Futbol W: Trinity Rodman Gets Paid

25:55Cristina Alexander:And also kind of carry the team on her back and help these younger players, also players who are the same age as her, through their first experience with the national team. So I thought it was brilliant. She was able to score a goal. She led the team 6-0 against Paraguay and a great start to the year. So no complaints from me. I think this will only build her confidence moving forward into the next few months. Yeah, absolutely. It'll be interesting to see what Emma Hayes does here in a little bit. She mentioned that she's not looking to start back-to-back games for these NWSL players, especially where they are in the season, which is offseason still currently and now in this January camp.

26:35But let's take it to first because we talked about Raelynn Turner in her dream debut. Such a talented player. She's had her years in the NWSL with Portland. We saw her with Louisville a couple of seasons ago. What did you make of her first start and her first goal for the U.S. women's national team?

26:52Cristina Alexander:Yeah, I think it was a great showing for her. Obviously, it's your very first opportunity with the national team. And if I can remember putting on that jersey for the first time, there are so many nerves. And you want to perform well. You want to do everything right. You don't want to make any mistakes. And you feel like this is your only opportunity. So I can imagine the pressure that she felt in those first few minutes of the game. But once you start knocking the ball around, once you connect your passes, once you get into good positions and scoring positions like she did, and being able to follow through with that and put the ball in the back of the net, I think then maybe she could take a breath and her nerves settle down a little bit more.

27:31Cristina Alexander:But I'm really happy for her. She deserves to be there. She had six goals with Portland this season. She was thriving by the end of the year with Portland and really carrying them through the end of the season to get them back at the top of the table. So well done by her. She definitely deserves that opportunity. And so I'm really happy that she could come through with at least scoring a goal and show us what she's all about. What we've spoken about her all season long, she definitely proved that in this performance. Yes, were they a little bit rusty here and there? Of course. But once again, these are players who might not have had any other opportunity at this type of level before, and I think they did a great job to start the year off.

28:14Cristina Alexander:And also, preseason is coming up, so they've been in their offseason mentality and just back with the squad. So credit to her for performing well and getting out there and representing our country. Yeah, I saw a really interesting stat because, you know, you say first cap, first goal. It's actually very rare. There have been 288 players that have earned caps for the U.S. Women's National Team just 25 of those players have scored a goal in their first cap. One of those coincidentally was Kristen Press, who was honored here in her retirement game and the bobble. And she scored two goals in her first cap for the U.S.

28:49Women's National Team, because like you said, Ali, it's probably I can only imagine putting on that jersey and looking at yourself in the mirror and saying, this is this is it. This is what I've been working all this time for. Raylan says she's been thinking about this since she was three, if I read that correctly. And she is one of five players who earned their first call-ups to senior national team here at camp in January. Just how big are these January camps, especially for NWSL players, but especially under Emma Hayes, who, like we said, has made this a point to make sure that she can see as many and so many talented players that she has available for the national team.

29:27Cristina Alexander:Well, this is a perfect time. It's right before the season starts, right before preseason begins. and a time where a lot of the players in this pool, in this big pool now, can kind of showcase themselves and come together and really take this opportunity that they've been given. They've worked so hard for however long in order to get to this position, and now you are right in front of the national team coach, and you're in an environment with the best players in the country. So you have to roll your sleeves up and get after it and really make it difficult for the coaching staff to ignore you in order to bring you back consistently.

30:05Cristina Alexander:So as long as you take that opportunity and you run with it, there's no doubt in my mind that players who are in this camp deserve to be there. So I'm extremely happy for Turner as well. She was in her hometown too scoring her first goal. So cool. And that's an incredible feeling too. And I think she's just deserved that. and now she's proven herself and so hopefully in the future she'll feel even more comfortable getting her second call up call up with the national team but this is the start of the year this is now an opportunity for a lot of these players to showcase leading into the she believes cup leading into world cup qualifying there's this year is really really important for a lot of these players and if you have that consistency like a lot of these players who have just given the opportunity wearing the red white and blue that they do perform week in and week out with their club team they're gonna be called back in so as long as you take advantage of every opportunity that you get and you keep improving like Emma Hayes had mentioned not proving yourself but improving every single time or every single opportunity that they give her then I have no doubt that a lot of these players will be more consistent within the squad yeah the next 18 months is going to be transformational for so many of these players when it comes to the goalkeeping position I know this is a conversation that we've obviously had a lot it looks like Emma Hayes will consistently be going with a very talented goalkeeper like Fallon Tellis-Joyce.

31:29Again, with the NWSL players here in this camp, Mandy McGlynn of the Utah Royals was her starting goalkeeper. Why did you think she made that decision for this particular game? We know she also called up Claudia Dickey of Seattle Reign and Jordan Silkowitz of AFC.

31:45Cristina Alexander:Well, I think how you perform in camp really goes to show you that you'll get that opportunity and you'll get the reward at the end of the day where, you know, if you perform well, then you're going to get a chance. And so I think because of her confidence, because of the way she showed up, the way she was leading within the camp itself, which Emma had mentioned in the press conferences before, that's why she had given her an opportunity. The way that she presents herself, I think, is key, especially leading from the back. You need a goalkeeper who's communicative, who's motivated to want to lead from the back, to have a good spine of the team.

32:24Cristina Alexander:Obviously, Fallon Tellis-Joyce is a top choice as well. But in her absence, when a lot of the European-based players are not in this camp, then she has an opportunity to step up and prove herself. And I think that's exactly what Mandy did. I was lucky enough to play alongside her in our championship year, and she played in that final. And I was so grateful that she was behind us because she had communicated the entire game. She demanded excellence. She demanded us to defend well, to continue to keep the ball and regain possession consistently. I think just having her voice within those really pressure moments was key for us to win.

33:10Cristina Alexander:and it's really exciting to see that because of her performances with Utah, now she's getting this reward with the national team. So it's going to be tough. You know, any player at this level who's good enough to be there can have an opportunity and be number one. So I'm excited for her. She's proven herself, and once again, as long as you're performing well in training, then you get opportunities and you have to run with it. Yeah, and Ali, obviously taking advantage of not only your knowledge and your experience here with Manamie Glenn, but what you're seeing on the defensive side and what Emma Hayes has at the NWSL level, what did you think of their performance?

33:52At the end of the day, we didn't see a goal conceded. I think I could have played in the back,

33:57Cristina Alexander:or any one of us could have played in the back. All jokes aside, obviously they didn't have many chances. They didn't create too many opportunities. I don't think she really touched the ball during the entire game. But despite the fact, I think it's important that you still have this presence. You still get the opportunity. You still fight for that throughout the week because we don't see training. We don't see what happens during the week and during these camps in order to be able to input our opinions on who should be playing and who shouldn't. So you never really know what happens behind the scenes.

34:34Cristina Alexander:you never really know what happens behind closed doors and in training sessions. So I'm sure she had given something with quality for the coaches to not ignore her. And that's why she was able to get that start. And I think it's going to be a battle for a lot of these players. There's very little wiggle room for a lot of these players with the amount of depth that we have to really implement their position within the squad. Yeah, and there's so many young players, and I'm sure this is the last thing they want to hear. probably especially for me if it's not this world cup there's still the opportunity for the next one but of course with that hunger in mind the idea is always to make the roster regardless every camp every opportunity every world cup uh roster in mind but let's talk about tonight here in in a little bit in about an hour the u.s women's national team will take on chile as i i mentioned Emma Hayes thinking of a completely different lineup for tonight.

35:33What are you looking for tonight, Allie?

35:36Cristina Alexander:Yeah, I'm thinking more NWSL players are just going to get that opportunity that they deserve because they performed so well all season. That's why they're there in this camp. I obviously think Chile, I think combined their starting lineup has maybe nine caps altogether. So this is going to be interesting. These games are very difficult, though, because they're very unpredictable. You have a Chilean squad who is, you know, very motivated to want to beat the U.S. Anytime you play against the U.S., teams show up and they defend really well. They fight for their lives and their mentality is unmatched.

36:12Cristina Alexander:So they're going to have a challenge. And it's about the communication for the U.S. It's about the building relationships on the field. And it's about having that consistency at this level. so I'm looking for another tough matchup with just defensive side of the game but on the attacking side of the game I think we're going to have a lot of freedom, we're going to have a lot of the ball I think it's just going to be able now the challenge is to be able to break down the Chilean defense and find the back of the net but once you do that just like last game against Paraguay the floodgates will open up so I'm hoping that we'll see a lot of goals but It's, you know, these players haven't really had an opportunity to play together consistently for the U.S.

36:57Cristina Alexander:So we're going to be seeing a lot of new faces and new relationships building at the same time. And so that gives other players an opportunity to want to have this chance and to run with it. So I think there'll be a lot of chances created. It's just a matter of if we can put the ball in the back of the net. Yeah, we'll see what that final score is here in a little bit. But Emma is, of course, looking for that style, maybe over substance because we saw that 6-0 against Badawa. But, of course, this is what January camps are for. A sold-out stadium, by the way, tonight, as expected. All right, we're going to go ahead and run it back because I mentioned Ballantella's choice.

37:38And she had another standout performance for Manchester United in this 4-1 win. Allie, she had six saves.

37:46Cristina Alexander:Yes, unbelievable. This is why she has been, you know, playing at the highest level and consistently. She's been a staple for Manchester United. She's the reason why they have been performing well in the Champions League as well. Her leadership, her quality, the decision-making and just her athletic ability, her reaction saves, that quick reaction is what it's all about. Yeah, speaking of a good connection being that's what it's all about, Sam Coffey plays 14 minutes in her Manchester City day. I love that she still brought the shirt tuck, Allie. Yes, we woke up early in my house to watch this game.

38:24Cristina Alexander:We were so excited to see Sam get into the game. As soon as she gets in, they create this opportunity that actually wins them the game. So, well done. I'm so happy to see her there. And I'm very, very excited for the upcoming game this weekend against Chelsea. Oh, yeah. Speaking of, you're making my job easy, Allie. Manchester City vs. Chelsea Sunday. We'll get up early for that as well. 6.30 a.m. Eastern on ESPN. Plus all things WSL. Looking forward to that. Rich Eisen here. You know that feeling of handing off your taxes and then hearing nothing? Total radio silence. Well, not anymore. Now your taxes are done for you by a TurboTax full-service expert who checks for every deduction and keeps you in the loop with real-time updates on your phone.

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39:31Cristina Alexander:This college basketball tournament moment is brought to you by Marriott Bonvoy. In the 2008 NCAA tournament, sophomore Steph Curry led 10th seed at Davidson on a thrilling Cinderella run to the Elite Eight. In the four games, Curry scored 40-30-33, and in the final game against the eventual national champion in one seed at Kansas, he dropped 25 in a 59-57 defeat. Looking back, I'm definitely proud of what we accomplished. Marriott Bonvoy, where Game Day checks in. Harry Douglas here. Game Day brings the excitement. Your stay should feel just as memorable. With Marriott Bonvoy, official hotel partner of the NCAA and U.S.

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40:44With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews, all on the Thumbtack app. Download today. Our Emily Keogh had a very interesting conversation with Nadine Kessler, who is the UEFA's head of women's football, who talked about the new UEFA Women's Champions League format, what the group phase is looking like, and a few other things. Hello, I'm Emily Keogh, and I'm joined today with the director of women's football at UEFA, Nadine Kessler, to talk all things Champions League ahead of us in the middle of a pretty impressive and exciting season, obviously off the back of the league phase.

41:29I guess to start, what's your sort of interpretation of how it went? And were you surprised by sort of the teams that we've got through now at this stage? Well, we are really excited. I think it went quite well, sportingly speaking. Really, the format delivered on what we planned it should deliver. I think, yeah, you can tell that there's a tighter competition. Average goal margin dropped by a whole goal. We see new teams emerging, especially Leuven, the debutants, making an incredible run through to the playoffs. We see the top shots losing points, which we also didn't have in previous seasons.

42:07Matchday six was still a lot to play for in the end. So I think that is the tight competition we were looking for. and yeah, the drama we in the end also need to further grow it. Yeah, you touched on a few things there that I want to come back to, but sort of you mentioned there about the sort of ending, everything had jeopardy at the end of the last game, right? You know, teams, one goal can change the complexity of the entire table. Is that sort of the mark of a successful league phase, do you think, that even on the last game, that so much was defined by those really small margins? Absolutely.

42:41We said from the beginning, every goal will matter in the end. I think that's how clubs play. You can also see that they really go for it. There's really a lot of attacking, much more attacking football going on. And the league table was tied until the very end. And again, not just Leuven, but other teams that were in their debut season or traditionally pot three teams, let's say with a lower coefficient, really made it now through to the playoffs. And that's exactly what we won. There were much more tighter matches generally. We had much more equally matches before, much more different matchups, right?

43:12Let's also talk about this. with the group stage beforehand, you had three opponents, played them twice. Now it's literally a different game every time for the team to prepare, but also for the fan to follow. So it's almost, you never know where you stand. And I think that's really the exciting part of the format, you know, having lots of discussions with the gloves and also fans and media and everyone is calculating how many points do you need to go through to make it to the quarters directly to go to the players. I think it just tells you that there's jeopardy. And I think that's what women's football needs.

43:49Yeah, definitely. I think it's the sort of thing that receptions from fans over the past couple of years with the old format, potentially that it was getting a little bit predictable. You kind of knew when the groups were drawn who was going to go through, because obviously there's quite a big disparity with some teams. But obviously this introduced a whole new format, like you say, that everything mattered, every game mattered. And it did to a degree, even the playing field, I guess, for those teams that don't have as much resource or history than other teams. and I guess obviously one of those was Leuven as you mentioned before I spent some time with them and I guess the the ability for a team that you know their first crack at European football they'd never even been in the playoffs and in the qualifiers before it's such an remarkable story to be sat here now that they're in the playoffs and I guess this is the beauty of this new format that even they didn't think that that might be possible at the start of the season yeah and That's exactly the beauty of the game, the beauty of the format.

44:42And that's the stories we want to see, right? You saw yourself how much it meant to this club, to these players. I'm sure we'll get you a Löwen shirt very soon. But it's been incredible. They did great on the field of play, but also off the field of play by getting the people, you know, in the right time back their women's team. And it's for us, of course, as the organiser, also really important that we drive development and drive growth in many domestic leagues, right? Because we need to be a bit bigger picture in women's football. Yes, we have great, strong domestic leagues with England and Germany and others in Europe, but the ultimate goal is to engage many more clubs, many more leagues, provide many more professional opportunities.

45:28And for that, the Champions League has always been the key locomotive, the train literally for others to follow and to invest. Do you think that slightly the new format, we look at a team like PSG, who probably underperformed by a lot of expectations from fans and other people, sort of expected them to be quite high up in the table and obviously didn't get past the league phase. I guess, do you think it's slightly more of a wake-up call with the new format that it's not as easy as it's been and that teams are really going to have to push and every game now does really count. And it's a bit more of a, yeah, like a wake-up call that this is how it is.

46:04It is absolutely, I think, a format, but also the way how we do the draw, right, which is very different also to how we've done it before, is a clear message also to the top clubs. You have to go for it every match. We heard many managers already saying this, Sonia Bompasteur and many others, that you don't plan or be, you know, calculate here. No, you have to go for every match. You have to win the next three points. because you meet already top opponents much earlier we never had top clashes amongst the top seeds before right because it was by nature not possible of how because of how we've done the draw now you you know have Chelsea Barcelona already much earlier right so which we saw I think last year only in the semi-finals so you you you cannot really yeah plan let's say for having an easy ride and just making the quarterfinals but the team has to deliver every time yeah definitely and we touched a little bit then on audiences and sort of one of the I guess criticisms that we've seen this year kind of from Arsenal especially was moving their games to Meadow Park and I know speaking to fans they were a bit I guess disappointed having the the reigning holders not playing games at the Emirates and kind of wanted to see see those big games under the lights at the Emirates like we had a few seasons ago I guess potentially as you look sort of forwards in the next season is that something that might be more of a consideration of a a must do in a way I know there's sort of both sides to it in terms of wanting demand and audiences but I guess as it grows is that potentially something that's on the cards for the next seasons to come I mean our job as UEFA is of course to encourage the clubs to provide the best possible possible facilities there are and we do and to provide them with a schedule that allows for it, right?

47:55The exclusivity you need, that there's no other matches going on, etc. So we do that. But of course, there's also a reality that all of these clubs have to assess for themselves. Does it make sense to move to these gigantic stadiums we have in Europe? We have beautiful stadiums, but they're gigantic. Let's also face it and be honest about this. Instead of the normal stadium, I think we see this more and more happening. You will also see many clubs now will do it for the quarterfinals. And we hope also that this encourage, you know, all clubs to provide the same kind of, you know, top level facilities to their opponents as they receive.

48:33Yet, we also must say, and I'm sorry if I throw this in here, but I think also we need to think in the future of finding, you know, these facilities that maybe just provide that middle range size, right, that we right now see is really important for women's football to look at. I mean, we have a lot of traditional women's football stadias that are becoming too small. And then we have a lot of gigantic stadia in Europe that were so far mainly used by the men's team. But it's also important to probably for sustainable business decision and sporting decision to look at infrastructure that are around 10 ,000, 20 ,000.

49:12I don't know. It's a difficult endeavour for clubs to, you know, invest into infrastructure or to find even a land property to build such infrastructure. But I think that's something to be looked at in the future. But clearly our message is that we want the best infrastructure for the best club competition on the planet. You touched on it then about the scheduling and about payload. And I do want to talk a little bit on that because I guess firstly, we've obviously got the Champions Cup coming up incredibly soon, which is obviously in a very short window to the playoffs, which scheduling obviously affected Arsenal more than anyone in that playing four extra games this season.

49:56I guess just from your perspective, how difficult is it, I guess, for a club like them to now manage these extra games? And I guess how difficult is it when you're looking at scheduling and sort of how you fit more games in and how you expand sustainably when there's lots of other moving parts and things coming up that are unavoidable? So certainly Arsenal now has a tough schedule. I think they can have even up to five matches in the next five weeks. And then our playoffs are also soon around the corner, no doubt. The prize of being a top team, but of course not an easy job for the coach to manage the squad in a way to get through these tough days.

50:36Scheduling is obviously a very complex matter. As I said earlier, in women's football, it's actually the case that most players across the globe have under load. But there are some players, the top players, especially those playing in Europe, and we were very lucky as Europe to also make it very far in all recent final tournaments. So that came on top. They have quite a high load. Do I think that the number of matches is the key problem on player load? Personally, also as a former player, I don't think. I think what the key problem of recent years on player load was and what is really not acceptable is that we are now coming off five years in a row with final tournaments without a break for players.

51:25That is, I think we can all agree, way too much on a player. players need to rest especially if they play on a high level the next thing i think that i've changed number of matches slightly increased it's not so much as we sometimes portrait they have they have they have increased but what increased immensely is the intensity of matches right yeah cannot pretend it is the same level as when i played 10 years ago yeah um but but so squat management squat sizes conditions surrounding players clearly have to get better have to have to be stepped up and I think the third point that impacts player load a lot is the fight often of competition organizers to find exclusivity in the calendar space in the calendar you see many domestic leagues expanding their competitions there were new competitions added if anything and now I'm becoming a bit protective if anything UEFA has not added a lot more matches our playoff round for example um is on paper two match days more but we also seed many more teams to the league phase than we did before so it will be not sure actually if teams play more matches might be zero to four teams that play two matches more so if you look at the grand scheme of things i think we've been really considerate about player load and we've discussed it to at length when we were creating the new format and hence again the Europa Cup.

52:59But yet this exclusivity, let's say, fight over certain calendar spots sometimes leads to the fact that matches are maybe scheduled in a congested way, right? It's not easy. There are so many football matches and other events going on that competition organizers have to circumvent and therefore maybe sometimes also decisions and that is always to be challenged are not taken only with sporting interests at mind, right? There are broadcasters who have demands and others. Stadium availability is another one. But it's certainly something that, you know, we need to get better at at women's football.

53:46And I mean, absolutely everyone, everyone who runs a competition needs to be very responsible about this is now an exciting commercial product, but it still needs to make sure that our players are feeling good about it and are doing well. Amazing. Well, thank you so much for your time. And I'd really love to talk to you. It was really nice to be here. Thank you so much. Thanks to both Emily and Nadine Kessler for that fascinating conversation. And speaking of, looking forward to the knockout playoffs, this first leg coming up February 11th, as she mentioned, versus Arsenal, Paris FC versus Real Madrid, and of course on the 12th, Wolfsburg versus Juventus, and Atleti versus Manchester United.

54:30Before we get to those games, of course, we're looking forward to, as Emily just talked to Nadine Kessler about the inaugural FIFA Women's Champions Cup, Gotham FC will play tomorrow versus Corinthians. Arsenal are also in the semifinal, so it might be a little bit uncomfortable if both of your teams, and by your, I mean Gotham FC and our producer Beto's team, Arsenal, make it to the final because I think I want to come up with a bet, not you guys.

55:02Cristina Alexander:I cannot wait to see this. I think it would be a dream to have Gotham and Arsenal play in the final together at Emirates Stadium. That would be amazing. And then at home, I could, you know, give some jokes here and there to someone close to us. Yes. But yes, it would be amazing. I'm so happy to see the North and South American winners, champions play overseas in one of the best stadiums in the world. This is going to be incredible. Oh, yeah, looking forward to that. Maybe if they make it to the final, maybe we're just going to have to go and make the trip. I don't know. I'm just going to leave that bounce there.

55:40We will be back next Tuesday to break all things down that we're going to see with the Women's Champions Cup. So we will see you then. Allie, safe travels back. It's very cold, as you know, but I promise it's still cool here on the East Coast. Literally.

55:55Cristina Alexander:Yeah, I don't miss shoveling the snow. I don't miss shoveling the snow. It's a good workout. It's a good workout. It's a good excuse to skip the gym. Thank you so much. We will see you all next week.

56:17two teams one cup the primetime stage is set for the tgl presented by sofi finals los angeles golf club versus tigers jupiter links keep up it's playoffs tune in monday march 23rd 9 p.m eastern on espn 2 and tuesday march 24th 7 p.m eastern on espn and on the espn app