The podcast returns after a long absence with a brief autobiography to explain how I became a grumpy old man, I mean, how I arrived at the perspective I have.
Then, 15 minutes into the podcast, I give a dramatic reading of the introductory chapter to the new book.
Buy the book from your favorite booksellers:
Dan Loney and I have three things in common. First, we’re parents. Second, we have a goofy sense of humor. Third, we’re on the Enemies List of people who push promotion/relegation as The Big Issue That Will Save U.S. Soccer and Make Us A Consistent Global Power.
The funny thing is that Dan, unlike most of us who point out inconvenient facts that make a pro/rel system difficult (but not impossible) in this country, actually hates pro/rel itself. I actually get caught up in the romance of relegation escapes and promotion chases. (I miss you, Coventry City.)
So we spoke for an hour and talked about the Athletes’ Council (in which he and I disagreed on whether Carlos Bocanegra should be on it), the Muppets, Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist, and conspiracy theories — including the accusation that we are the same person.
We did not discussion promotion and relegation in any detail whatsoever.
Enjoy …
It’s safe to say the last weekend of the season was familiar and yet unexpected. But I’m not just going to mope about it. I’m wondering if we can find any larger takeaways in all this.
In other words — it’s not my fault, it’s U.S. Soccer’s. Sort of.
(Really, it’s mostly luck.)
If I sound out of breath, it’s because I reffed six games this weekend.
A few texts for today’s podcast:
Today’s podcast sums up why I’m boycotting Twitter and goes into a bit of detail about today’s Guardian story on Carlos Cordeiro’s first six months, particularly Pete Zopfi’s “functional unification” idea.
Just to clarify: I’m not off Twitter because of anything directly affecting me. This is my response to their selective enforcement of hate speech and harassment, and the tipping point is the nonsensical decision to allow Alex Jones to keep posting falsehoods designed to do nothing but turn gullible people into dangerous people.
We’ll see what happens. If they relent and ban Jones, I’ll be back as soon as it happens. Until then, all you’re going to get from me is the occasional automated post showing that I’ve published here and a daily tweet explaining why I’m boycotting.
Here’s today’s podcast …
The feedback I’ve received on the T-shirts is that everyone loves the “three minivans” badge.
So the new T-shirt emphasizes that badge. The RSD banner is moved, and the “TRAVEL SUCKER” logo becomes a small badge.
Take a look and get your shirt now.
Also new …
I’m going to do fewer hourlong podcast interviews. Instead, I’m going to do two different sorts of podcasts:
The big ones: Multipart, multivoice series on a particular topic, akin to the great “American Fiasco” series.
The small ones: Short podcasts covering a couple of topics.
This week, it’s the latter. Give it a listen.
The three topics this week are:
Soccer writer Kyle Williams firmly believed that he and I could have a reasonable discussion about the U.S. soccer landscape and the potential for promotion/relegation within it. And we did. So there. I even found myself thinking of a new way to think about it by the end.
If you want to read even more about this, check the pro/rel page in all its words, er, glory.
Forget the long grass. Forget the complex drills. Shin guards optional.
That’s the advice from Shoeless Soccer co-author Nathan Richardson, a coach and one-time director of coaching when he’s not busy with his day job as a professor of Spanish literature. (We did not discuss whether Man of La Mancha, a musical in which I once played drums, is faithful to the source material.)
If you missed Part 1, please check it out. If you’ve already listened to Part 1, here’s Part 2:
Nathan Richardson, co-author of Shoeless Soccer: Fixing the System and Winning the World Cup (which I reviewed here), joins the podcast this week to talk about the radical yet somewhat globally accepted ideas in his book. Basically, instead of turning soccer into an expensive coach-driven activity, why not let kids learn by playing? And maybe on hard surfaces so they’ll learn to control the ball instead of booting it?
This conversation should give us all some ideas for how to reform youth soccer, even if you don’t agree with all of them, and it should put the term “rec mindset” to bed once and for all. We all start as rec players, and in many cases, that’s where we (well, not me) learn the things that make us better players down the road.
We ran rather long, so this will be a two-parter. (Here’s Part 2.)
Here’s Part 1:
Practice plans mentioned in the podcast are on the Massachusetts Youth Soccer site.
Thanks as always to Patreon supporters, and keep an eye out for RSD merchandise available soon.
Patreon supporters are:
Keith Bundy
John Stewart
Dave Russell
Jason McConnell
Tim Stanton
Bill Beane
Judith Cavill
Taylor Sorrels
Robert Hay
Rich Heironimus
Armando Diaz
Jeff Clarke
Duresport.com 