00:00Here we go. Carson Anderson, how are you today, Scott, following last night's disappointment?
00:07I'm all right. I mean, I mentioned the crosstalk. There was so much snart. One of the posts that
00:15I saw last night, I did laugh out loud a little bit. TJ Lang had posted after, I don't know
00:22if
00:22it was three to one or whatever it was, and he said, all right, done watching dudes do cardio.
00:29That's a good line. Which made me laugh a little bit. Cross country with a ball. We've heard
00:34all the jokes. I mean, the thing is, we all got into it a little bit, and then you have
00:40a display like that last night, and it takes everything away. I mean, the team looked ill
00:47prepared for the big stage. They faced a real good opponent. A team that was clearly better
00:53than them. I mean, they were ranked in the top 10 of these World Cup rankings. The United
00:58States was, what, 17? It's going to be disrespectful, but they're like North France. Like, France
01:03is elite, and they're like North France. Belgium is like North France. Yeah. Yeah, but I mean,
01:08obviously, the game means more in Europe. It's their number one sport here in the United States.
01:12Everybody asks, well, why can't we? Well, because we care about other sports more, and that's
01:16where the kids are gravitating towards. However, I do think that there are more and more kids
01:21playing soccer now than there were 10 years ago, than there were 20 years ago, and I think
01:26that for the most part, what we saw with their World Cup experience this year, I think is
01:31going to be positive for the effect, the cumulative effect of soccer in this country. But they
01:37have to continue with the momentum somehow after last night's crushing loss. Because, like
01:43I said, I thought they were ill prepared for the stage just based on how they played.
01:46There was confusion consistently throughout the game, hesitancy, and that's all I'm going
01:53to say, because I'm not anywhere near a soccer expert. And I fully admit that. I'm the dude
01:58who parachuted in, right? Played the game when I was a kid. I've given very little attention
02:02to the game since I was in eighth grade, right? It just, but I mean, I know the game a
02:09little
02:09bit, but nowhere near what soccer fans truly do. So I feel like I have to take myself out of
02:14the equation a little bit. I can walk up to the line to a point and then I can stop.
02:18I'm not going to tell you about the defensive strategies involved. And, you know, do you
02:22need to have the two back or one back? I'm not going to do any of that, right? I can
02:27tell
02:27you what I saw and it looked like they were confused out there. And then I'm echoing now
02:31I'm echoing and parroting what the announcers are saying when I'm reading online about it.
02:35And, you know, it's, it was just disappointing to see them not give great effort out there.
02:44Um, and it seemed like it was more mental than anything else. It didn't, didn't to me. I mean,
02:49but physically this team is, they've got some players, they had some chances, uh, but they
02:53couldn't capitalize on it. And, you know, the only goal they get is on a free kick and it ends
02:59up
02:59being, you know, basically it's an own goal. Cause it goes off the head deflected in. I mean,
03:03it's not like a kicked in own goal, but you know, that, that ball was, uh, it changed
03:08direction in a hurry. Once it hit the guy's head and the goalie had no chance. Yeah. It
03:12was like a deflection out in front of the net and hockey exactly is essentially what
03:15it was off a defenseman's skate. I will just say this. Um, the, the one position like
03:22Matt freeze, the keeper, the game essentially ended when they gave up that goal. That
03:30it, it's funny because as a keeper, I've talked about this playing it through high school that
03:38I, I know looking back that I wasn't mentally strong enough to be the best I could be as a
03:44goalie. I would make a mistake and it would become two or three mistakes. And I knew it,
03:48I, I, you have to be wired a certain way. And I, you know, had good size and enough athleticism,
03:56but I was not wired correctly. I know my own scouting report, right? And, um, what he did
04:02last night was the kind of thing that I would occasionally do find myself wildly out of position
04:07where there's no one to blame, but me oftentimes goals come as a result of breakdowns all across
04:15the board. And, and, and the goal is just simply the last line of defense. And many times the goalie
04:21doesn't have a chance that Matt freeze moment. And he, he literally did freeze and hesitated
04:28when a, a simple play, he tried, I think he tried to do too much, tried to make, you know,
04:34start a, start a breakout or whatever, instead of just, you know, the easy play is to just boom
04:38it the hell out of there. And it changed the game and it finished the game for all intents and
04:44purposes. We came out in the second half and the ice was tilted as we say in hockey, right?
04:50And we were pressuring and didn't it really amount any great scoring chances, but possessing
04:57the ball in the Belgian end for most of the beginning of the second half. And then that
05:02happened.
05:02The best chance they had was like with 80 minute marker. So when Balagan had a chance,
05:07uh, when he found himself behind the, uh, the defender, cause the defender missed the kind
05:11of whiffed on the ball and now he's one-on-one with the goalie and, uh, unfortunately shot it
05:17right into the goalie, but that was the best chance outside of that. They really had nothing.
05:22And it was, uh, like I said, it was disappointing. I w I wish the game ended one, nothing, sorry,
05:27one nil. And if they lost one nil, that would be fine. And I think would go a long way
05:33and they
05:34could have been, you know, cheered off the field, but that just, it was not a good look for them
05:39to
05:39go out that way. You, you're going to want to, if you're going to lose, you know, lose
05:44looking better than that. And then the last goal at the end, you know, with 30 seconds left or
05:49whatever, maybe four to one, I mean, it doesn't matter, but it just kind of typified what we had
05:53seen for the previous, you know, 97 minutes. So, I mean, I guess the bigger question here for me is,
06:01are we always going to be a second tier national soccer team on the men's side? Like the, the usual
06:06suspects, England, Argentina, Spain, Brazil, France, to various degrees, you expect them to be at the
06:14top. There's occasionally the Italy issue or like Italy can't even make the damn world cup anymore.
06:19Um, but for the most part, the teams that are near the top of the FIFA world rankings are the
06:25real
06:26contenders here. And I think back to 1994 when we hosted and team USA played here.
06:36And I believe it was Eric Winalda scored an amazing goal in the Silverdome was well. And you know,
06:41the, the thought was if you had said to me back then, Hey, 32 years from now, will we basically
06:52be the same team? I would have said, no, I think most people would have said, no, you think back
06:59to
06:592002 when we made it back when the bracket play was only 16, it's 32 now. And we qualified, we
07:05made
07:05it to the knockout stage as they call it. We're in the, we're in the sweet 16 and we beat
07:09Mexico and
07:10we're in the, in the quarterfinals against Germany and we lose one to nothing. That was 2002. If you
07:15said to me in 2002, Hey, 24 years from now, we'll basically be the same team.
07:24Are we ever, ever going to be a real contender in the world cup? And people will say, and I
07:33know
07:34what the, everybody says the same thing. Our best athletes don't want to put the best athletes play
07:37other sports. True. We also of all the qualifying countries have the largest population of everybody
07:44who qualified. So it's possible that we don't need our best athletes, which might sound arrogant,
07:50but if you have more people and you, all your best athletes go and play other sports, many of your
07:57best athletes go and play other sports. You might not need our very best athletes to compete. I'm not
08:03saying to win the whole thing, but to compete in, in the top 10, to be one of those teams
08:10that's in
08:10the mix. And, you know, you just said that they, you know, you think they built up goodwill and more
08:17people are playing than 10 years ago. And all of that may or may not be true. But I feel
08:22like we've
08:23said the same things after 94 and 2002, 94, when we hosted in 2002, where we actually broke through
08:29and won a knockout stage game. And here we sit in 2026 and we're kind of the same team we've
08:38always
08:39been. And it just makes me question whether or not we ever will. I, I'd love it. I enjoy the
08:43hell out of
08:43this event. And I, what I enjoyed about it as much as my own enjoyment was watching you enjoy it.
08:48Seriously. I, I, I loved how much you got into it and you know, it's harder. It's just like March
08:54madness. When your team gets knocked out and you, you go from having a degree of intensity to
08:59significantly less intense, you might find the, the remainder of the event boring and you might
09:04check out. And I'm not talking to you, Gator. I'm talking to like all of us, um, because I'm not
09:10going to completely check out, but I will admit now that we're not in it, I will see what my
09:15level
09:15of interest settles in at, right? My authentic level of interest, but it just makes me question,
09:21are we ever going to break through not necessarily getting our top athletes to play, but getting
09:27enough better athletes where we can compete? Well, I think that we're at a state where
09:36we talk about a lot with other sports, like the roster that the bottom of the roster has gotten
09:41better. Maybe that's, that's where this team is and that we'll see maybe incrementally getting
09:46better. I don't know if they're ever going to be considered one of the top six teams in the
09:50world. I don't know. Uh, I, I don't really, I didn't look, I don't have my finger on the
09:54pulse of how many kids are playing soccer. My guess is more and more playing it now than
09:59have ever played it before. I think that this world cup inspired others to play. I think
10:03that you have people that maybe have never watched soccer before that turned it on this
10:08time around and, and, and they see people who look like them and they think, oh, well,
10:12I can, I can play other sports. This is great. I like this sport. I have a new hero and,
10:17you know, move forward with that and we'll see where we're at, but it's going to take
10:20a while. I mean, I don't think the next cycle is going to, we're going to all to say, Hey,
10:23four years from now, they're, look at them. They're a top five team. I don't, I don't
10:27think that's the case. It takes a while, but at the same time, like you been hearing this
10:33Detroit express took over at the silver dome in the late seventies and the North American
10:38soccer league. And, you know, it's been the same thing for over 50 years or about 50
10:43years. It feels to get into the deep end of the pool to what we did with you soccer
10:47about a decade ago, we changed our model in that it was no longer school year. It
10:52was birth year, which in the middle of like my daughter and kids growing up, their
10:58teams got cut in half where you weren't playing with kids that you were in at the
11:01time, like seventh grade with, you started playing with kids that were somewhere in
11:06seven, somewhere in eighth. It was all about birth year. And we changed it because
11:09that's the world model. And the thought was, well, we'll get in line with the rest
11:14of the world. And here we are a decade later and we're the same team. And I don't
11:19know. I mean, well, that's with what travel that's what travel, but that's what
11:23feeds these programs is, is the club programs two, four, eight, five, three, nine,
11:2997, 97. Are we ever going to break through in this sport? And I mean, some of it
11:34comes down to the degree of, of, of how much, you know, the country
11:39collectively cares and how, how much the people care. It felt like the TV ratings
11:43were great. Caller traffic was good with this. People were watching it. Will we
11:48ever break through two, four, eight, five, three, nine, 97, 97. Also have a Twitter
11:53question. You can only imagine what the question is, whether I want you to think
12:00about how you'd answer this. What is more likely to happen in your lifetime? U S
12:04men's national team wins the world cup or the lions win the super bowl.
12:07Careful. You put it on a Twitter poll. Yep. Careful. What is more likely to
12:11happen? People. What is more likely to happen? That's the response from last
12:17week's Twitter poll I put out there with soccer and the lions. Well, yours was
12:21yours was, would you rather attend a world cup final with the U S or attend a
12:26super bowl with the lions? Yeah, that was a little bit different question than
12:30this. This question is what is more likely to happen in your life?
12:34time U S men's national team wins the world cup lines, win the super bowl
12:39snark, two, four, eight, five, three, nine, 97, 97. It is Carson Anderson here
12:43on 97. One.
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