Football in America: where is it at? | The Football Boardroom

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1:00Henry:Welcome to the Football Boardroom. Today we're going to consider the challenges of preparing a team to play football in America in summer. We're going to look at whether this World Cup really will transform the sport in the United States of America and think about some of the challenges that England and Scotland can look forward to. To do this, I'm going to be joined by an old friend who I think has the perfect perspective. Don't forget to subscribe as we're going to be putting out shows throughout the tournament. And please keep sending your comments in, either on social media or to our email address.

1:34Henry:We read them all. It really helps us decide what we're going to talk to you about. Really hope you like the show.

1:44Christian, good morning from Florida. Good to see you in your seat of learning with all that very impressive Bodleian strength collection of books behind you. We've got a little bit more England training today. I've just checked the weather forecast, which you do have to do over here. It does go a little bit Vivaldi on you. You get all four seasons in half an hour. And there's going to be a little bit of lightning at training later when England are out there. The Arsenal boys now are back from their Champions League rest after their exertions in the final. And I mean, it's all looking incredibly good there.

2:18And then we've got a press conference with Thomas Tuchel later. doubtless Bellingham will be talked about and also the conditions out here because the weather, the travel absolutely is on everyone's lips.

2:32Henry:And everyone's all over still, I guess, the decisive playoff moments in basketball, not football at the moment. Yeah, I was in a bar last night, unusual for a journalist, and I'm watching it and everyone was transfixed with it. And even though it's a San Antonio Spurs against New York Knicks, it is now 2-1 still to the Knicks, Madison Square Gardens. Spurs came back, really gutsy performance last night. And from a soccer, our football perspective, I mean, I was here in 94 when the start of the World Cup was slightly overshadowed by the OJ Simpson chase. And there's going to be a slight echo this time that another American sport is going to invade soccer's sort of opening ceremonies.

3:15Obviously, we go to Mexico, then Canada Thursday, Friday. It kicks off properly in the US on Saturday when it's looking like we could have another decisive game in the NBA. I think they play Thursday and then Saturday. So it's definitely going to go to those extra games. So soccer is having to compete with the traditional sports here.

3:33Henry:I wonder whether Donald Trump will show up this weekend. The Knicks will certainly be asking him to stay away after they lost last night. But I think that's a good segue into today. So we felt it would be a really good moment for our show to preview some of the key aspects of this upcoming wonderful World Cup tournament. And we want to focus really on football in America. Where is it at? And we thought it would be really helpful to do that with a man who has a foot on both sides of the Atlantic, one of the UK's most experienced players and football managers and the only current MLS coach who has coached in the Premier League.

4:16Henry:And that person is none other than Dean Smith. Dean, welcome. Thank you, Christian. Great to see you. It's great to have you here, Dean. And I want to start really by, let's imagine the term, let's turn the clock back maybe 18 months and I'm sitting in a planning meeting at FAHQ, maybe with Thomas Tuchel in the room and we're talking about the challenges of a World Cup in the United States of America and in particular playing football in a US summer. And of course, you live and breathe that with an MLS season that runs through the summer. And I want to get your take on what would be the sort of key issues that you had been factoring in as you thought about planning and logistics for things like your training base.

5:03Yeah, I think the climate is going to be number one. You know, it's going to be hot wherever you are, but the humidity levels will be different in some places to others. Obviously, travel. I don't think travel's a bigger problem. I think in America, people are just used to flying. You know, they fly to and from work at times. So, you know, and for every MLS game, it's a flight. Our nearest game is Atlanta away. It's an hour flight, four and a half hours if you want to care to drive. And we normally have 4 ,000 fans going to Atlanta, which is unheard of really in the MLS because I think that's the one thing I miss is away fans in the MLS because they don't travel as well.

5:52But logistically, travel is quite an easy thing to do. You charter the plane, you fly to the place, but it's then getting used to whether it's the heat, whether it's the humidity, whether it's a time zone difference, so just mealtimes change, but also you've got altitude. We only really come across that when we go to Salt Lake or Colorado.

6:19Henry:Tell us about that. I'm intrigued. I noticed that the 11 American stadia for the World Cup are at sea level, but obviously we've all taken a look optimistically at the draw and can see Mexico City looming as a very high altitude venue. When you take your side into Salt Lake or Denver, how long in advance do you go? How much of a home field advantage do you think that would confer if you played Mexico away at altitude, for example, in your experience? I mean, in general, in the MLS, home advantage is so much bigger than, you know, what I was used to in England. Really? Yeah. You know, I think it's something like 40, 42 % of home victories, you know, during the season, which is a lot bigger than certainly in England I believe so home advantage is really strong everybody told me when I first came here it's going to be hard to win on the road and I'm like well why?

7:18but then you start to learn about how to acclimatise I mean I was told my first ever away game was Vancouver away which was like a four and a half hour flight to the other side of the country a time difference of three hours, different weather. We were going into a really cold environment. So you have to get ready for them changes that are likely to occur.

7:46Henry:Dean, I think one of the things our audience would love to understand, you've now been at Charlotte nearly three years. You're having a good season. And I think one of the things that's difficult for us British football fans to get a head around is really the whole state of football or soccer, as they call it, in the USA. And I'm particularly intrigued by your observations of how this World Cup fits with the MLS in terms of sports fans in America. On the one hand, you know, we talk a lot about the 1994 World Cup when there was no professional league in America. And two years later, the MLS was founded on the back of the popularity that that World Cup generated.

8:32Henry:Now, 30 years in, the MLS has got 30 teams. You're managing one of those. I think it's fair to say the numbers suggest it's still, you know, an absolute fraction of the popularity of certain major league sports. I looked at the TV money,$11 billion a year they pay for the NFL, $250 million for the MLS. So I get the sense it's a sort of niche product in terms of the overall US sports world. but then the World Cup comes along and they shut your league down for seven weeks. How do you feel the World Cup will impact MLS and what do you see as the links and similarities between the two? I hope it's going to impact it as much as it did in 1994.

9:18It's quite interesting that I think everywhere I've seen it's around the USA World Cup, yet there's three countries who are actually hosting with Mexico and Canada as well. Yeah, good point. But it's, I think, I mean, I can only talk really at Charlotte FC. We've got a real diverse fan base, big Hispanic, big Latino fan base as well and fan groups. Their sport is football, you know, so they want to come and watch the games and make it, you know, an unbelievable atmosphere. You know, there are, I think now, a growing amount of Americans who are starting to get really interested in football and stroke soccer.

10:08You know, and I think the World Cup, if it's successful, and I see no reason why it can't be successful, it can actually grow the brand. I mean, one of the biggest things, my assistant coach, Miles Joseph, has been in the league since its inception. and he always says to me, he said, you've got to forget that it's only 30 years old. He said before, because they try to manufacture rivalries at times just to get that football tribal instincts that probably we have in England, what they have in South America. But that's got to still grow because he said, the rivalries they have in America are through colleges because beyond 30 years, it was college football, college basketball, college soccer, you know.

11:00So the college system is what most Americans have grown up with and are big supporters. And the college system is massive in terms of sport. You know, a college American football game, for instance, they only play eight games a season at times and you'll get 80 ,000 people turning up to watch the games. Dean, MLS are pushing themselves quite sort of aggressively to pitch themselves as one of the bigger leagues in the world. Do you think the standardization of the calendar, particularly in terms of the transfer window, will actually help that? Because it's now going to sort of echo the European transfer window.

11:38I think it can only help improve it. You know, one of my frustrations being in the MLS is the fact that the markets are different. So when we go shopping for players to recruit players from Europe, our window's closing a week or two weeks before the rest of Europe. So you're always having to either pay a premium or you're losing out to maybe some teams that can wait a little bit longer than you can. And players sometimes end up wanting to wait that extra two weeks in case a bigger club is going to come in for them as well. So it can only help us, certainly with the market, and it can only help to improve the MLS.

12:22I also think an easing of the salary cap can also help the MLS as well. I understand they want it to be more of an even keel in terms of the squads and the playing style, but if they ease the salary cap in, I think it will help to encourage better players to come to the MLS as well. Dean, do you think this is almost sort of symbolic? We talk about Dean Smith, the soccer coach, with what you're doing, what you did in England, and now out in MLS. But if you talk to a lot of Americans, and you mentioned the name Dean Smith, and he's an NBA Hall of Famer, one of the great coaches they've had over here.

13:02Do you ever get that conversation? I've had that conversation quite a few times during a press conference. I was quite impressed that I'd already had a highway named after me when I first came to North Carolina. My son went to college. You haven't even got that in Birmingham, boy. Yeah, my son went to college in Raleigh and that's where the stadium, the Dean Smith Stadium and the Dean Smith Highway were. So yeah, I'm a very interesting coach as well who Michael Jordan started his fledgling career at and with. And I've read a couple of books on him and incredible coach. You've already got the Scots using your facilities.

13:48What was that relationship? I know you and some of your staff know Steve Clark. And what can the Scots expect in terms of the facilities? Because I imagine there were other countries who were trying to get your facilities in Charlotte. Yeah, there was a lot of countries that looked at our facilities and Scotland were the ones who wanted it. I've already had messages from John McGinn and Grant Hanley, you know, going, wow, these facilities are incredible. That's good. And to be honest, it's one of the major reasons why I actually went to coach out at Charlotte. I wanted to make sure, you know, the facilities were good first and foremost because that's the place that you spend most of your time at.

14:28You know, so the training center, the canteen, the pitches are all excellent. And, you know, the Scotland group have been welcomed by, you know, all the staff and all the people of Charlotte already. and, you know, they're training, I think it's low 30s at the moment there, so they're getting certainly acclimatized. I think they've been down in Florida already. Clark, he came over, I think it was in March, he came over and I think the biggest thing, the grass is yellow at that time of year. It's something that I didn't understand as well because it's Bermuda grass and the Bermuda grass during the winter goes dormant.

15:11And then late April, once the sun gets on, it comes through and it goes green again. And I reassured him that it would be green by the time he got here. You know, and yeah, I really hope the Scots do well. And, you know, I think that game against Haiti, Haiti, the first game, is going to be big for them.

15:31Henry:I think it's really interesting for our audience. This is, can you imagine if this happened in, you know, in England, H, that the federation, the equivalent of the FA isn't swimming in money. It doesn't have, you know, massive global TV contracts as the England team do and the FA Cup and all that commercial backdrop. So rich owners and billionaires in America loom a lot more in kind of the funding of the sport. And no better example of this than the fact that Pochettino's salary, it's rumoured, was picked up by a hedge fund owner called Ken Griffin. You know, they wanted to go for it. They certainly swung for the fences in signing the coach of Maurizio's reputation and price, but obviously couldn't afford it within the federation.

16:18Henry:So a rich soccer fan paid for it. Can you imagine that happening in English Sport H? And Dean, it made me think about you. You've got a pretty colourful owner who you work for at your club. Do you sense that US MLS owners are much bigger in the national sport than would be the case over here, where the FA tends to have kept that away? Yeah, I mean, there's vast wealth in this country. That's one of the first things I've noticed when you come over here. You know, our owner, Dave Tepper, he also owns the Panthers, the NFL team. You know, so there's vast wealth. I mean, I think they're looking now to buy a franchise for the MLS team is something like$600,$700 million.

17:07so it just shows you the value of a club now in the MLS so there's definitely vast wealth yeah I think there'd be a lot of question marks at the FA if they were getting a private investor to help them hire the English exactly yeah but on the other side of it I do think the US Soccer Federation have got both their appointees right Mauricio I think with his experience, his knowledge Emma Hayes as well has done it exceptionally well for the women's game out there already. So I think I believe that they've got them right, but the proof will be in the pudding, so to speak.

17:45Henry:Yeah, well, I just was intrigued by this notion of private wealth creeping into the national game. It's one thing at the club level, obviously, but we have that sort of church and state separation in English football. And the root cause of that, as I've suggested, is available funding. As you well know, Dean, there's been plenty of focus on Thomas's new deal. I'm sure that caught your eye. Henry was very concerned that we were repeating our experience of 2010 when famously we gave Capello, I think, an extension and then it all went rather wrong in South Africa and that didn't look smart. But you get the sense that people are behind Tuchel and there's a high degree of faith in him.

18:26certainly as it appears at the FA but I think the players definitely are behind him you know speaking to a couple of lads that obviously I know have worked with him you know Jack Grealish Esri Konza, Oli Watkins have all worked I know Jack's spoken to Thomas quite a few times but Esri and Oli obviously worked with him and speak very very highly of him as well so you know they're looking forward to the campaign and they believe they've got a really tactically astute coach that's going to help them progress as far as they can. Just on the players, you mentioned Esri and Oli who are in the squad.

19:10I mean, Esri played League One Championship and then has gone on to amazing things. Oli obviously played non-league and then worked his way up, has gone on to amazing things. What does that say about the structure and the importance of the structure of the pyramid in English football in terms of supporting the elite league, the Premier League, but also the national team? I think it's of massive importance and always has been. There's been a lot of players that have come through that system and grew into becoming established national team players. And it will continue to do so. I think the standard is just getting better in England, in the pyramid, and it will continue to grow young players.

19:59Most of the, I think when the youth's structure changed, I think you've seen a lot of the Premier League teams now capture the top younger players, but they're still going out on loan to League One, League Two teams to cut their teeth and learn about the game. Dean, can I just ask you one final question for me? And we really appreciate your insight into this. We're seeing, obviously, on our side of the pond in England, a lot of American owners coming in. We, on the whole, don't expect owners to make huge sums of money. I mean, you know, Kroenke might with Arsenal because they're doing well. But you look at the Americans, Clear Lake at Chelsea, and they're in for quite a big whack at the moment.

20:47But you look at the way things are run with NFL and the clubs, they're there to make money as well as the sporting connection. Do the Americans, when they come over to the UK or to the Premier League in particular, expect to make money? I think there's two types of owners I see at the moment. There's ones with vast wealth and there's ones with an analytical background of numbers games, baseball, that kind of thing and think they can or want to get involved. I know there's some teams lower down in the pyramid now who are owned by American owners as well and trying to change the structure of recruitment in terms of how they recruit players, similar to what they do in America as well.

21:33So the ones with the vast wealth, I think it's the competition. I think they love that competition of being in one of the top leagues, watched leagues. Because I've had to learn coming over to the US, I mean, we finished fifth and then fourth in our first two years in the regular season. It doesn't matter. It's about playoffs. You've got to first qualify for playoffs and then start winning playoff games. You know, the regular season is not as interesting, even though our average gate at Charlotte is about 30 ,000, I think, you know, for each game. So, yeah, I think the owners that are coming over is certainly for that competition.

22:17And where there's probably, you've seen investment now into Brentford from America as well. And there's investment in one of my old teams, Warsaw, as well. and I think they're looking to grow clubs who they feel are underachieving and can grow a little bit higher.

22:34Henry:I can't end the show without having just asked you about how you're feeling. Obviously, it's been an incredible season for the club we worked at together, Aston Villa. How did you feel that night in Istanbul? Well, I would have loved to have gone but we was obviously in mid-season and between games. But Aston Villa, as you know, I've looked after certainly my family. My wife and my daughter both went to the game with my brother. Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, so Sharon got them there and looked after them and they really enjoyed it. Me and my son actually went to a... He said, what are we going to do, Dad?

23:12Are we going to watch the game? And I said, well, I'd like to go and watch it with Villa fans. And there's a brewery where they have asked the Villa fans in Charlotte and there's about 100 people there with Villa shirts on. So we went there and enjoyed it, you know, and spoke to a few of the lads on the night. You know, John McGinn on FaceTime, Ollie Watkins on FaceTime, Tyrone Mings. That's brilliant. Really pleased for them, really proud of them. You know, Unai's gone in there and done a fantastic job. But for me, more importantly, the owners, I mean, we both work with Wes and Nazef and know what they've put into the club as well.

23:48So, you know, really pleased for them.

23:49Henry:Well, you should be very proud because, you know, every Villa fan I see points out that nearly all those players, I think 14 of the squad on that night were players that played with and under you. And some of the very big names you talked about wouldn't be there if it wasn't for you. So I hope you were proud as punch. And it's bloody brilliant to catch up and see you looking so well and making your new life in America. and we will stay in touch and hope that it's going to be a fantastic summer. Thanks so much for joining us today. Likewise, Christian. Thank you. Thanks, Dean. Thanks, Henry.