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Ryan Rosenblatt talks USMNT head coach Pochettino, and US-Mexico rivalry perspective
1 Playsin 2 hours
Ryan Rosenblatt joins Jeremiah to talk about how USMNT head coach Mauricio Pochettino has rediscovered himself with the United States men’s team by leaning into characteristics that have always been an American strength. They also talked about Ryan’s perspective on the rivalry between the US and Mexico.
Follow Ryan Rosenblatt on BlueSky.
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Transcript
Introduction and Host Introductions
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi, I'm Will Bruin, and I was just recognized as a Seattle Sounders legend. Now I get to do voice reads for the Sounder at Heart podcast network. Here we go.
00:00:11
Speaker
Come on. Hey, O'Shaughness. Let's The Seattle Sounders have done it. MLS Cup winners. The Sounders rule the region.
00:00:43
Speaker
Ooch of a gooch! All creatures, great and small! Rothrock gonna collect it, he does just about, runs into the advertising order. Low to our left, ball goes in! Oh, what cross! And what goal! Where's my copy? got bunch of them in the car. How many do you cost them? 50 bucks.
Sponsorship and Guest Introduction
00:01:08
Speaker
I'll deadline
00:01:18
Speaker
This episode of Nos Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of Nos Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounder supporters.
00:01:32
Speaker
They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, Pacific Northwest.
00:01:43
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of Adientes on the Sounder Heart Podcast Network. I am Jeremiah Oshan. Joining me today is someone who I hope you have come to ah recognize their byline in Sounder Heart. He's been doing ah couple times, few times a week columns around the World Cup for us. Ryan Rosenblatt, one of my former colleagues at SB Nation, and now the author of i You just told me, you we just had to look it up. What's the name of the Substack that you're running?
00:02:11
Speaker
Think Outside the Ball. Think Outside the Ball. I should have written that down. But it's on Substack, and I would highly recommend you subscribing to it. And in the meantime, I hope you also are reading his columns and sound at heart. That said, Ryan, welcome to the show. It's great to have you back. You've been on many times, but it's always good to catch up.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, man. Anytime. It's fun to chat. So ah let's start off here in your latest column for ah your sub stack, which was about the Mauricio Pochettino sort of ah journey that we've been on together.
Pochettino's Influence on American Soccer
00:02:48
Speaker
And I thought that was sort of the interesting thing about this was that I thought you made a very compelling case of why Pochettino's style of play fits in really good with the sort of natural proclivities of the United States and how it's a physical brand of soccer who that asks guys to do a lot of running, do a lot of tackling, get into a lot of duels and play essentially high tempo soccer, which seems to sort of fit the American soccer ethos quite well.
00:03:15
Speaker
But I thought the other thing that was an interesting observation was that this was something that Pochettino needed almost as much because he had sort of gotten away from his own style in his last few stops, or at least his style was not meshing with teams like PSG and Chelsea as well as it had at Tottenham.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's, it was a surprise to me too. I mean, I, I watched literally every single game that he managed at Tottenham. I knew this man very well. He is my soccer dad.
00:03:47
Speaker
And, When the US hired him, I was like, okay, this makes sense. He is going to play a way that actually fits the talent level. And as I wrote in there, and it's a thing that if you have followed my work for a long time, i have been saying this, um the gigantic chip on American soccer shoulder is that we need to be more like Spain. We need to be more like England. We need to be like these other countries who play technical and they have these triangles and they do all these things. And, you know, they did need to get better technically. Like, you know, Christian Pulisic is a more technical player than the wingers that preceded him. And that's true of Tyler Adams. And that's true of a lot of these players. Malik Tillman. Yeah, but there is more there.
00:04:31
Speaker
But in trying to be the more technical team, they decided to deemphasize athleticism as if that wasn't the way that you should try and win games. And I don't know a single sport anywhere, let alone one that is played on a very large patch of grass, where being big, fast and strong is not useful. And the argument that I have always made is the 2014 World Cup, when nobody would have a good word to say about DeAndre Yedlin and didn't know why he was there because of all the things he didn't do.
00:04:58
Speaker
And you look up and down that roster, there may be better players on that team, but there was one elite skill anywhere on that roster. That was DeAndre Yedlin's pace. And people dismiss that as if that was a throwaway. And I'm like, no, that's actually a really good thing. Shockingly, it is good to be really fast.
00:05:15
Speaker
And so that's kind of this whole thing where I'm like, well, Pochettino won't, we'll just lean into that. You got guys who can run, you got big, strong guys, they'll go forever. We'll finally do it. And I think, you know, that is partially having a fresh perspective and not being so caught up in what American soccer is and isn't and how they're projecting and what the growth trajectory is.
00:05:35
Speaker
But just, hey, this is what these guys do well. Let's use it. And that happens to fit the way that he wants to play. But also, you know, American soccer's chip on its shoulder inferiority complex makes it constantly wonder what other people think about what they're doing.
00:05:49
Speaker
You want to know who really doesn't care about what other people think he's doing is Mauricio Pochettino. That resume means he doesn't have something that's been pretty true. yeah that We've gotten that resume means the resume means he doesn't have to care about what you think about the way he's playing that he doesn't have to prove anything to you.
00:06:04
Speaker
So he's just like, yeah, let's do it. And that's what I expected. And it's been more successful than I expected. It's going really well. And he's doing an incredible job. But I expected it to go well. I thought that he was a really good fit for this.
00:06:18
Speaker
What I didn't see is how much this team would take him back to where he used to be. And, you know, I talk about it, how he is a Marcelo Bielsa disciple. He was playing on a local semi-pro to then, you know, not very high level team in his little town in Argentina when Marcelo Bielsa showed up at 1am in the morning and wanted to sign him for Newell's Old Boys. And he did.
00:06:42
Speaker
And that was his first real manager. And Marcelo was always a part of his life. Everything about how Pochettino views the game is through that lens. And he's evolved in in a lot of ways in which Bielsa has in and they're not the same person. But the general ethos is there. And that is we are going to run.
00:06:59
Speaker
We are going to punch you in the face that what we do out of possession matters as much as what we do in possession. which you know, for a team that has a lot of great athletes and its technical ability is kind of lacking caring as much of what you do without the balls with the ball really does play well.
00:07:14
Speaker
And I think in doing that, though, I mean, they call Bioso a loco for a reason. He's kind of a crazy person. And so is Pochettino, because he comes from that. He demands that you you know, when he's at the club, and you can do it, you know, preseason is double sessions all the time, you You run and you run and you run and you run and you do it all together. And when the match, you run and you run and you run and you better not pull out of a challenge. And if we put the ball in the air, you're going up with two elbows up in the air. And and that's who he is. And it's not just because it works on the field, but it builds a camaraderie and a spirit.
00:07:45
Speaker
And he calls it suffering. He says, we have to suffer. We have to suffer together. And I don't think to him that's because it helps you win games exclusively. i think he genuinely believes that the point of the sport is to suffer together and build this culture in this atmosphere where you are invested in each other as you are in anything else.
00:08:04
Speaker
And, you know, he goes to PSG and he can't do that anymore. it All his previous stops, he was the sun, the moon, the stars, of which everything revolved around. He goes to PSG and it revolves around killing Mbappe and it revolves around some older players who ah were great, but aren't going to be able to run like that. And they have outsized influence. And, you know, we've seen this at PSG for a decade until Enrique got there and they got rid of all their, you know, at the time established superstars and brought in guys who are willing to
Pochettino's Experience with PSG and the U.S. Team
00:08:32
Speaker
put in the work. No manager got that team to commit the way that he wants to commit. Yeah.
00:08:37
Speaker
And then at Chelsea, he started trying to get there. That front office is a mess and they want to throw him out because that's what they do. And so, you know, he leaves Tottenham in 2019. And when he takes the U.S. job in 2024 for five years, he has not played in a way he wanted to play. He did not have that suffering that he wanted to have. He did not have that camaraderie in the team that was the staple of his entire soccer upbringing from the time that Marcelo Bielsa pulled him out of his town and brought him into his old boys until he left Tottenham.
00:09:05
Speaker
And I don't think I realized at the time, and I think we're seeing it now, that being able to play that way again and build that camaraderie and build that suffering and go through it with this U.S. team has taken him back to, I think, what he believes the sport should be and where he's happiest and where he is best.
00:09:25
Speaker
And it turned out to be a really, really perfect marriage. And I have not seen Pochettino as consistently happy and as invested as he is right now. And I mean, you look at that documentary that didn't have very much interesting in there, but Pochettino's on the verge of tears talking to that team after they lose in the gold cup and talking about how they deserve more.
00:09:45
Speaker
It is that type of investment and that type of care and bond among everyone in that dressing room that I think he had been missing. In addition, and that all just kind of comes together. And it is a perfect marriage. And I'm sure that in a maybe three months or in a year or three years, Pochettino going leave because there's gonna be another club job or whatever. think...
00:10:06
Speaker
I'm kind of curious to see, though, does he take the same type of job he took before under the same circumstances? Or has this rewired and made him realize it's not worth it if I don't have this? And he'll find it somewhere else. Like, good for him.
00:10:19
Speaker
But I think it has almost put him back on the right track and put him back in a space in the sport that he kind of got an awful away from. Through no fault of his own, it just kind of happens. But... I think it's a really beautiful thing that you're going to see the tales of for a long time, both for Pochettino and for the U.S. Because I don't think the next U.S. manager is coming in here again and saying, can you guys play in some more triangles? Don't go punch him in the face. I think that he has also broken that. I think both sides are going to see the fruits of this labor for a very long time.
00:10:49
Speaker
Well, it does make... You know, it's funny when you put it all like that. It almost is offensive that ah we spent all this time sort of like trying to rehab the U.S. system in a way that mimics something that... Look, like you said, they had to get better technically. The technical aspects of U.S. soccer help raise the you know the ceiling on what you can do. But the underpinning always needed to be you got to run hard. You got to tackle hard. You got like this is...
00:11:19
Speaker
That's always going to be the U.S. is always going to be able to close that gap faster than anything else. And if they want to win anything, you know, not necessarily win a World Cup. But look, we don't have winning the World Cup talent. I don't necessarily think unless you can be superhuman at this other stuff.
00:11:35
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, I think that we kind of got caught in a false dichotomy of you had two options. You could be like a US team of old ah that were fairly successful, to be fair, relative to, you know, what this team normally does of we're going to defend, we're going to counter, we're going to be able to hit you really quickly.
00:11:52
Speaker
ah We're going to absorb and we're going to react. And then they went to, we need to get so technically good and play in this certain way in possession that we dictate the game to you with the ball. That's all we do. And, you know, this team does keep the ball. And certainly against some of these teams that they're playing who don't want the ball, they're happy to have the ball.
00:12:08
Speaker
But also, I think you were now seeing a team that is willing to dictate how this game is played without the ball. The way that they press, the way that they're dictating where this game is played, what parts of the field, all of that is a way to be proactive without the ball. without using that technical ability. And that's a thing that I think was missing for a really long time. And you look back over the last 15 years of American soccer, and you heard all these discussions about what the US needs to do and what the focus is and how they're going to succeed.
00:12:37
Speaker
How much of that did you ever hear was about the way they're going to play out of possession? It just wasn't there. And the way that Pochettino has the US s playing out of possession is as important, if not more important than what they're doing in possession. And bringing that in and recognizing that that can be a proactive way to play. That can be a defining characteristic of who you are as a team. And you can succeed doing that at a high level.
00:12:59
Speaker
I think is going to completely change everything. And you know want to know how you are really good without the ball besides being tactically good and besides being able to read stuff and being put in good positions and being able to have effort about being really fast and really strong.
00:13:14
Speaker
And, you know, that's what he's leaning on. yeah And I guess, ah like you mentioned, the U.S. has been very successful against teams who maybe are not as interested in the ball as Belgium most likely is going to be. How do you imagine that, like this feels like the first real big test of whether or not the U.S. has made...
00:13:36
Speaker
ah yeah I think the U.S. has made strides. there There's no question about it. Look, none of us have ever seen the U.S. dominate opponents the way that they have dominated all three of their wins, like at the World Cup. Like that's just literally never happened in our lifetimes.
00:13:51
Speaker
ah But Belgium does pose a different kind of challenge. And I think it's the first real test of does this work once you get outside of this sort of zone of of teams?
00:14:03
Speaker
ah How do you imagine it's going to go? You know, I think that it was kind of interesting. And I was saying this during Belgium-Senegal match. I think Senegal is a better team than Belgium.
00:14:13
Speaker
I think that Senegal is a better matchup for the U.S. actually, because I don't think I think the three center backs could have kind of squeezed on what Senegal does. And Senegal is slow in the midfield and open in transition. And I think that's a place where the U.S. s could have really, really hammered them.
00:14:28
Speaker
um That's not going to be as easy to do against Belgium. um But what I will say is Belgium also doesn't live on the ball. Um, so there will be opportunities to get on the ball. Um, I don't think it is going to be that way. And, you know, their inability, Belgium is not a particularly athletic team. They're pretty slow team, uh, outside of Jeremy Doku.
00:14:46
Speaker
And they have good players in there for sure. And they scare me because, you know, the, the U S defense isn't always the best. And, you know, you get down into the final third and you've got those guys trying to defend and Kevin De Bruyne can hit a perfect ball and all these things that can happen.
00:15:01
Speaker
But I also think that, both with the ball and without the ball, the US s can really, really stress Belgium with their ability to get on top of them. Belgium cannot keep up with them.
00:15:12
Speaker
um And I don't think Rudy Garcia, the Belgium manager, is a particularly good coach. I thought that what he did yesterday and what he's done this entire World Cup has just been like indefensibly bad. And they have been overcoming him for much of this World Cup. um So I'm not sure he has it in him to adjust and he hasn't adjusted for anything this entire World Cup. The closest thing you have to an adjustment is in the first game. He said, we're going to run this attack through Jeremy Doku, except the rest of the team is much slower than him. So he would get forward and then have to wait for everyone else to catch up to him.
00:15:42
Speaker
So he said, let's not do that anymore. We're going to work slower. That's the closest thing to an adjustment. I mean, he's cycling in and rotating his strikers into Ketelera and and Lukaku just because, well, I started this one and it went okay. But then when it goes badly, I go to the other one and I'll stick with him until it goes badly. and then I'll flip back and forth, but they're two very different strikers and they're playing the exact same way.
00:16:02
Speaker
There's just not a lot in there. And so I think if the U S can get on them and the U S can take things away and they can make things difficult, both with and without the ball, I'm not sure Belgium has an adjustment in there. I think we know what they're going to do. I think Pochettino knows what Belgium is going to do. And, you know, you still have to go out and execute the game plan. That's that's a lot harder than coming up with the game plan.
00:16:23
Speaker
But I don't think we're going to get 15 minutes into that game and go, damn, Pochettino has to make an adjustment now. I think he knows exactly what he's getting. Yeah, I was at the game yesterday, the Belgium-Senegal game, and I was just struck through 85 minutes how thoroughly dominant Senegal looked.
00:16:39
Speaker
They seemed to be doing really, like they had the they had the ball, they were playing
World Cup Performance and Analysis
00:16:45
Speaker
their game. yeah And then the goal that senegal that ah Belgium gets is really out of very little.
00:16:52
Speaker
And then the second goal was really more of a mistake on the goalkeeper. I'm not quite sure what's going on there. And then, of course, the winner is a penalty that, I don't know. I guess it's a penalty. It does not feel like it was a penalty the way that this game, this ah tournament has been refereed.
00:17:08
Speaker
VAR seems to have taken a ah very different approach in the knockout stage than VAR was taking in the group stage. But look, Belgium is is essentially who we thought the U.S. was going to be playing if they got to this point.
00:17:22
Speaker
And that's who they're playing. Is the 5-2 loss to Belgium indicative? Is that illustrative? Is it is it informative? I don't think so.
00:17:33
Speaker
um I don't really think that there's that much to pull from there. I mean, what I will pull from that is the U.S. really struggled with...
00:17:44
Speaker
um the way that they were able to kind of pull the strings on the U S defense. And, you know, there's a couple of plays there where De Bruyne plays a really good ball and to cut the layer got free a few times. And, you know, the Kuiper had some moments down that left wing. Doku was good, but also, you know, the U S wasn't playing in anything that resembled, uh,
00:18:06
Speaker
what they both in terms of personnel and style and the way they're playing now like that was a four man back line which I don't think we're gonna see that was Timothy Weah as not a wing back but a straight up fullback um Chris Richards was not out there the the double pivot was made up of Tessman and Cardozo two players who are not even on this roster Weston McKinney had to play functionally and as a winger in that game until it got so bad that he had to pinch in to help that midfield like there's just not a lot to pull from there I think the warning sign from that game is You give them space and you give them a chance.
00:18:39
Speaker
They're talented enough to beat you. And they are like, the like this is not a game where I'm like the U S wins easily. It's not, um, the execution is the, is the question, but I don't think it's because the U S can't do it. I don't think it's because they're a bad matchup. I don't think it's because Belgium have something up their sleeve. I think they got a handful of really good players and, you know, one match, 90 minutes, a handful of really good players. It may not matter how good the team is as a whole.
00:19:06
Speaker
i More broadly, if you look at the first four games that the U.S. has played, has this been the most successful World Cup that like, is there already like, can we call this a success yet?
00:19:23
Speaker
um I mean, to me, yes, certainly. But, you know, my standard is generally a little bit different than other people's standards, especially, you know, when you look at a World Cup and you look at something like this. I mean, the thing that I have always said that is kind of like the point I go back to is the 2002 World Cup is always held up as the most successful World Cup that the U.S. has ever played.
00:19:46
Speaker
um They went to the quarterfinals. They were better than Germany, or at least as good in that quarterfinal. um They beat Mexico in a knockout stage game. ah That team got four points out of its group, needed Park Ji Sung to pull it out of their ass against Portugal just to get them out of the group. If he doesn't score that goal, we don't even make it out of the group. It doesn't matter.
00:20:09
Speaker
None of that other stuff ever happens. And we wonder why they lighted a complete egg against Poland. Yeah. And you know what? In 2006, a World Cup that is a considered a colossal failure because they don't get out of the group, that Czech Republic game was bad.
00:20:23
Speaker
But the next two games were actually pretty damn good. I maintain that that 2006 team played as well at the World Cup as the 2002 team. I don't think that's crazy at all, frankly. And one of them is held up as the greatest success ever. And one of them is one of the biggest disappointments. of That is how World Cups go.
00:20:41
Speaker
And so, you know, to me, the fact that this team has come out and they have played well and they have played with a confidence and they know who they are and they're putting in good performances. And to this point, they have played three games that mattered and they have three wins, all convincing, not a single one of them because they got even an ounce of luck. They're just better.
00:21:01
Speaker
Listen, it'll be a disappointing World Cup if they go and they get their doors blown off by Belgium. Like, yeah, you could always have a game so bad that the what the stuff that happened before it doesn't matter anymore. But go play a good game against Belgium. And I come out of this World Cup saying, so they made the round of 16.
00:21:16
Speaker
By that measure, they are a top 16 team at this World Cup. They are not a top eight team at this World Cup. And they had a lot of really great moments. Sounds like a that sounds like an above average U.S. World Cup to me.
00:21:28
Speaker
i mean, it's it's honestly it's the most in I think easily the most enjoyable World Cup that i have watched. I want to say I've watched every U.S. play every World Cup since 2002.
00:21:43
Speaker
And there was a lot I think people forget like how. bad Like the 2002 World Cup was so close to being really bad. They had a great half against Portugal.
00:21:54
Speaker
And then they basically were holding on for dear life until the the the knockout stage. And even in the knockout stage, I mean, you look at that Mexico game. It's not as if Mexico lacked for chances. The U.S. had two gorgeous plays for two goals. I still dream about that ball that John O'Brien played in that perfect cross in the head. Like, gorgeous.
00:22:17
Speaker
they didn't play 90 beautiful minutes. They did not play flawlessly. ah That's just kind of how it goes. And that's okay. I don't say that as a slight on them, but yeah, man, like they, they and to be fair, the competition was tougher in 2002 than really anything they've played so far.
00:22:33
Speaker
So that is part of it. They played tougher teams. That's why it's hard to compare across world cups, but you know, you and this U S team has gone out in this world cup, but they have had a bar put in front of them and they've cleared it by 10 feet.
00:22:46
Speaker
You know, yeah do they clear it against a much higher bar? I don't know. depends on how you set the bar, but they're clearing the bar. Yeah, no, absolutely. I think they they're clearing the bar. That's all you can really ask. And again, it it just can't be rude. They've played a lot of mediocre to bad teams in world cups past and not looked remotely as competent as they have in frankly, every game.
00:23:07
Speaker
during this this tournament. It's been a lot of fun to watch. I'm enjoying it. You know, one of the other things that I think has been really interesting about this World Cup is that obviously it's being played on American time zones.
00:23:19
Speaker
And as ah result, it's being shown to people at times where they can actually watch it. Like you go to 2002, and realistically, I don't know that a lot of people that look at the quarterfinal finish...
00:23:31
Speaker
really watched that tournament because a lot of those games were at ridiculous times. If I remember correctly, I think the quarterfinal or the the round of 16 game was against Mexico was played at like two 30 in the morning.
00:23:48
Speaker
I would at the time was living in Southern California. My now wife had found her way through a blaze on, uh, on 15 to get to my house.
00:24:00
Speaker
And we, we watched that match together. ah but it was in the middle of the night. It was like at a time when a lot of people were not up, these games are being played like this game, this, the other day, I'm really looking forward to seeing what the ratings look like because it's, I believe the first time that the U S has ever played a knockout stage game in prime time.
00:24:19
Speaker
On a Wednesday, it was five o'clock ah Pacific, eight o'clock Eastern. Just you could not ask for a better setting for TV ratings for as far as U.S. soccer goes.
00:24:31
Speaker
What's been you know you you are in Kansas City. You are in the heartland. ah You are obviously Kansas City is ah is, you know, Soccer City, USA or or whatever they're they're calling themselves these days.
00:24:43
Speaker
Get it right or they will sue you. Right. ah Is it what is it? Is it soccer city or is it the capital of soccer? Soccer capital of America. Soccer capital of America. There we go. And now now we have to write a check to them.
00:24:54
Speaker
Right. Exactly. So what's the what's the C? Do you get a sense of a C change at all? Like what's it like in in Kansas City during this tournament? It's certainly the most excited people have been for a World Cup. And I think that expands beyond just the U.S. I think it's just the most excited that people have been for the tournament as a whole.
00:25:16
Speaker
um It's the most excited they have been for the U.S. It's the most excited they've been for Mexico. It's the most excited they've been for Colombia. It's the most excited they have been to watch Sweden play Japan at 2 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon.
00:25:29
Speaker
um This is just the the the biggest, most interested World Cup of that... they've had. And I think that's pretty exciting. um I'm a little bit more skeptical than most how much staying power there is there. um You know, how many of these people are going to be watching the U S play, you know, Jamaica in a nations league game next year. I'm, I don't think the number is going to be real high.
00:25:52
Speaker
um But it's a really fun month having a great time. Like it's rare that, you know, it's pretty common that I could go to the bar and watch a U S game and there'll be 30 people there watching with me.
00:26:03
Speaker
It's pretty common. I can go out into a public plaza when Mexico is playing a meaningful game and be surrounded by a bunch of Mexicans watching that game. um It's not common that I can roll up to my neighborhood bar and they're just playing whatever game is on and people are watching.
00:26:19
Speaker
And, you know, you I've had to do a lot of people asking questions about like, wait, if this happens, when do they play next? Because they don't know what the bracket is and I got to do it. And then they're like, wait, he's behind that guy. Why is why is he offside? Well, now i have to explain you about, you know, it's actually two because the keeper is one of them. There's a lot of that going on. And I don't know how much of those people are going to, you know, stick around for the next US game, the next MLS game, the next Premier League, the next any game before the next World Cup.
00:26:47
Speaker
I don't know if... you know, they're going to wake up at 9am to watch the next World Cup. Right. It's really fun for now. And, you know, I think that there's also a little bit of a a thing where um Americans think that these casual fans are unique to America.
00:27:06
Speaker
And I'm here to tell you that you can go to England and you can go to Spain and you can go to Italy and Brazil and wherever the hell else you want to go. And when the World Cup plays, there are a lot of people there who are watching their first soccer game in years.
00:27:19
Speaker
That's just kind of how it goes. The World Cup's kind of a big deal. Right. And and to that to that point, I think people are sometimes surprised to learn that there are lots of people in lots of countries that are willing to give you their...
00:27:32
Speaker
woefully under-informed opinion about stuff. And that's really what, you know, that's that's kind of what the World Cup is all about, is ah people off the street who suddenly have really strong feelings about whether or not that balligan red card was proper.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, listen, i you know, I go to a concert or I listen to an album and I have a strong opinion about what I think about it. And I guarantee you, if I give that strong opinion to a professional musician, they think I'm a fucking moron, uh, because I don't know what I'm talking about.
00:28:05
Speaker
Um, Sports fans don't like the fact that other people sometimes do that about sports. But you know what? I guarantee you, sports fan, are going out to the world and doing the exact same thing about something else. This is just kind of how things go. If the stakes aren't that high and they're here for a good time, they're going to have strong opinions. And that's fine. You do it too. You just do it about other stuff.
00:28:26
Speaker
Right, exactly. no and I think that's that's one of the beauties.
U.S. Soccer Rivalries and Fan Perspectives
00:28:29
Speaker
So one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about while I have you in kind of dovetailing on this is ah one of our our favorite social media accounts, Toodle Ramen, ah put out a question to ah to sort of the the soccer world and he was assessing the rivalries of, of American fans. And he and he was sort of getting the, the vi he said, the vibe I'm getting is that England right now is the most hated team by Americans. I think that's probably pretty true. I think Americans have a natural American soccer fans have a pretty natural hatred towards ah England soccer ah in part because of the soccer football thing.
00:29:09
Speaker
At least, at least ah American fans who, who like, are actually a fans of American soccer and not just cause playing. Right. ah But then there's also, but then he ranked Mexico number two and it got me thinking, I don't think Mexico is the,
00:29:27
Speaker
the second most hated team by the average American soccer fan anymore. And part of like, I, maybe I'm selfish. I am, I am married to a Mexican, but I think a lot of folks have, uh, similar connections to Mexico.
00:29:40
Speaker
And especially in this political climate, it's just not that much fun to hate on Mexico. Uh, but there's also soccer reasons for, i ah Mexico not really being the same the rival the the kind of rival that it it was at one point to the United States.
00:29:55
Speaker
And I'm curious, how do you come down on this as someone who also has a ah has you know like a familial tie in this whole thing Yeah. I mean, I think you kind of got to break it down two ways. The first is you have to define what American soccer fan is.
00:30:10
Speaker
Um, are you only including the people who are driving for six hours to go watch a, you know, friendly that the U S plays with only MLS players like me?
00:30:23
Speaker
Uh, Sure. That's a different cohort than the people who are showing up and get very excited to watch the world cup and maybe a gold cup final. Uh, and then you have a lot of people in between there, a lot of people. So who is an American soccer fan is a really important way to, that's a good point to, to start from that. If you're only talking about the real diehards, um, Mexico might be number one, honestly, because that's, that is a particular flavor of person that also isn't very many people.
00:30:49
Speaker
Um, And, and then, you know, you, you zoom that out a little bit. Do you want to start including fans of, uh, American women's soccer in there? Right. That is going to change the way that we are talking about this. You want to zoom it out further and further. That all changes. Um, and then I also think the question then becomes, and this is kind of what, what sticks for me and I think is the outstanding question for us soccer, which they don't feel like addressing. It's the outstanding question about American soccer as a whole is, um,
00:31:17
Speaker
there are a lot of people in this country who Mexico is their favorite team. ah ah who Maybe the most popular team in the United States. Let's be real. Like L3 is unques probably the most popular team in America.
00:31:30
Speaker
Yes, and it's not even close. It is the most popular sports team in America. It's the number two is not remotely close. But of that group, you got a lot of Mexican fans. You got a lot of el Salvador fans. You got a lot of, ah you know, Guatemalan fans. You got a lot of Hondurans. You go on and on who live in this country.
00:31:47
Speaker
and who count that country as their favorite team. They also count the US s as their second favorite team and watch a lot of US soccer and root for them every single time that they're not playing their favorite team.
00:31:58
Speaker
They may own four you, I know these people, they may own five US s soccer jerseys. They really love it. And they root really hard for them until they play Honduras or until they play Mexico. And and that's fine are those American soccer fans?
00:32:11
Speaker
is Are we bundling them up too? um Because, you know, I do. And I think that a lot of those people care about US soccer more than other people that, you know, are traditionally considered American soccer fans.
00:32:24
Speaker
So when you start accounting for that, you know, you got a lot of people there who I don't think would ever consider Mexico their rival because they consider Mexico their favorite team. And the US is just number two. And the same is true of El Salvador, the same is true of Hondurans, the same is true of so many people in this country. And I mean, then you take that a step further and you ask what the rivalry is today.
00:32:50
Speaker
um The US s and Mexico haven't really played a hotly contested game since the summer 2021. This hasn't happened. um You had the the the Nations League Gold Cup double of the summer of 2021 post-COVID.
00:33:04
Speaker
Since then, it hasn't really happened. And, you know, if you are a fan of the rivalry, the sad thing is it's never really going happen again. This rivalry is functionally dead. It is a vestige of times past because...
00:33:15
Speaker
they're not going to play each other in World Cup qualifying anymore. the The format is changing. they are not They're going to be in different final groups and they're not going to play each other. And sure, the US s and Mexico will probably play in some Gold Cup semis and finals and they'll play in the Nations League.
00:33:28
Speaker
And, you know, that's just kind of how it's going to go. But a rivalry will not subsist on playing at Jerry World in March ah in a Nations League final. it's a you The US has to go to Mexico for this to matter. and The only real hope, honestly, of this rivalry mattering again, and it being that way, is if the US and Mexico become permanent participants in Copa America, and they end up playing each other in Copa America every so often. and you know US s and Mexico come back in 2028, and they go play a Copa America quarterfinal against each other.
00:34:07
Speaker
Now we got a little something. Maybe, you know, you come back in 2036 and now they play a semifinal against each other. All right. Maybe we got a little something there. i mean, you know, you you look at England and Germany have maintained a rivalry just by really playing a handful of really big matches in major tournaments.
00:34:23
Speaker
um But until unless they're going to start playing in Copa Americas all the time, and maybe you get lucky and there's another World Cup round of 16 game in there somewhere, the rivalry is dead because it's just going to be a memory. They're going to play some cash grab friendlies and fill Concaf's pockets every two years.
00:34:39
Speaker
But that's it. And so that really changes the tenor of the rivalry and of the fandom. Yeah, I mean, that's I think that's that's a good point. I will say that selfishly in my personal bracket, I have the US and Mexico meeting in the third place game of this tournament.
00:34:57
Speaker
so that So it's not really about whether or not ah the USMXO rivalry is real. It's about whether or not third place games, anyone can care about it. So this this is the ultimate test of a World Cup third place game, if you think about it. Exactly.
00:35:08
Speaker
Exactly. Although I am, I am, like I find myself, real like I went to a ah watch party for Mexico on... with today is today i guess on tuesday and i had a lot of fun ah mexican fans in seattle have come out in massive numbers like i never really thought they would or not that i thought they would i just never even thought about it as a as a thing but i will say that the probably the most common jersey i see at every game outside of the partisans is almost always mexico yes uh there are dozens and maybe hundreds of Mexico jerseys at every single world cup game, no matter who is playing.
00:35:47
Speaker
And ah like, it would be silly for the U S marketing apparatus to not like, and and I do think that's like, say what you know about leagues cup. We don't have to get into this whole thing, but I do think it makes sense to reach out to these fans.
00:36:02
Speaker
But like you said, the juice of the rivalry really is in playing games in Mexico and in ah and having some back and forth between where the games are.
00:36:14
Speaker
and it And it can't just be a display game for at Jerry World, like you said. But I mean, to to your point, when you talk about, you know, Leagues Cup or these club games, how much juice does Leagues Cup have? Next to nothing because they play it all up here.
00:36:29
Speaker
But, you know, when you play a CONCACAF Champions League game and you got go down to Mexico, those games got juice. It matters more to both fan bases. The club situation, it that's your example right there. Why won't this rivalry work if the US doesn't go play in Mexico? the same way The same reason League's Cup doesn't work and the same reason CONCACAF Champions League Cup, whatever we're calling it now, and we'll probably change it in two more years. ah That's why that works.
00:36:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, Ryan, it's been great being able to read you. ah i hope people are enjoying that. I hope people are finding you. I hope they're finding you on your own website as well.
00:37:08
Speaker
ah And it's been an absolute joy doing this. Ryan, where else can people follow you? um Yeah, I mean, I guess you could hop on my sub stack. I do apologize for being on sub stack. I intend to move to a different platform, but I haven't had the time. If you want to get advice on going to Ghost, I'm happy to help. I will probably take you up on that. I just haven't had the time or cared enough about my sub stack to really think about it. um But yeah, you could check that out. ah My name is on a lot of things at yeah ESPN right now. You can probably, I don't know. I've done a lot of ESPN radio interviews and I don't know on what affiliates or when they're going on. But maybe if you turn on your radio, that is happening. And, you know, sounder at heart every, i don't know, two, three times a week. Whenever you ask me to.
00:37:53
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're going to keep but giving you a platform at least until the final. And hopefully we were able to strike up some more stuff. People may remember you actually used to do our, we did power rankings for a while. And you were...
00:38:06
Speaker
you were doing those but yeah anyway Ryan it's been it's been great uh hopefully we will hear from you more ah in the coming weeks and months but uh yeah let's get out of here i' am Jeremiah Shan this is Nos Ariatis part of the Sounder at Heart podcast network and we will catch you next time
00:38:51
Speaker
Let's go at Sounders.