July 7, 2026 • 17 mins
Mike DeCourcy from The Sporting News joins Dick Fain and Hugh Millen to talk about the United States not showing up to play against Belgium, the USA road in the tourney finishing in the Round of 16, what the run means for soccer in the country and the youth future with the sport across generations, and Christian Pulisic’s criticism for his efforts.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Jackson, What wrong music? What did I do wrong music?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Abos February and March with Mike got you got.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Some different music from Mike Degrzy. There we go, There
we go, There we go. We're just so used to Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're just so used to playing that bed when you
come on and join us in February and March every year.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How are you, man?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am great, Dick, How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, it's great to talk to you. Maybe you know,
people are so familiar with Mike de Corsi, the college
Basketball Hall of Fame writer, especially here in Seattle. We
have you on all the time every year for the
last few years, talking college basketball. But you are much
more than a college basketball writer. Give us your give
us your soccer resume, your soccer writing resume.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
My friend, well, I.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Only really started covering soccer thirteen years ago. I when
we had a World Cup qualifier in Columbus, the Mexico
game that actually clinched advancement into twenty fourteen. And then
I covered the twenty fourteen World Cup in Brazil and
have been writing about it regularly ever since. It's been
(01:07):
other than college basketball. He counted up the words, it's
probably right you know right there in second place, maybe
the NFL that would be close. But I've written a
lot about soccer in that period of time, a lot
of a lot of the women's game as well, and
so and I had a chance to cover a lot
(01:27):
of this World Cup. I was out in Los Angeles
for the opening game and also for Iran's opening game
as well, and hopefully we'll be at the World Cup
final in ten days.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So what was your reaction to what you saw last night?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I can't remember the last time that I saw a
team play collectively that far below its standard and there
being essentially no exceptions to that, not like, OK, he's
playing well, but everybody else isn't, or those two guys
are doing fine, but or maybe even eight of them
are playing fine, but these three are messing it up
(02:07):
or whatever. It was a collective failure. I've never seen
anything quite like that that I can remember in all
of sports. I've seen teams get beaten by superior teams, certainly,
but I can't remember a team just collectively falling so
far so fast. There was no confidence, there was no connection,
(02:31):
there was no aggression, there was no belief, and the
fragility that existed was just shocking. It's hard for me
to understand. But you know one thing I'll say you,
is that.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Done.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I've done this for forty five years now and I
have probably used the word choke maybe three times top
in all those years. Certainly the Atlanta Falcons in the
Super Bowl against the Patriots. I mean, that's like the
definitive choke, right. But this was a collective crumbling against
(03:11):
the pressure of playing in that circumstance. The team they
lost to is a good team, and yeah they're ranked
like tenth or ninth or whatever in the world, but
they're not that good. They're good, but they're not that good,
and they certainly shouldn't do to the US men's national
team what they did last night.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, Mike, we were talking last hour about Balligan playing
for this team, and we thought it was going to
be a boost and maybe a detriment for Belgium. Did
it turn to be actually a negative impact on Team
USA because of the controversy and all the rigamarole and
turning them into villains, which they really didn't deserve to
(03:49):
be turned into. But they were over the last forty
eight to seventy.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Two hours, but they weren't but in that stadium, in
Seattle Stadium, they were lords of the manor. I mean
like when they walked out, there wasn't there wasn't any
the antipathy or any sort of sense of, well, maybe
(04:13):
we shouldn't root for them. No, I mean they walked
out and they were gosh, that's our guys. And when,
and especially when Baligan came out, there was a loud
celebration for him because he was going to play. You
can't be so fragile that because a few Europeans said
on Twitter that you shouldn't have got him back, that
all of a sudden, you're gonna completely collapse. I just
(04:34):
I can't buy that. And I don't think that I didn't.
I mean I thought I thought Belgium played very well,
but I didn't see any ferocity there. I just saw precision.
They were confident, they knew what they wanted to do,
they knew where they wanted to attack. They clearly made
Sergenio desk to target and he rewarded that handsomely. And
it just looked like the US was struck by the moment.
(05:00):
They've only been beyond that stage of the World Cup
in the modern era once before, and they looked like
they were playing two thousand and two Brazil in not
twenty twenty six Belgium.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, Mike DECURSI with us and Mike, I'm sure you
can remember as well as Dick and me that the
day when Sports Illustrated covers were really you know, there
was a sexy sex appeal to that, you know, in
the sports world definition. And I can recall in the
nineteen seventies the Sports Illustrated cover with Pele on it
(05:37):
playing for the New York Cosmos and they had sixty
seven thousand people in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And then
they brought Franz Breckenbaar, the famous German, on to play
for the Cosmos. And I was told then that this
is going to be the emergence of American soccer. And
then ninety one the women wanted in the Rose Bowl
in front of one hundred thousand. I'm like, okay, this
(05:59):
is going to be this board. And then the men
in two thousand and two they got to the quarterfinals. Well,
here we are in the last five World Cup cycles,
the United States has not passed the round of sixteen.
In the middle of those five they didn't qualify. They
(06:19):
had their worst at least by the score worst outing
last night. Of those TV ratings for the MLS Championship
game with MESSI were under a million. What if you're
looking for evidence that there is some kind of a
trend or a boost or a springboard for soccer, good
(06:43):
luck finding it because I don't see it. What where
where does this leave the state of US soccer? What
we saw last night, and I knew about this tournament, I.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Think you're I think you're asking a couple different questions there. Right,
the US men's national team is still in Remember we're
in year thirty six. Basically at thirty seven if you
want to count actually winning the World Cup qualifier in
Trinidad and Tobago. That got them into the ninety World Cup.
But that team really limped into that and they did qualify.
(07:15):
But from ninety on it has They've they've been a
regional power. They've been one of the two best teams
in North America along with Mexico. It's gone back and
forth in terms of who's on top. And then in
terms of the world, you're talking about countries that have
been at it for one hundred years, longer than the
(07:35):
United States have and that's a big difference, and I
think that those hundred years are hard to catch up to.
And then the other element of it, I mean, I
don't know what your experience was, Hugh, but I mean
I was not a great athlete. But when I was
growing up, I mean, soccer wasn't an option for me.
I mean, it wasn't played where I grew up, and
(07:58):
it was it probably was at the time some areas
I know in Carne, New Jersey, where like a third
of the ninety four team is from tab Ramos and
John Harks and Tony Miola those guys. I mean, it
was played there, but it wasn't played in Elizabeth of Pennsylvania.
And so now it certainly is. It's played everywhere in America.
(08:21):
And we have a team, I mean right down the
street from you, guys. You got a team in the
Seattle Sounders. It's drawing more than what thirty thousand people
a game. You look around the country. We have thirty
teams in MLS now, they're all well capitalized. They all
have academies where players, you young men usually around twelve
(08:43):
thirteen and up, can go and learn the game without
having to pay for it. That sort of thing. So
all of this is progress, but the road ahead is
the hard part. And I think not only the factor
of soccer is more available now than it used to be,
but there's still what four other major team sports that
(09:04):
kids can play. My nephew just got done with his
junior hockey is not junior like in Canada, but like
youth hockey career. He just graduated high school, played his
last youth tournament in hockey. He played all the way
through his youth. I mean, he could have played soccer,
but he played hockey. And other kids played baseball and
basketball and football, and and so that's that's an obstacle
(09:27):
to the US making progress as well. People look at
it and say, well, you know, all those guys might
not be great soccer players. But they might not be.
But for all we know, our MESSI is like a
backup quarterback for some Division two football team. We never
even saw a soccer ball.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Right, Well, how does that change? Because you're exactly right,
and I've seen you know, it seems like most of
these soccer stars in America come out of these really
really expensive, tens of thousands of dollars a year clubs
that don't cater to that quarterback in Division two.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
The you're talking about, well, I.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Think it changes by more parents who played soccer when
they were kids and loved it and realized that it's
a wonderful sport. I mean, I really am jealous of
kids who got to play, because it's a wonderful sport
for kids to play because you're running all the time.
It's such a great sport for fitness, and so more
(10:23):
more parents have more children that they pass on their
love of the game too, and it's probably general a
couple of generations away before you're even thinking about getting
too seriously to to to a semi finals. Not where
you get a great draw and fluke your way in
like some final four teams doing men's basketball, but where
(10:44):
you're you get there and you're seriously like, we could
win this thing and nothing weird has to happen. We
just have to play great and.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
That's you know that.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I don't think that that is around the corner, and
I never have thought so.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Mike de Coursey with us talking World Cup soccer, and
Mike so so if you're going to say this is
going to take a generation or two, kind of describe
the path, the timeline if you will, as you would
see it most logically in terms of is this going
to be a path where American kids are are are
(11:20):
foregoing other sports and and now the better athletes are
in soccer. Is that because they have an eye towards
playing in the MLS or is this somehow that they
have an eye for playing in the premier league, Like, like,
give us some signs and some attributes of this system
that's going to take hold perhaps in the next uh,
(11:41):
you know, generation or two as you described.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I think that's one of the near term obstacles is
that if you are a young athlete and you think
that you might be gifted enough, or your folks or
your people around that you think that you're gifted enough
to maybe have a future in as an athlete, the
target for you as a basketball player might be a
lot more narrow. There are fewer professional basketball teams that
(12:08):
pay handsomely. But man, if you go into basketball and
you've got it, look what you make. I mean, Donovan
Mitchell is going to make what sixty million dollars a
year now, and he's maybe the eighteenth best player in
the league. Somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe a little bit
better than that, Whereas, if you are a young American male,
you in order to make serious money playing you're probably
(12:31):
going to have to go to Europe right now. And
maybe you want maybe that it sounds great to you
that you could wind up playing in Rome or Paris
or wherever, but maybe you want to play in Pittsburgh,
and so your odds aren't as good there. So that's
an obstacle as well, is that the other sports baseball, football, hockey, basketball,
(12:53):
are right there in your neighborhood, and that's not true
with soccer. Can you play in MLS and make a
nice living. Absolutely, But one of the failings of MLS
to date is that when they spend big money, it's
almost always on a well known international player like Messi,
(13:14):
someone like that, and like Thomas Mueller up in Vancouver.
And about a decade ago when we had Michael Bradley,
Josie out the door, and of course Clint came to Seattle,
Clint Dempsey came to Seattle. Those guys were derided by
their own national team coach for doing it. Even though
Clint made way more money with the Sounders than he
(13:36):
would have in England. They got blasted for it. There
was no evidence that it hurt them. I mean, Clint
was the best player for the United States in Copa
America in twenty sixteen. Josie I actually once broke down
the goals for Josie. He scored more goals as an
MLS player than he did while he was playing in
(13:57):
Europe or Holland or wherever. I mean England, Holland or wherever.
He actually played better when he got back, but people
didn't want to hear that. They thought, oh, they're giving
up on the challenge of playing against the best. I
think that is hurtful to the growth of the game.
I think it helps if a kid can look and say, hey,
(14:17):
Clint Dempsey, he grew up in Texas and he's making
eight million dollars a year, six million whatever it was
with the Sounders. I can do that. We need that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Mike de Coursey from the Sporting News joining us talking
about that brutal loss by Team USA yesterday. In the
future of US soccer, Christian Polisic is in the crosshairs
without question. Is he more of a sympathetic figure in
your eyes where he was just too injured to make
a difference, or should he be the target of criticism
(14:47):
as a public disappointment.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think there's I think it's fair to say that
his performance last night was profoundly disappointing. He was poor.
If he were, like I said before, if he were
one of the few, then I think it would be
a little bit more reasonable to pounce on him. But
the collective failure was so profound that even if he
(15:13):
had found a way to play, well, what's he gonna do?
I mean, he's passing the ball to somebody who might
not handle it with the way things were going. If
he had been great, he'd make what three moves, three dribbles,
pass defenders, then he'd make a pass and the other
guy would be like, what do I do? That's the
way that game played out. He certainly he had the
bad luck with the injury from training that followed him
(15:34):
into the Paraguay game. But he was brilliant in that game.
I mean he was Those forty five minutes he played
were dazzling. It's what we all thought he was capable
of doing. And when he came on against Turkey A
in a game that really didn't matter, he was really terrific.
And against Bosnia he was very influential and was part
of the wall that was built in front of the goal.
(15:56):
As is the men played at ten down, he won down,
and with only ten men during that half hour or so,
that could have cost him advancement even to last night's game.
So I don't think his World Cup was that poor.
I think it was frustrating because once again, with an
opportunity to make a profound difference, he got hurt. And
(16:17):
that's often been the case with him, and he's played
much more good soccer for the US Men that is
often is commonly appreciated. The goal against Iran that got
them out of group in twenty twenty two, that was
all him, and he did not hold back and took
a shot where none of the three of us would
like to do that and scored the goal that got
(16:39):
them passed Iran. And he's scored big goals in games
against Mexico in World Cup qualifying, in Nations League. Obviously,
this was a huge opportunity for him that game last night.
Why he wasn't good, why the rest of them weren't
good will I don't know that I'll ever understand it,
because I don't know that they'll ever be forthcoming about
(17:01):
why they were so poor.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Mike, always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
We'll give you about a six month break and then
we'll talk to you again for college basketball.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
All right, sounds good, sounds.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Great, Dick, Thanks you.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Okay, Mike Coursi, our friend, the Hall of Fame writer
from the Sporting News. We'll come back. We'll bring Jackson
back into conversation as well. I mean that conversation of
what this means for the future of soccer in America.
I think that needs some more chewing. We'll do that
next on ninety three point three KJRFM.
Jackson, What wrong music? What did I do wrong music?
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Abos February and March with Mike got you got.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Some different music from Mike Degrzy. There we go, There
we go, There we go. We're just so used to Mike.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
We're just so used to playing that bed when you
come on and join us in February and March every year.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
How are you, man?
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I am great, Dick, How are you?
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Oh, it's great to talk to you. Maybe you know,
people are so familiar with Mike de Corsi, the college
Basketball Hall of Fame writer, especially here in Seattle. We
have you on all the time every year for the
last few years, talking college basketball. But you are much
more than a college basketball writer. Give us your give
us your soccer resume, your soccer writing resume.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
My friend, well, I.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Only really started covering soccer thirteen years ago. I when
we had a World Cup qualifier in Columbus, the Mexico
game that actually clinched advancement into twenty fourteen. And then
I covered the twenty fourteen World Cup in Brazil and
have been writing about it regularly ever since. It's been
(01:07):
other than college basketball. He counted up the words, it's
probably right you know right there in second place, maybe
the NFL that would be close. But I've written a
lot about soccer in that period of time, a lot
of a lot of the women's game as well, and
so and I had a chance to cover a lot
(01:27):
of this World Cup. I was out in Los Angeles
for the opening game and also for Iran's opening game
as well, and hopefully we'll be at the World Cup
final in ten days.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
So what was your reaction to what you saw last night?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
I can't remember the last time that I saw a
team play collectively that far below its standard and there
being essentially no exceptions to that, not like, OK, he's
playing well, but everybody else isn't, or those two guys
are doing fine, but or maybe even eight of them
are playing fine, but these three are messing it up
(02:07):
or whatever. It was a collective failure. I've never seen
anything quite like that that I can remember in all
of sports. I've seen teams get beaten by superior teams, certainly,
but I can't remember a team just collectively falling so
far so fast. There was no confidence, there was no connection,
(02:31):
there was no aggression, there was no belief, and the
fragility that existed was just shocking. It's hard for me
to understand. But you know one thing I'll say you,
is that.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
Done.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
I've done this for forty five years now and I
have probably used the word choke maybe three times top
in all those years. Certainly the Atlanta Falcons in the
Super Bowl against the Patriots. I mean, that's like the
definitive choke, right. But this was a collective crumbling against
(03:11):
the pressure of playing in that circumstance. The team they
lost to is a good team, and yeah they're ranked
like tenth or ninth or whatever in the world, but
they're not that good. They're good, but they're not that good,
and they certainly shouldn't do to the US men's national
team what they did last night.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Well, Mike, we were talking last hour about Balligan playing
for this team, and we thought it was going to
be a boost and maybe a detriment for Belgium. Did
it turn to be actually a negative impact on Team
USA because of the controversy and all the rigamarole and
turning them into villains, which they really didn't deserve to
(03:49):
be turned into. But they were over the last forty
eight to seventy.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
Two hours, but they weren't but in that stadium, in
Seattle Stadium, they were lords of the manor. I mean
like when they walked out, there wasn't there wasn't any
the antipathy or any sort of sense of, well, maybe
(04:13):
we shouldn't root for them. No, I mean they walked
out and they were gosh, that's our guys. And when,
and especially when Baligan came out, there was a loud
celebration for him because he was going to play. You
can't be so fragile that because a few Europeans said
on Twitter that you shouldn't have got him back, that
all of a sudden, you're gonna completely collapse. I just
(04:34):
I can't buy that. And I don't think that I didn't.
I mean I thought I thought Belgium played very well,
but I didn't see any ferocity there. I just saw precision.
They were confident, they knew what they wanted to do,
they knew where they wanted to attack. They clearly made
Sergenio desk to target and he rewarded that handsomely. And
it just looked like the US was struck by the moment.
(05:00):
They've only been beyond that stage of the World Cup
in the modern era once before, and they looked like
they were playing two thousand and two Brazil in not
twenty twenty six Belgium.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Yeah, Mike DECURSI with us and Mike, I'm sure you
can remember as well as Dick and me that the
day when Sports Illustrated covers were really you know, there
was a sexy sex appeal to that, you know, in
the sports world definition. And I can recall in the
nineteen seventies the Sports Illustrated cover with Pele on it
(05:37):
playing for the New York Cosmos and they had sixty
seven thousand people in East Rutherford, New Jersey. And then
they brought Franz Breckenbaar, the famous German, on to play
for the Cosmos. And I was told then that this
is going to be the emergence of American soccer. And
then ninety one the women wanted in the Rose Bowl
in front of one hundred thousand. I'm like, okay, this
(05:59):
is going to be this board. And then the men
in two thousand and two they got to the quarterfinals. Well,
here we are in the last five World Cup cycles,
the United States has not passed the round of sixteen.
In the middle of those five they didn't qualify. They
(06:19):
had their worst at least by the score worst outing
last night. Of those TV ratings for the MLS Championship
game with MESSI were under a million. What if you're
looking for evidence that there is some kind of a
trend or a boost or a springboard for soccer, good
(06:43):
luck finding it because I don't see it. What where
where does this leave the state of US soccer? What
we saw last night, and I knew about this tournament, I.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Think you're I think you're asking a couple different questions there. Right,
the US men's national team is still in Remember we're
in year thirty six. Basically at thirty seven if you
want to count actually winning the World Cup qualifier in
Trinidad and Tobago. That got them into the ninety World Cup.
But that team really limped into that and they did qualify.
(07:15):
But from ninety on it has They've they've been a
regional power. They've been one of the two best teams
in North America along with Mexico. It's gone back and
forth in terms of who's on top. And then in
terms of the world, you're talking about countries that have
been at it for one hundred years, longer than the
(07:35):
United States have and that's a big difference, and I
think that those hundred years are hard to catch up to.
And then the other element of it, I mean, I
don't know what your experience was, Hugh, but I mean
I was not a great athlete. But when I was
growing up, I mean, soccer wasn't an option for me.
I mean, it wasn't played where I grew up, and
(07:58):
it was it probably was at the time some areas
I know in Carne, New Jersey, where like a third
of the ninety four team is from tab Ramos and
John Harks and Tony Miola those guys. I mean, it
was played there, but it wasn't played in Elizabeth of Pennsylvania.
And so now it certainly is. It's played everywhere in America.
(08:21):
And we have a team, I mean right down the
street from you, guys. You got a team in the
Seattle Sounders. It's drawing more than what thirty thousand people
a game. You look around the country. We have thirty
teams in MLS now, they're all well capitalized. They all
have academies where players, you young men usually around twelve
(08:43):
thirteen and up, can go and learn the game without
having to pay for it. That sort of thing. So
all of this is progress, but the road ahead is
the hard part. And I think not only the factor
of soccer is more available now than it used to be,
but there's still what four other major team sports that
(09:04):
kids can play. My nephew just got done with his
junior hockey is not junior like in Canada, but like
youth hockey career. He just graduated high school, played his
last youth tournament in hockey. He played all the way
through his youth. I mean, he could have played soccer,
but he played hockey. And other kids played baseball and
basketball and football, and and so that's that's an obstacle
(09:27):
to the US making progress as well. People look at
it and say, well, you know, all those guys might
not be great soccer players. But they might not be.
But for all we know, our MESSI is like a
backup quarterback for some Division two football team. We never
even saw a soccer ball.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Right, Well, how does that change? Because you're exactly right,
and I've seen you know, it seems like most of
these soccer stars in America come out of these really
really expensive, tens of thousands of dollars a year clubs
that don't cater to that quarterback in Division two.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
The you're talking about, well, I.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Think it changes by more parents who played soccer when
they were kids and loved it and realized that it's
a wonderful sport. I mean, I really am jealous of
kids who got to play, because it's a wonderful sport
for kids to play because you're running all the time.
It's such a great sport for fitness, and so more
(10:23):
more parents have more children that they pass on their
love of the game too, and it's probably general a
couple of generations away before you're even thinking about getting
too seriously to to to a semi finals. Not where
you get a great draw and fluke your way in
like some final four teams doing men's basketball, but where
(10:44):
you're you get there and you're seriously like, we could
win this thing and nothing weird has to happen. We
just have to play great and.
Speaker 1 (10:52):
That's you know that.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I don't think that that is around the corner, and
I never have thought so.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Mike de Coursey with us talking World Cup soccer, and
Mike so so if you're going to say this is
going to take a generation or two, kind of describe
the path, the timeline if you will, as you would
see it most logically in terms of is this going
to be a path where American kids are are are
(11:20):
foregoing other sports and and now the better athletes are
in soccer. Is that because they have an eye towards
playing in the MLS or is this somehow that they
have an eye for playing in the premier league, Like, like,
give us some signs and some attributes of this system
that's going to take hold perhaps in the next uh,
(11:41):
you know, generation or two as you described.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I think that's one of the near term obstacles is
that if you are a young athlete and you think
that you might be gifted enough, or your folks or
your people around that you think that you're gifted enough
to maybe have a future in as an athlete, the
target for you as a basketball player might be a
lot more narrow. There are fewer professional basketball teams that
(12:08):
pay handsomely. But man, if you go into basketball and
you've got it, look what you make. I mean, Donovan
Mitchell is going to make what sixty million dollars a
year now, and he's maybe the eighteenth best player in
the league. Somewhere in that neighborhood, maybe a little bit
better than that, Whereas, if you are a young American male,
you in order to make serious money playing you're probably
(12:31):
going to have to go to Europe right now. And
maybe you want maybe that it sounds great to you
that you could wind up playing in Rome or Paris
or wherever, but maybe you want to play in Pittsburgh,
and so your odds aren't as good there. So that's
an obstacle as well, is that the other sports baseball, football, hockey, basketball,
(12:53):
are right there in your neighborhood, and that's not true
with soccer. Can you play in MLS and make a
nice living. Absolutely, But one of the failings of MLS
to date is that when they spend big money, it's
almost always on a well known international player like Messi,
(13:14):
someone like that, and like Thomas Mueller up in Vancouver.
And about a decade ago when we had Michael Bradley,
Josie out the door, and of course Clint came to Seattle,
Clint Dempsey came to Seattle. Those guys were derided by
their own national team coach for doing it. Even though
Clint made way more money with the Sounders than he
(13:36):
would have in England. They got blasted for it. There
was no evidence that it hurt them. I mean, Clint
was the best player for the United States in Copa
America in twenty sixteen. Josie I actually once broke down
the goals for Josie. He scored more goals as an
MLS player than he did while he was playing in
(13:57):
Europe or Holland or wherever. I mean England, Holland or wherever.
He actually played better when he got back, but people
didn't want to hear that. They thought, oh, they're giving
up on the challenge of playing against the best. I
think that is hurtful to the growth of the game.
I think it helps if a kid can look and say, hey,
(14:17):
Clint Dempsey, he grew up in Texas and he's making
eight million dollars a year, six million whatever it was
with the Sounders. I can do that. We need that.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
Mike de Coursey from the Sporting News joining us talking
about that brutal loss by Team USA yesterday. In the
future of US soccer, Christian Polisic is in the crosshairs
without question. Is he more of a sympathetic figure in
your eyes where he was just too injured to make
a difference, or should he be the target of criticism
(14:47):
as a public disappointment.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
I think there's I think it's fair to say that
his performance last night was profoundly disappointing. He was poor.
If he were, like I said before, if he were
one of the few, then I think it would be
a little bit more reasonable to pounce on him. But
the collective failure was so profound that even if he
(15:13):
had found a way to play, well, what's he gonna do?
I mean, he's passing the ball to somebody who might
not handle it with the way things were going. If
he had been great, he'd make what three moves, three dribbles,
pass defenders, then he'd make a pass and the other
guy would be like, what do I do? That's the
way that game played out. He certainly he had the
bad luck with the injury from training that followed him
(15:34):
into the Paraguay game. But he was brilliant in that game.
I mean he was Those forty five minutes he played
were dazzling. It's what we all thought he was capable
of doing. And when he came on against Turkey A
in a game that really didn't matter, he was really terrific.
And against Bosnia he was very influential and was part
of the wall that was built in front of the goal.
(15:56):
As is the men played at ten down, he won down,
and with only ten men during that half hour or so,
that could have cost him advancement even to last night's game.
So I don't think his World Cup was that poor.
I think it was frustrating because once again, with an
opportunity to make a profound difference, he got hurt. And
(16:17):
that's often been the case with him, and he's played
much more good soccer for the US Men that is
often is commonly appreciated. The goal against Iran that got
them out of group in twenty twenty two, that was
all him, and he did not hold back and took
a shot where none of the three of us would
like to do that and scored the goal that got
(16:39):
them passed Iran. And he's scored big goals in games
against Mexico in World Cup qualifying, in Nations League. Obviously,
this was a huge opportunity for him that game last night.
Why he wasn't good, why the rest of them weren't
good will I don't know that I'll ever understand it,
because I don't know that they'll ever be forthcoming about
(17:01):
why they were so poor.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
Mike, always a pleasure.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
We'll give you about a six month break and then
we'll talk to you again for college basketball.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
All right, sounds good, sounds.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Great, Dick, Thanks you.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
Okay, Mike Coursi, our friend, the Hall of Fame writer
from the Sporting News. We'll come back. We'll bring Jackson
back into conversation as well. I mean that conversation of
what this means for the future of soccer in America.
I think that needs some more chewing. We'll do that
next on ninety three point three KJRFM.
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