SoccerWise - Open Mic | The Man Who Watched American Soccer Grow Up

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

Paul Kennedy has been covering American soccer for 55 years, from the days when finding a game on TV was nearly impossible to the 2026 World Cup. He joins Open Mic to share the stories from his career, the people and games that stuck with him, and his perspective on American soccer today.0:00 Intro0:46 How Paul Kennedy Became a Soccer Writer9:22 Finding the Game Through College Soccer13:24 From Law School to Soccer America16:13 Covering Soccer in the 80s21:08 Career Highlights, Favorite People & Games27:17 The Great “What If?”33:05 Unsung Heroes of Soccer in the U.S.36:17 The USMNT Before the 1990 World Cup39:54 Has Soccer Made It in America?44:39 The Future of American Soccer51:48 55 Years of Soccer America & Paul’s Favorite StoryFor the sharpest coverage of American soccer, we’ve got you covered:https://linktr.ee/soccerwisehq

Well, I am so excited for our interview here today. This is the reason we made the show open mic so we could have conversations sort of wide ranging around the great topics around soccer and who better to do it with than someone everyone knows. Paul Kennedy, he was the editor and a writer at Soccer America for 41 years, announcing just a few weeks ago that he'll be stepping down into his retirement, which couldn't be more exciting. And Paul and gave us an opportunity to reach out.

out and get you on here in chat. So thank you so much for being here. Well, thanks for having me. I really enjoy talk with you and just have an opportunity to share what we've done all these years. So let's start with you. And then we'll talk about soccer America and we'll talk about soccer in general because you've been around the game for such a long time.

You've gotten to see the great characters and the great moments that have happened in American soccer history, which I'm really excited to pick your brand on. But for you, you know, one of the questions that might be. most people in the U.S. get asked is why soccer? And I'm sure you've been around that conversation more than anyone watching people get asked, but what about this game? What are sort of the moments that inspired you to work in it and how your career sort of came about? Sure.

The first thing I was lucky that I was exposed to the game when I was a kid. I grew up in the New York area in the early 60s. and our school had a soccer team. And so because of that, you know, we played it, you know, although we never really knew what it was like because you couldn't watch it. So, you know, like in seventh grade was like 67, 68. So that was when the New York generals were starting. And totally by coincidence, our next door neighbor,

a man by the name of Peter Elser, owned the generals. And so he got his tickets to go. to a game, so we saw a game. And I remember going to, they were playing at Yankee Stadium, and there's probably, you know, 10 of us boys and, you know, a half a dozen parents. And we were at this game, and there was nobody there. And all I remember was all of us running around in the stairway of Yankee Stadium,

just running around. And someone had said that Palais was supposed to be there. So all the kids went looking for him. play actually. I'm not sure if he was there, but he was in town in that, that Santos was supposed to play Inter Milan in a friendly next couple of days back in the day, you know, the one exposure. You know, a big time soccer we got was, you know, a team like Santos or the Italian teams coming to tour. So I was exposed to it. And I would say like a lot of people, what really drew me to the sport was the fact that not only was it, one, I was a big sports fan, so anything, you know,

if it had been lacrosse or, you know, anything, I would have, I would have fell into it. But soccer was unique in that, you know, you could, I was really interested in history, politics, world stuff. I was in the very times when I was a kid and it was always great at current events test that would give. And you could learn a lot from soccer by, you know, left by country by falling soccer. You know, whether it was understanding in Scotland the conflict of Catholics versus Protestants with Celtic and Rangers or, you know, in Italy, the difference between the north and south of Italy.

All the other stuff of things were things you could learn through soccer. And so that was, you know, really cool. And, you know, when I went to college, I went to Colgate University upstate New York, It happened to have a big newspaper library. And in the library, they must have had, you know, 10, 12 U.S. papers every day. And by then, it had already been really interested in soccer. I was interested in I was starting to get soccer America. This was in 1973.

And we could, you know, I could look, you know, through these papers every day and to see what the coverage was, which was starting out. You know, the NSL, you know, by 73, 74, was starting to expand. But at the same time, you could read like, you know, the Cleveland Plain Dealer and read about Cleveland State or, you know, North Olmsted High School and, you know, things like that. So the point was very quickly, whether I knew it or not, it became, like, hugely knowledgeable about soccer. And then the other thing was is that in 1976 when I was at Colgate, I got an internship to work in France. And it was one of those things where, you know, I said I was really good in French, but, you know, the reality was I had taken two college French courses, which didn't get me anywhere. But in New York, so what, so what, but by coincidence, I went to in New York one day, and there's an international newsstand that back in the day called Hopkins, where they would have, you know, hundreds of foreign newspapers and magazines.

And I discovered Le Kipp and France football. And so I would start devour them because they had this amazing soccer coverage. And that was a way for me to improve my French. And, you know, literally, you know, I got there and got to France. And it was the first time I was actually able to go to games because, you know, back in the U.S., it wasn't much. I didn't have a car. And like, you know, the second week I was there, there was like under 21, you know, France international at Park Day, France. and my roommate for my internship was American,

and I said, do you want to go to this game? He looked like I was crazy. But, you know, the point was I was able to discover soccer. And it happened to be just as France in the mid-1970 was starting to get good with young players like Michel Plotini and Domini Groshto and D.D.C. And all these other guys. So I happened to start following a team or a country just as the soccer was taken off. And then two years later, I sent French football a story, sort of out of the blue.

And they published it. And I was about to go off to law school. I went to law school at the University of Richmond, Virginia. And two days before I went to law school, they asked me to write an American soccer for them. And it was the Bible of American, you know, it was like the Bible of international soccer, you know, because of its international coverage. It, you know, it does the Ballandora, which, you know, for the last 20 years, I've been with them. And so it's, you know, it was a way that I learned a lot about soccer. I learned a lot about how they, you know, how you would cover soccer.

You know, the editor at the time was the original editor at France Football who wrote the rules for the European Cup. That's amazing. So these guys were people who I, you know, knew, got to know, and helped me. one with my work for them, but also just became very knowledgeable about, you know, doing things like, you know, when it's back in South America, when I came there a few years, we started doing report cards with player ratings that, you know, here in the U.S. was just non-existent at the time. Now it's, it's like, you know, ubiquitous that every outlet's going to, you know, going to have a U.S. M&T game have in a report card, which is, you know, a great way to just drive discussion.

question. Do you remember what the piece was that you sent them originally? It was the playoff preview of the 1978 NESL playoffs. And the point was I said, you know, I had read enough, you know, what they would call presentation, which is previews, to know sort of the style for it so that even though my French was just starting to get there, whatever I sent them was definitely good enough for them to publish. that it was you know I became very good at writing

in French but specifically French soccer and when they first reached out to you when you first started working as you were entering law school what was it that they thought you'd be covering like what did people in France think soccer in the US? It was 1978

and then by then you had Beck and Bacchonbauer who was in a second year with the cosmos you know, Yon Kreif was about to come to the NESL. So they wanted coverage of these big teams and big players that were moving to the NESL. And it was a novelty. And, you know, I think throughout all the years of, I worked for them, I worked for them for 35 years as a correspondent. Whatever we think of, what people think of America,

they're fascinated by America and American soccer. They might look down on them in many ways, but they're fascinated by it. Give us an idea what the landscape was like as a fan in that I think a lot of people over the last 20 plus years know, you know, it's changed a lot over the last few years. But like pretty much every city has an English-Irish pub that shows some Premier League. There's some supporters groups around. There's obviously local clubs in MLS and N, WSL, USL, in the 70s. Like, what was it like as you were a soccer fan?

Was it just finding immigrant communities that were still supporting the game? I know you've written some pieces about college soccer. Like, where did you connect to people and find the game? I would say college soccer was a very big one. You know, I was lucky that, you know, as I said, I went to law school at the University of Richmond. And I moved there in 78,

which happened to be the same year that Bruce and Rita moved. to the University of Virginia to coach men's soccer there. And, you know, he'll say that, you know, I was the first person, first sports where I ever, you know, came up and talked with him about soccer. Wow. And Anson Dorrance, like me, when people don't realize that he went to law school. And he went to law school and went to his third year, but stopped because they offered him the men's soccer job.

And I always, I remember like my first or second year, law school, I got to know Anson because I'd go on Sundays and whether it was Virginia or North Carolina or William Mary or George Mason, there was like, you know, within an hour or two drive, I could always find a game to watch. And I remember talking to Anson one day and asking, well, why did you not finish law school and become a lawyer? And he said, well, you know, I'm doing now something that I would do for free, which was coaching soccer. And being involved in the sport of soccer. And for me, that was something that drew me to it, that, you know, it was like a kid in the

sense of I was a sports fan. I was a kid. And now I could follow it in a, you know, and make a little money at it. And, you know, later then became a full-time job as the editor of Soccer America. But part of it was always just like we're doing right now. What I found was the most, the greatest thing about what we do is the ability to every day just to talk soccer and how unique that is. And back then especially. And I remember one time, one of Bruce, Bruce Arena's assistants was Bob Bradley in the early 80s.

And one time after a game, you know, I was in the Virginia locker room and, you know, whatever. And then me and Bob Bradley got started talking. we got struck about a team called Alabama A&M, which was a team that for three or four years was a national power, all the players were from either, you know, the Caribbean or Africa, and was just a tremendous team, eternally fun team to watch. And Bob and I were sharing what we had been hearing about the team. And what the point was is that, you know, he and I, you know, were lost in this soccer conversation that it was almost like he and I was the only ones in this world who could have that conversation. Five people could have that conversation at that time

on the planet. Exactly. But it was, but it was, it just felt good. And it was funny because last month, Bob reached out to me about a story I'd written and I brought it up and he said he remembered that conversation and, you know, how, you know, that for all of us, it wasn't just, you know, me who found that unique, but, you know, if you would listen to say someone like Bob right now, who we always knew as a coach that was pretty, say, taciturn, but he was, he wasn't the easiest guy to interview, but just as a guy talking soccer and telling stories, he's tremendous. Yeah. You know, you know.

The greatest interview I've ever done was with Bob Bradley. He was not in a good mood, and he made it, like he expressed it, and he's brilliant about soccer. and it's incredible to listen to him when he's in the right spot. And I think, you know, I've had it a little bit. I'm sure this conversation, you've had it more of people who love soccer, appreciate when we come to it also loving soccer and not being the baseball reporter who got put on a weekend assignment to go cover things. Did you ever have an idea of trying to go to a different country to cover the game?

Because it wasn't super popular here. No, no. No, no, my path was to go to law school. I practiced law for three years. But it was one of the things where in the back of my mind, I always wanted to sort of do what I do. I mean, as I said, you know, that story with Bob Bradley was 1981 or 1982 just as I passed the bar and started practicing.

But I, you know, I really, you know, wanted, you know, to do what I do. There just weren't a lot of opportunities. and in 1985, Lynn Burling Manuel, the publisher of Soccer America, you know, asked me if I wanted to become the editor, and I said, sure. You know, I remember telling my dad this and he looked at me. He was upset that I was, you know, what he viewed as a safe and good career being a lawyer. You know, he'd been involved in business all his career and his background and sports sort of influenced me too.

but, you know, he saw being a lawyer as a very safe career. But, you know, I think part of it was, is it taught me a lot. It helped me out tremendously in when I became the editor of South American, that what we did was very entrepreneurial, so that haven't been a lawyer in that experience, which is, again, also very entrepreneurial, helped a lot. but also just in terms of being an editor, being a lawyer was tremendous because you learned to what's called issue spot

where, you know, get to the bottom line of whatever the topic or the controversy is. And what's the one thing that's going to be the exciting factor, you know, of why a trade has to be made or why a team's going to fold or anything like that? You know, it helped me,

you know, look at things very closely, but help us decide what's important. So the early years working at Soccer America, the NASL sort of descending at that point. We did a story here about the NASL's push for the 1986 World Cup to host it, to try and sort of recover at the last second

and see if they could resuscitate the league. What was the coverage like of the game in sort of the 80s and what were the stories that we were all focused on? What the irony was is that if it was, say an NSL team, it generally got very good coverage because, you know, back in that day, newspapers, you know, had had a ton of money. They were very successful. There was no internet, no cable TV. So, you know, let's say the Cosmos of 1997 or 78, they would go out, you know, they would go to Washington for an away game and they would have 10 different newspapers from

New York. That's amazing. You know, send somebody. Right. You know, whether it was in New York Times or the German Statsiteung or the Star Ledger or the Bergen record, you know, Newsday in Long Island, you know, they all had somebody cover soccer. Some of them, for some of it was their sort of first job. And for a lot of them, you know, it led to bigger or better things. Like, you know, you know, in Washington where you had the diplomats, you had guys like John Feinstein and Michael Wilbon who, were, they started out covering soccer. Wow.

You know, when John Feinstein says to this day is that Yon Kreif was like the greatest athlete ever covered. You know, so, you know, there was that coverage. But there wasn't much so, like, as an example, you brought up the issue of, say, the 1986 World Cup, which 1983, it was a question of it being moved from Columbia. U.S. was one of the bidders. Mexico was one of the bidders. FIFA had it in to make sure that went to Mexico because of the political connections with Televisa.

But the reality was, MLS wasn't, or sorry, the NSL wasn't strong enough, it was starting to die. So that a U.S. World Cup then made no sense. And I remember because I wrote a story for French football staying in that. And about a month later, the editor of French football, who was a man by the name of Jacques Félerler, who, as I said, was, you know, the original. original letter sent me a pen set. I didn't say anything why, but the point was, is that he, I think he appreciated the fact that I wrote the story about what the situation was, that was the reality situation as opposed to just saying, oh, you know, us Americans need to have this

real coverage. But it was a global coverage. How did you balance, because it's something we still have today, and someone brought it up to me the other day when they were saying in their market, they cover an MLS team and they're like, I get brought in to interviews, news stations, whatever, talk about the team. I don't work for the team, but you're half selling it, right? Because we're all still selling soccer. We're all still promoting it while also covering it. How did you balance that sort of wanting this thing to grow, for example, trying to help

it host a World Cup, also trying to be the journalist that you had trained to be? I think the most important thing is that, you know, that we believed in the sport enough so that if we were honest about it, it wasn't going to kill the sport. It was just going to help us identify the areas that needed to be worked on, and the areas that if we worked on, they would get better. And in Soccer America, I think that's one of the things we were lucky that, you know, college soccer came along at a time after the NESO unfolded, where in the interim, you had enough coaches who were serious about it,

enough schools that were serious about it, and enough schools that had sports information departments who did a good job of providing information about it, that, you know, it grew. Was there a driver of that, or is that just it all happened kind of happenstance at the same time, what, late 80s, early 90s, where these college programs became,

very big and successful? It happened because you had the first generation of players, young men and soon young women, who needed a place to go and they were good enough to, you know, I remember going to Virginia in late 70s and early 80s, where each year Bruce's freshman class was better than the previous class so that he had a total turnover saying it was back line. So that college soccer, you know, late 80s, early 90s, there's not really a pro scene. Was there ever moments where you felt like it would totally collapse and there just would be no soccer presence in the U.S.? No, but once the World Cup was awarded the United States in 1988, we knew, you know, there was no stopping soccer.

Yeah. As you think back through the time covering it, what are sort of the great memories that you have of, events that you covered, you know, whether it's big because of the pomp and circumstance, quality of game, wild nature. Like, what are your sort of top highlights when you think back on being around the game? I would say the coolest story ever saw. I mean, the most interesting was the election of the Federation in 1990, where Alan Rutherfordberg replaced Warner Fricker.

What had happened was FIFA, you know, wanted to change. and they made it happen at this, you know, AGM in Orlando where I think we were there for five days and we never left the hotel because of the intrigue. I mean, I literally had one night I went to the bathroom and I, men's room at the lobby area. And had someone follow me in because he wanted to know what I knew about was going on. You know, it's crazy. And this was, what I've read about, this was because FIFA didn't feel. the previous president was capable of managing the federation during a hosting World Cup? That was part of it, but there's also the business end of it, which is FIFA up until today,

where FIFA wanted to control the U.S. rights. And FIFA wanted to control the U.S. rights by giving it to ISL and where it fricking wouldn't do it. And Alan Rothenberg would. No. So they thought he would. The point was that Alan Rotherberg came in, he went back to him and said, our lawyers say this is the way it's going to be.

When you were covering that story, were you the only one covering that at the time? There was me and Rich Mahoney from Soccer America. There might have been the day of the election. I think someone from the New York Times came in, but at the same time, you know, Ridge was filing stories for the Washington Post for it. As you think about the time you've worked and you brought up Bob Bradley already,

who were some of your favorite people to cover or maybe some of the people that are less known that you really enjoyed the conversations or had great stories? You know, I mentioned Bob. I mentioned Bruce Arena. I think the other one is Ziggy Schmidt. You know, he was a coach at UCLA when I didn't know him before he came to Soccer America in 1985. and we're in the Bay Area, but I quickly got to know him, and he was, you know, one of the nicest people, you know,

to sort of welcome me to the West Coast, but also in terms, again, of, you know, of him just loving soccer, you know, was something that was just special. And he had the unique aspect of loving German soccer, which is where he's from. Yeah, Ziggy's one of the best around the game ever. For teams and players, you mentioned Alabama A&M, something I think very few of us will have heard of. What are some of your favorites that you've ever gotten to watch, whether it's a player or a team?

The best game is very simple. The U.S. Portugal, 2002 World Cup. You know, because no one expected U.S. to win, and it was 3-0 after like 37 minutes. And I remember, you know, I tell this, the things of what you remember was, a couple things I remember was like at 3 a.m. after the game, you know, leaving the stadium and getting the shuttle bus back to Seoul where we were staying and these other reporters from other countries is coming up to us and congratulating us that, you know, that, you know, that U.S. had won.

And what I remember was also about that time was I remember that before the game, I had made sure to go to this deli next to the press center and I bought some, you know, a couple really cool, you know, really good sandwiches to eat it during the game. And I realized that I had, the game was so exciting, I totally forgot about them and I had left him under my chair.

So I totally dumb about like that, but the point was it was, you know, really cool. And again, like after the game, you know, you know, there was not an organized press conference. and Bruce Arena came over and talked to me 101 for 15 minutes, and I got a story for, you know, what was Soccer America Daily, which was one of our,

the first time we'd covered a World Cup on the Internet with our newsletter. How surreal is it to have been talking to someone who you stood out of college soccer field with 20 years earlier standing outside of a World Cup stadium, being the two having the conversation after the U.S. just beat a powerhouse like Port. It was, it was normal in the same. of everything that happened, you know, you believed it was going to happen. I mean, you know, I remember, and again, this is how unorganized, the creation of S. AMLS was, I remember in 1994, after the World Cup, every year there was a business conference

organized by the soccer business organization, and they would have been a really nice resorts where they would have them. and I went to it and one day, Sunil comes up to me and says, we're going to have this little roundtable. Would you like to come? I said, sure. And what he did was there was like 15 or 20 people involved in soccer,

you know, business people, a few media people. And he went around the room. And he simply asked, well, we're looking for names of coaches that might be good to coach an MLS. And when he came to me, I said, you know, Bruce Raine. You know, by that point, you know, Virginia had won like their third or fourth, straight national title.

But the point was it was, you know, you know, the fact that it became successful was, you know, not news to me because I'd seen it, you know, for a while. As you look back on the, you know, wild and wacky moments, it feels like of this game in this country, are there any, like, great what-ifs for you of if, if, you know, something that you knew about or had been covering went a different way or someone made a different decision?

I think one of the great what ifs that sort of comes up today, and I think of an MLS right now, like one of the questions is should MLS, should soccer promotion relegation? It is impossible, given the structure of MLS, because of the business considerations of MLS, is impossible because for, for a lot of the business considerations of American sports,

which is just makes it so different than other countries. But the reality is promotion relegation, if it could work, would solve so many problems that MLS has right now of the issue of relevance. Like, you know, so much has come up in the last week or two about its new, quote, playoff plan.

Yeah. It's incredibly complicated. It's hard to understand. But it goes to the point of it's trying to create more relevance to regular season games. I don't know how it creates more, but that's what I think the goal has been set. But if you had promotion relegation, it would create such real relevance. It would work on issues of creating interest beyond the 30 MLS teams, 30 MLS markets. of, you know, if you're a, you know, in Portland or Maine, say,

where the team is doing well to believe that one day you could be an MLS team, which then gives you a reason to follow MLS of teams are doing their players and, you know, all that type of thing. But I get back to the point of what ifs where it's only chance to have ever worked would have been in 96 when MLS was formed. But it also happened at a time where American soccer was in some way still very, very weak. And that, you know, there was no, you know, we think of the structure of American soccer today with hundreds of USL League 2 teams, hundreds of NPSL teams, let alone on the women's side,

or, you know, back to the men's side, you know, with UPSL, the League of Clubs or whatever it's called, there's hundreds and hundreds of teams. Back in 1994 and 95, there was none of that. And what, you know, the point being that sort of the Mexican immigration that produced such great growth for American soccer was only starting to take place in the 90s. And also the immigration that produced, say, the German-American League, you know, or, you know, ethnic, you know, leagues in the Midwest or, you know, somewhat here in the West Coast, all those ethnic clubs were dying or they were blown off their social club because the land they had it on was very valuable.

You know, so there was nothing to do. And also the reality was, as MLS started with, it couldn't find owners for every team. I mean, it just barely got off the ground. You bring up those ethnic clubs. It's actually always one of the things I've always kind of wondered is you have, you know, coming out of World War II, right? You had the boom of soccer early, the Bethlehem steals of the world,

the great St. Louis teams. And then as you look at the U.S. Open Cup, you see these clubs that are, you know, whether it's the Milwaukee Bavarians, whether it's Maccabi out in California, who win all these open cups. And that's between the professional ranks and NASL never played in the Open Cup.

And then Major League Soccer and USL, the A League at the time, gets established and they start winning them. Those ethnic clubs in that middle, were they great teams? Would they have contended with what we then saw from the A League in MLS in the early days? And it was just sort of timing that they sort of ceased? Or was it very amateur compared to what it ended up being in? It was.

And again, it goes the issue of what time period were talking about. Say when I started following 1971, 72, 73, you know, the German-American League was quite strong. You had, you know, a few players, say, that had come for the NSL, their teams at fault, but they stayed there. You were guys that just happened to be, you know, immigrants who worked here,

like the example, would be Medford-Shellschild, one of the great names of American soccer, the mentor for Bob Bradley and for every coach that grew up in New Jersey soccer. You know, he was a factory worker from Germany he got a job here in a factory with also the opportunity to play for, you know, Elizabeth's soccer club in New Jersey, which meant the opportunity to make, you know, a couple of extra couple hundred bucks each week,

which on top of his, you know, his factory worker salary, you know, was enough to attract him to come here. So you said you had enough oddball situations of people coming here where, you know, you had good players. you know, they would have been close enough to have played close to the early days of MLS and, you know, the alien. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. My youth coach was Greek came here for college soccer, played for a year with the Aztecs, and then played for New York Pancripian and sort of the Greek Americans and all those clubs in the early 90s, late 80s.

And you hear a lot of these stories, Mani Shelf shot obviously a legend of the game. Is there anyone, as you tell the story of American soccer to people, that you think is underrated, goes under the radar, you know, was a linchpin person to help keep the game alive or grow it? I think, you know, any number of people, you know, the irony is that you had, as I referred to, that great election with Werner Fricker and Alan Rothenberg, but both of them in their own ways were essential for, you know,

for the sport to grow a lot. I mean, Werner Fricker was a very, you know, he was an immigrant. You know, he was a displaced German

from World War II. A lot of the, a lot of the people involved in soccer were Germans from other countries in Europe. He happened to be from Yugoslavia. And so they were forced to move. And they came here. And he,

you know, he was a builder. became very successful because there was connections with, you know, as a builder, he had great relationships with banks. So when he became the president of U.S. soccer in 1984, and it had no money, was on the verge of bankruptcy, he could get lines of credit at the local bank to help tie things over. But he was also, you know, a very serious man, you know, who, you know, was, you know, in some ways a very difficult man. He, you know, in all honesty, he had a very, he was, you know, had a drinking problem,

and he was very tough to be around sometimes, but he was also, you know, incredibly serious about the sport and he helped to grow. Just like Alan Rothenberg and, you know, a lot of the pre-World Cup of this World Cup stories of Alan Rothenberg and what he had done, you know, are well-known stories. But as I said, what Werner had done was less important. And I remember going back to that election where the hotel, you know, had a 24-hour diner. And, you know, is one of those events where, like, we know a lot of them where, you know, you're covering soccer till, you know, two in the morning. And I, a couple of nights, you know, when everything was, you know, literally when we were all finished up, you know, Werner and me and a couple other people.

would go to the diner and have, you know, a late-night diner meal, me a breakfast, and we would sit there for an hour, but we would never talk soccer for one minute. We would talk about other stuff. And what I always remember was him talking about one time New Jersey diners and the growth of them, which he knew from, you know, growing up in the, you know, the Philadelphia area. And I learned growing up going to the Cosmos games and after the game,

going back home and passing all these diners and realizing now you could, getting a most amazing meal. Pre-90 World Cup, pre-shattered around the world Caliguri. What was the U.S. men's national team? Like, where did it pop up? Did people care? What did the team look like?

You see the things with Bruce Arena getting a cap, but not really where the team played. Yeah, meaning everything changed when the U.S. was awarded the hosting rights to the 1994 World Cup, which meant in 1988, the Federation started to give out what you would call stipends with these kids coming out of college to play for the national team.

I mean, some of them played indoor soccer. Some of them didn't. A few of them went to Europe, but there were not a lot of opportunities. You know, back in the day, there was not a lot of opportunities because most countries had severe restrictions in the number of foreigners who could play in the league. So the last thing a team would do was. take an American, you know. But, you know, so the team, but the team was good enough that you had guys like

Tab Ramos and John Harks and Tony Miola so that you could put together a national team that was competitive enough to qualify for the 19190 World Cup. But a qualification that you have to remember was helped by the fact that Mexico was kicked out of the tournament. Pre-88. when the U.S. played a game, was it just pulling all-stars from college soccer, whoever was around?

It depends what you're talking about. NSL, they had NSL players, you know. But the example was, I was like the first national team of game I ever saw was 1977, which was a friendly between the USA and China out here and the Bay Area in San Francisco, where I was at the time.

But the first qualifier I went to was 1980, U.S. Canada in Fort Lauderdale, I was in my third year law school. And what I remember was, like the Thursday, Wednesday, Thursday before the game on Saturday, I was in sort of the area of law school where we had like an area where they had a pool table, sort of the common route. And this classmate of mine, a woman, came up and said, oh, you know, me and my roommates for having this Halloween party this weekend. Would you like to come?

And I said, well, sorry, I won't be around. And after she left, a friend of mine who heard the conversation, knew I was interested in soccer, and knew what I was doing. He said, well, why didn't you explain what you're doing? And I said, well, you know, she wouldn't understand that I was going to a soccer game, flying to a soccer game in Florida for a game between. in the U.S. and Canada because it was inexplicable what

was going on. You know, if you understand what I mean. Yeah. Yeah. And were those teams competitive? The U.S. teams that you went to go? And it was like, you know, you know, I might write

a story for South America about it or France football, but, you know, it wasn't like I made a lot of money off of it. And I was paying my own expenses. But it was a total waste of time and there was a terrible game. And the U.S. was terrible. You know, the next game, they went to, the third game, they went to Azteca, lost five to one. So their World Cup campaign was over after three games.

Nice and clean, at least. I'll just ask you, has soccer made it in America? No. But I would say, what's happened is amazing. And I fall out every day. But we're still sort of scratching to, trying to get to the next level. Yeah.

And getting to the next levels will be very hard. I would say one of my great concerns about, say, MLS, but I would say true for the NWSL, I would say true for the U.S.L. I would say true for the men's national team. The women's national team is a different story. Is it my concern that they've all plateaued. and it will be hard to get bigger.

Say in terms of MLS, you know, years ago when MLS started out, the big knock on it was they didn't have a national footprint. There were 10 or 12 teams. Now it has 30 teams, but its national audience is not much bigger than where it had 10 or 12 teams. And that word hurts is with it, you know, very simple, a TV contract with enough money. to make MLS teams competitive enough with the big European teams. It just doesn't have that or then doesn't have the luxury of, say, a UA for Champions League for which qualification can bring in $40 million, meaning that in the US playing a concove Champions Cup does not bring in a lot of money.

Right. You know, but even more fundamental, this is something that I'm surprised, at, and I think there's one to be the key question to really look at these days, is why haven't there been more great Americans coming through, whether it's why did, why did this, the 202026 national team have four or five more Christian Polisics or Western McKinney's to push them to be even better? or why doesn't MLS teams have each year have two or three Americans

taking over and starting roles? And I say that getting back to what the American sport needs that one of the first things about MLS is you know, now MLS is sophisticated enough. MLS sporting directors are sophisticated enough to be able to have pipelines to find better players than they have but players

coming through countries like Poland or you know Australia or you know Israel where you're getting good players but when they come here Americans have no clue who these players are

so that there's no you know it is like American sports where an NBA team if it signs a player or an NFL team that's not kinds of player. They come in as instant stars because they were college star. And so that's a huge struggle for American soccer. If they were Americans, it won't necessarily be easy and that there's not college soccer isn't a factor. But there still would be enough

connections as Americans that will be stronger than what there are now where, you know, you know, foreign players come in. They might be good. But Americans know nothing about them. and the problem is that MLS teams will turn around and sell them after a year. And, you know, you look at like this year, you have a kid like Lucas Harrington, I think that's the right name of Colorado, was here for half a season, you know, between his good profile to begin with, having a decent World Cup with Australia, you know, was now in England. And so if you're a Rapids fan, you got to see him for six months.

Do you think that opening up spending and signing Hollins and Venetian, like, do you think that would fix it? But the reality is, you know, Holland's not going to come here. Just like, you know, if you offered Christian Polisik, you know, $30 million right now, you know, he will not this year take that contract. Meaning, you know, the World Cup has come and gone and no American star. Yeah. It decided to move back to MLS. You know, they might next year. But, you know, they're still going to, you know, stay in Europe.

Do you think, I mean, this is all stuff we don't know, but do you think Conca Calf and Commonwealth will mix? Do you think there's a future with MLS or League MX teams playing in UAFa for Champions League? Is that sort of the solution of like one, not solution, but is that the end point? What I would say is I don't know the policy, the current politics, meaning the current. No one does. ...dealing, so to speak, that's going on between UEFA and Kanka Kov, or Kankakoff versus Kahnibol, all of which have sort of relationships, different relationships with FIFA, to know what they're going to end up deciding to do, which will have an end result.

You know, but to have, you know, say, you know, you know, Kankov teams say, you know, you know, In the UFA champion, let's say you had a situation where, you know, the top four teams in Kankakoff earned qualification to the UEFA championship the next year, which would be great if you could convince the European teams there would be more money to make. And also convince them that having to have play, you know, some of those teams come back to the U.S. or Canada to play a couple of games each fall was worth it for them. you know, if you can get over some of those hurdles, that'd be great. Just like, you know, we know what it's like for Conca Cuff and Conmoval teams to play in the Cup of America, which is great. You know, it's a moneymaker. With Liberty's Cup, to me, it would be a little bit probably less attractive.

You know, I would think that playing in the U.F. Champions League, which is now the, you know, what's happened with the UF of Champions League of being as an institution of American soccer life of being able to watch it on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, you know, 10, 15 times a year

is amazing. So that to do that with Americans team, that would be great. I think the travel with going to Liberoids Cup would be just as crazy as the travel of Europe. If they could do something with the UyFA, I think that'd be great.

I think right now, UEFA and Kalkaf were sort of politically aligned in sort of the fight with Infantino these days. So we have to see what comes from it. What has you most excited about soccer? I think the World Cup showed how just amazingly deep the interest is. You know, I went to the two U.S. games in Seattle. And it was just amazing from the time I got there, I think both times, two or three days beforehand. The first game I brought my wife and son, you know, because I'm in the soccer hall of fan through the media section, I was able to get a couple of tickets to that game from my wife and my son.

And it was just amazing the soccer there every day, not just the U.S., but the day before games with Mexico playing. where everywhere you went you saw people in Mexico jerseys. Or even here, and I live in Albany, California ranks of Berkeley, where you're a good friend Matt Doyle used to live, so he knows his spot very well that there's a beer garden nearby. And on games where I was back home, which I would, you know, I'd come back between games because everything was on the West Coast. I would go to an afternoon game, sit, have a beer,

and every game would have 200, 300 people packing the place, 200, 300 people of every different sort of background, you know, adults, you know, college-aid kids, men and, you know, women, some with an ethnic background, you know, attachment to the team, you know, like when the Dutch were playing, I think, the Morocco game, and there were always Dutch people, and there were, you know, some were Dutch and happened to be in the Bay Area,

or there was one woman who was sitting there and I was, and she was like, you know, you know, she couldn't watch, she kept looking, you know, her eyes away. And when I said, well, are you from the Netherlands? And she said, no, but my parents are. And the point was that that connection alone meant that she was watching the game on Benz and Neal.

94, 99, and 26. How were they? different or similar in how you felt like the country experienced hosting the World Cup, the general public, not the soccer hard course? I think the first two were American public being exposed to the sport, 99 on the women's side. This cup, not being exposed to the sport, but being reinforced to why they follow it or why they're involved in some capacity and just creating more touch points to follow the sport. Meaning, you know, I say that the generation of kids who are, say, you know,

seven, you know, grade school kids will be the first generation that will grow up having been totally immersed in the sport. Yeah. Because very simply because this is the first World Cup, where everywhere you went, you saw it. You know, and I think of it where, you know, I spent, you know, having to go to a bunch of games that spent time in airports. And every time when I'd be in an airport, I'd be hanging around the bars where they had the games on. And it would be just interesting to see people come up to look at the games.

And there was one day where there was a mother with her two boys. And you could tell by them watching it that they understood it. Yeah. where they knew the context of who needed to win and who's competing. Exactly. You know, that would not have been the case any previous World Cup. Yeah. So from that point of view, it will give it a very subtle boost.

But it will also mean that a lot of the issues that, you know, we talked about recently when we were talking, or some of the realities are not going to change and we have to work on. Right. Yeah. You know, I'm in a group chat with people always joke, the Premier League is going to be like the big winner of the 2026 World Cup, right?

And we're seeing it. There's watch parties across the U.S. There's 5 million social media posts or think pieces about, oh, if you like the Cleveland Browns, this is your Premier League team. If you like this, then this is your Premier League team. And obviously Erling Holland, one of the big stars. I wanted to ask 55 years for Soccer America. What is the legacy of soccer America?

What do you think about as you sort of think about what it has meant to the game? I think one just won the staying power to the seriousness in which we treated the sport from the get-go, which is something that was important because no one treated seriously because no one gave a, you know, Aratz, you know what about it. I go back to the early days when it was, you know, it played a very important role in the development of the game because, you know, if you were, say, you know, in Madison's, Wisconsin was starting a league or you were in Ohio, in Dayton, Ohio and starting the high school league, you would have no idea that there are other people trying to do the same thing.

Yeah. Unless you read Soccer America and all of a sudden you could see that other people were doing the same thing and it gave you sort of that connection, that confidence and that realization that we all weren't alone. And then obviously for, you know, especially in the print days when there was no other way to follow the sport. And we were, you know, we were big enough with a big enough staff to, you know, in our weekly additions, you know, we were 48, 56 pages many weeks to have a ton of soccer coverage.

You know, if you, you were of a certain generation, say, up through players, you know, coming through of the early 90s, say the generation of Alexei Lallyss, say, where the first story that was ever written about you was going to be in Soccer America. And so that was, you know, hugely important for them. And they will have always remembered that for us. So that connection to the sport, you know, has meant a lot. But just the staying power to continue what we do,

you know, I've been asked, any a number of times over the last six months, what am I most proud of looking back? Was that in the 30 years since we started the Internet, we started the Internet in 1995, our website, you know, that when in some ways we became irrelevant because of the advent of the Internet and be able to find information elsewhere,

We still continued and still became important because of the seriousness of what, you know, we did what Mike Waitala, who's now the editor of Soccer America, what, you know, our staff of editors did, the writers we had, what Paul Gardner or columnist did for the sport, you know, of treating it seriously, so that, you know, when it was worth praise than we did, but when we, when it needed to, you know, get a kick in the butt, we're also there too. So you mentioned the 1990 election as one of your favorite moments to cover. Do you have one story that you love the most or one story that you go back and reread and smile?

I would use it in the current tense. So I wrote a story about the 1990, this World Cup at the end of it. And the headline of the story was Magic in a Bottle where I talked about, you know, why the World Cup was so cool, why I was so cool from a personal point of view to follow it, to have my family involved with it, you know, where, you know, to me the most amazing thing is that, you know, to have done it for 55 years and have been the editor, for 41 years means that soccer America is a very personal story. And it's a story where, you know, I met my wife working at Soccer America.

And every editor who was there in 1990 met their spouses through the job. You know, Ridge Mahoney, who was one of our senior editors, went to the 1990 World War Cup in China, met his wife who was Chinese working at the hotel where everyone was staying. Duncan Irving went to a qualifier in 1997 U.S. Costa Rica in Portland and met his wife, Lori Mifflin, who was a very famous New York Times reporter. And in my case, my wife Shirley started working at Soccer America in 1990, you know, answering the phones. And one of the issues we had was all the editors we were getting by then because everyone

knew that if there was a question that needed to be answered, like, who would just win a game that day, who were to try to watch a game, or if they had a trivia question, or where they had some business question, they knew that we could answer it. But it became too much for the editors to take on, and we had to, you know, it was too disruptive. So we came up with a system that when they called and Shirley would answer the call, we gave her enough information so that most of the questions she could answer. We could give her our TV listings. We would give her a copy of the Reuters printout from the scores from that afternoon. But we also said that if, you know, if you had a, if someone had a, you know, a tough question, she would say, well, I will take your

question and I'll, if you call back tomorrow, we'll have an editor who will hopefully be able to answer that question. And my job was to come up and talk with Shirley every afternoon to help her with that. And I got to know her. And after a couple of months, she, you know, are just, you know, the day-day conversations you have working together and the daily conversations you have working in office together led to the fact that she had just moved back from Mexico to help her sister who was, you know, a Royal Cal, and they'd gotten a Toyota with a stick shift, and she didn't know how to drive it. And so she asked me if I would, I'm not sure whether she asked me or I volunteered to help her teach it.

And so, you know, on Saturdays we would go out driving around parking lots to help her teach her to do. And, you know, within a month or so, a romance developed. But it all started with the fact that our readers needed help answering the person. Well, I always say soccer is a connect. for all of us. For many of us, it is the center of our social lives. For many of us, I think, you know, clearly from what you said at the start, it's a connector around the world for us. And it's really cool to hear everything that it's done in your life. And obviously, I'm a big fan of the work you've done. grew up reading it in Soccer America. We would get it with our

youth soccer yearly subscriptions and would always fight over it to read it across the TV. first or second. And yeah, really, really excited for you to get to enjoy the game maybe a little bit and not feel like you're working, but I assume still watch a lot of soccer. You know, the truth is I'll be able to watch a lot more because they don't have to work as much. You know, where, you know, people think I sit in front of a TV 24 hours a day watching soccer where, you know, the reality is, is I would never be like anything done if I did that. But now, but now I do. Well, you've got a couple of teams in the Bay.

area. It would be nice if any of them were competitive. But besides that, there's a million games to watch. Paul Kennedy, you know him very well. Editor-in-chief, 41 years at Soccer America. Congratulations on your retirement. And genuinely, thank you for taking the time to join me here and telling us some of your favorite moments and some of your stories. Well, thanks very much. I enjoyed it. And as I said, you know, it's been an important part of my life and been very rewarding and I don't regret anything.