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Gold in Paris - Is soccer fun again? - Ep. 12
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Following the USWNT gold medal win, we dive into the match and the tournament as a whole for our new Olympic champions. We also discuss the Reign’s new signings in anticipation of the regular season kicking off after the summer break.
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Coop
Van
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Show produced by Coop
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The Cooler Guild Est. 2024
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Transcript
Introduction and Gold Medal Match Overview
00:00:20
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, and welcome to a very special edition of the Cooler Guild. I'm your host Coop and joined with me is my co-host Van. Hello. Today we are recording on Tuesday, August 13th, 2024 on today's special episode. We'll be talking about the Olympic gold medal match between the United States women's national team and Brazil.
00:00:46
Speaker
Win us again. We're back. We're back. We're back. Um, first one, I just set out a little reminder, the cooler old's part of the sounder heart podcast network. You can either listen to us on our public feed or if you're a sounder heart subscriber on the private unified feed with the other podcasts on the network. If you'd like to become a subscriber, just visit our page at sounder at heart.com forward slash the cooler guild. New subscribers get 10% off the normal rate and you'll help support everything that we're doing here. All right. Let's uh, let's get into
Celebrating US Victory and Emma Hayes' Strategy
00:01:12
Speaker
this. Uh, we have match recap. Uh, we won.
00:01:14
Speaker
That's that's there. I mean, when you have a final and you win it, what else is there to say? That's all that matters. That's the job. You got the job done. You won. Mission accomplished. Yeah. And we can, you know, Emma Hayes, like the choices that she made in the group stage and then the subsequent games. There were questions.
00:01:32
Speaker
Definitely. Some annoyances, too. Yeah. And I think that, you know, if you win it all, you can't really it's really hard to critique it. Yeah. Because it worked. It did. And especially with somebody who like that was her 10th game with this team. Yeah. The gold medal match was the 10th game.
00:01:49
Speaker
And she got it done. So, you know, I think the thing that I was questioning is like, why are you not rotating? Whatever. But if you go and watch the post game presser and stuff, you know, I think it was very it's very obvious that she didn't tap into everything she, you know, hopes to tap into with this team. And I think that the lack of rotation that we saw was maybe her just choosing what she's comfortable with at this moment. Yeah.
00:02:13
Speaker
especially like being so green in the program. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a lot harder to maybe have confidence in those players that you haven't really seen a lot of. But yeah, hard to critique when you just won the gold medal match. I mean, we could definitely be annoyed, but, you know, that's about all we can be is annoyed and we'll be annoyed winners. So yeah.
00:02:34
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, we, it looked like the US looked good in the beginning of the match. And then Brazil did what Brazil does or had been doing for the entire tournament and kind of broke through. Alyssa Nair is a big part of why they weren't able to actually get anything in the net though.
00:02:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they were definitely offside in that, you know, call that came back. So, yay, VAR. I know. And Girma got cooked on that and I know it was offside and like, you know, Girma was getting back, but like, Girma had eventually gotten back on that offside goal and then she actually did get cooked. Yeah. And that was like, I think the first game that I've really seen her like falter. Which is insane because she played
Player Highlights and Key Contributions
00:03:14
Speaker
every minute of every match at the Olympics. So, you know, I'll give her some leeway for sure.
00:03:19
Speaker
I mean, compared to everyone else on the team, she made one mistake. If she's not wearing the armband for the next five, ten years, I don't know who is. It should definitely not be Lindsay Horan. Yeah.
00:03:34
Speaker
I don't know. Emma seems very sold on Lizzie Horan. I think it's obvious in the presser that she knows she didn't have a great tournament, but she did commend her on the leadership ability that she had with everybody off the field. And I think maybe that's a thing while we can sit here and critique everything she did on the field. Maybe what she brought out of other players we will never fully understand. And Emma Hayes was very, very
00:04:03
Speaker
you know, she wanted to give that praise to Horan. Yeah, I mean, you could see in that presser that Horan knew that they won kind of in spite of her and not because of her. But, you know, those are the things that you're talking about, the leadership that Hayes talked about is those things that you don't see from the outside fan perspective that really do affect teams.
00:04:25
Speaker
And so, I mean, that was the whole thing with, you know, Megan Rapinoe and that whole squad, you know, 2012 Olympics, you know, all the World Cups, they were good players, but it was the things behind the scenes that really like drew everybody in, got everybody on board with the equal pay lawsuit, like that kind of stuff. So, yeah, I mean, good for her. Again, they won.
00:04:48
Speaker
Maybe it's one of those things where I like if her and doesn't step it up. I mean, maybe I'm hoping that this because when she plays well, it is very appreciated. But maybe it's one of those things where she's not figuring it out. She's also out of season.
00:05:04
Speaker
Yeah. But what I'm thinking is, is it shared captaincy, right? Like she subs on and then takes it, but like Germa will be the other person part of it, like a co-captaincy kind of thing. Yeah. We also don't know what kind of leadership Naomi Germa can bring. So yeah. Tough to say. I mean, it sounds like everybody on the team is, you know,
00:05:23
Speaker
very aware of Naomi Girma's talent and everything that she does back there. So I wouldn't rule it out. And kind of what she's accomplished in her short careers is impressive. Yeah. Getting that starting job back there, getting this gold medal in large part due to the defensive efforts of this team. Yeah. I mean, they saved the team twice.
00:05:42
Speaker
Yeah. And like must save situations. Like last minute stuff. The semi-final, that last minute save that she got there. I still think that was offside. Okay. And also not very pretty. She like did a star jump.
00:05:58
Speaker
Yeah, I would say like sometimes Alyssa she just like does things like the messiest ways at times. Yeah. But then she does come and put these saves out of out of nowhere. Seemingly like the was the last she had like a really firm hand on that last save. Yeah, it was incredible. I mean.
Offside Debate and Brazil's Tactics
00:06:16
Speaker
First, first point I would make about that is her positioning. She came off to cut down the angle, which is why she was able to have such a big hand on the ball. I mean, she pretty much like a cat just kind of potted out of the air and got almost a whole hand to it where she was able to kind of fling it back in and get it cleared. Cause if you put that ball, if you parry it kind of behind you, somebody's going to run onto that.
00:06:41
Speaker
So, yeah, incredible. She, yeah, she was my player of the match. But Miles Swanson. I know. Want to come back. Incredible. I mean, a story like a storybook ending, right? Like this is you couldn't have written a better story about her from like how everything had ended for her, how the team looked without her. The moment she went down before the World Cup and then she gets her chance back and she's just better than she's ever looked before.
00:07:07
Speaker
Yeah. Game changer for the team gets everybody else around her looking better. Um, between the three of them, as this has been pointed out all over media, 10 goals out of 12 goals between the three, the triple espresso, triple espresso. That's what they want to be called. And that was her hundredth cap. She gets the game winning goal. Incredible. Incredible. There are some questions I would say, uh, was Sophia Smith in an offsite position and did she affect the play?
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, those calls are very scattered, I feel like. Sometimes they call them. And I do wonder because Corbin Albert played the ball through and it could have gone to Sophia Smith or Mal Swanson. And Sophia Smith, to her credit and to Swanson's credit, they recognize that she was offside.
00:07:55
Speaker
So Swanson got the ball, but Smith kept running. Yeah. And kind of Smith went kind of far post. And I have to wonder if she hadn't gone far post, if the goalkeeper would have taken a different position. Well, and the defenders, right? Because the defenders were trying to keep up with her as well because she was making a slight run at, you know, a little bit forward. So they were trying to keep up and mark her. So they gave up, right? Like they were with her and they didn't just go to the only player that they thought was on side. It was scattered for them to try to defend who was going forward.
00:08:24
Speaker
Yeah. So that's the part where I'm also hung up on. Um, but the, you know, one of these rules that we, we have this kind of stuff, I think you can kind of just interpret it whatever way you're feeling in the moment for a lot of these refs. So yeah. And I think too, it was initially not called offside. So they, you know, usually skews a little bit towards the referee was correct in the first place. Yeah.
00:08:45
Speaker
And it's like Brazil, yeah, Brazil didn't not have chances. Like they had chances that they could have finished and gotten themselves back into this game. It's not like they haven't been scoring in this tournament. Yeah, they've been pretty prolific with their scoring.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah, so I feel like if anything they should be that's probably where I would be upset if I was them not this call Yeah, you know your goal scores weren't weren't finding the back of the night. Well, they took Loomila off Mm-hmm. I don't know why they did that early in the second half. I don't know why they did that I don't know I don't know something's wrong with her. Maybe she had something like a knock or something But I mean you gotta find a reason to put Marta in but yeah, obviously which
00:09:23
Speaker
You know, my feeling going into the game was like, all right, like we lose. That's going to suck. But Marta gets gold medal. I mean, I still was not on board with that.
00:09:33
Speaker
Like I'm greedy and I really feel like I felt like this tournament, the US has looked so good and fun that I felt they deserved the gold. Not that Brazil didn't, you know, but I do feel like this team look like the US team just looks so fucking good. Yeah. One thing I'm really thankful for is that we didn't go behind in this game or any game this tournament, but especially in this Brazil game, because they're time wasting tactics. Oh, yeah. Oh, an awful.
00:10:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, awful. I mean, goalkeeper goes down off the ball for like five minutes, twice a game. And I'm just like, yeah, which is insane to me because it totally like skews my view of her. Yeah, because the Brazilian goalkeeper has played so well. All tournament came up incredibly huge several times to save games for them. And then she just goes and like does the most insane time wasting crap. I just.
00:10:28
Speaker
Gotta hate it. Yeah, that's a big thing I would say with a lot of South American teams, which, you know, sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. And it's worked out for Brazil to get to that point. So, you know, I can't really fault it. It's obviously annoying, but it worked out for them, especially against, you know, hard opponents that I would say are typically people you'd expect them to get beat by.
00:10:50
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like if these big tournaments keep happening and these big time wasting things keep happening, I would assume that FIFA or IFAB will change the time wasting rules for goalkeepers. Yeah. Because right now, like goalkeepers go down, you can't take them off the field.
00:11:08
Speaker
Mm hmm. And so they're allowed to sit there and like get stretched out, you know, have the magic spray put on their leg, whatever it is. Eat their eat their gooey electrolytes. But yeah, that it's that really I'm glad we didn't go down because I didn't want to see that in the gold medal match.
00:11:25
Speaker
Yeah,
Emma Hayes' Immediate Impact and Coaching Philosophy
00:11:26
Speaker
yeah, I didn't. Yeah, I'm really glad we didn't have to deal with that stuff. So there's stuff that happened in the game. Starting lineup was pretty much the same as the last game, except for we had Corbin Albert starting, presumably because Roosevelt was not available to start. And she ended up not even coming off the bench, which she was on the bench, but she didn't play, which to me, I was really concerned with going into it.
00:11:51
Speaker
I was like, Lindsey Rand really does not play well all the times when Rose isn't on the field. Not that I think Rose has had last, I would say the last game it wasn't good for her. So I wasn't like, oh, this is going to be really bad. But Corbin, I would say as much as it pains me to say she stepped up and she did it. She did well, played a part in the goal. I can't like, I don't know. It's a lot of complicated feelings about it for sure.
00:12:16
Speaker
Yeah, surface level, surface level analysis with no backstory. She played great. She had a great game. The U.S. doesn't win that game without her. That's all I'll say about that. Yeah. You know, she does play there. That's kind of what I thought too, is maybe to benefit to have somebody who plays in Paris start in Paris.
00:12:38
Speaker
That's not this I look this up. It's not the stadium that their women's team usually plays at now It's our men's home stadium so but like I think every now and then they'll play games there, right? Like every so yeah, I don't know if Corbin Play like the Leon game there. Okay. I don't know how many times she's played there herself But I you have you see your branding of the club you play for so no matter what it's all around you I'm sure that played into the decision as well. I also don't I don't I don't know who on the if you don't have Rose who were you choosing from the midfield at this point?
00:13:08
Speaker
No one. I mean, Cora Bethune, but it doesn't seem like Hayes has a lot of confidence in her. I mean, the midfielders Corbin Albert's contributions other than the assists were mostly defensive and otherwise are midfield three. I don't know where the hell they were like the entire first half of the game. Yeah, you had a funny tweet about.
00:13:28
Speaker
Bernie Sanders. What was it? Yeah, I was sitting there watching the game and I was like, where is our mid-feel? And it was like, it just popped into my head. I'm once again asking, where's our mid-feel? Yeah, I made a Bernie meme about it, put it on Twitter, my most like tweet of all time.
00:13:46
Speaker
It was a good tweet. Yeah, so like I want to sit here and critique the midfield, but we won, so. But I do think that's going to be an issue in a tournament that's not so quick, right? Or where there's more depth because we don't have that. No, we're really missing that six. And I think you have to find a way to get Sonnet into the six. Subbing her in in the back line, it works until it doesn't.
00:14:12
Speaker
It's not the best position. No, it's not. And you shouldn't have players not in their best positions on the field. I will say on that note, I would like to apologize to Crystal Dunn.
00:14:22
Speaker
I was waiting for this. I left her off my roster when I was choosing my desired Olympics roster. And okay, I have to say though, but that's mostly because they wanted to put her up top. There's no room for that with triple espresso. And she had a great game in the back line. She had a great tournament. Yeah. And it's one of those things where like people want to see her up top, but there's no place for her in this lineup up top.
00:14:52
Speaker
Uh, we saw what we saw and there, now there's really no place for her up there. Yeah. And I think too, you know, she had a tournament kind of reminiscent to two world cups ago. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, where she just ate everybody up on that side. Yeah. And she was really good at creating opportunities up top, you know, getting like really diving into that left wing back position and flying up creating opportunities. So apologies to you, Crystal done.
00:15:20
Speaker
But to be to be fair, she had a terrible World Cup before this. Yeah, she did. She had a terrible World Cup. But between her and Emily Fox. Oh, yeah. Absolute just dominance on the outside. The back line. Emily Fox had an incredible tournament, too. Yeah.
00:15:35
Speaker
I didn't know what to expect from her. I think we, you know, she went to Arsenal, right? And so I feel like we haven't been able to follow her as easily, at least state side. And if you're not an Arsenal fan, check in every week, whatever. But I feel like maybe we've seen her in the last like year or so, it's been like, I don't know if the Arsenal move has been the right move or not. It was. It was working out great. It's working out great for us. My favorite moment of hers in the final was when she absolutely bodied that Brazilian player and then just like took the ball around her.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, he has moves that I didn't know she had in her. Yeah. And she's a smart player. Her positioning is always, you know, she's always thinking ahead. Yeah. So back line, no notes. Do we want to shut out same coffee as well? Why? I mean, she held her, she held her, she held it down on that position, I would say, for the most part. You're not into it. You're not into it. No. Okay. Great. How many contributions do you think she had? Listen, I just wanted to throw it out there because we're rain fans, right? Right. Do we want to find a moment to like call the weak point?
00:16:35
Speaker
Cuz I've been I've been I've been given shit to uh to Noah about Sam coffee because he's a fellow Penn State alumni No, no over at lobbying scorchers. He's uh, she had a really bad game like what like two games ago Yeah, and I told him I was like, yeah, no, thanks to to her. He's like she used to ball out at Penn State My mitteny lion
00:16:57
Speaker
I don't even know what that reference means. It's their mascot. Listen, you're talking to somebody who did not go into that world, all right? I'm a player of my W League team that played for Penn State, so, mmm. Okay.
00:17:08
Speaker
I mean, the people seemed so sold on her. I don't know if I'm missing something. I feel like she was solid. I will say, I don't think she had any major issues. Yeah, I mean, nothing causational for sure, but there's gotta be players that can contribute more than that. Well, the issue was,
Team Chemistry and Finishing Challenges
00:17:25
Speaker
oh, I remember the issue. She got a fucking yellow card early on the game, and then Emma Hayes just kept her on. She didn't get a yellow card, whatever, and then the next game she comes on, and she gets another card, and that put her out the next game.
00:17:37
Speaker
that's where I'm stuck like do we blame Emma Hayes or do we blame coffee because it seems coffee is like well prepared to play on a yellow right and she can go the rest of the game without getting one so why are you getting one the game that can put you out the next game and then the only the other thing if you get if you get a player out because of yellow card accumulation you don't get to bring in like one of the players off of the reserves right or the alternates or whatever they're called you you just you're just down a fucking player so then you're losing the
00:18:05
Speaker
little depth that you already have. I'm saying this, we already won, so I guess it doesn't fucking matter.
00:18:13
Speaker
That was like my one qualm with her that like was like I didn't see anybody else kind of make something like some that big of an error and was that on Emma Hayes or was it on Sam coffee? I don't know. Maybe it's both. Yeah, it could be both. It's just not a smart decision to leave a player on on a yellow when your cards don't reset. A lot of faith put in her by Emma Hayes though. So yeah, I mean it worked. I we can we can bitch about all we want, but it worked.
00:18:38
Speaker
Yeah, I didn't think we were going into this. I didn't think we would lose the game. I felt good about it. It was a little concerning because our ability to finish chances wasn't as good as the first Germany game. Yeah, but that's also a group stage match, different stakes.
00:18:59
Speaker
Yeah, but since that game, we hadn't really been able to put away. Yeah, but I still think if it's a group stage versus a one time knockout, you're going to see different, you know, defensive looks from from teams. So true. I think it's going to be more difficult to break through. But yeah, you would think I mean, our front three are so threatening that I did think we would get a little bit, but a little bit more. Yeah. And there there were opportunities. They just got unlucky at times. Yeah. You want to take a little break before we get into the rest of it?
00:19:27
Speaker
Yeah, let's take a little break, get a word from our sponsor. We'll be right back.
00:19:39
Speaker
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00:20:15
Speaker
Yeah. So finish, finishing off the game. Um, we usually go into negatives and it's just like, there's, I did try to touch on Sam coffee, but again, it doesn't matter. We want to who cares. Yeah. I mean, I think you can touch on it as far as like the future of the program. Sure. Um, and going into, you know, the next phase of this team.
00:20:33
Speaker
Cause we knew, we knew it was going to be a pretty quick turnaround after, you know, Chelsea season was over. And so Emma Hayes comes in, you know, they've been under Twilight Kilgore and been kind of fine, not great, but fine. Um, and then Hayes coming in and testing some things out.
00:20:49
Speaker
Yeah, so there was and it was I think one of the things that I like questioned before the start of the tournament was because we played a game. Who are we playing Mexico or something? We tied. We beat Mexico, but we tied Costa Rica.
00:21:05
Speaker
Oh, tied Costa Rica. Okay. Yeah. And we only won one zero against Mexico. Yeah. So that tie was kind of odd. You remember that? It was the last match before this tournament. Yeah. And I remember questioning, I think on that episode that we did right before the tournament started wondering, okay, is she just like kind of throwing it out there and seeing what sticks and you know, maybe she has the soccer IQ to do that and then come into this tournament and absolutely ball out. And that's exactly what happened.
00:21:34
Speaker
I think she also had a very good understanding of like, I mean, I said this tournament was long. I would say I thought that because of the way she was using players, because they were having to play like every fucking game, right? But it seems to me that she kind of had the understanding like, this is a quick tournament. If I can just get these players getting their rhythm game after game after game, we can figure it out and maybe just come up with it. We'll come up with the gold medal, and they did.
00:22:03
Speaker
For me, but going into this, my thoughts were I just want them to have fun with it because if they have fun with it, I don't, I could see them finding a way to win it because they're in a whole new environment with training and everything. And they have a new coach. Um, they've brought in some like fun young, you know, like young players, and now
Title IX and US Women's Sports Legacy
00:22:20
Speaker
it feels that they're finally, the tides are changing with the front, the front forward system. Um, and I was excited to see that. So I just wanted them to have fun. Yeah. And based on the post-pressor, this is exactly what happened.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yeah, it seemed like, I mean, there was one point, was it just like just after the group stage where that video came out and Emma Hayes was like, yeah, I ordered somebody to come in and like do your nails. So you're going to have like a nail day tomorrow. Yeah. And they're like, are you serious? Yeah. She's like, yeah, I wanted to do that for you guys. Perfect. Her British accent's like so like, it's extra funny to me. Yeah. And the way that she talks about America and how much she loves the United States.
00:22:59
Speaker
I know. I mean, she came in with like the best vibes before this. She was like, I can't stop smiling to have been here. It seems like she just carried that into this. Yeah. Just fucking rad. Yeah. And then her, you know, post game interview, like right after the game, they're asking her, like, what does this mean to you? And she was like, America made me. And I was like, oh, my God, am I feeling patriotic?
00:23:21
Speaker
I thought this was interesting because she talked about like, you know, she came to the States when she was like 20 or whatever and she just didn't have the opportunities to get into soccer like she did in the UK because of how they, you know, treat how they treated women's soccer over there. Yeah. And so like they're doing better now, obviously, with it. But like those opportunities for didn't exist over there. And so like she had to kind of come to the U.S. if she wanted to get into it. In fact, Emma Hayes was the youngest ever coach in the U.S.L.W. League. That's cool.
00:23:51
Speaker
Her quote about the UK was, uh, it was a stuffy society that didn't embrace women's football. Like that's just like depressing, but like honest truth, you know, gotta put it out there. And she also talked about like, she didn't want the pressure of this, you know, taking over such an elite team with this history. It's giant history of success. She didn't want that pressure to crush her going into this.
00:24:14
Speaker
And I did say beforehand, like, I don't think she needs to win this. I don't think we need to put any pressure on her to win this. Obviously, we need to not get embarrassed. Right. Like, that was I would say for me, like, that would be goal number one for her. Just like at least showcase that this team has talent. And we're not the joke that maybe we've looked like under flat co.
00:24:34
Speaker
Yeah, don't miss those days. Don't miss those days at all. Yeah, I am so happy to have her. And I do think it's worth the kind of thinking about Title IX in moments like this. And then we always talk about like, is the rest of the world catching up? They obviously are. Yes, they're catching up. But sometimes I'm just like, Title IX really helped us get this head start.
00:24:54
Speaker
It sure did. And I'll take it. Look at the medal count, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because it's 65% of the gold medals were women, right? For the United States, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you see it in the numbers. You see it in the stats. The United States embraced
International Team Performances and Inclusivity Discussions
00:25:10
Speaker
women's sports years before other countries as a whole. Yeah. And it shows. And it's well deserved, I would say, because of that. Maybe it doesn't seem fair, but guess what? Here we are. Winner.
00:25:23
Speaker
Anything else you want to talk about? I don't want to talk about the rest of the game. I mean, it was impossible to find the medal ceremony. Yeah, I didn't ever get to see it really. I saw like the clips of some of the players partying afterwards. Yeah. That always took a great time. I will say as much as we maybe don't like Ashlyn Harris personally, some of the choices she's made. She did do a very good job at documenting the parties afterwards.
00:25:50
Speaker
Yeah. And I do feel like we got left out of that, but that's fine. They can go enjoy it. I think that's their own time to kind of celebrate with each other. So good for them. Happy for them. Also really happy that Megan Rapinoe got to kind of be there and celebrate with them. Trinity Rodman. It sounded like Trinity Rodman chose pink because pink had been a hair color that they've seen success with in tournaments. So. Nevertheless, a major tournament in France with a player with pink hair on the team. That's right. So who's next? Who's going to do it next? Alyssa Nair.
00:26:18
Speaker
Can you imagine? No, I can't. Should we do a cooler player of the match or some rendition of that for this? Or player of the tournament, player of the Olympics.
00:26:34
Speaker
That'd be a different conversation, though, because I would have a different answer than anyone on this team. Really? Yeah. Per tournament? And Katrinburger. 100%. Yeah. I guess that's a good shout. Yeah. 100%. The rest of her team stepped up, I mean. But, you know, to save two penalties in a penalty kick shoot out and save one, that's such an illicit nayer move. And then to also save a penalty in 90 plus minutes to win a game for your team. I mean. And then to also just have like a really solid tournament throughout.
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah, for a team that was missing a pretty big key player for them, that you need your goalkeeper to do things like that if you want any chance of getting to where they got. Yeah, that team wouldn't be... Also, they'd be Spain. Yeah, they wouldn't be bronze medalists without her.
00:27:21
Speaker
Spain got kind of embarrassed at the end there for sure. I don't know what was going on with their roster, but they had some interesting choices throughout the tournament. They also seem to underestimate some teams. Yeah. I mean, but they were also word starting Jenny Hermoso in the group stage. And when they brought her on, she's like, she ended up captaining the team, the rest of the tournament. So I'm like, where, where was your brain?
00:27:45
Speaker
I mean, we all know that there's like some sort of curse of some kind with teams coming in. Yeah. I mean, in their whole Federation and the mess going on with that post post World Cup is a nightmare. So yeah. But good. Good job to you, Germany, for sure. Didn't see that one coming, I would say. Yeah. I thought Spain for sure. I don't know. There's the Spain team looks so fucking good in the are the World Cup. I just thought for sure they would be like the team to finally break.
00:28:10
Speaker
that curse. Yeah. I mean, even, even Emma Hayes and her last press conference for Chelsea, you know, talking about the move, you know, to coach the US women's national team was like, well, I'm going to have to beat Spain at some point, you know, to the gold medal. No, we didn't. That's what I thought too. And we talked about it. We were like, some point they're at the meet them. Not this, not this time waiting on that. Yeah. Just watch in the next, uh, world cup draw there in the group. That'd be great. I welcome that.
00:28:35
Speaker
Um, I guess I want to give a special shout out to Porchillo Porchillo. Porchillo had a really great tournament. I'm a little sad that we're not seeing like an end to be so move for her. There's been a lot of these players from this tournament that I'm so excited. We're going to get to see. And then to be still coming up, super, super soaked for that. I was hoping Porchillo would be one of them, but maybe next year, maybe you want to wrap that up for the Olympics, the soccer Olympics.
00:29:00
Speaker
Yeah. Soccer Olympics. Over and out. I mean, the one we did it worked. We're back on top. Yeah. Everyone hates us. That's always the goal. You want to take a quick break and then we can get into other Loso in Olympics highlights. Yep. Sounds good. All right. We'll be right back. Thank you for listening to the sound art podcast network, which now includes no sunny at this lobbing scorchers and the cooler yield. We've been independent since August of 2023.
00:29:29
Speaker
but need your support to make sure it continues. Although this podcast is free, it's only made possible by your continued support. Memberships start as low as $25 a year, which not only helps make podcasts like this one happen, but also gets you access to everything we produce.
00:29:45
Speaker
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00:30:14
Speaker
Yeah, we do. Corbin Albert. So just a little backstory, if you're unfamiliar with the controversy surrounding Corbin Albert. She's 20 years old. She plays in Paris. She plays for PSG. And before the tournament, it came out some online sleuth.
00:30:36
Speaker
found that she had liked, reposted, shared, really insensitive tweets, TikToks, and the such regarding people using pronouns, which is just part of the English language, transphobic things, and the one that really hit me was wishing that Pino got injured in her last game.
00:31:03
Speaker
It was like it wasn't wishing she got injured. She was celebrating, celebrating essentially or like not just being like, you got what you deserve kind of thing about her injury and her last ever professional match carrying her Achilles. Yeah. So and that just for those of us that have followed the team, you know, for most of our lives or for a lot of it, that just goes against the entire DNA of what the program stands for, what it fights for and its entire existence.
00:31:33
Speaker
the team has been outwardly accepting, celebrating, and championing diversity and inclusion in women's sports in general on the biggest platforms. So to have a player that openly
00:31:52
Speaker
shares views that go against everything that the team stands for be included is really something that I don't like. And I understand that we live in a world where people have different views, but if your views are harmful to other people, that's just not okay with me.
00:32:14
Speaker
If you're willing to openly, basically celebrate someone's injury because of what they've stood for, whatever else it is that you've disagreed with, how does that make people, to me, I'm just questioning, how does that make people on the team who are part of those communities that she's essentially been against? How do those players feel, being, sharing the field with someone like that? Like if you go down injured and then you've seen your teammates celebrate injuries of someone else who is also queer,
00:32:43
Speaker
Do you know if your teammates are going to support you? Or are they happy that you got down to 100? There's been a lot of ignoring what this controversy in quotes is on broadcast and stuff, right? We've got Julie Fowley being like, there's been some controversy where they're like, speak up, what's the controversy?
00:33:02
Speaker
Yeah, call it out. Call it out because from what it sounds like, there hasn't been a real reckoning with what what she's done. I don't think it doesn't sound there's been any real punishment, which, you know, we don't know for sure what what that is. But Tina Davidson did speak up about it, which is like I would say I'm surprised because like she seems like a very quiet and reserved person. She's to me, I would think the last person to speak up about it. But we also don't have a lot of clear players on team right now.
00:33:29
Speaker
Right. She's maybe the only out player on the Olympics roster. Openly out. Yeah. Yeah. She went on Sarah Spain's podcast and was asked about the whole situation and really, you know, talked about how it was hurtful.
00:33:46
Speaker
And to her credit, she didn't need to speak about it because it's not the person whose community is being attacked's responsibility to talk about it. It should be the person that made those comments. They should have to be the ones that approached that.
00:34:10
Speaker
You know, she talked about how it was hurtful and it goes against, you know, her entire worldview. And so like that, that hurt me knowing that, you know, that was something happening internally. But, you know,
00:34:26
Speaker
It just sucks, man. And the last time that happened, you know, the player wouldn't wear the pride jersey. And we were like, girl, it's colors. Get your shit together. And then she went on like the, what was it? The, what do they call it? The 500 Club or whatever? No, it's like a religious television show and said that, you know, she doesn't agree with the lifestyle. And so she wasn't going to wear it. And she didn't care if it tanked her career. It's like her beliefs. It's just like, it's colors.
00:34:55
Speaker
Also, no one's making you like, you're not gay, right? But like, if you can't sit here and support other teammates that you have who there's not equal rights, like, you know, like people are still dealing with discrimination for these kinds of things. Yeah, right. So like, we're not telling you do you got to be gay.
00:35:14
Speaker
This is just being supportive of who your teammates want to love. That's all this is, right? That's all this is. You can go be your religion. That's fine. And then these people can go just be who they want to be with. That's all it is. And you're used to support that? It's insane to me. Corbin hasn't shown that kind of rebellion over something like this.
00:35:38
Speaker
It seems like her family is also just like very conservative. That's what it feels like to me, but that doesn't excuse it. And she did like release an apology, I think it was on her story, so it didn't even stick. Yeah. You know, from a tactical point of view, having to have those discussions, you know, before a major tournament that happens every four years, you know, and to say we're taking care of it internally,
00:36:08
Speaker
I think that that's difficult to do. I think it should have been done if it wasn't. But at the same time, you know, maybe now, given that she's pretty much maybe solidified a place on the team. Yeah. She's got a gold medal. Maybe now we can really put the pressure on her.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see what happens. He's also 20 years old. I mean, youth is not an excuse for bigotry, but it does offer growth opportunities, I feel like.
00:36:41
Speaker
We shouldn't read too much into things we don't actually understand or know, but there was a few clips of her trying to maybe like high five players as she's subbing on for one of the games and some people maybe aren't as, I don't know, happy to sub out to like with greeting her. Emily Fox, the goat.
00:37:02
Speaker
Yeah, like I said, I don't want to call anybody out. I'm like, I don't know what their actions, if there was any intention with their actions or if it was just a coincidence, because that does happen when you're playing a game. You're kind of just, you know, your head's got blinders on and you're just kind of focused. But I can't imagine it was a comfortable situation for her being around so many people who idolize Rapinoe. Rapinoe is at the fucking party. Like, I feel like that's the situation where you're going to be really reflecting on like the weight of your actions.
00:37:30
Speaker
Well, she should have been reflecting on it after all that crap came out that, you know, oh, no, she's a bigot. And then she goes and wears Megan Rapinoe's number. Yeah. Girl, no. Like that's the thing that I just truly do not understand is just like Rapinoe has done so much fucking work for someone to just go and like we know the kind of people that do not like Rapinoe. That's you know, you know what I mean? Like she's not here to make everybody comfortable. She is here to piss certain people off with the things that she stands up for.
00:37:55
Speaker
Like
Olympic Highlights and US Women's Basketball Victory
00:37:56
Speaker
for her to be on that side of those people is just like this doesn't seem like the right fit for this this team Yeah, but she that the only thing the only thing working for her right now is her age and hoping that we see some sort of change because I can tell you right now if she Wants to go and post these things or say these things and someone finds out about it again I don't think it's gonna go down. You know, it's like it did this time this this one time so I
00:38:17
Speaker
Yeah. No, I would, I would agree. Um, the other thing I want to say about that is I'm getting a little annoyed of, and I don't think it's the queer community's responsibility to sit here and, you know, police this or we're really the only ones who want to talk about it, but I think it's really not cool for hetero cis people to say like, I don't think it was that big of a deal, what she did when we can move on from it. Yeah. I just kind of glaze over it.
00:38:43
Speaker
I don't think people should be chiming in and seeing those kinds of things. I don't think that's your place. No, especially when you're not the affected community. You have no idea. It's so irresponsible to just try to give someone a pass for our community. There's so much more nuances in the women's soccer that I just inherently men aren't going to maybe always understand.
00:39:06
Speaker
Like, Julie Foudy's also been guilty of just, like, not really acknowledging this situation. Or if she does, she's just like, oh, Corbin Elbert's still really great. And I'm just like, you still haven't really talked about what she did. I'm fine if she's on a panel, you know? Like, maybe a halftime panel. Yeah. I don't want to hear her the entire game.
00:39:25
Speaker
We need some fresh voices. The game's changed. Yeah. We just need to talk about core now because we haven't yet. We've been avoiding it because it's not an easy thing to talk about. Yeah. We'll keep you updated on any changes. I guess there are any your resident lesbians. Yeah. Other other Olympics stuff you want to talk about.
00:39:44
Speaker
Well, I'm currently still injured, but I am a runner in theory. I'm not a fast runner, but I do like running. So I wanted to talk about Niki Hiltz, non-binary runner representing the United States. Really great person to follow in TikTok if you're into that. Very fun. They got to compete in the 1500 meter and they got to the final, which is crazy because
00:40:09
Speaker
Olympic running is just like, I can't fathom being fast enough to run in the Olympics, but they got, what was it, seventh place in that? So like seventh best in the world at the 1500, which is like a mile ish. Pretty cool. Pretty cool to see someone represented like that too in the Olympics. I was hoping maybe they could sneak a win, but that wasn't going to happen, I guess.
00:40:28
Speaker
No, that was a tough race. Which one do you want to highlight? I want to talk about how miraculously the U.S. women's basketball team won the gold medal for the fifth time without Caitlin Clark.
00:40:43
Speaker
People are so mad that she was like quote unquote left off the roster and it's like they don't need her. Anyone who thinks that doesn't know a lot about like basketball, like women's basketball, that's like very obvious at this point. Yeah. They did it. It was a nervy ending. Yeah.
00:41:02
Speaker
but uh they did it so didn't they win eight? Their fifth one in a row. Okay. Because Tarasi played this game just so she you know she was I mean I think she would have been obviously wanting to go to this Olympics but it almost seems like she's been not retiring just so she can stick it to Sue. Yeah.
00:41:20
Speaker
What did she say after the game? She said, Sue and I had the same amount of points in this game. But now she's got one more than Suda's in gold medal. So good for her. I love watching Tarasi play. I know. Jewel Lloyd. I really enjoyed her mom's photos that she posted on Twitter throughout the tournament.
00:41:37
Speaker
Oh, I miss those. Uh, I follow her mom. You've like, I think you've sent me stuff about her mom like before. Yeah. Gwendolyn Lloyd. Oh, okay. Congratulations. Once again, we are the best country at women's sports. Shout out, uh, Olympics, gold medal, American women, Carrie, Carrie. I love her. I love everything. I love everything about her.
00:42:00
Speaker
I know scary is great. Uh, shout out Katie Ledecky. Oh, shout out that one, uh, bicyclist cyclist. Oh yeah. That was a random one. Yeah. Who wasn't even supposed to do the road race. She came for like the indoor track cycling and somebody got injured. So they put her in the road race and then she won cold. Yeah. And then she hadn't even like started like cycling professionally until like five years ago. Granted she was a venture capitalist. So like, we don't love that.
00:42:31
Speaker
Wasn't she like from Alaska and then like moved to New York or something? And that's when she started cycling. Yeah. I didn't know she was a ventral. That's something of note. Don't love that. Here's the 400 meter hurdle. We got McLaughlin. Was it Sydney? Yeah. Sydney McLaughlin. She absolutely just smokes.
00:42:53
Speaker
Also the the women's four four hundred yeah four by four was nuts she because she smoked everybody and that's nice she doesn't she runs with hurdles usually and she does she also runs hurdles faster than like all but like three runners actually run the four hundred she has like the world records like multiple world records yeah
00:43:16
Speaker
I love that, the women they've got right now running to the US. They seem like a great time. It was a really good Olympics. I had a lot of
Looking Forward: Paralympics and Local Team Updates
00:43:26
Speaker
fun. I'm sad it's over. Paralympics is going to be starting. At least there's that. Oh, yeah. I got really into goalball in the last Olympics.
00:43:34
Speaker
What's goal ball? Goal ball is this amazing sport for, um, vision impaired athletes that they fully that's three against three. And they have like this goal that it's like three or four feet high. And it's like 10 feet long, maybe more than that. It's just like long goal, long, short goal.
00:43:55
Speaker
and the ball has bells in it. And the goal is to roll the ball into the other team's net. And so they have to listen for it and they're just like diving their bodies around trying to save it. It's really, it's really intriguing. It is, it is. And like the crowd has to be silent. It's the same as like blind football because the ball has the auditory alerts of the bells. So players can kind of figure out where it is.
00:44:21
Speaker
Yeah, we did discover there is not a blind women's like football, like in this Olympics, which sucks. Um, it does sound like the sports kind of like still, they're still figuring stuff out. Um, and it, it seems like probably by the LA Olympics, they'll have it together. That'd be cool. If there's a blind women's football team in Washington and you need a goalkeeper, let me know. Sure. They'll let you know immediately.
00:44:48
Speaker
Yeah, good Olympics. We've got, we tried to watch the price conference today for the rain. The wifi had issues. They brought in the new players though, which is cool. But we didn't get, I would say a lot of the stuff that we were hoping to get quite yet. I think once we kind of, if we can find the notes for a little bit better later, we might talk about it next time. We've got our next match coming up in like two, not this weekend, but the weekend after that. Who knows what we are going to look like
00:45:17
Speaker
Yeah, it'll be really interesting. Our new players are getting integrated though, which we, did we, we haven't talked about our new AMC signing yet, have we? Uh, no, I don't think we have. You want to, you want to give that name a whirl? No, cause I already forgot. I was going to pull up the video you sent me cause I was like, oh crap. What, what did we do? Sure. Sinogorchovich.
00:45:35
Speaker
Nailed it. I'm I think I'm a little more excited about her than I initially was or at least I'm optimistic about what she can bring to the team. Look, she looks like a good time. We need somebody that like brings some like joy back to this team.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, we can't ignore the fact that our best player for the rain was Rapinoe in her senior years. Yeah. Is that what we've been missing? Is someone who's kind of gone through their career? And played in big clubs in big moments. She played for Barcelona. She played in Champions League. She won Champions League. I think maybe we need to give that a little bit more weight. Yeah.
00:46:13
Speaker
then initially, you know, signing an older player, it's like, oh, man, you know, but could be could be what we're missing. We'll remain optimistic, I guess. Dammit.
00:46:24
Speaker
What? It's just like I'm trying to channel what you have and it doesn't feel authentic. My absolute optimism? I do have a little more optimism. It's annoying because when we tuned into the press conference, the part they were about to get to was the issues that we had been having with our signings and getting players in with the sale not being complete. And we were about to finally get answers about what the vision might be and all that shit. Now that's been over. We don't know still. I don't know still. But I think we got a little bit of insight into
00:46:54
Speaker
youth signings and that was something that Laura Harvey has been wanting to do for a long time. So we got those, we got those signings now. Yeah. That's the thing. Like I think you, there's, there's always going to be questions when you sign, you know, a younger player, I'm not talking youth, I'm talking younger, like, right. You get a 23 year old in there or something, you know, supposed to be in the prime of their career and then they come in and they don't really perform. And you're like, Oh crap. Like we just waste that. Whereas, you know, you get a 33 year old, you pretty much know what you're getting. Yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
Yeah, we'll have to give them some some slack, I think, but they also know how bad we are right now in the standings. So yeah, we have like several weeks. We've had several weeks to try to figure some things out and maybe get some chemistry building. So we'll find out that a little bit, unfortunately, playing the Carolina coverage, which is never a good opponent for us. No, never. Absolutely never. Like pretty much never. Robina will be in the house.
00:47:47
Speaker
So maybe that'll be a little bit of a boost for us Sunday, August 25th. Well, on the crowd will be big. They opened up some on the other side, right now. Yeah. So we got more seats opening up. You and I will be there. Mm hmm. Party. Yeah. So I think once they find out we're there.
00:48:02
Speaker
They'll win, I'm sure, I'm sure of it. I know the pressures, you know, always gets amped up when your two favorite podcast hosts of the only weekly podcast of your team is, they are in attendance, so. Yep. So buy your tickets
Podcast Closure and Listener Engagement
00:48:17
Speaker
for that. We've got like a special link with, like Sandra Hart has a special link for for rain tickets.
00:48:23
Speaker
And it helps you kind of avoid the ticket master fees. Everyone loves that. Yeah. And then you also like help fund Sounder at Heart because Sounder at Heart gets like a certain percentage of that ticket sale as well. I'll like pin a post with the link for that in our Twitter. And then if you don't, if you just want to Sounder at Heart to find it, it's sounderatheart.com and then go to the shop page and there'll be a link in there for the rain tickets and all that stuff. So.
00:48:49
Speaker
Um, that's how I bought my tickets. Um, super easy to do. You can kind of like filter out stuff on there, um, to find the sections you want to go to, but tickets are definitely starting to. Yeah, they're kind of flying out there. They're flying. So it's like your one time to really see like blasts big celebration for Rapinoe, I would say related to rain specifically. Um, so don't you, I don't think anyone would want to miss it. It was a brain fan.
00:49:12
Speaker
It's gonna be a fun time. I mean, games right after major tournaments, where your team does well, you know, when you come back to domestic leagues, it's gonna be, it's always a fun time. We might look into doing like a mailbag situation. We still gotta get details figured out for that. We might try to see if there's anyone from the Ride of the Valkyries that we might want to bring on to kind of help with some of that stuff. Trying to get people more involved with everything, kind of, I don't know, talk about things people want to talk about and hear about.
00:49:40
Speaker
Yeah. Make sure you, uh, follow us on Twitter and Instagram at cooler guild pod. Uh, you can send us an email. We love emails. Uh, our email is the cooler guild at gmail.com and find us at sounder at heart.com forward slash the cooler. Great. Five stars. Wherever you listen till next time. Bye. Bye.
00:50:15
Speaker
I didn't know which number was correct. Is your dentist named Dr. Crentist? No.