fire. Knowing that, I think there probably will be some sort of number that's there of like, this is your budget for the two DP spots. I think if Greg Berhalter and his staff came to Joe and said, hey, we found this player. It's going to cost a little bit more than we budgeted. I don't think Joe would say no. Like what in the history of the fire would make you think that Joe would say no to anything at this point?

Like if you can sell him on the fact that it's going to work. I think that the fire have a pretty clear model of what they should be looking for by looking at the galaxy you know they already have a 10 million dollar striker in in the same way that i mean obviously the galaxy lost chicharito but they had jovalich they knew he was going to be their guy they they believed that they could get him service he would be more effective the difference being galaxy had puge the fire don't but those types of players they went out and spent a lot of money the galaxy did on paint to one pack a lot of money both of those paid off and the galaxy went from missing the playoffs to competing for a supporter shield finishing first in the western conference and

playing really fun soccer like attacking open soccer that makes you want to come and watch them and that the fire need that too they they can't just become like it's not even about finishing seventh or eighth or ninth or tenth and making the playoffs like put a team on the field that's fun to watch that that makes people want to show up like i don't think you can do the and this is not a shot at them like i don't think you can do like the nashville expansion profile and say we're gonna build a team that competes so that we can create momentum in our new market because nashville was new and sexy and fun and they were gonna build a stadium so they knew that they were

gonna have fans in the house no matter what so it was like okay let's try to build something stable to to make sure that we maintain as we build this stadium and the fan base is coming here your your legacy market you're known as being a team that never wins you need to entice people back into the stadium and and i will say like greg greg berhalter's 2017 2018 columbus teams i really liked watching those teams play i really did four two three one they played really pretty soccer. I remember, like, you know, even when I was in 2015, when I was covering Orlando City,

and the way people talked about Berhalter's teams, Tata was a big fan, all of those things. I'm not, I think that they'll, I don't know that they'll play that same way that they played in Columbus, or if, you know, the way Greg looked at the national team, 4-3-3, or if there's something else that he's going to pull inspiration from. But I would say in how they shop and how they approach what the dps look like that painstyl probably more painstyl than peck is the model go find a player who you know what you're going to get has been there has done it is in an age where you have a wider wider bit of evidence that they

are going to produce but is an exciting player that will open the field up, create goals for others and create goals for himself. So that would be my guess. I don't know that it'll be big names. I don't think that it's going to be younger DPs that they're going to try to say, oh, we're going to resell. I think it's going to be like 25 to 28,

hopefully a winger, maybe a number 10, maybe another winger, attacking oriented players that can score goals and create goals and and and then you can build out around that because there's a lot a lot to do with this roster there's a they need two center backs a right back another midfielder they need to build out their depth that there's a lot to do, but it starts with those two DPs. And I've said a couple times, but that list is a similar list we would have said about Cincinnati before Noonan and Albright took over. So I think there should be an assessment from Greg Braulter and his staff of, like, in a competent system with clear ideas, who is salvageable?

Because you can't flip a full MLS roster. And we have the salary tables, which if you don't subscribe to our Patreon, do so to get you access to our depth charts and our salary tables. And the thing I keep sort of harping on with the salary table is the middle of that roster is on two and three year contracts. And you get one buyout and you can try and transfer guys and you can agree to deals. I think players will leave because they don't want to play for a coach that they didn't sign up to play for. And some will just be unhappy with the way things have been or foreign players will want to go home, whatever that is.

You can get out of some of this, but you're going to be stuck with a lot of this contract. Let me ask you this question. RG Loss asked it in the chat or brought it up in the chat. It's come around a ton. The USMNT player pool coming to play for Greg Berhalter. Obviously the one name that pops up weston mckinney meeting with fc cincinnati and his potential or willingness at least to come it is a

really young pool so it is not players who traditionally in where they are come back but also a lot of players not playing do you expect that to be a shopping center for him i mean i guess i i would be shocked if burr halter went for a player like weston mckinney for a dp spot like historically in mls if you look at how you should spend on your dps in order to turn your team around like where does weston mckinney fit into that picture what's the previous example yeah i mean michael bradley michael bradley so are we going to say that weston and michael bradley are the same? And like, no. And so I would, again, I would, I'll put money down saying that those are going to be two attacking players.

Because I think that, like, historically in the data, you know, the players, the DPs that change teams are Nico Ladero, Rui Diaz, Joseph Martinez, Miguel Almiron, Cucho. There's a pretty wide body of evidence of what you should be spending your DP money on in this league if you want to be successful. But that being said, to your point, because there's so much to do in some of these areas, the same way I was talking about how the Fire think about Berhalter, of somebody that they really feel is like, hey, we're going to up our basement like significantly with Berhalter over what we had before. I think Berhalter is going to think the same way because there's so much to do on the roster that you say, okay,

we need two center backs. One of the hardest positions to recruit for a major league soccer. Yeah. I'm going to be calling Aaron long on the first day of priest of a free agency. And I'm going to saying, Hey, Aaron, you know what I want for my center back. You've worked with me before. We need a starting center back who is athletic, who knows the league.

Yes, come play here. This is how we're going to play. We've got Kellen Acosta who played with me all through World Cup qualifying and into the World Cup with the national team. I know you. I've shown faith in you. I brought you to Qatar. I don't need to sell you on who I am as a coach.

You know what you're going to get. Yes, I think you make that call. Do you go after somebody like Jackson Ewell? You need another midfielder. He's another one who's going to be a free agent. Somebody else who you know exactly what he's going to do in MLS. Long career in MLS so far. So that type of national team player i would see as a bigger possibility of burr halter dipping it and and and maybe there are some guys in the national team pool the greater pool

that he pulls from i just don't think it'll be the higher profile guys um yeah in my opinion the only one that would have been obvious to me, besides Weston, which I agree with you on, would have been a loan as a U-22 for Pepe to get minutes, but they have Kaipers. And those two don't make any sense together. I would assume there's a little frustration that Reggie Cannon signed a three-and-a-half-year deal as a free agent because he could have been one where Greg has relied on him and given him opportunities and he was available and that's a raise your floor type player,

but there'll be other options like that. But those are the types of national team players that I think you could see Berhalter saying, okay, like, yeah, like maybe, you know, maybe you go for that level of national team pool where you're familiar with the player, you've scouted them, you've worked with them, you know their strengths, you know their weaknesses,

and if they're available, they know you. By the way, Chicago is a great city to live in coming from somebody who's lived there now for eight years um and it's an awesome place to live it's an awesome place to to be if you're a younger person like there's a lot to sell about the market too um but yeah i mean i think i think that's you hope that's a strength you hope that somebody that something that burr halter will bring to the table. I just – I wouldn't see it for, like, those higher-profile national team players. That being said, if, like, if Josh Sargent was coming back, like, I absolutely could see Greg Berhalter throwing – I mean, they have Kuipers,

but, like, yeah, if there's, like, the right player that's saying, hey, I'm coming back, I think the Fire could be a team that would throw their hat in the ring. It will be interesting if in 2014 we saw push. It felt like I don't know if it was a directive or not from Major League Soccer to try and get World Cup relevant players in the league. Obviously, 2026, the World Cup cup being here you expect that you expect the as well what Dempsey Bradley all of them came back 2014 if that occurs again you'd assume Greg would have a step up on a lot of other people in his relationship already and I just want to say that I think that would be I think it's a it's a mistake for mls to think that that's the best way the best

pathway to advertising the league is to say like oh like you know for the four months leading into the tournament like josh sargent's in st louis now and whatever like i actually think it's a much better advertisement for the league for them to lean heavily into weston mckinney was in the fc dallas academy chris richards peppy whoever's on the roster that has ties to mls and lean into it and say like we helped build this team and right and then later you can bring players back but like if mls is going to continue to invest so heavily in the long-term project. And I'm not saying that they don't invest in the short-term, but recently a lot of the investment has been with long-term eyes, right? Like MLS Next Pro, it's going to take a really long time for MLS Next Pro to matter,

like a really long time. Academies, by their nature, take a long time to pay off. Even the U22 initiative, like this is about signing young players and selling them and creating a reputation in the market that takes time to develop and for teams to learn what types of players they should be spending on and how much they should be spending, which they're still learning. It's been a rough start for that program. All of those are long-term initiatives. Why then would you pivot in your marketing ahead of a World Cup and all of a sudden you care about the short term and what's on the field? If you want to care about improving the product on the field, which you should,

you should, then make the big changes right now with Messi here and the eyeballs here. And don't make it about one or two or three american players like make changes that allow these teams to go out with a focus on can i assign players that will make this product better period not because they're in this age range not because no can i go find the best possible players with this allotment of money if you want to tell a story about the league right now it's it can't be oh well Josh Sargent's back oh we're gonna make a real push and sign Weston McKinney and and you know he's gonna be a DP and we're gonna say like come watch Weston McKinney this weekend in Cincinnati like I think it needs like if you're

gonna make so much of your mission and your investment in this long-term development, then embrace it ahead of the World Cup. Really embrace it. And by the way, this is coming from, and I think they should do that. And I think they should overhaul the rules and the salary cap to allow teams to make the product on the field actually better but i don't think fans in america are going to care that much about whether or not they can go see a u.s men's national team player on the field in mls i think there's an equal amount of care of saying oh like the next national team player is is on that this is where you right and also like hey you really should have a goal coming out of 2026 where you have an attractive enough league and the resources that players

from a ton of those national teams are willing and able to sign an MLS. That should be the goal. Yeah. I think the victory would be the painstills and the cuchos of the world are playing for their national teams at a World Cup here already playing in this league because they're good players. And that's what you've done. And they're genuine, relevant part of their national teams for the exposure. Right.

Because the World Cup is the biggest stage. You can't deny that. And that matters. And having a connection to that matters. And I think the youth stuff is a great sell. And it makes sense. It's not the easiest one because it's hard to say, if you like that, come watch this.

But it is a connection that matters and I think has value. I think on top of that, though, you want the situation of like, if Columbia has a great moment and Cucho is a part of it or whatever other, Eddie Altuveza is a part of it, like that's the guys that also play in your league. Yeah, but also I think like so many decisions around this league are made with a commercial eye like like the commercial idea of mls next pro is controlling as many young players in this country as this is my opinion as many young players in this country as possible and as many markets in this country

as possible and then if young players get developed mls teams buy them and then mls teams can sell them and you profit in the player market you profit in touching all of these different markets around the united states and you influence the game that way like that's a commercially driven approach with sporting as a potential has some potential payoff academy i think is mostly sporting driven but certainly we know youth soccer in this country is a moneymaker, like plain and simple. But I think academies and what they've been doing for a really long time, like the idea behind academies, if you do it right, is really should be sporting driven. This idea of bringing back US men's national team players or signing

you 22 players that, you know, if you want to say like, let's make the product as good as we can make it on the field tomorrow, you don't say you don't create something to go by 1920 21 year olds like that is not going to make your product better tomorrow. That's that's done to increase your involvement in the transfer market. MLS has said that they've, they've been very transparent about that. So at some point, like let's, let's make some decisions that are about what the product looks like today or tomorrow and not down the road.

And I think, I think the league is ready for that. I think, I think there's a group of owners that are ready for it. I think certainly we know that there's an audience in the United States that is ready to consume the I think certainly we know that there's an audience in the United States that is ready to consume the best possible soccer that they can.

And I think the payoff will be, you know, my whole spiel recently has been recently. I use that term loosely. You know, it's... Since you've been born. Yeah, it's this idea of like, I think MLS needs to improve in two places.

I think they need to get the product on the field better, and they need to increase their relevance in the kind of conscience of American sports fans. And those two things are not the same. The way you accomplish those two things are very different. Approving the soccer product is changing how owners spend across the roster, giving them more freedom to spend. And it means you're going to be signing a write back from Syria that nobody down the street, a new fan of soccer is going to know, but it's going to make the product better. But that's not going to change how people talk about MLS. And I think you have to kind of take a page from the Saudi book and you do have to go out and at one point in time have a bunch of people sign a bunch of bigger name stars at a very high price point.

I'm spending potentially billions of owners dollars right now in this in this in this way that I'm talking about the strategy. But you have to do something to get people that don't normally talk about MLS to say, Oh, MLS is changing. Oh, MLS is better now. Oh, MLS actually is a real league, even though we know it's in, we know it's in a different place than it was in Oh two or Oh three or five, you know, whatever, like you have to create that moment. And you have to do both. You can't sign a bunch. We MLS has for a long time signed a bunch of stars and it doesn't really change the level of the league you have to bring the level up and bring in more stars together all at once i feel like the moment is now you have messy here you have

the home world cup like when else are you gonna do it um but you know i i don't know that the way i see things is the way everyone sees things and and to be fair 30 people getting 30 people who have been very successful in business to all see things the same way is not an easy task and and that's essentially the job of don garber and mls is somebody's got to be able to create consensus there and and i don't i just don't think that's happened yet. And I don't know how I mean, but I don't know either. But I mean, so now we're here. You'd assume also 2026 will be a moment like the big signing moment of like everyone's

going to start talking about soccer here. And so if you can do the first half thing right now over the next two years, you can be in a better place to piggyback off that whether you choose to spend the billions on the stars or not because the sport and the notoriety and the attention on your buildings and right croatia is going to be training at the chicago fire well not at fc cincinnati's mls stadium right like there's going to be buzz and notice and interest for a lot of these teams that That's a moment to do a lot of this. I still am not 100% sure that a person walking in a building knows the difference between a Serie A left back and Daniel Lovitz.

Like when you take the jersey off and you take the buzz around it, right? If you put that Serie A left back on Toyota Stadium's field on a Saturday evening in the summer and it's 100 degrees and they're playing against Austin FC I don't know that everyone knows it but as someone who cares about the league I would love to see a lot of that because there is clear marks where the level could come up and I do wonder with Inter Miami setting the points record if there is a moment now of like you've had to build the league to be competitive but the fact that miami was able to set this record in the first year of all these players being together is it a sign that the rest of the competition needs to be allowed to come up another level to compete yeah i mean and like let's i think the biggest problem here for mls is that they are facing real competition for the audience that's going to exist coming out of the

World Cup in 2026, in the same way that they faced it on television. And they lost that battle on television. And, you know, so far, I'm not saying it's like over and done with. But like, you know, they went to Apple, and they're trying to do it that way. And, you know, it's better to be too early than too late. I think a lot of people say and I think world cup and in the lead-up to it to be ready for what comes after the world cup the relevant lawsuit is at play here plans for liga la liga and the bundesliga and eventually the championship and the premier league and certainly league mx to bring their competitions into this country and compete for dollars and i agree when when, you know, the counter argument is, well, there's not enough games that can happen in America to really truly take away, you know, from the core and base audience, you know, MLS just announced 11 million fans through

their doors, you know, is five or 10 European games, regular season games going to really pull away from that substantially and, you 20 league mx games maybe not but the the real competition is for the generational fan that's what sports is about is can you create enough loyalty and fandom that the the guy in cincinnati becomes a season ticket holder and teaches his kid to be an fc cincinnati fan right and then over time that that fan base grows and grows and grows well those generational fans are being created for those other leagues, too. They're also aiming to create generational fans. So the concern is, yeah, like if Liverpool comes over to play once a year here, is the fan in California going to say, look, my $2,000 for the year soccer budget is not going to go to a season ticket for the galaxy it's going to go to fly across the country with my son or daughter get a hotel room get three tickets with my my two kids

teach them to be liverpool fans and next year we'll fly to miami when they're there and the year after that we'll fly to liverpool like there's competition for generational fans too so this isn't and i'm not like i'm not you know the only person thinking about this like mls this is their business of course they're considering all of these things and they're they are debating and discussing what's the best path forward um i just i hope that for a long time the right move for mLS has been slow and steady, slow and steady, build, build infrastructure, build permanence. Um, and that wasn't no easy feat in the history of American soccer. And they've done that. The question now is, is slow and steady still the right strategy

considering the competition and the market around them, both the competition that's always been there in the NFL, NBA, major league baseball, NHL, and on the other front now, these leagues that have more touch points into your market than ever before. And I think I know the answer to that. But like, honestly, you know, we'll see how it plays out. Like, you know, maybe if MLS stays on the same path for 20 years, it's going to keep growing the way it has for the previous 20 years. And in 20 years, I'll get calls from all the people who hate listen to Allocation Disorder, hate listen to this SoccerWise podcast and say, hey, idiot, you know, you tried to spend all my money and look who was right.

There's a good chance that happens, too. There is a good chance that happens. There's also a decent chance that the win is just everything else falls apart like we're talking we're we're hearing talk about players strikes and spending and salary caps in europe and all of that and like that might be this low and steady win which i don't think any of us as fans would enjoy watching because you got to sit through that and wait for that and that's not really what we're here for let's talk about miami though real quick before we get to the national team um because we brought up messy a number of times and we've talked about

it there's we're all talking about this team over and over they won the shield they're on the verge of setting the points record there's a lot you obviously cover them as much as anyone the one question i wanted to ask you because i haven't really talked about this with anyone is how long we think this will be and whether or not the playoffs we're watching and MLS Cup matters in factoring into that. So Messi's under contract through 2025, but I think it's been made pretty evident over the last few years that Messi and his friends

kind of get to do what they want to do when they want to do it. What do you make of what Miami has built and sort of what the near future looks like? Yeah, I mean, they shoved all in on this year. I mean, I think that's pretty clear, right? I mean, they have multiple U-22s on season-ending injury lists that they're going to have to resolve that. Obviously, one of them have already sold, so they're halfway to resolving that problem.

But, like, Suarez is on a one-year contract. You know, Busquets is through 2025. Is he going to to want to stick around what's alba going to want to do to your point messi's got one year left on his deal after this guaranteed so i think i think for sure that this year is about winning mls cup for them and if they don't do it then yeah you have to take a deep breath and say like is this going to fall apart like is this sustainable for one more year who's going to want to move who's ready to go to europe how do we replace certain players how do we go through the whole cap iteration all over again if you have to to try to make room and make it all fit with people getting raises and all that um of course i think i think that's a big part of the equation here you know and then's the stakes beyond 2025. It's like, can you convince Messi to stay for 2026?

It's similar to the David Beckham situation with the Galaxy. You go back and read. I've got it sitting next to me because I carry it around with me as my little inspiration here. The Beckham experiment. You read about that. And when they did the contract the way they did with David Beckham, MLS and the Galaxy, that is, giving him that clause that allowed him to buy an expansion team that became Miami, there were benefits in the moment. I mean, first of all, I don't think they expected the expansion incentive to push for the league to grow to advertise to market for the league um messi's contract is similar not in that he has an expansion team but he owns a percentage of inner miami they're opening

a stadium in 2026 there's a big difference of what that looks like for inner miami if they open a stadium with messy on the roster versus without Messi on the roster. I think the Apple deal looks very different going into a World Cup year with Messi playing in MLS than Messi not playing in MLS. There's a lot of commercial interest on the line regarding Messi's contract in general. So I think that for that reason, winning an MLS Cup, going into that last year of the contract, with the dynamics of what happens to Suarez, with some of the names that have been floated of people who want to come to MLS,

it's a big deal for them to win an MLS Cup. They have a lot riding on it. And I think it doesn't necessarily mean they win and it breaks up. I think it's like they win and it's incentive to like, let's keep this thing together. Let's keep pushing this forward. Maybe Suarez is done,

but maybe we'll replace him with Griezmann or whatever, you know? And say like, hey, Messi, let's get you a sign and extension. Let's get you locked in through 2026 now and make that announcement and let everyone know, buy your tickets to the Miami Freedom Park and come watch Messi play, you know, final year and etc etc so um it's kind of this dual reality right like i remember um when messi got announced in miami we took a plane the next day to dc for the all-star game board of governors was the day after that. And Jorge Mas came out after BOG and there was a media scrum and somebody asked him like, you know, what,

what do you need to do to be successful with Messi here? Like what's a success? Is it winning every trophy from here on out? And Mas said, we've already won. Like Messi's here playing for us. We've already won. And he's right. Like it's been a massive win for inner miami that wasn't guaranteed by the way they that's a huge risk that the mosses took and how much they were paying to him and it's all paid off in a way that i think a lot of it opened a lot of eyes around the league that that bet paid off for jorge mas um but the other day when you saw Moss kind of photo bomb and then interview bomb on Apple TV after the Supporter Shield win.

And he said, OK, this is great. We won this trophy. We want the record, the points record next. And we want MLS Cup after that. Like, yes, it's about on field results now because the win of Messi being here, that's in the books. They want the commercial successes there. I think they need to win mls cup to feel like it's successful and i think winning mls cup would be huge in kind of incentivizing and pushing for this project this model to keep going for for maybe two more years instead of maybe just one that's just i mean you're right messi could decide tomorrow hey i'm done you know i'm i'm out um but i don't know it doesn't have like a little bit of a vibe like lebron you know it's like it's hard when it's been a part of your identity for so long and everything you've done for so long the idea of it just not existing anymore is difficult.

It's also hard because he's still good. So it's not, you know, with some players, it's like they don't want to retire, but it hits them in the face because they have to. We're not obviously inside of the training room with him. It doesn't feel like it takes that much for him to get on the field, right? what they talk about is like i'm a mets fan francisco lindor has to take an hour right now to get his back right to get on the field i don't know that messy wants to do that um and obviously the injury that happened over this year might affect the way he chooses to make that decision or it might go the other way where he says i think i've got another healthy year in me like i want to come back and be a part of that and do that.

Messi feels like it's soccer first with him, right? He enjoys playing it and he wants to be on the field. Once he steps away, he can't go back. And I think the quote from LeBron in the new Netflix piece he's doing is, when I'm on the court and I feel like other people are more in shape and better than me and ready to go and I'm not there, that's when I'll step away. I've never felt that. Messi scores a goal and has an assist every game like there's no way he can feel that right now and I think I'd be surprised if he played soccer full-time somewhere else so it's kind of this or or nothing as he goes along it doesn't feel like it now if I was Sergio Busquets I'd be like I'm done I don't need to I don't need to cover all the space for all of you anymore and like you guys are always hurt or on national teams and I have to play center back so that I could see a

little bit with the change of the friends. But I think there's enough people in the world that want to play soccer with Messi that they could probably figure it out. That much is clear. It's funny. It makes me think of, um, Felipe Cardenas and I, and I did a story on Messi leading into the Copa America. And it was like, we basically were like debating each other as we wrote, like going through all of the different quotes that had been said and pulled from Argentina about what this tournament would mean for Messi. Like if they won Copa America, that would be it. Messi could walk away having won three trophies back to back to back.

No one had done it, you know, no one had done it except for France. And now he's done it and he can walk off. Then there were other people who said, well, no well no if he wins it it's going to be evidence that he can still be effective for argentina and it's going to keep him going through the world cup then it was like well if he loses it then he'll be like okay i'm done i won my thing i tried it i'm done and then it was like well no if he loses it it's going to be motivating for him to go to the world cup like nobody knows everybody's guessing and it is about what the person wants to do what motivates them.

But I do think, after watching the Copa America, his influence on Argentina was different, but it was still real. Like, the stats, the data, the underlying data show that he was creating chances for Argentina at a higher clip than almost anyone in the tournament. I think by the end of the tournament, only James had created more chances in that tournament than Messi. So it didn't look the same as maybe it did 12 years ago, but he was still making an impact there, too. So it's not just an MLS. So all of those things are going to factor in. And it's what makes Miami still a fascinating story because, you know, he's such he's the greatest player of all time. And he's wrestling with this kind of personal decision that also has not just impact on what the team looks like, but the business for the team and then the business for the league. And then kind of how the sport moves on from there.

Because when you lose the big legends, you know, the NFL is maybe the most recent example. When Brady steps away, you've got to figure out know the nfl is maybe the the most recent example when brady steps away you've got to figure out who who the next person is and they had mahomes but like do you have that yet you know mbappe that guy um yeah so it's it's just to me it's fascinating someone should write a book about it someone should write a book about it someone should spend some time on this paul everyone's got to stop being so relaxed uh and it would be terrible if someone had to write a book about it. Someone should spend some time on this, Paul. Everyone's got to stop being so relaxed. And it would be terrible if someone had to write a book that they'd have to spend so much time in Miami. Like, of all places.

Just brutal. What a brutal existence. Let's talk Austin, though. Or let's talk USMNT. As we go along, you are in town for this game. It's Mauricio Pochettino's first window. Panama on Saturday. Then Mexico on Tuesday.

I believe the next window is Nations League. Nations League and Gold Cup, really the only competitions left for the U.S. until the World Cup. So friendlies are going to be where a lot of the work has to be done. Just over the first month or so, you cover the U.S. as much as anyone. Now Pochettino coming in, Like, what is he in this program? What is his role? What is his impact? And what are you looking for over the course of these few days?

I think his role right away is to become the face of the program. And I think that's important on multiple levels. We talked about the visibility of the sport with the World Cup. I think there is a credibility that he gives to the national team program because he is one of the most famous soccer coaches in the world. And he's had success. And he brings that credibility with him.

And I think that was on display in his opening press conference. Like, he has nothing to prove. He's worked really, really big big jobs he's been successful um he seems like a really kind of sort of down-to-earth guy which is a little bit surprising and refreshing um from somebody who's worked at the jobs he has but i think that the more important reason for him to have the profile he does is this this national team i think the this pool of players has been in need of of kind of a reality check in a big way and i think that you know there has been a little bit of buying into their own hype

of that they are the golden generation and it's not necessarily that they believe that because they're the golden generation they're going to roll over all their opponents i don't think it's that but i think there's a comfort of like i'm on the national team like of course i'm on the national team i'm part of the golden generation and and u.s soccer has you know verbalized they've said like hey we we want to push these guys out to you we want to make them celebrities we want you to know who they are they are the they are the future of the sport in this country. And it's hard to do that and balance with like the competition that you need within the group to reach, I think, the highest competitive levels. That's a real balance that U.S. soccer has to try to figure out right now. And I think pochettino does that i think you know i felt like no matter what happened in the last two cycles if the result was bad it was burr halter's fault right if the result was good well of course they did that they should they're better than that team you know and i

think that there needs to be a dose of responsibility put onto the players for bad performances and bad results too. And I think Pochettino's presence brings that in that there are going to be fewer people that after a bad result are going to immediately just say, well, the coach isn't good enough. You know, the players are great and the coach is ruining it. You've kind of removed that from the equation a little bit, and that's good. It puts pressure on the players. And then I think Pochettino certainly has sensed this same idea too of this idea of like yeah of course

i'm a part of the national team of course i'm going to get called up it doesn't matter if i'm playing for my club or not i'm part of the golden generation by what he says in these press conferences he's been very clear the interview with cnn that's getting quoted everywhere right now saying hey if you're in form at an mls, you might provide more value to us than if you're not playing in Europe. And I mean, I think we all believe that there are certain players where that's not true in this U.S. pool. But and I think Pochettino believes that, too. But that's not the point. He needs to put that message out there. He needs to start to bring in players who are playing consistently over some players who are used to coming in no matter what and create this culture

of earning it constantly fearing your jobs on the line fearing that your spot in the national team is on the line it seems to me and you know i'm gonna i just got to austin today i've only been around pochettino once at a press conference so i i certainly can't say with 100 certainty that that's what he's thinking but it seems to me that that the sense that i had around the program has been picked up early by put those quotes feel like they line up with kind of what i felt this team needed yeah the thing that's interesting with all of this for him, and I think you're right, I think it's one of the things about the second cycle

is it happened under Bruce Arena. And you've heard people from the 05 to 08 era talk about how, oh, I was never going to get in the national team because it was a group and it was the coolest thing and I wanted to but like Landon and DeMarcus and all of them led it and like Bruce had his guys and it was the same with Greg it's just the way you're going to coach it's the way it's going to happen now I think some of it with the U.S. is tough because of the sort of lost generation of like prime players of like there are not a lot of other options a lot of times with these players and so that's part of

what's happening is like who else was greg really going to lean on and call up and even if you want to say like oh you're playing well in mls and we'll give you an opportunity like was brian white really going to get into the national team for a copa america game against players who have shown that they're capable of that in mls as well i think a lot of that is a little bit tough one of the things that I find interesting that a lot of us have forgotten and now we're coming back to is Greg had never coached a national team before and you heard a lot over the first year of like he was overloading because he wanted to be super in the weeds and tactical and all of that and a lot of it got lost and you i felt externally the quotes from him shifted from tactic conversation to grit and try hard and passion and all of that because it felt like

he kind of realized it was all he could control pochettino has also never coached a national team so what's your expectation of how he sort of settles in not just with the u.s for the first time but in this type of role yeah first of all of all, I agree with you. And that's why I think you need to manufacture that drama a little bit where you create the sense that the jobs are on the line, even if the reality is that in the end, I think we know who's going to be at the World Cup for the most part. Like, you know, for the most part. Yeah, one of the things that struck me about Pochettino

in his opening press conference, and I think I was talking to somebody about this the other day who just said, look, like Argentinian coaches, like there. And then the tactics break off of that, right? Like maybe, you know, maybe this coach has this way of playing, but like this is the standard. And one of the things that stood out to me most about what Pochettino talked about was he got a question in his press conference about there aren't a lot of competitive games between now and the World Cup. Like how do you manage that?

And he was like, nah, dude, when I played for Argentina, there was no difference between a friendly and a Copa America game and a World Cup qualifier and a World Cup game. Like, you put on the Argentinian jersey, and, like, that's a freaking fight, man. Like, I care about that result as much as any other. And it came up again in a media session that we did recently where somebody brought up his last visit to Chicago because he had gone to Chicago in the lead-up to this camp just to like meet with some staffers or whatever

and he played against the u.s national team in chicago and he was like yeah i remember that game because we lost and i was pissed and he was like it's unacceptable to lose for argentina to lose a game like that and he's like that's what i want like it was a friendly but to me it was the worst that we lost you know and so i i think that that part of it is already there for putsch i think that's where he's starting it's like yeah we have to create this man he said he had this quote the other day i thought was really good which is talking about defending as a team that the best teams you look at argentina yes they play beautiful soccer and all this but when they lose the ball they they defend as a group, and that's what makes them as good as they are.

I think he's kind of starting from that. And you're right, Greg, I think it was more that Greg had this ideal of we're going to change, we're going to play really beautiful soccer and we're not just going to be about fight. And then what happened was he realized that you have to preach the fight and the intensity in these national team games. And it was the loss to Mexico, followed by the loss to Canada in the Nations League. And after that loss, especially to Canada in Toronto in the Nations League,

everything flipped from that point in kind of how he talked about what was needed. And he went back to that idea of like, we're going to beat these guys. We're going to out gonna out physical them and they and they did they beat they beat them quite badly in orlando in the comeback game um and that changed a lot about how the national team worked under greg berhalter but i do think that pochettino's starting point has been intensity and you you've heard that with some of the players comments um some of the players' comments this week even of kind of how the training sessions have gone.

Is there any, last one, and I know because you got to go cover the U.S. now. Yeah. Is there any specific player or story or soccer thing that you're watching for over the next four days, five days? Like, is there anything where you're like, this is where i'm kind of using as maybe a weather vane to see what things look like coming out of it yeah actually kind of there's one player that i think for me um if he comes out of this camp looking like he won the job um of of the guys who are here based based on my

opinion of what this team needs versus what they've had before, I wrote about him. It's Aiden Morris. Like, I think if we see Aiden Morris playing over Johnny Cardoso, like, for me, I think that's, like, a good sign. Because, I don't know, I just feel like Cardoso has fallen short multiple times in big moments when given opportunities. And what he's lacked is the thing that I think sometimes the team needs the most, which is that intensity and that ability to step up in these big moments.

And I think Aiden Morris kind of fits that bill a lot and is an example of a player who needs to now seize the moment and beat out Johnny Cardoso for the job and say like, okay, like my first step to beating to pushing Tyler Adams is beating Johnny Cardoso out for the backup role. And, and then I can take on to try to take on Tyler and Weston and Eunice for that midfield spot. So like for me, I'm looking for a win like that where somebody who hasn't been the starter or the backup,

however you want to think about it in this camp becomes that, that I'm kind of looking to see if there are, if there are examples like that in this team out of those, out of the window. Yeah. It's what he's preached. We'll see if he follows it. It's going to be an interesting one.

It's going to be fun to watch. And of course, the only way to follow it is follow Paul Tenorio, follow The Athletic, subscribe to The Athletic, and you get the best USMNT coverage out there. Paul, anything before we go? You feel good?

Yeah, I mean, you told me, the problem is we talked about allocation disorder before this thing got started. And then I just got in a mindset, you know, it just took over the spirit, we talked about allocation disorder before this thing got started and then i just got in a mindset you know i just it just took me took over the spirit the spirit of allocation disorder was in me it's still there so i'm sure i'll um i'll get a few the heartbeat is always alive and that's why we're here at soccer wise you're welcome to come back anytime you want and we can go off on tangents in any direction you want. That is the beauty of having an untimed show that we can do whatever we want with. Thank you for being here.

Thank you for taking the time. Thank you to all of you for listening. As I said, Ben Pierman coming up tomorrow on our show. So you can listen to that one wherever you get your podcasts. And of course, I'll be back on Monday with the weekend recap. Shorter bit, NWSL and national team. And then we'll continue on the shows all of next week.

So thank you all for listening and we'll talk to you all again very, very soon.