- 1 day ago
Willard and Dibs continue to react to the USMNT's 4-1 loss to Belgium, break down how big of an opportunity the US lost out on with that performance, and more.
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00:00We're talking about the departure of Team USA and the U.S. Men's National Team from the World Cup,
00:06how it made you feel, and why. Always the why. Why is America not better at this?
00:14So, 888-957-9570. How about Ed in Sonoma? Hi, Ed. Thank you for calling into the show.
00:21Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen.
00:24What's up?
00:24You know, I just want to say, I don't think the United States will ever catch Europe or South America
00:31with soccer
00:32because it's their number one sport. They don't play three or four sports all year long.
00:37They're soccer-centric. And here's something I noticed.
00:42So, I went to the Giants game last night. They go, okay, it's exciting, but there's 162 of these games.
00:48I went to a game in Barcelona, and I got to see Messi play a few years ago.
00:53And the feeling in the stadium is like the game was a Super Bowl, and it was just a regular
01:00league match.
01:02120,000 people, face painted, horns, songs. It's just different over there.
01:07There is no comparison to what we do here.
01:11I think that's completely true. Ed, thank you very much.
01:15Maybe that is the new motto that we should adopt. It's just different.
01:19And I don't mean that in a good way. Like, soccer in Europe. It's just different.
01:27And I think that sometimes we have a hard time accepting that.
01:30We would like it to be different. That's sort of my takeaway.
01:34We would like this to be different, but we're not really interested in doing the work to make it different.
01:38But we don't have to do the work. And that's really my overarching point.
01:42What do you mean?
01:42Like, the majority of the guys on the U.S. men's national team roster, they play in Europe already.
01:47And we have more European top league players on this team than we've ever had before.
01:52So we can look at the result, 4-1 to Belgium, and it was embarrassing by even a novice's eye.
01:58That was not a pretty way to bow out of the tournament.
02:01But the roster is better, and the work is being put in by the individuals who are going out there
02:07and playing in the top leagues to try to get better.
02:09Right. But the work at the youth level, the programs, the entire idea of the United States Soccer Federation,
02:18the entire process that is used to get to this point, it's just different.
02:25Different. It's not the same. And that's what I mean.
02:28Like, maybe there's a better phrase to use than do the work, because I don't want to make it sound
02:34like athletes aren't working hard.
02:35I don't want to make it sound like Soccer Federation doesn't care.
02:38That's not what I mean. But it's almost like organic work.
02:44It would just have to mean more to individuals across the country with young athletes and focus and all of
02:55that.
02:56It would just organically have to mean more than it does.
03:00But for the most part, those top athletes realize what's going to bring the money, the attention, kind of also
03:10what are the chances that you grow up in a house that's screaming at its TV about soccer versus the
03:17NBA or the NFL or Major League Baseball or what have you.
03:21And then what kind of resources do you have?
03:26You know, I remember when I was a kid, the number one thing when people talked about why soccer and
03:32maybe this is not even this could be an outdated thought.
03:35But the reason soccer kind of originally developed into being the most popular sport in the world globally is because
03:44so many other countries don't have the resources to play the sports that we play.
03:51They don't have the money to go get ice time in hockey like we do in North America, although I
03:57understand there are plenty of European countries that are good at hockey.
04:01Right, but Africa, I don't know how many ice rinks they have in Africa or South America.
04:05It doesn't feel like a lot.
04:06The point is, is you can get good if you're just a little kid.
04:09You can get good at soccer by getting a ball and up in space, period.
04:15Might even be a wadded up bunch of rags and seven rubber bands.
04:19Exactly.
04:19But you don't have a gym and you don't have ice.
04:22You certainly don't have helmets and pads and 11 people to go do these things with.
04:29And so that's, like, maybe that's just a dumb point.
04:33I don't even know if that's how.
04:34I think it's part of it.
04:35It's also, I think, the cultural nature of the United States where a lot of us don't have the patience
04:41to sit down for 90 minutes and watch a game that might be nil-nil.
04:45And we just watched Switzerland and Colombia and that thing turned out to be nil-nil after 120 minutes and
04:52you go to penalty kicks.
04:53Super exciting.
04:53If you're not, like, into the nuance of it, it may not be that super exciting.
04:58But isn't that nurture over nature?
05:00It can be, but we've been trying to nurture that forever.
05:03I know, but Americans have been nurtured into the idea of scoring.
05:07Scoring, scoring, scoring.
05:08We want scoring.
05:10NBA, pace.
05:11Right.
05:12Baseball, bigger bases.
05:13Don't ever hit the quarterback.
05:15That will mess up our scoring.
05:17Defensive players, you're not allowed to do anything anymore.
05:19Don't hit high.
05:20Don't hit low.
05:21Hit right there.
05:21Hit that spot.
05:22If not, you're suspended.
05:23The Valkyries are kind of the anomaly.
05:25They gave up 49 points.
05:27They play defense.
05:27Right.
05:28You're allowed to play defense, but it's not really encouraged.
05:31It is for Natalie Nkasa.
05:33My God, 49 points?
05:35Yeah, they're really good.
05:36They lock them up.
05:37They lock them up.
05:38So we act like we like defense, but not really.
05:41We don't really want defense.
05:43Who loves a pitcher's duel?
05:45Grab your kids and say, let's go see the pitcher's duel tonight.
05:47No.
05:47No, no, no, no, no, no.
05:48The pitcher's duel.
05:49Well, think about the most exciting World Cup games so far, and one of them was today,
05:54Argentina 3-2, and the other one was yesterday, England, or Sunday, I'm sorry, England-Mexico 3-2.
06:01Like, these were back and forth and a red card and high-scoring affairs.
06:04I don't think that anyone's going to look at today's kneel-kneel and say, yeah, that was the most riveting
06:09match I've seen all tourney.
06:10No, but it doesn't eliminate it from excitement for me.
06:14Like, you had a tie match with a lot of near misses, and then you ended up in penalty kicks,
06:20which is his own controversial topic for people.
06:23But it was great television.
06:25It was great theater.
06:26No, it's awesome, and we're sports guys, and we love it, and you're super into the World Cup, and so
06:31you watch it, and you're kind of riveted by it.
06:33My other thing about the U.S. and what holds us back is the U.S. soccer organization, they have
06:40no real direction,
06:41and it reminds me a little of our beloved Giants down the street where, like, what are you, USA men's
06:48national team?
06:49What are you?
06:50Are you a team that is going to have a great defense, and you're going to try to win 1
06:53-0?
06:53Are we going to try to go up and down with the best countries in the world?
06:56You change your coach every two, three, four years because you bring in these overseas coaches who get a lot
07:03of money to do it for a short period of time,
07:05and then they leave, and you've got to start the whole thing over again.
07:08Yeah, yeah.
07:09Lack of identity.
07:10I mean, that's been an accusation for a long time.
07:14Edgar in Vallejo.
07:15Hi, Edgar.
07:16Thanks for calling in.
07:18Yeah, I'm just calling in.
07:20I think it's not a failure.
07:21I think it's just the conference that we play in.
07:23If you see Italy, Italy hasn't been in the World Cup since 2014, and it's because the eliminatories are so
07:29hard to get into.
07:30And the CONCACAF, you know, we played against smaller teams, and it's a different competition.
07:35Unless the North American teams like Mexico and USA start getting invited more to Copa America and get involved in
07:41bigger tournaments like those,
07:44we will never be able to compete against those bigger teams.
07:49I think it all starts with that.
07:51And, you know, we have U.S. teams and Mexican teams, they have plenty of soccer players overseas.
07:56And, you know, it's just, I think it all starts with that.
08:01It starts with having a bit more competition.
08:03In the CONCACAF, we play, you know, in significant games.
08:07We, you know, all those friendly games we play, we play against smaller teams.
08:10And we'll never start, you know, being able to compete against European teams unless we start, you know, being in
08:18more competitive tournaments.
08:22And what, thanks, Edgar, what's the fix to that?
08:25You know what I mean?
08:26Like, that's where I land on a lot of this stuff.
08:28A lot of this stuff comes down to what feels like organic issues to me rather than, you know, wayward
08:37decisions or something like that.
08:40I hate this point.
08:42Nobody likes this point when you're having a debate.
08:46But is it Bruce Hornsby?
08:48That's just the way it is?
08:49Yep.
08:49Some things will never change.
08:51This is the way it is.
08:52Balloon, balloon, balloon.
08:55And I hate that.
08:56I hate that because that kind of, that tone and that sentence has been used for some really evil crap
09:02through the years.
09:03It has.
09:04And so I'm not, I'm not like falling back on that.
09:07But this is, for all of these things that we're talking about today, this is the way it is.
09:15I'm not saying that it can't be improved or changed or whatever.
09:19But it's always a debate inside my own head with regard to soccer fans who are like, this is what
09:26we need to do better.
09:27And I'm always in my mind thinking, you're right, but we have to, like, house by house and family by
09:34family, we have to want that more collectively than we do.
09:39But to the caller's point, there is a certain amount that's built in endemically, and he's not wrong, where, look
09:45at Boise State at its heyday in college football.
09:48Boise State would do awesome.
09:50They'd go 12-0.
09:51And you'd have to beg and plead to even get a berth in one of the big bowl games because
09:56schedule-wise, you didn't have the ability to play those teams.
10:00And every four years is the World Cup.
10:02But in the other years, the even years, there's a thing called the European Championship.
10:07And so if you happen to be a European country, whether you're Albania or Hungary or Algeria or Croatia, you
10:15get to play in that tournament if you qualify.
10:17And that is top-level, best in the world.
10:20Meanwhile, the U.S. goes to CONCACAF qualifying.
10:23And, yeah, you might get knocked off by Trinidad and Tobago, and you might go up against Mexico and Canada,
10:28but you're not playing the same caliber of opponents.
10:31And so that is a fair point where—
10:33But that's chicken or the egg, isn't it?
10:35It is.
10:35I don't think just you play those opponents, now you're better.
10:38Like, you might play those opponents and just get your doors beat in.
10:41But if you play those opponents, you at least have the ability to see where you, like, stack up.
10:45I get it.
10:45I get it.
10:46Like, but wouldn't it be better if the Colorado Rockies would play the Sacramento Rivercats?
10:50And then they wouldn't suck every year.
10:52Right, but still, I mean, that—
10:54Like, you get what I'm saying?
10:56I do, but it's not—I guess it's somewhat comparable because, hey, Colorado, you're really good.
11:01And then now you go into the National League playoffs, it's like, oh, you get your doors blown off because,
11:05yeah, you patted your stats against, you know, Curaçao.
11:08And, you know, all these other small countries that can't possibly stack up, I think his point was, without the
11:15ability to go out there and play these teams—
11:17And you mentioned it before, you played Belgium in a friendly, and you lost 5-2.
11:21So that was kind of a litmus test, even though it's a friendly and you're not always going for it
11:25full steam, but you saw that you weren't as good as Belgium three months ago.
11:30It just—it felt like—it felt different this time based on what we were actually watching.
11:35I throw the Turkey A match out.
11:38The U.S. wasn't playing their players.
11:40In the other three matches, what did we give up?
11:43One goal?
11:44You know, one goal in three matches.
11:47And what a group, and then what a knockout round.
11:50To say that you saw that coming, that they would come in and, quite frankly, not just give up four.
11:57We're talking about some easy goals, and we're talking about some real, mechanical, defensive breakdown-type goals that Belgium got.
12:07These were not beautiful goals.
12:09These were not difficult goals.
12:10Their first goal was just like a—yip, just a boop.
12:13Like, you just—
12:14Unguarded, yeah.
12:15Right, unguarded.
12:16And then, my gosh, the mistake in the second half that led to the 3-1.
12:20These were bad defensive goals.
12:23And we had only given up, to my way of thinking, it's not like the Turkey A thing didn't count,
12:27but it wasn't the same as the other matches.
12:30Our A-level group had given up a goal.
12:33Right.
12:34In three matches leading up to that.
12:35And that's, to me, what my takeaway is, to where it's kind of galling.
12:39Because you didn't play great and lose at home.
12:43You came out and looked slow and a little bit scared.
12:46You played terribly, and you got blown off the field at home.
12:50Even when you equalized, and we all thought, okay, all right, U.S.
12:54We're back.
12:54Get into the halftime at one a piece—oh, no, you won't get into the halftime at one a piece.
12:58I couldn't even finish the sentence.
12:59Right.
13:00I think you were still talking at the time, and by the time you stopped, it was 3-1.
13:04Yeah, Grandy, what's up?
13:05Well, I think the other thing to keep in mind is, obviously, I think this is the most talented that
13:12the U.S. men's national team roster has been.
13:14I mean, how many guys that start play in major leagues in Europe, which has not been the case in
13:19a really, really long time.
13:20But it's also, you're a host country this year.
13:23Your group was given to you as if you were one of the powers.
13:27You're a host.
13:28You automatically get put into the group of teams that are the best in the country.
13:31So you have a relatively easy group, and this was the first, you know, real good team that you played
13:38in the entire tournament.
13:40Turkey—I thought Turkey was actually pretty good, and they ultimately, you know, floundered this whole tournament.
13:46But Belgium was the first real good—like, who is Paraguay?
13:49I know Paraguay made it.
13:50Paraguay's not that good.
13:51Australia's not that good.
13:52Bozzi is not that good.
13:53The first real good team you play, and that's what you look like.
13:56So I'm with you.
13:56They looked great in those other games, but the competition level was nowhere near good enough to consider them being
14:03one of the best 10, 8-ish teams in the country.
14:07And the first time they finally play someone like that, they look like the U.S. men's national team of
14:11old.
14:12You know what you just said?
14:13What?
14:14Team USA's the Dallas Cowboys.
14:16They beat up on bottom feeders?
14:19Yeah.
14:20I was kind of thinking that they were more like whoever wins the NFC South every year.
14:24But like in four years—
14:26I mean, not too, but it's much more fun to rip the Cowboys.
14:28In four years' time, they will not be in as great of a position to make it to the round
14:33of 16 because they're going to be in a tougher group because they're not going to be a host country.
14:36Right.
14:36And maybe you don't get Bosnia in the round of 16, the round of 32, whatever it is.
14:41Never, ever in our history, at least not to my knowledge, which isn't perfect by any stretch, but I don't—we
14:47don't have a big-time win over a European power in the World Cup ever, do we?
14:53Never, ever, ever.
14:56I think—did they tie Germany 12 years ago, or did they beat Germany?
15:01That's the only one I can think of, but might have just been a draw.
15:06Yeah, I don't know exactly off the top of my head.
15:07I know the win over Bosnia last week was the first time they beat any European country in a really
15:13long time.
15:13Yeah.
15:13Not even just World Cup, but just at all, including friendlies or any other competition.
15:17Right, right.
15:18So that's—I think that's a very fair point that you bring up, and I think it leads into the idea
15:23that we brought up earlier of some of why we're mad today is we feel duped.
15:28We bought it.
15:29We bought it.
15:30We thought this was actually a fringe contender, an opportunity to get into the quarterfinals.
15:37We got big-time analysts on TV saying, yes, it is actually realistic that the United States goes all the
15:46way.
15:47Now there's a piece of me that's kind of thankful we didn't end up playing Spain or Argentina.
15:52Whoa.
15:53What the hell would the final score have been of that?
15:568-1?
15:57Probably not a lot worse than what that 4-1 was.
16:00I guess.
16:00And they tied Portugal 12 years ago.
16:02They lost to Germany.
16:03So to your point, both you guys, I don't—
16:05It's never happened.
16:07Right.
16:07And it didn't happen this year either.
16:09No.
16:10It's never happened in our lives.
16:12And it's okay that it didn't happen, but the way that it unraveled is the part.
16:16And, you know, you're always a big process versus results guy, and the result of yesterday was ghastly,
16:22but I would argue the process was even worse than a 4-1 result was.
16:26I agree with you.
16:27I agree with you.
16:28All right, Bobby in Los Altos is next.
16:30Keep the calls coming.
16:31We're going to get to all of you.
16:32Hey, Bobby, what's up?
16:33Thanks for calling in.
16:35Hey, thanks for taking my call.
16:36Actually, I haven't been listening for a while because I've been watching World Cup,
16:39so I was super surprised this was the topic.
16:41But I'm going to tell you why soccer will never take off in America,
16:45and it's going to be a bit of a circular argument, but I need you to follow with me.
16:49In all of the other sports, the best players in the world for a particular sport come to an American
16:53league.
16:54All the best basketball players come to the NBA.
16:56All the best baseball players come to the MLB, NFL, whatever.
17:01It's a niche American sport.
17:02But the point is in golf, right, with PGA Tour, whatever it's called, right, everyone come to the U.S.
17:07But for soccer, the only people that come to the U.S. are people that I call on the Rolling
17:13Stones tour,
17:15basically stars that want to have their last hurrah, but they're way past their prime.
17:20And so because of that, I think America is just used to saying, look, all the best players are going
17:26to come to the U.S. to play.
17:27All the best players around the world.
17:29And the fact is that America is certainly, I mean, I don't even know what MLS is.
17:34I don't even know if it's a top 10.
17:35Maybe it's a top 12 league if you rank them around the world.
17:39So because of that, I just think the mentality of the U.S. or the American is never going to
17:44get around soccer.
17:44Now, everyone's already talked about the fact that a kid that's a super great athlete has so many options,
17:50and soccer just is going to be like your third or fourth choice.
17:53It's not going to be one of your top choices.
17:55So we're not going to get the best athlete, even if there's a super talented LeBron James.
18:00He's not going to play soccer, even if he could be amazing.
18:03So I truly believe that even if the U.S. had won the World Cup this year, soccer would not
18:09take off in America
18:10because we just don't have the league that supports greatness for soccer.
18:16And then finally, you know, while I was at a hold, I got to say, Willard, I think you're a
18:20little bit harsh.
18:21I don't think anyone was duped into thinking that we were a favorite.
18:25We were just trying to get around the spirit of us hosting.
18:29And as you know, generally teams that host, they always make it to the knockout round,
18:33and they perform better than they otherwise would.
18:36So I think it's just getting around the energy and supporting the U.S.
18:39and saying, hey, we can be competitive when we may otherwise may have not been if we were in Russia
18:44or in Qatar.
18:46So, you know, I loved it.
18:49You know, we pooped our pants, right, in terms of the way we played that game.
18:54Not the score, but that being said, you know, it was fun.
18:59And our players are certainly playing in Europe.
19:01They're going to get better.
19:02They're never going to be better than European players.
19:04That's just how it is until we get, you know, some like a meteor or, you know, like a Lionel
19:11Messi that somehow becomes American by some weird diaspora choice.
19:16But I really appreciated how much fervor there was.
19:21I love the excitement and the patriotism.
19:23But I was never going to think that soccer will take off in America.
19:27And that's the only part that I completely disagreed with when Alexi Lawless and all these other guys tried to
19:34sell it.
19:34And then finally, dude, if you can't even find a ninth announcers without British accents, that sport is not going
19:41to take off.
19:42I still don't understand.
19:43Bobby, I think some people like that.
19:46Bobby, thanks.
19:46We got to run.
19:47And I kind of like the majesty of the accent.
19:51That's why it's not dark is the best to ever do it.
19:53Exactly.
19:54It's not nearly as fun to say equalizer.
19:56It's an equalizer.
19:57Like, it's just better that way.
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