State of the Union: USA Soccer

In this episode we discuss our take on the recent group stage exit for USA soccer. We also discuss the Euro and Copa America tournaments. Last, we talk about the art of sports and how data disrupts that creativity.

Transcript

Chris: 0:07

All right. So this episode is going to be kind of fun, a little bit different. Sometimes we like to mix it up with some serious topics. Uh, we'll have one releasing here. On one of the articles I wrote, but the today is not that today is a state of the union address on the state of soccer, us soccer. Uh, and the reason for this is we actually attended the USA Panama game and the Copa America last week. And we have a lot of things that we want to talk about. We've watched a lot of the games in the Euros,

matt: 0:40

the Copa, so.

Chris: 0:42

So, um, if you've been watching following some, this is for you. If you haven't, I still think there's some interesting things that you could just from a discussion standpoint. Um, but yeah, I, I want to Kick it off to you and kind of what you want to talk about because you have a lot of thought

matt: 0:58

So this will be we're going to start off with the state of the union because I just to not make it out of a group with panama and bolivia is Especially after how horrible the world cup went Just really difficult to understand USA soccer other than to say that there's, um, favoritism and they just pick people for no other reason other than they have friends in high places. And that, that really seems to be the best, uh, the best compliment I can give to Greg Berhalter this moment, because there's not really a lot to ride home about in terms of his tactics, team selection, uh, mid game. Adjustments coaching. I mean, it's just. It's just, uh, tough to watch.

Chris: 1:50

We, we went to the game and I was in a weird spot mentally. And this happens with the Hornets and the Panthers sometimes teams that I'm unfortunately a fan of. Um, where I'm like, I actually want us to lose these games so that we can have like the higher draft pick, you know, it's like lose the battle to win the war. And I kind of felt myself like that with the U S I was like, I want us to win because I want to see the U S play against Argentina and Columbia and Brazil, like that's so fun. But also I was like. I kind of want us to lose because we don't make it on the stage. Yeah. If we

matt: 2:23

don't make ghosts

Chris: 2:24

and I was like the only way,

matt: 2:25

I don't know how he made it out of the last world cup with the world cup coming to the U S in two years, it just, it's really, it's tough. It's

Chris: 2:36

I, we are planning on going to the world cup. Yeah, we're going to work on it. And I will be so disappointed if Greg Berhalter is still the coach at that.

matt: 2:50

Yeah, it's. As far as the state of the union, it's like the state of the players is individually more talented than the U S has ever had on an international level. Collectively just very average. I mean, there's, there's no other way to change. Yeah, it's almost,

Chris: 3:11

I

matt: 3:11

mean, it is worse. It's like that same defensive style. No creativity, no center forward ever. Uh, I mean, about Valiant had actually okay tournament, but it's just like, just not no firepower. I mean, what was the, like, what game was it? Uruguay? Oh, that's what it was. This Chris texts me, my dad and Chris have a group text during the year and the commentators are like, this is a great half from the U S Chris texts at the half. He's like, do you think they realized we had zero shots on goal?

Chris: 3:47

Yeah, we play the first half against Uruguay, which by the way, we're, we, were ranked higher than than FIFA world rankings. And we're like going in with this underdog mentality and a game we have to win and a game we have to win. And the US plays by all from, you know, like you said, the commentators perspective and a halftime. And I was like, that was a really good half by the us. With 0. 01 expected goals, that that's the standard that we have right now, where it's like we had a shot probably from 35 yards out. And that was like our best chance. And we bunkered down. And we're like great half. Yep. We didn't even create a chance. How is, how is that good enough? Like if that's your kind of like average to below average half, but like celebrating that is insane.

matt: 4:35

Oh yeah, it was, it's tough. I don't, oh, let's say not really inspired. It's, there are some rumors that they may be changing coaches next week. So we'll see. Um, so stay tuned for that. I don't have any confidence in the U S soccer federation. I think they're, it's funny. Cause like, Most of the time this happens in other countries where the federations are complete shills and like, you know, uh fifa like is getting bribed But it's like the u. s. Soccer federation seems like they have the exact same problem as every other federation it's great, I don't know what is about soccer and bribery and just like Favoritism. I

Chris: 5:09

I love the story of the rehire of greg berhalter because it's like there so when charlotte fc was created They hired, this is my favorite story, they hired a consulting firm to select the name for what became Charlotte FC. And so they paid this like consulting from a million dollars to like, the name is Charlotte FC, a team Charlotte FC. And me and my friend joke about all the time. We're like, are you kidding me? Like, how do you, that is the biggest waste of money I've ever heard. And it's kind of like this. That's to me how Greg Berhalter got rehired. They're like, we're going to put out this search for coaching. For coaches and then they rehire the same guy. I'm like, why did you even say that? Like what are we doing?

matt: 5:50

So it was good Segway specifically into the USA Panama game just from a fan experience That game specifically I will say Mercedes Benz Stadium. Very nice. Sweet. It was nicer than our hotel for sure I would have rather slept in the stadium. Um, the music though, in the third level is so loud. So if you're going to a game there for the world cup or whenever, you might want to bring some earplugs. It was, I think my dad took out his phone and look, it was like 99 decibels. The music, the pregame music for

Chris: 6:26

like 45 minutes, it wasn't like five minutes. It was, it was insane. It was ear splitting. We couldn't even talk

matt: 6:32

to each other. It was, it was horrible. So, uh, first that, that was unnecessary. Uh, second thing for the fan experience con mobile, we just need to, the federation itself, clearly it's incapable of generating any valuable fan experience. First of all, no replays really? No. Like the only time they showed a replay was for a goal, I think. Yeah. Pro goal. There is a. Fully circular, massive screen sitting above the whole stadium. No replays. And then the best part about it is we're watching, what was it? The Uruguay game and Stu Holden, the commentators like, yeah, the world feed, and it looks like, it looks like you're watching the Kansas Jayhawks football practice squad, all 11, all 22 film. It's like, we're not even in the stadium. It looks like. The most ridiculous view for soccer game. And the whole time the commentary is just saying, this is the world feed. We don't control the, how do you not control for, how do you not control the camera angle for the game in your country? There's just some random guy and like Puerto Vallarta deciding on which camera angle they're deciding. He just got a little bored with this. Let's change it up for this game before a hundred yards away. So no one can tell what's going on. And they also control the replays. So they never show replays in the stadiums. It's so the whole game, USA Panama, if you didn't watch, there were two red cards, like three VAR goal reviews. So they're probably,

Chris: 8:08

yeah, there's a ton of things you needed replay.

matt: 8:10

There are five or six massive decisions. And everyone's just, you're just sitting in the stadium. We,

Chris: 8:14

we had to pull up your YouTube. Yeah, I pulled up my YouTube TV a couple of times to have an idea of what is going on. Ridiculous.

matt: 8:23

Oh, so it's late. You have no idea. You're sitting there for a couple of minutes. The game stops. So then you get the idea. Okay. I guess this went to a, some kind of review, but you have no idea that no one's telling you the refs might couldn't figure out how his mic worked and they don't show the replays of what happened. So you're just sitting there. Watching that in you have no idea what's going on. And then all of a sudden the ref walks out after the first one, just pulls out a red card. Our player walks off it. You're like, you have no idea what happened.

Chris: 8:51

Yeah. No idea. The only reason we did is because of the, like you said, the YouTube TV stream between you and the guy in front of us,

matt: 8:59

we also had a goal called back in the ninth minute VR review. So it was, uh, it was an interesting fan experience. I'll say that, um, Mercedes Benz has very nice, uh, they found drinks that you can go fill up your own drinks. That's a great. Great system. I was a big fan of that. Um, but other than that the the conma ball fan experience

Chris: 9:19

Well, if you if you want further, um what not instruction, but just uh Evaluation of these a great twitter follow is mls buzz He he was actually at the game too And he was talking about how he hates he goes on these rants about like the music being a part of it He's like when you go to europe or some of these other countries You Like there's the fans create the atmosphere and he's like this loud music completely destroys any chance to create a natural energy and atmosphere because Like this it's like a edm concert. Well, and i'm like Soccer has is the one sport that doesn't need that to be created artificially And like the U S it does when you

matt: 10:06

seat the S the fans, the way they seat the fans. And you look at the Euro, most of the stadium, you have a very large section of one country in a very large section of the other country in the U S stadiums. There's no country specific seating for this tournament. It makes no sense. It's like on the, if you're going to do it through ticket master, it should say Panama seating us seating. And then if you know, casual fans want to buy in whatever section they buy in whatever section it's. Absurd that it's just because that first of all really ruins the environment. My second rant is. Whoever thinks putting soccer games in football stadiums is a good idea. It's not it doesn't it doesn't work for some I don't know why I don't know if the stadiums are too nice. It just it doesn't feel like it works I don't know if they're too big. I

Chris: 10:55

have a theory This is one of my like when you think of some of the best stadiums cameron and or small I mean, just being honest, what are some of the best NFL stadiums, the, the older there is definitely something to be said for making things too big and too nice. And like, yeah, I mean, that stadium was sweet. Right. But you're right. You, you, some people just get so far away because of the size of it. Um, and then too, I think there's just an element of like comfort when you go and it's like, And like when you go, whereas when you go to some of these, like others, smaller countries, leagues, things like that, man, the small stadiums are the most electric to be at. So I, I a hundred percent agree with you there. I hope the world cups a little different just because the world cups can be so packed in a hot, my, my worry with the

matt: 11:53

world cup though, I was doing some researches. They're not going to have a large enough, Allotment specifically for each country to create that atmosphere on their side Especially because the u. s i was reading about this the u. s plays in la the two of their first three games And they were saying they're worried that it will be more of like a celebrity event than like a Soccer atmosphere and I think that's definitely a possibility probably could be especially at that stadium. It's a so far, right? Yeah, so We'll see. I I just hope if there's a large enough section for each country, then I think it'll be fine You I think the country specific seating though is actually, if you look at the euros, that is what makes it

Chris: 12:32

the, the on field in the euros has not been great, but the, um, the atmospheres have been awesome. Yeah.

matt: 12:39

Yeah. I think the atmosphere is that the Copa have been less than, and I think part of it is because of the state, a lot of them are domes. Right. A lot of them are inside. I'm not playing inside. And I think,

Chris: 12:53

well, I saw a picture, one of the games, I think it was like Columbia and someone else, and there was 45, 000 people at the game, which is a good amount, right? That that's a solid crowd, but it's in a 49er stadiums. It's like 70, 75, 000 person stadium. And so it looks empty and it kills and it's huge. Right. If you, if you have that, and everyone's spread out too, because Of like wherever you buy the seat. Yeah.

matt: 13:17

So I think those are good. All right. Let's jump into the, uh, the tactics for this next little section here. Uh, me and Chris wrote this down separately. Every game I've watched recently has gone into PKs, like all the knockout stage games, basically they've gone into both turn kicks. And when you watch the game, it looks like no one's trying to actually win the game. It. And I wrote down fear based tactics. And I I've heard people say this and I didn't necessarily agree with as much during the premier league season, but I feel like during these tournaments, teams are so scared to lose that they'd rather just go down to penalty kicks, which is essentially a roulette wheel, which I don't understand why you would want to leave it up to penalty kicks has no bearing on the skill of the actual team. Um, so I just, I just don't understand it. It's not as fun to watch. It's super defensive. KG. My favorite word.

Chris: 14:16

It feels, it feels like. As soon as they kick off that it's a golden goal Like that's how that's how much the teams are valuing not giving up a goal Like if they give a goal of a goal they lose that's what it feels like both teams are playing And when both teams play like that definitely no one's gonna score like you need at least one of the teams to man up and Put some people forward and like go for it. Um, because yeah, I mean Zero zero. I mean, what was it? I was so excited to watch the france they play. Um, You Portugal game, so excited. You have some of the best attacking skilled players in the world. And it was. Like watching ice melt for a 120 minutes. It was horrible. You it was not it wasn't even like the suspense of oh, man There's all these great chances being created. None of them are going in It was like horrible and you have the best players in the world Who's who of best players in the world?

matt: 15:17

Well, France hasn't even scored an open play, which is ridiculous scored there I think they have an own goal. They have it. They have two own goals a PK something ridiculous like that It's just, it's crazy. And I, the other thing that Chris brought up is a team like Brazil that usually has creative flair moves, lots of stuff like that. You just see less of that as well. A lot less, uh, creativity. Um, and Chris was saying that everything's become so can I get my analogy? Go ahead.

Chris: 15:48

So I heard this on a podcast and I immediately of course related it to sports. So back in Whenever Pythagoras was alive. I have no idea what that was Long time ago. No, this is this is true. I think So the guy who invented like Pythagorean theorem Pythagoras He figured out, so music used to be this, and this is Ted Goya's word. So if you are questioning it, look it up. He came on the, how I write podcast by David with David Burrell. Really good. But he, he, he talks about how music used to be kind of a magical experience. That there was, it was just a really creative people would, you know, play around with things and, you know, these notes and all this together and, uh, make these beautiful sounds. But Pythagoras figured out that if you like make string a certain length, it'll create a certain sound. And so through that process, you could much predict a lot better, like what was going to come out. And obviously that has a lot of benefits to it from an efficiency standpoint, predictability standpoint. It kind of, to, to Ted Goya's point about is like, it took away some of the magic of that feeling of, wow, we're creating something. He, he said it went from magical to mathematical and I was like, oh my gosh, that is exactly what's happening to sports. Like, go look at Diego Maradona highlights in the eighties and then go look at like how a game's played today and players won't even be willing to try. The things that Maradona was doing. And he's just one example. I know there's many, many others, but it's because of, and I actually like analytics, I think there's a lot of value to it, but the one con of it is it makes everything mathematical. It's like, you need, you know, the players need to be here at this time. You know, if we're doing this formation and the tactics and it just makes them very robotic. And so I was like, Oh, well, the one country that probably still doesn't do this to a certain extent, just because of the way they, the culture of how they play is like Brazil, for example, and so I was like, so excited to watch Brazil play. None of their players like did anything. They were just playing long balls and. It was terrible. I was like, gosh, if even if Brazil is starting to lose their flair and creativity and imagination, then like we're hopeless from a, just like that magical aura, you know, I mean, that's why messy is so popular is he was willing to do things, try things and of course, pull it off that your average player wasn't willing to do or couldn't do. And I've watched a lot of soccer over the past couple of weeks with these tournaments and just the lack of flair, creativity. You know, willingness to take risks. It's tough. It's tough to watch and

matt: 18:45

it's really disappointing. Yeah. I think I don't necessarily care as much if it's like that, if people are scoring, but it's like, they've taken all the analytics and decided to just park the buses in front of their goals. And it's just not very fun. Like if they decide to do that and we're all out attack and it was three, three, it's like, great. Yeah. I just, I do think some of the coaching now is much more like avoid mistakes instead of take risks. And I think that contributes another area since we're, we're talking about this toward France week one recap. I'll do it myself since Chris has no idea. The same thing has been talked about in cycling where there's so much data, especially in cycling. Cycling is such a data driven sport. These guys. Know exactly how far away they can let their breakaways. Good. They know exactly how much power they're going to produce on these climbs They know exactly who has the power to match them when they like there's so much data And some people like that and some people complain it takes kind of that. Uh Like aura away from cycling, attacking the showmanship. Um, you know, one of the guys that we really like, uh, Jonas finger guard, and he is often criticized because he's on a German team and they're very, as you can imagine, Germans or like, they're just very data driven. Yeah, exactly. And Tadej Pogacar is very much a showman and, uh, does things that are exciting. He races a bike in a way that's exciting to watch. So he. Gets a lot more fanfare because of that. And people criticize Jonas a lot for not being as exciting to watch. Um, so it, I think it's in a lot of sports. I think it's something where they're seeing it just a lot more in a lot of sports because of that. I will say this tour de France, if you want to get into cycling, you should watch the next two weeks. Because this tour de France has been so entertaining every stage. Um, you know, starting at the end of this week and the next week they'll be in the high mounds and it will be. So it's been, it's been super fun. I've been listening to Lance Armstrong's podcast, the move every day. They do a recap and those guys, it's just so fun to listen to people that are such experts in something and have their, the insights these guys have between their contacts, their experience is just so fun to listen to. You just get this like level of. Expertise and insight that is hard to find. So, um, I've really enjoyed listening to that each day, but these guys, I just, every time I watch them, they're riding 21 of 23 days, over a hundred miles a day, it's just insane how fit these guys are. Um, so that's been fun to watch. Uh, speaking of which we're about to go watch some, uh, euros right now. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Do you have anything else you want to talk about before we finish up?

Chris: 21:46

No, I mean, I think that's good the way you relating it and and I think that's the larger point I was making about the the magic to mathematics There's obviously benefits. It's more efficient in a lot of ways There's you know, we get better from a like statistical standpoint doing those things but yeah, I mean it's it's a it's a two sided coin of You know at what cost like what are we losing? We're losing a lot of the material Kind of the magicians and the, um, you know, people that just like the performers and the people with flair and yes, they might not do it the most efficient route, but that's like sports or entertainment to a certain extent. And so, um, you know, sometimes just the most efficient data driven way isn't always the most fun and, and, you know, entertaining way to do it. And so it's like, how do you find that balance of, of doing those things of like, yes, we want to win, but also like, we want to give. In any sport, the freedom to have a Messi, a Vinicius Junior, a, you know, players like that, that, where it looks like the field's their playground and it's just so aesthetically pleasing to watch and I just don't want to lose that. It's basketball soccer Cycling all these things. Yeah,

matt: 22:57

that's good. I I'm hoping that the semi finals will be a little bit more entertaining the quarter. We're ready for some cagey the quarter finals were oh man They're boring, but the Tour de France has been great. So if you're bored with soccer, you should turn on the tour All right. I hope you guys have enjoyed this episode and we will see you soon. Good night