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00:00How bad of a look was that beatdown the U.S. Men's National took from Belgium last night in the
00:06round of 16 in the FIFA 2026 World Cup?
00:10Let's talk to TalkSport correspondent Brian Smith, who joins us live from London right now.
00:16Brian, appreciate you hopping on with this, man.
00:18Let's get straight into it because I felt like it was the most embarrassing loss I've seen in a World
00:25Cup
00:25since I started watching soccer, covering it, hanging out with, you know, football, knowledgeable guys like yourselves here.
00:33So how bad of a look was that for the U.S. Men's National team, both on the pitch and
00:39off the pitch?
00:41Look, this was horrible because you have to remember, Brandon, that this is a World Cup that has been 32
00:49years in the making.
00:50This is a World Cup on home soil. And so making the round of 16, the U.S. and Matisse
00:56has done that before.
00:57This is supposed to be the golden generation. This is Baligan and Kristen Pulisic, Captain America.
01:02I never want to hear ever again Kristen Pulisic called Captain America.
01:06I've written about this at TalkSport.com. He didn't show up this entire World Cup. He didn't have a goal.
01:11Yeah, he was dealing with an injury, but players play through injuries.
01:14He was soft in that match. U.S. and T was soft in that match.
01:17Coach, this was a team that was, you go out and you hire, you pay a ton of money from
01:21Mauricio Paschettino.
01:22You have the talent. You're supposed to have the chemistry. You're singing country homes.
01:25You have America inspired. And for them to show up that way, horrific defense.
01:31Offense did not exist. This was a total step backward for U.S. soccer.
01:36And they're not going to get this chance again for 10, 20, 30 more years.
01:41This is going to haunt U.S. soccer for years to come.
01:44Absolutely. I mean, you took the words out of my mouth.
01:47As a former athlete, I never want to use the four-letter word when talking about another athlete.
01:52But they look soft all across the board, outside of Tillman.
01:55And, you know, a couple other guys kind of stepped up and had their moments.
01:59Berhalter tried to get the crowd going and all.
02:01But ultimately, they look scared.
02:04They look scared and they look like they were playing with pressure.
02:07It looked like the noise outside of the pitch surrounding this team, surrounding Balogun, got to them from the jump.
02:16They were flat from the jump.
02:17So how much â and you wrote all about this.
02:20You did a great job with your reports on this.
02:22How much do you feel as though the whole Trump-Balogun-FIFA thing affected this team's performance?
02:32Yeah, I have two answers for this one.
02:34Number one, you can't in any way blame a politician for what you do on the field, as you know,
02:40in the NFL, right?
02:42So Patrick Mahomes, Tom Brady, it would be inconceivable for them to blame a politician or a governing body for
02:49what they did not do on the playing field in the arena.
02:52The second part of that, though, and this is what blows my mind, because I don't want to come out
02:57here and talk politics, Brandon.
02:58We're talking sports.
02:59But why in the world did this happen?
03:03Did FIFA allow this to happen?
03:04Did the President of the United States get involved in this?
03:07Because it is so obvious that Belgium played above where they needed to be, where they were supposed to be.
03:13Belgium was playing to prove the USA wrong, to prove Donald Trump wrong.
03:17And it worked for them.
03:19So you completely played into their hands.
03:21All that mattered was winning this match, moving on to the quarterfinals.
03:24This is your World Cup.
03:25This is in the United States of America.
03:27The whole country was behind you.
03:29I have said a thousand times, Brandon, he did not deserve the red card.
03:33But that is for FIFA to handle.
03:35You don't get exceptions, but it looks like there was favoritism.
03:38It looks like there was cronyism.
03:39It looks like Gianni Infantino did his best buddy, Donald Trump, a good old boy favor.
03:44But the irony is that it affected the USMNT because they're playing a Belgium team that's doing the Trump dance
03:50out there.
03:51And they wanted to put it to the USA.
03:53And the Belgium team that beat the heck out of USMNT in a friendly just a few months ago, this
03:59was a significantly more, more passionate, inspired team that wanted to save football.
04:05And so all of a sudden, Brandon, instead of having the world behind USMNT, instead of having all the fans,
04:11it went silent in Seattle.
04:12And the whole world was rooting for USMNT to lose this match because the president of the United States got
04:19directly involved and got Galligan on the pitch.
04:22And it completely backfired.
04:24And once I saw Romelu Lukaku do the whole Trump dance and the whole team celebrating on that, you knew,
04:31you knew because we talk about locker board, billboard, bulletin board material when it comes to getting ready for a
04:38game.
04:39As a professional athlete, you shouldn't need bulletin board material to get you psyched up and get you ready.
04:44But there are certain things that when they happen, when, let's say, again, a player's getting called out, a player's
04:51family gets called out, or there's some sort of outlying source that gets involved with the game that has no
05:00business in being involved with the game.
05:02They take that personal.
05:04And you could see it from the way that they played.
05:06You could see it from the celebration.
05:08And then you could see it from the tweet after saying overturn this.
05:12That is the ultimate level of trolling to a troll.
05:17And you're looking at it now as a U.S. men's national team fan who's been on this high.
05:23And this goes before the World Cup.
05:25A lot of us has been behind this team, backing this team for quite some time.
05:30And now you look at it and you're like, this is how you go out?
05:33This is absolutely embarrassing, not only on the field, but off the field as well.
05:38Because not only did you rally the Belgium players in that team, you rallied the world against us, the full
05:45football soccer world against us.
05:47And we saw it all unfold on Monday night.
05:51Brian, I want to ask you, because you mentioned, and I think everyone can agree, because as an American football
05:58coach's son, coaches coach, players play.
06:02I thought Pochettino did everything he could to make this, to at least put this team in some sort of
06:09position to be competitive in this game.
06:12There have been talks and reports about the U.S. Soccer Federation wanting to retain Pochettino.
06:19How bad, how, did you think, do you think this loss now affects Murcio Pochettino wanting to come back and
06:28be the head coach of this football team?
06:32Yeah, it's a great question right now.
06:33It's something, Brandon, that, you know, being here in London, seeing everything with the London media and how this is
06:38being covered over here and how it's being looked at by the international football committee, it's been brutal.
06:44I mean, they basically think that the United States president set USMNT up to fail.
06:49But you have to move this forward.
06:51You have another World Cup in four years.
06:53You have qualifying.
06:54You have talent.
06:55USMNT has, its roster has to get better.
06:57They have to continue to develop.
06:58You have to inspire the next generation.
07:00Hopefully they did that.
07:01And this World Cup, which has set all-time attendance records, NFL stadiums have been packed.
07:05International fans have loved it.
07:07The Tartan Army, the Viking Row.
07:08It's been an incredible World Cup.
07:11So how does USMNT take that step forward?
07:14Mauricio Pochettino is a good coach.
07:16He's not a great coach.
07:18He was not a great coach at Chelsea.
07:20It did not end great at PSG.
07:22It did not end great at Tottenham for him.
07:24Mauricio Pochettino would not be a top five, top ten manager in the Premier League right now.
07:31I think he would actually get a bottom-level job.
07:33Not a relegated team, but 15 to 20.
07:37So did USMNT see enough in Pochettino that they want to sign him for four, that term, right?
07:43Four more years.
07:44It gave him a huge deal.
07:46Because for me, it's as much about the roster as it is the coach.
07:51Now, he had this team moving, and they were working.
07:54But once they actually played a top ten, and Belgium's not even that great.
07:57That's the biggest disappointment.
07:59Belgium's not even a great team.
07:59But once they played a very clinical, efficient, fast, motivated, top ten, top 15 European team,
08:07they were schooled.
08:09Belgium wiped the floor with them.
08:11And this has been a recurring trend.
08:12So I think US soccer has to ask itself a very, very hard question right now.
08:17Do you have the right coach who is going to win a quarterfinals match for you in four years
08:23in Portugal, in Spain, in Morocco, where the World Cup will be?
08:26Do you have the right coach who can set you up for Qatar eight years from now?
08:30I don't feel like they do.
08:33And I would try to find a stronger manager, because a great manager would have, a great coach,
08:40would have found a way to at least be even against Belgium.
08:42They had the deck stacked, but I thought the players' performance, I thought the adjustments,
08:46I thought the defense was horrendously poor against Belgium.
08:50And part of that is on the coaching, Brandon.
08:52I can only put a little bit on Posh on that one.
08:55Because, again, as a coach's son, there's X's and O's, and there's Jimmy's and Joe's.
08:59He put them in position.
09:01Those guys are turning the ball over.
09:02Those dudes just sitting around watching the ball kind of bounce in the air in their own box.
09:10Like, that's something that...
09:11Matt Freeze was not Pochettino's spot.
09:13I want to get that on the record.
09:14Matt Freeze is the greatest blunder in U.S. mental history.
09:17I'm not blaming that on Pochettino.
09:19You know, I saw a Knicks fan this morning tweet the U.S. men's national team needed Jalen Brunson.
09:25Like, I think it's more of the Jimmy's and Joe's have to get better.
09:29The Jimmy's and Joe's have to be of top world quality and not just, you know, some really good MLS
09:37guys sprinkled in with some guys from Ligong or Serie A and all.
09:42So, and that leads me to the next question because now it seems like there's a cycle.
09:46U.S. men's national team, they get to the round of 16.
09:49They've been knocked out five of the last six World Cups from the round of 16.
09:53And then there comes the question, well, how does it get better?
09:56How do youth soccer here in America get better?
09:59You know, I do a lot with Chelsea.
10:00I've been to Cobham.
10:01I've seen the youth program that they have over there.
10:04It is night and day compared to the U.S. soccer system development over here in America.
10:11You know, anytime you give Americans any sort of suggestion, you're going to get some pushback.
10:16So, what would you suggest in terms of how do we develop and get our players better for that next
10:24coach maybe in, you know, 2030, 2034?
10:28You sound like you're setting up my next column for TalkSport.com, Brandon, because I'm already thinking about this.
10:34So, there's two parts to this.
10:35Number one, it is the youth programs.
10:38It is the next, not this current generation, it is the next generation.
10:41And hopefully they were inspired by watching Anthony Robinson and Chris Richard and not Captain America, but, you know, Flo
10:47Balligan and what USMNT was able to do against Australia, against Paraguay in those early matches.
10:53Hopefully they were inspired.
10:54My biggest problem, and I do have a unique perspective because I spent 20 years in the U.S. covering
10:59Super Bowl teams of World Series winners and NBA Finals and, you know, and I've covered a lot of MLS,
11:05okay?
11:05And then I've been in London for the last three years and gone to 100 Premier League matches and, you
11:09know, I'm, you know, on the tube and everyone's watching Holland Highlights every day and Harry Kane and everything going
11:16with the Premier League.
11:18MLS is still, after 30 years, so far behind.
11:22They have money issues.
11:24They have TV issues.
11:26They have visibility issues.
11:27They are, it is not, it is not a major sport in America, mostly because of MLS.
11:34It's been going for 30 years.
11:35Now, it's made huge strides.
11:36Don't get me wrong.
11:37But until MLS becomes a top five league, until Flo Balligan is playing in MLS and Pulisic is playing in
11:43MLS and Tyler Adams and Anthony Robinson, until the best players in the United States are playing in MLS, I
11:49don't think you're going to see it.
11:50And I spoke to Brad Friedel for TalkSport about this, Brandon, and he said, not in my lifetime.
11:54And I know that's hard to hear.
11:55And I'm not saying USMNT can't win a quarterfinal match in four years.
11:58But the Premier League is here, and La Liga, and Serie A, and Bundesliga, they're all here.
12:06And MLS, my hand could go on the screen, Brandon.
12:09MLS is a 12th, 15th in the league.
12:11The messy effect has been great for Miami and great for little kids wearing pink Miami jerseys, but it is
12:17not done enough for MLS.
12:19And MLS is the biggest drawback, because if you're an American sports fan, right now you're already thinking about NFL
12:25training camp.
12:26You're thinking about Jackson Dart, Aaron Rodgers, the Patrick Mahomes, and the Seattle Seahawks.
12:30Can they repeat?
12:30You're thinking about NBA and where LeBron's going to go.
12:33You're thinking about Major League Baseball and the Yankees and the trade deadline.
12:36You're not thinking about MLS.
12:38Nobody ultimately cares.
12:40If you walk into a bar in America, nobody is talking about MLS.
12:45And this is the biggest thing that continues to hold back soccer.
12:47What we saw in the World Cup for USMNT was absolutely beautiful.
12:50But living over here, seeing the passion, it is a 365, 24-7 sport over here.
12:57People live it and breathe it.
12:58And it is not a major sport in America.
13:00And that's because the professional league holds soccer back in America.
13:05Brian, I feel attacked.
13:06You're saying that people are getting ready for Jackson Dart and training camp.
13:11I'll leave for training camp in like two weeks.
13:13I'm already thinking of what am I going to pack.
13:15Am I wearing shorts?
13:16Am I wearing joggers?
13:17How hot is it in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia?
13:21Ah, so I am the project.
13:23You know how ESPN is going to be, right?
13:24It's going to be endless NFL.
13:25Absolutely.
13:26Soccer is just â I hate to say it, man.
13:28Soccer is just going to disappear again in America.
13:30Well, Brian, man, we thank you for your coverage.
13:32We thank you for your reports and calling me out just now.
13:36Appreciate your time.
13:38Thank you for having me on.
13:39Cheers.
13:40Cheers.
13:41Cheers.
13:42Cheers.
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