00:00Man, no GP.
00:01He's still in Williamsburg.
00:02We might not get him back, by the way.
00:04That's Colonial Paulson for that ass.
00:06He was all full and in regalia.
00:08He was talking about how if we ever get fired,
00:10he's going to work down there churning butter or something.
00:14He's smitten.
00:15No, that hat fit him quite well.
00:16Seeing him at the start of the broadcast yesterday wearing that hat,
00:19it fit him quite well.
00:19It looks like something that if he comes back and starts wearing it,
00:22it wouldn't be all that shocked.
00:23It wouldn't be crazy.
00:24But thanks to the folks in Williamsburg and at VA 250
00:26who were just so unbelievably generous and kind to us,
00:30put us up down there.
00:31We had a blast doing the show from there yesterday.
00:34And Paulson and his family, well-earned,
00:37extra day they're staying down there to hang out.
00:38But you've got Tobes and I for the duration.
00:40Jamie Watson, fanatic soccer insider rather,
00:43will join us at 5.30.
00:44Your chance to win giant barbecue battle tickets at 3 and 6.
00:48That's 3 and 6.
00:49No, that's not the future Washington football 53's record this season,
00:54we hope, but at 3 and 6 p.m. is when you will win those tickets.
00:58The question for the moment, why hasn't it happened?
01:02Within our lifetimes, USA soccer was supposed to be great.
01:06They're hovering around kind of pretty good and okay,
01:09but when push comes to shove,
01:11they aren't a real threat to win the World Cup.
01:13This is what former USA soccer star and commentator
01:16Linda Donovan had to say about the future of U.S. soccer.
01:19Will USA win a World Cup in our lifetimes?
01:22Yes, I think it's more than a decade.
01:25I mean, let's say in the 40s to 50s range,
01:28we win it, 2040s to 2050s.
01:30Tomorrow, the U.S. opens against Paraguay.
01:32And the opportunity that our team has to do what we did in 2010,
01:37but on a much, much, much bigger scale, right?
01:40Soccer's way more popular, way more people watching,
01:42and it's at home.
01:43And that's why I get so excited about what these guys have the opportunity to do.
01:48It's going to be amazing.
01:49Again, in 2010, they went to the round of 16.
01:51They've done that a whole bunch of times.
01:53And they were promptly bounced, and that was that.
01:56Now, again, I'm not ripping Landon Donovan.
01:58He's a great player.
01:58Played well for Team USA, et cetera.
02:00But that's that same thing that I heard in the 90s, Tobes.
02:05It's the same thing I heard in the early 2000s.
02:06When they went to that quarterfinals in 2002,
02:11I heard all about how here it comes.
02:13Here comes the great wave, and it hasn't happened.
02:15I'll let you go first.
02:16We've got callers, 800-636-1067.
02:18Why hasn't it happened?
02:19Yeah, I think some of the stigma of being a loser for playing soccer
02:23is gone in this country.
02:25I think a lot of that has left.
02:27So it's not as much that anymore,
02:29but it's still well down the popularity list, I think, of American sports.
02:34You want to play football.
02:35You want to play basketball.
02:37You want to play baseball.
02:38Hockey's ever-growing, depending upon your region of the country.
02:41So it's kind of falling down the list a little bit still.
02:45So I think that's part of it,
02:47even though kids grow up playing multiple different sports a lot of times.
02:50But still, it's not the one that so many people in this country
02:54strive to be professional at.
02:55It's something that's second or third, and maybe if they make it, great.
02:59But they want to be a football player.
03:00They want to be a basketball player.
03:02So you miss out on some of that.
03:03But two, I think you look around this country
03:07and just how youth sports works.
03:10Frankly, I think in a lot of cases, it's too expensive,
03:12not just in soccer, but I think in a lot of sports.
03:15And I think you end up in a spot where maybe you miss out on some
03:18because they're not having as much opportunity
03:21and for as ease of access to the sport that they want to play.
03:25And also, you look at the European model.
03:27I mean, if you're living in Manchester,
03:29you've got City or United probably putting up camps everywhere.
03:32They want to make sure that they are identifying the best kids
03:35so they can get them into a youth academy
03:37and have them upcoming and then potentially into their program.
03:40Same thing in Spain, if you're in Barcelona or Madrid.
03:42And the top clubs in Europe understand
03:45that they want to be able to build through it.
03:46I mean, the top player potentially in this entire tournament,
03:49Lamin Yamal, I've got to double-check how old he is.
03:52But he's been with Barcelona for I'm not sure how long.
03:54He's 18 years old.
03:56He's 18.
03:57So you've got to identify these kids
03:59before they're 18 years old
04:01and potentially going to be playing for your club.
04:03You've got to find them when they're 12 years old
04:05and those sorts of things.
04:06And for a lot of kids in the United States,
04:09either they don't care as much about soccer
04:11or there's not as much ease of access.
04:13I'm sure D.C. United has some camps,
04:15but it's not as prevalent as a Caps Youth Academy
04:18or we know about the Nats Youth Academy.
04:21Those sorts of things are open to more people, it feels like.
04:24But even so, it's still, I think, a little bit more expensive
04:27to play youth sports here in the U.S. than overseas.
04:30And soccer being so popular in other countries,
04:33I think, immediately becomes the one
04:35where you're able to identify and find that talent
04:37a lot easier than you do here in the U.S.
04:38Let's go to Rolando in Springfield, first up on this.
04:41What's up, man? You're on the fan.
04:43Yes, hey, hi. How you doing, guys?
04:44Thank you for taking my call.
04:45I love the show.
04:46But yes, to follow up on his point,
04:50we don't have, there's not a niche sport,
04:53but we have the, I think this is organized,
04:55but I've talked to this at times,
04:56we have the best athletes in the world.
04:59Well, but if we can, the magic formula,
05:02if we can get our best athletes to play football, soccer,
05:05we would dominate.
05:06Imagine having the first roster playing,
05:09playing football, soccer in America.
05:11We would dominate.
05:13That's because we have the best athletes in the world.
05:14There's a reason.
05:15Appreciate you, dude.
05:16That's why I went to him first.
05:18That's the answer.
05:19Here comes the Scalder Trophy, the hot take.
05:22It's here.
05:23It's comprehensive and exhaustive.
05:25I've thought about this for my whole life.
05:27This is the truth of it.
05:29All the soccer people are going to be offended
05:31when you tell them this,
05:32but you're telling them the truth,
05:33they need to hear it.
05:36International basketball.
05:37How do they catch up to the United States?
05:39By playing a worse version of what we do?
05:41No, they change the game.
05:43A wider key.
05:44Different types of five out.
05:46Everybody can shoot.
05:47Spread the floor.
05:48We can't compete with the athletes the U.S. has,
05:50so we'll do it our way.
05:51Have you noticed who's taken over?
05:53It's a lot of Doncic.
05:54It's a lot of Jokic.
05:55Now, SGA's North American player.
05:57He's Canadian.
05:57But still, not a lot of Americans at the top.
05:59It's Giannis.
06:00The international dominance at the highest levels of the NBA
06:04are a direct byproduct of how international games take place.
06:09It is, again, a spread floor.
06:11It's cutting.
06:11It's passing.
06:12It's ball screens.
06:13It's everyone can shoot, et cetera.
06:15Not, can I go get a highlight and dunk on somebody's head AAU style?
06:18Right?
06:19Can I flex on them for Snapchat?
06:21It's a different game.
06:23What the U.S. has done is the exact opposite approach.
06:27We didn't invent this one.
06:28We invented the other ones.
06:29And so we do it.
06:30We perfected it.
06:30We're the best at basketball.
06:32There's still more great players in the U.S. than anywhere else in the world.
06:34It's not close.
06:35That's not the issue.
06:37You look at the way that they do it in the countries you mentioned,
06:41England, Spain, Italy, France, Brazil, worldwide.
06:44God, the U.S., my entire life in different leagues in the MLS has hung around and been
06:49more successful than all the other ones, but they've done the same thing.
06:52Let's do a watered-down, basic bitch, less successful, ungood, dirty, mucked-up version
06:59of the way the best do it.
07:02And then we go, well, what?
07:04How haven't we?
07:05Why isn't it?
07:07You're all idiots.
07:08Every one of you that subscribes to it.
07:10The business model is, well, we're kind of limping along.
07:13Let's bring a 40-year-old striker that was great before to see if we can boost some ticket
07:18sales.
07:19We've done it with David Beckham.
07:21We did it with Pele before I was born.
07:23We did it with Terry Henry, who's on television, who Darius has no idea and he disrespects.
07:28They've done it my whole life.
07:30It's the same formula, the same people trying to do the same thing and beating their head
07:34against the wall.
07:35Wrong.
07:36Rolando just said it.
07:38The best athletes need to play.
07:40They have no incentive to play right now.
07:41Now, when a young kid turns on the television, when they see the NBA, they can go, that guy
07:47looks like me.
07:48When they watch the NFL, that guy looks like me.
07:50I'm a big guy.
07:51I'm a fast guy.
07:52I'm something in between.
07:53They don't have that for soccer.
07:54It's starting to get a little better, but it's not there yet.
07:57The money must come first and then the players will follow.
08:02A kid that's in the middle of nowhere that his whole life is football in West Texas or in
08:09the Everglades of Florida.
08:11The millions to get out of there, that's in basketball and that's in football.
08:16It's not in soccer yet.
08:17They need to turn on the television and see the millions and millions going to the kid
08:23that came from a place just like yours.
08:26And it hasn't happened and it won't happen.
08:27Here's why.
08:29You're doing the same European model.
08:31No commercial breaks.
08:33Nothing, nothing games.
08:35One, nothing games.
08:37Flopping, diving.
08:38Nonsense.
08:39The American game has to change.
08:42Play an American game, then compete in an international game.
08:46They won't do it.
08:47They'll never do it.
08:48They have to do this thing because football's so great.
08:51European football's so great.
08:52Soccer's so great.
08:53The people will come.
08:54They'll just come if we do this worse version.
08:57And we know that our best players have to leave our league in order to play at the highest level.
09:04It's a ceiling.
09:05It's like telling people, hey, we've got this UFL thing.
09:10Come watch the UFL.
09:11It's great.
09:12What's that?
09:12Our best player just went to the NFL?
09:13But still, the UFL's great.
09:15Let's bring a guy that is in year 17 in the NFL who can't move anymore.
09:19Let's sign Bobby Wagner to the Louisville, whatever the hell their name is.
09:22That's the same strategy.
09:26Commercial breaks.
09:29Change the offsides rule dramatically.
09:31I understand it will be an adjustment internationally.
09:33Those guys that play international basketball have made it when they play against Team USA.
09:38USA needs a league where the money is real.
09:43Not cute.
09:44Not that's nice living for someone that goes and plays in college.
09:46But you need the kid that's grinding endless rep after rep after rep after rep after rep in the middle
09:53of nowhere to say, I need that rep grinded with soccer.
09:57Because it's expensive to do pay-to-play for every sport.
10:01It's inexpensive to kick a ball against the wall.
10:03That's what they're doing in Brazil.
10:04That's what they're doing in Argentina.
10:05That's what they're doing in Barcelona City.
10:07I noticed you mispronounced it earlier in Spain.
10:09That's what they're doing in Manchester.
10:11I was in Manchester and I saw it.
10:13I watched those kids, the instant they were out of school, go to the wall and kick that ball.
10:20Boom.
10:20Touch, touch, touch, touch, touch.
10:22Taking thousands of touches that our kids aren't taking because they don't do it when they aren't at practice.
10:27That's the model.
10:28It'll never happen.
10:30And so, Landon Donovan, you're wrong.
10:32Everybody that thinks it's going to happen in your lifetime is wrong.
10:35Because they'll never change it.
10:37They have to do this watered-down, bastardized, worse version of the way they do it internationally.
10:44I'm sorry you all had to hear it from me.
10:46It hurts to be this correct.
10:49800-636-106-7.
10:50I know that took a long time.
10:51Your calls when we come back on the other side.
10:53Why hasn't it happened?
10:54You guys are old enough to remember.
10:56We've all been promised forever that Team USA, they'll be able to compete for a World Cup.
11:01It'll be 12 years.
11:02It'll be 20 years.
11:03It'll be 15 years.
11:0430 years.
11:05They're not close.
11:06They haven't been close.
11:08Why?
11:08Your call.
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