00:00Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Fox Sports on the Road. I'm your host, Michael Cohen.
00:21Today, the U.S. men's national team is trying to get to the quarterfinals of the World Cup
00:24for the first time since 2002, and this is the fifth time since the U.S. first participated
00:30in the World Cup that they have qualified for the round of 16. Joining us today to break
00:35this all down and to get you everything you need to know about the U.S. men's soccer team,
00:40the World Cup, is Jeff Reuter of The Athletic. Jeff, welcome aboard. How are you doing?
00:44I'm doing all right. Thanks for having me.
00:46Awesome, awesome. And so before we get into talking about this matchup, just tell me a
00:50little bit more about yourself and your coverage of soccer. Where did this passion start for
00:54you? Yeah, it actually started out in the bleachers, if you believe it, of a second division soccer
00:59game. So I grew up following this sport. My aunt was a goalkeeper in Minnesota at the same time
01:04that Brian Ascuri was coming up through the ranks in high school. There are, you know,
01:09these family generational stories now. Now it's becoming generational, I guess, where there'd
01:14be club soccer shootouts at the end to determine the state title. And Brian Ascuri would make
01:18two saves and my aunt would make one. And that's always how the game would end. It's that, you
01:21know, it's just, you know, the best goalkeeper in the world ended up beating her on the
01:24day. So I grew up with this. I watched the 99ers. I woke up in the middle of the night
01:28to watch 2002 that run to the quarterfinal, what have you. And then I, you know, was a
01:33fan of the second division of Minnesota United when they're in the old NASL that the New York
01:37Cosmos used to be in. And, you know, my brother and I were in the crowd. Some guy heard us
01:42talking, asked if I wanted to hop on his podcast because he needed a stopgap host until he could
01:45find a real replacement on his show. I ended up just taking over that as the second host.
01:50I started writing about it, freelancing, The Guardian, 442, ESPN, Sky Sports, and Major
01:57League Soccer's website. And then The Athletic starts covering soccer in 2018. I start as a
02:01freelancer. I get hired on full-time April 2019. And now here I am in my fourth year of the staff
02:06role covering the World Cup. It's a crazy progression. It really is.
02:09It is. It's wild. But, you know, that's how these things go. You never, you never know how
02:12it starts and all of a sudden you just keep rolling, right?
02:15Right. Exactly. Yeah. And, and there's, there's something that's just so gratifying about the fact
02:18that it's not, I wasn't assigned this beat, right? This isn't a case where I wanted to cover the NFL
02:22and I guess I got it to cover the soccer desk, which it happened so often in this industry,
02:26unfortunately. You know, that wasn't, that wasn't the case whatsoever for me. So not a much,
02:30not much sleep these days. I haven't had a day off since September, but this is why we do it.
02:35We love it.
02:35This is the, this is the youngest team. This is the youngest starting lineup that the U.S.
02:39has fielded in the four in the World Cup and the fourth ever that they've had. What does that,
02:44what kind of advantage does that give a team like this? Because sometimes the old saying is
02:48you don't know what you don't know. And sometimes that could be a benefit to a team that is as young
02:53and aggressive as this one. Absolutely. I mean, this is a generation of player that grew up playing
02:58FIFA, the video game, right? They grew up watching the Champions League on all of the various broadcast
03:03homes that it's had over the last 10, 15 years in the States. And so as a result, this is the stage
03:08they've been craving. They haven't been growing up saying it'd be really nice to play in front of 4,000
03:13fans in a neutral venue in Germany against Japan, right? Which was the case in the September
03:18qualifier or in the September friendly window, which is when they look so poor and everyone
03:21was starting to wonder, okay, is this team even going to get out of the group in the first place?
03:24Which by the way, it was always a valid question to ask given the strength of Iran, the passion
03:29of Wales, you know, despite their lack of quality. But I think that, you know, with that youth
03:35comes one, you're fearless as you're alluding to, right? Like it's, it's, it's a stage that
03:40it's not going to overwhelm you because you're not going to let it. Um, but two, also there are
03:45actual sporting advantages to it. Uh, us men's players are usually lauded for being tireless,
03:52hardworking, grindstone runners of players, even if they're technically deficient in some cases,
03:58that's been the old stereotype since those nineties and two thousands teams. And that still holds true
04:02with this batch, but the difference is they're much younger. They're able to regenerate. They're able
04:06to recover, you know, Christian Pulisic coming off of a pelvic contusion, Josh Sargent with an ankle,
04:10both of them look like they might be able to play a role, um, you know, in this game against Holland,
04:15um, Pulisic more likely than Sargent admittedly as of, uh, this time. But I think that you look at it
04:21overall and, uh, you know, there are still some veterans there who are able to look and say,
04:26this is my big moment. This is the highlight of my career, like a Tim Ream figure, for example,
04:29who didn't feature in that 2014 world cup roster, despite being a part of the program already at that
04:34point. Um, but I think that that youthfulness has really helped them take on this challenge
04:38and embrace it rather than maybe fully understand the pressure that they're under in the moment.
04:48The moment where he gets the, what would end up being the game winning goal, obviously off Twitter
04:52just exploded, social media exploded, obviously. Um, and to do that while also getting injured,
04:58I think just adds to his myth mythos in a lot of ways. You agree? Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. So I
05:04think that in the moment, it's really unfortunate. You want a player to be able to have that knee
05:08slide in the corner, like Landon Donovan did against Algeria in 2010. You want them to be able
05:12to savor the moment where they were able to put together such an impressive individual effort that
05:17helps the whole team. But I think you're right. I think that there's something quintessentially
05:21American sports about, you know, gave his body up for the rest of the game, just to make sure that
05:25this team got out of the group stage, Jordan flew game, uh, Willis Reed walking back on in crutches,
05:30right? Like, I mean, these, these moments live on in the sports consciousness longer, um, than just
05:36about anything players coming through adversity, risking injury, all of that Paul Pierce on the
05:41wheelchair is something that I've seen gift a lot since politics injury, right? So, uh, you know,
05:47I think that it, it will, in a weird way, that sort of moment needed to happen for American soccer's
05:55reputation, especially on the men's side. I think that most casual American sports fans know that
05:59they need to respect the U S women's national team at this point, that they're the best at what they
06:02do in the world and have been for 25 years now. I think that the flip side of it though, is that
06:08the men's side, you know, men's soccer still gets an unfair reputation for being for a bunch of pretty
06:13boys who are soft. And I don't think a lot of people, casual sports fans realize how tough this
06:18sport is, how much grit is required to be good at this sport, how much determination, how much physical
06:22labor, how much mental focus during immense physical distress this sport requires. And it's,
06:28it's to a point now where if you are making the same lazy jokes, you're making 25 years ago,
06:32you missed the bandwagon. And so I think having a player who not just scored, but scored and left
06:37his body on the line and was able to limp through the rest of the half for tactical purposes. So
06:40Berhalter didn't have to use a substitution window in a world cup to help his team even more.
06:46Um, that's something that I think is going to be a statement and something that really resonated
06:49with casual American sports fans, as well as the soccer crowd.
06:53Yeah. I mean, it kind of reminds me of when, uh, Derek Jeter went flying into the stands,
06:56trying to foul ball and he smashed it into the seats. It's like, yeah, yeah. Same energy. Exactly.
07:02You want to see that because you want to believe that if you were in that situation,
07:05you would leave it all out there like a Derek Jeter, like a Willis Reed, like a Christian Pulisic,
07:10like everyone wants to imagine they would be that guy. And it makes it a little easier for chair to a team
07:15when they play to a level of effort that everyone on their sofa wishes they could hit.
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