Can MLS Win the World Cup?

21:32Roger Bennett:I mean, Tony Teresco was sitting there, Roger. He was sitting there, our defensive replacement, in left field, waiting for the ball. I remember.

21:41John:By the way, I lived it. I lived it. I was a huge fan of Brady Anderson, that one golden season. I believe in you still, Brady. The story I tell in my book is about 1990 that's very similar. I was over here as one of those English camp counsellors in Maine, and England got into the semifinal of the World Cup, and I got a day off, and I drove to a bar in rural Maine, and, you know, asking, hoping that they could, you know, they all had enormous satellite dishes in those days. I was with a couple of English guys. We drove into the bar and I walked in, nobody in there. You know, they're playing like Patsy Cline on the jukebox.

22:22John:And I went up to the bar person and said, can you put England-Germany on the World Cup? And he's just like chewing tobacco, spit first, like, nope. And I was like, what do you mean? He goes, whenever minor league baseball team was playing then, like the Portucket Red Sox or something, It was like, baseball's on. And I was like, what? And so we got in the car and then went to the next one. Same thing exactly. Same thing over and over and over and over again. We must have gone to like 19, 20 bars by the time the game was over. And we realized, God, we've missed the biggest game of our life. We did not see it.

22:58John:And we had to wait till the next day till the Boston Globe printed the results in tiny under the baseball box scores to find out, obviously, England had lost, obviously, on penalties. Perhaps it was for the best. we didn't get to see and experience that trauma. But it was like that here not so long ago, John.

23:14Roger Bennett:So when you were talking about soccer in the U.S., you referenced Premier League, of course, League of M-Academy, all these international leagues that people are now seeing because they can stream them at all hours of the day. What about homegrown U.S. soccer? What can MLS do from the enormous popularity of the World Cup that's about to hit their home market? If you were running MLS right now, what would you do to capitalize on this? And they're not going to overtake the Premier League anytime soon, but they can at least be in that conversation. These could be a league that you would have mentioned, right?

23:59John:Number one, you've got to remember, MLS is so young. MLS is a baby. gave the biggest leagues in the world over a century head start to build their clubs, build their fan bases, build their traditions, build their roots in their cities, build their pathways, their lore, their songs, their culture. It's hard to be the new boy. You can make the case in that 30 years-ish, MLS has done so much, come so far, so fast. And by the way, it's a kind of minor miracle when you look at the boom and bust history of football in the United States. MLS has lasted so long. But global football has a food chain. The apex predator is Premier League.

24:44John:It is so dominant right now. It is economically so powerful. At the end of the day, there's no salary cap. There's no draft. And these teams, ultimately, we're cheering for Excel spreadsheets. The correlation of results to wages is almost, I mean, it's hilarious.

25:03Roger Bennett:I know you're, I'm fascinated that you are an Everton fan. And Everton just missed getting relegated a couple of years ago. And you had a celebration at a theater in DC that was sold out with nothing but Everton. I don't know where they came from. Like you couldn't find the World Cup in 1990.

25:24John:We had the players and the manager. They were on tour in America. we did a live show where we celebrated not getting relegated, which came from minor league to AAA. And you would think we had won a major tournament. It was amazing. And the last words for the manager was, we've learned our lessons. It won't happen again. And then the next season it did happen. But it was joyous. By the way, that's the joy of sports. The season was an agony. We survived. Was it Churchill who said, or Hemingway, who said the greatest feeling in the world is to be shot at without result. You feel ecstatic, like, whoa, it was nearly us.

26:01John:It wasn't. So that was that. But you learn, and the book is full of this, by the way, about traumatic memories in the moment that you come to treasure. One of my greatest memories in sports, I'm looking at the photo of it now. It hangs over my desk in my studio. It's of Maradona, Diego Maradona, handballing the ball in. The hand of God. Yeah, the hand of God. Not only did he do it, got away with it, but then instantly had great press quips. He said, they said, did you handball the goal? And he goes, it was a little bit, it was a little bit the head of Diego, a little bit the hand of God. One of the greatest sports quotes ever.

26:39John:I have the photo of it. In the book, I talk about being 11, watching him eviscerate my heroes by means fair and foul. And I went outside and in anger, screamed and kicked a soccer ball through my own front window. And my dad, my late father, who was pretty quick to anger normally, there's a glass tinkle down. He just looked at me and he said, I understand, Roger. I understand. And that was an agony. Everyone has them. As an O's fan, you've got them. The Maya moment. But the older you get. I couldn't go back to sleep.

27:10Roger Bennett:I was up at 4 a.m.

27:12John:I know. But now I got Diego to sign this photograph because I realized terrible memories or joyous ones, they're the most profound and they make you feel alive. And God bless. That is the power of the World Cup. But ultimately, for MLS, look, there's a place in a food chain. And every league is threatened by the Premier League. The Bundesliga, the German League are terrified of the Premier League. Even La Liga with Barcelona and Real Madrid are terrified of the growing dominance of the Premier League. So they're not going to catch the Premier League. But I'll say this. When I grew up, Italian football was the most powerful in the world.

27:49John:England was a backwater. When Italian players went to England, the Italian press would write, oh, it's so sad that Ravinelli has to go and play in the English Premier League. It's shame his career has fallen to that. The tectonic plates shift under leagues and they do move up and they do grow. And so ultimately, if football was a band, you know, MLS would be on stage, probably a base, you know, the Premier League is definitely the lead singer. MLS is probably, you know, the bass player or the flamboyant keyboard player playing with one hand and doing hand movements. And, you know, it's incredible that it's there.

28:25John:Phil Lesh, was he not the bass player? God bless, what an incredible human being. And so that's kind of where it is. It needs to keep growing till we're more investment. But the challenge is, John, the Premier League, Americans now own it. It's the most American league of all time, probably. Over half the teams in the Premier League are now owned by American sports investors. You can match them all up. Fenway Sports Group, Boston Red Sox own Liverpool. Stan Kroenke owns Arsenal, the league leaders. Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Glazers still own Manchester United. Todd Burley and his group own Chelsea and so on.

29:06John:So ultimately, Americans are winning football both here and there. but the Premier League is utterly the powerhouse that long-term could cannibalize, like, could see everybody's league all over the world.

29:20Roger Bennett:I love the Americans are over there. They know better than to try to get rid of relegation, although they all want to. And they pursued that Super League and had no clue that Sheffield Wednesday or Sheffield United or Everton would say, like, no, we despise the idea of a Super League.

29:38John:By the way, that was crazy. I don't want to go down that wormhole. But the thing they didn't know, the thing that blinded them, they thought they didn't care what Everton thought. They didn't care what Sheffield thought. It was their own fans turning on them that ultimately blindsided that. But that was probably the most American thing and the worst thing. And ultimately, the smartest American owners very quickly work out and know what they don't know and pivot that way. And the less smart ones don't. And we're seeing a lot of both at the moment.

30:10Roger Bennett:Let me ask you what I think is kind of a basic question, and it's about MLS and it's about post-World Cup. Is it as simple as paying the most and bringing over stars? If you had all the money in the world and you were in charge of MLS, are they now in a position? They've been around since the mid-90s. The roots might not, they're certainly not as deep as they are in Europe, but they're deep roots. Is the next phase just that they need to invest in, actually, the players on the field?

30:46John:Look, it's a complicated dance, this. I admire what MLS have built. I admire the MLS thriving, never mind still in existence, because the American history is littered with Pelé, the NASL and more because football, soccer never developed deep collegiate roots like the best of American sports, which gave it economic proofing in like the Great Depression, etc. Soccer was always an immigrant sport, immigrant leagues, pro, semi-pro, boom, bust. So the MLS thing is complicated. I'll say this. Americans love the best. We love the best. We're drawn to the best. The NFL is by far away the best. Nothing competes.

31:31John:I don't like to bring some CFL slander onto your show, John. But the same with the NBA. Same with the NBA. By far the best and bringing Europeans' best players to the NBA in a way that's very Premier League. And so our eyes are intrinsically drawn to the Premier League. That is the best by some degree, the best players, the best clubs, belatedly. Recently, the best coaches in the world are now all sharpening their teeth and playing against each other in the Premier League. So it takes time to compete with that. But also what the Premier League has from an American audience, this is kind of crazy, is that it grew in the shadows.

32:17John:It didn't try and take over prime time. It wasn't going up against the NFL. It wasn't going up against Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football, Saturday college football slate. It was going in the magic hours between 7.30 and 2 o 'clock. If you had a kid, six-month-old baby, you could pass off watching Arsenal against Manchester City. I'll take the baby early this morning, childcare. And also, the daytime drinking. If you're in a pub at 7.30 in the morning having a Guinness, you've probably got a drinking problem. If you're in that same pub, 7.30, but Tottenham Hotspur are playing Chelsea on the television, you're a soccer fan.

33:02John:So soccer was able, the Premier League is able to grow in that window where it had no competition. MLS has to fight against the best American sporting primetime opponents, and that's its great challenge. The Premier League, as I said earlier, used to be a backwater, a game played where I grew up by muddy men. who would fight each other on the field, fans, hooligan culture. The players just wanted to have a cigarette and a pie at halftime. That change, the first wave of change was dinosaurs. The first wave of players coming into the Premier League from Europe were the old players who had massive names.

33:44John:But then there was a second wave where the Premier League started to compete for some of the best, you know, 25, 26, 27. but also the future great players, the 22s, the 23s. And it happens slowly. That's the second wave that needs to occur. MLS has done incredibly well with Lionel Messi on one coast at Inter Miami, which has become a global brand. That's a remarkable story. So David Beckham plus Lionel Messi, plus an incredible kit design, plus the lure of Miami. And then in LA, you've got Hung Min Son, the Korean superstar in sports, landing in LA, this incredibly proud city, a defiant team. And I was just there last week doing a live show, meeting the LAFC fan base, incredibly devoted, incredibly at the scale, incredibly young, beautiful.

34:40John:And so you are seeing that. But what has to happen? But A, it's money. And then B, John, I think it's like the dinosaurs have to, you know, we have to age down. And then we also have to have the next big superstars coming through. And then MLS has to sell them. You can't hold on to young talent. You need to know where you are in the food chain. Sell them all and then go again and reinvest that money. And that's how you kind of pump your way up the kind of food chain of great leagues in the world.

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36:20Roger Bennett:If anybody can't tell, I'm such a fan of Roger Bennett from, you know, the podcast. How do you find time to write a book? You have the book, We Are the World Cup, talking about your memories of the World Cup. what what made you want to write that book uh you've this is now i believe your second book

36:47John:or third book it's like i think the 10th book believe it or not yeah yeah i mean that doing books is so crazy when you asked me how did i do it i don't know when i finished it i was like oh my god i don't know how i did this it's horrible horrible but it's the last one you'll ever write

37:02Roger Bennett:that's what i i i always tell my wife i always said i'll never write a little yeah but then you

37:07John:You hold it in your hands and you see it and you're like, oh my God, this is crazy. The amount of human beings who helped me write this, the amount of ideas, the amount of time, the beautiful, beautiful. I mean, you immediately, you immediately are like, oh, this is great, even though it was in agony. You're asking me why did I write this or how did I write this? Yeah. No, why did you write it? I mean, I read this as a personal history. The World Cup's coming to the United States, a men's World Cup. It's an incredibly powerful moment. I do believe this is going to be a turning point for this game.

37:43John:What was hoped in 94 will happen in 26 for a variety of different reasons. And so I know there's going to be an enormous audience who are going to be tuning in. And I wanted to write a book, which essentially makes sure if you read it very, very quickly, you will know everything that you need to know to participate in this incredibly cosmic moment of joyous global connectivity. You'll know your Maradonas from your Messis, your Ronaldos from your Ronaldinhos. You'll understand what is the Brazilian soul of football? Why is it like it is? How has it evolved? You'll understand the gloriously self-sabotaging DNA that is England.

38:27John:And also, you know, a second subplot for me, the story of my lifetime, the thrilling tale of the inexorable rise of the sport in America, which is the story. It's the story of my life. It's the story I've lived through the Men in Blazers media network and it's building. So I did, I want to, you know, when there's a big television show coming back like Game of Thrones around season six or seven, you know, it got any, it was massive, but it got an even bigger audience. I wanted to do what happens before episode one, where they kind of say, if you've missed the past five episodes, five seasons of Game of Thrones, here's everything you need to know.

39:03John:And that's what this book is in a joyous way. my memories, they are my most powerful memories. Other than the birth of my children and me and my wife, they are my most powerful memories located in this tournament, located in sports. They're the spine of my life. And I wanted to share them, the backstory, with the American audience so that everyone, whether you've loved the World Cup for a long time or this could be your first World Cup, so that you can savor each and every second and make memories of your own.

39:32Roger Bennett:And like you said, it's not all positive memories. It's memories that rip your heart out.

39:38John:I love those. Give me them. Give me them in the face and I'm ready to take them again. So look, that's the glory of the World Cup, John. And this is truly the glory of the World Cup. You know, I'm a Chicago White Sox fan. I'm a Bears fan. You know, I adore both of those teams. But when they play, when the White Sox play, you know, whomever, it's just a game, you know, it's a baseball game mostly. But the glory of the World Cup is when two teams take the field. Their nation's histories, their nation's politics, their nation's cultures take the field alongside them. And that's what gives this tournament just the unparalleled weight in the moment and then the deep emotional weight, the electric connection, the cross-generational memories.

40:21John:That's why it embeds itself in our biography. It's how parents connect to children. Children connect to grandparents. But more than that, we connect to the entirety of the world. It really is. The World Cup, Super Bowl, 200 million people watch that. And we are so proud of that. And it is cosmic. World Cup, I think 5 billion people watch it. World Cup final, last one, Messi and Mbappe, 1.5 billion people watch that together. There's nothing like it. And it's that sense of profound, joyous, cosmic connection. You know you're making memories you'll carry forever. But you also know everybody in the world is following along this telenovela and spooling live without a script, without a safety net.

41:08John:That's what makes it so powerful. And that's ultimately why I wrote the book and what I hope that every American will experience over the 39 days this summer.

41:17Roger Bennett:The thing I love about your two countries is England is such a big part of their society is a fatalistic society. but every single soccer fan or football fan in England believes that they're going to win that next game. Like something bad might happen down the road, but you believe you're going to win. The U.S. soccer team, well, going back, I think it's kind of like Olympic basketball. Like Americans just feel like, okay, we're not quite as good, but we're going to win. We're going to figure out how to win. American soccer, U.S. soccer, if we get past the first round, I know everybody gets past the first round now, I'm going to be so happily shocked.

41:58Roger Bennett:It'll be amazing to me. Give me in this final minute your predictions for your two loves.

42:07John:I mean, I love you. I am as American as Kenny Powers now. And I will say the rise of American soccer is the narrative that thrills me the most. I want to thank our women's team. They are winners. We're a football nation where football has gone over the top and this World Cup will really put us over the top. the women's narrative that that's i've never been and never seen football become as popular as it is and it was triggered by the women's game first and foremost that 99ers moment that americans love a team that wins uh you talk about basketball we love the dream team the men's soccer team has been a dream on team john it's been very painful it's hard to believe hardly this nation 330 million how are you getting worse i thought we'd get better exactly

42:52Roger Bennett:Somehow we're not getting better. We're taking a step back.

42:55John:We gave the world the cronut, for God's sake. But we cannot. We've won one knockout game in a Men's World Cup in human civilization, full history, which is hard to believe. We will change that this year. England, we do believe that, I say they believe they're going to win it every time because they invented the game. They feel it still theirs by divine right. and John Oliver just came on our show as he does a couple of times a year we're chatting about England and he still cares about England and he said we were laughing that being an English football fan is like being Charlie Brown running at a football with Lucy Holden like this time they never phrase football's coming home this time we're going to do it and then there's just some other self-sabotaging trauma they conjure to shatter the hearts of a nation and then john i realized what if we got charlie and lucy all wrong and it's actually charlie saying to lucy you you just i'm going to pretend to kick the ball you pull it back at the last second you hurt me you shame me because that's what it is it's almost willful now for the english fans hold the ball and pull it away again come on make me feel small so it's very very remarkable it's very beautiful.

44:16John:What do we know? England won't win it. France or Spain are absolutely stacked. Norway, for the first time in a generation back, led by Erling Haaland, who's like Shaquille O 'Neal in cleats, just such a dominant, powerful. He's like, if ChatGPT created a footballer, are going to be delirious. And the winner is going to be, ultimately, I pray, America, John, because Kansas City is going to have 40 ,000 Dutch fans bouncing down the main thoroughfare to the Lynx, to the Rechs in orange shirts, just thousands of them doing the same dance before the games. We're going to come alive. We're going to feel alive.

44:55John:We need this. Argentina are going to play their games. Also, by the way, in Kansas City, I like to believe in about four generations' time when burnt ends are the national dish of Argentina and a kid says to their grandpa, grandpa why do we eat burnt ends and the grandpa will try and remember the name of oklahoma jews barbecue and then forget and just go oh they're very argentinian they're very very argentinian it's going to be magnificent from sea to shining sea we need this joy john we need this joy what

45:26Roger Bennett:what an awesome way to end it uh you can come on this pod anytime always great to talk to you good luck for that with the next hundred days and i hope i see you around uh you're a beautiful man

45:37John:And thank you for giving me the chance to talk about this beauty, but also to hear your voice. You're an incredible legend, John O 'Ran. Sweet John O 'Ran. Thanks for having me on.

45:50Roger Bennett:Well, if you're not excited for the World Cup after that, I don't know what to tell you. And it's so fun to talk to Raj and hear his excitement just about the sport in general. So I want to thank Roger Bennett for joining the pod this week. Thanks also to Andrew Kettle for all his help in setting this up. But most importantly, I want to thank you for listening to The Varsity, an Odyssey podcast in partnership with Puck. I also want to acknowledge the executive editors from Puck, Gabi Grossman, Ben Landy, John Kelly, the great team from Odyssey, Bob Tabador and Patrick Antonetti, and our Nesson partners, Greg Poth and Mark Merlaca.

46:26Roger Bennett:Still snowed in, but getting around up in Boston. You like this podcast, make sure to sign up for my newsletter. It's also called The Varsity. head over to put that news and use the code word the varsity it's all one word for a 20 discount and i will see you on wednesday

46:49John:it's a season two playoff race with tgl presented by sofi sunday at 9 p.m eastern jupiter links versus boston common golf monday at 7 p.m eastern los angeles golf club versus new york golf club Tuesday at 9 p.m. Eastern, the Bay Golf Club versus Jupiter Lynx. Keep up, it's golf. Watch on ESPN, ESPN2, and the ESPN app.