Women's Soccer Review Podcast - Catching Up After Two Months Away - Women’s Soccer Review podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
A quick note before we get started. We recorded this show on Thursday night
before everything went off the rails againwith the Washington Spirit over the weekend,
so you won't hear anything about thatin this show, but I'm sure we'll
discuss it down the road. Andanyway, we've already got so much to
talk about in this podcast. Sohere it is. I hope you enjoy
it. The women Fucker Review podcastwith Dwayne Rowlands and Jonathan Tannenwald on the

(00:31):
Sports Podcasting Networking. Welcome back tothe Women's Soccer Review here on the Sports
Podcasting Network. This is Jonathan Tannenwaldof the Philadelphia Inquirer. It's been over
two months since our last show.I realize it's been way too long.
A few things have happened since then. I had some plans for stuff to

(00:54):
do during the Olympics and they didn'tcome together because the feature guests was in
Tokyo and had too much to do, and the time zones didn't work out.
And none of that really should besurprising to anybody, because that's the
way things were with an Olympics inJapan. And then I went on the
first real vacation i've taken in along time. For a couple of weeks

(01:15):
that took me out to the WestCoast for a while. As everybody who
follows me on Twitter knows, Iended up at the Women's International Champions Cup,
which was a terrific time. Greatto be in Portland for a week,
see a lot of friends, watchedthem outstanding soccer games. You might
talk a little bit about that inthe course of the program. And now
finally I'm back settled in, returningto a rhythm of normal life and realizing,

(01:44):
oh yeah, I haven't done apodcast two months. I need to
fix that. So here I amwith a million things going on in the
soccer world, men's and women's,as everybody who knows me knows well,
but we've got time for this andto go through. I don't even there's
no word to describe what the stateof the NWSL is right now except maybe

(02:06):
first that would be the one Ithink probably works the best, except in
some ways it's not. Because thesoccer has been really good, and we'll
talk about that too a little bitwith my dear friend r J Allen of
Backline Soccer and as usual, morepodcasts than I can count. The most
recent of which RJ is so thelast one technically is called three in the

(02:27):
Back, the one before that isback heelled Nutmeg, and the one before
that is Dashing to the Races.So I currently have three. I'll be
recording Dashing to the Races actually oncewe're done with this. And the producer
of Three in the Back last NamelessNick As a guy who actually split hotel

(02:47):
room with him in Portland for afew days. Great guys, I'm glad
he's on board your program. Yes, yeah, he's a He's a very
knowledgeable individual, which is what youwant in a producer. Kevin just kidding,
Kevin is a very Kevin Larnmy ourproducer is a very knowledgeable guy who
also has been plenty busy. He'snow working for one of the TV networks

(03:10):
up in Montreal on their Major Leaguesoccer broadcasts, and I wouldn't be surprised
if he's doing a little more thanthat behind the scenes as well. But
I'll let him share that on socialmedia before I share it on here.
I don't know what order to dothis in, so I think I'm just
going to go in the order ofthe standings from top to bottom, which

(03:30):
will pang Angel City last, butthat might be a good thing, because
I'll be so frustrated by everything elseby then that I'll really be able to
say some things. At that point. We will start with the Portland Thorns,
first place by four points, runningover just about everybody in the league
at the moment except the Rain,whom they lost to in Seattle in a

(03:52):
fabulous game in front of the largestcrowd in the WSL history. That was
pretty cool. We'll get to theRain in a moment, but I want
to start with the Thorns and talkabout them winning the ICC and use this
yes as a moment. Oh mygod, he's got to plug his own
stuff again. Can he please stopplugging his subscriptions to the Inquiry No,
folks, I can't. Sorry.Thank you all who for the last two

(04:15):
months have read everything that I've writtenand subscribe to the Inquirer and shown that
you support our soccer coverage. Ireally do appreciate it. One of the
pieces that I wrote is that theInternational Champions Cup, even though it is
technically a tournament of exhibition games,has a point to make to the NWSL,
and that point, to me,is in the form of a flashing

(04:38):
arrow that says, go that way, and that way is you should care
not just about winning home games andselling tickets and jerseys off the backs of
US national team players, but youshould care about winning trophies and competing for
bigger trophies on an international stage,like the Thorns did against Leon and Barcelona,

(05:00):
and Houston acquitted itself quite well againstBarcelona, and the Thorns went out
and won the whole thing. Andwe all left Portland's saying we want more
of that, and r J,yeah, we do want more of that.
I think when you watch these games. I'm not a huge international club
competition person, but when you watchthese games, you can't help but get

(05:25):
excited about them. Now, tobe fair to the non American teams,
this is sort of their preseason.That is the hardest part is finding a
time when both teams are sort ofat their peak, because you could tell
at certain places that these are not, you know, middle of the season
equivalents. But I really had agood time watching these games. I didn't

(05:48):
expect to enjoy it as much asI did, which might be on me
as much as anything else. ButI would like this to expand because I
think the more we can show differentstyles off, different players off and sort
of have some fun. Remember socceroccasionally can be fun. I do think

(06:09):
that helps. They do intend toexpand next year to six teams. They
were looking at one point at goingeight, but they're going to hold it
to six for the time being.The idea is to have four from Europe
and two from the NWSL, andthey would like four from Europe to be
the champions of England, France,Germany and Spain, which they think,

(06:30):
for good reason, is going toget him a Champions League winner along the
way. I don't know if they'regoing to pull it off, because the
European teams have to want to comeover here. But the NWSL side of
it, they said, and Iknow the relevant sports organizers well enough to
believe they're going to do it,the NWSL teams must have been the previous

(06:53):
year's trophy winners and that piece ofit merit based qualification, and the relevant
sport let's have said this, havesaid this too. Until there's a Club
World Cup, We're just gonna godo this and we're gonna have teams that
win on WSL trophies against teams wintrophies in Europe and we're gonna have play
against each other and you want tosay it's not really the best team or

(07:15):
whatever you've said it r J.The soccer was terrific. And I think,
look, we can say, youknow, playing in Portland, you
know is unfair for blah blah blahreasons. Playing in Providence Park is unlike
anything else in women's soccer regularly.Right Yes, there'll be one off games

(07:38):
at men's stadiums and they'll be youknow, exhibitions, and they'll be things
like that. But every time ProvidencePark holds a Thorns game or holds a
game against a team that might playthe Thorns, the place is packed.
And I think having it, maybethey don't always have it in Portland,
but right now, having it inPortland, having that kind of fan reaction

(07:59):
from teams that don't always get aton of fans, and I think being
able to show that off, havingthat video of those games and having the
stands packed makes people who might notthink of going to a game, even
in a league that is more established, it makes it more accessible to them
and they might want to go,which helps rise attendance worldwide. Is it

(08:22):
the biggest impact no, but ithelps and anything that helps and doesn't hurt
women's soccer right now I am afan of Had there not been the pandemic,
the house would have been full.I'm pretty sure absolutely would have been.
It would have been pretty full forBarcelona ly On in one of the
semifinals. And I got down toPortland on the Sunday before the tournament started.

(08:43):
There was a Sounders Timbers game thatnight, which is the pre eminent
rivalry in American men's soccer, inany game that if you are, if
you're a soccer fan in the UnitedStates, it must be on your buckle
list to go to. There isno game and no atmosphere quite like it.
And I walked out of Providence Parkthat night saying to myself, the
next game on this field is BarcelonaLeon and that was a pretty cool feeling.

(09:07):
I would love to see it atRed Bull Arena at some point in
the future if God can qualify,and I think I am on safe ground
and saying that the relevant sports folkswould also like to see it at Red
Bull Arena at some point in thefuture, but where it might be next
year at the right things are going. In addition to a venue on the
west coast, there'll be one probablyon the east end. That one might
be North Carolina because the Courage arein second place and they just keep rolling

(09:33):
along, don't they. It feelslike Paul Riley went to Hogwarts at one
point and has a few magic spellsin his pocket that he will occasionally hit
one of the players with, likea spell to do magic. Because the
way that the Courage are yes,sam Us is different than you know,

(09:54):
Midfield, their number two or threein that lineup. But when the Courage
are st of clicking, you cantrade players in and out, and you
can move people around, and youcan do things that feel like they shouldn't
work. And on North Carolina,with Paul Riley at the helm, they
sort of make a little bit ofmagic. And I don't think that can

(10:16):
be undersold of how much that teamseems to believe in the kool aid that
Paul Riley is making every week.You know, there's some people out there
who would have looked at the AmyRodriguez trade and said, why is Amy
Rodriguez going to North Carolina? Shealso won the title. Well, you
and I who knew Amy Rodriguez whenshe was playing in Philadelphia for Paul Riley

(10:41):
knew why she was going to NorthCarolina because she can play for pot Riley
plenty well. And indeed she isplaying for Paul Riley plenty well. Yeah,
and you see somebody like Amy Rodriguez, who she's closer to the end
of the career than she obviously isthe beginning. She wants to win another
title and North Carolina is a placethat she can do it. It also

(11:01):
gives them another weapon up front.She is very different than Linn Williams or
Just McDonald or any of their otherattacking players. So it's fun to sort
of see Paul Riley have about sevendifferent peat brushes and whatever he needs to
paint with that day, he cansort of pull it out. And he's
managed to get different styles working togetherin a way that I don't necessarily think

(11:26):
sort of on first blush go togetherin third place or ol Rain, and
they might they might be a littlehigher even by the time all is said
and done, the way things aregoing. And when they had Portland at
Seattle of Portland in Seattle couple weeksago, we'd all been asking ourselves for
a while, Okay, what's goingto happen when they put Rooselvel, Jennifer

(11:50):
Marizanna, Jessica Fishlock, Megan Rapino, and you Jenny Less all on the
field at the same time. Arethey going to win? And the answer,
yeah, they did. They wentout and beat the Thorns, so
they can play and we're starting tosee now. I think what happens when
this all finally comes together. Yeah. And I think that Laura Harvey being

(12:11):
back is super interesting, right.She's somebody who intimately knows the NWCL.
She has coached in it except forher time with the US Soccer since twenty
thirteen, and one of her greateststrengths is the fact that she is very
good at managing a lot of verystrong personalities. And the one thing you
can say about the Rain right nowis they have a lot of personalities.

(12:35):
Getting Megan Rapino and Rose Lavel andMara Jean and Lissamara and all of these
players on the same page and it'snot the Megan Rapino show or the Rose
Lavel show or you know, theMara show. Like, having them all
working together is not as easy asone might think because they're each superstars in
their own right, and being ableto balance that and being able to get

(12:58):
people role players in to do theirjob without them feeling like, you know,
the team is slipping away and theydon't have a shot. That is
a talent and when Laura Harvey hasshown in the past she is very good
at that, and she obviously hasthe player's support and respect and trust,
you know, seeing the reactions ofFishlock and lu Barnes and everything when she
came back. These players genuinely havea great relationship with her, and the

(13:22):
newer players seem too as well.And I think that's going to help the
rain. You know, she youknow, you can quibble with her tactics
at times, but Laura Harvey knowshow to manage personalities on a team that
you need to know how to managepersonalities with that payroll. Now, it's
it's interesting. It takes something tomake Jessica Fishlock into a six because she

(13:46):
is very not a six. Yeah. One of the thing in fact,
Laura Harvey taking the helm was oneof the things that happened while the show
was on hiatus. Farid ben Steedresigned on July second, just a few
days after our last show, andLaura Harvey came in and I'm not going

(14:11):
to ask you to betray too manythings that you don't want to. But
for folks who haven't figured out this, over this out yet all the years
that RJ has been doing this,she knows a lot of things and she
knows a lot of people, andthat's why she's so good at it.
So I thought that Farid ben Steedywas not a half bad manager, that
his players seem to like him,or so they said whenever we asked.

(14:37):
He got the short end of thestick in a few ways, and clearly
something happened where he had to go. I get that, but was again,
I don't want to get you intoo much trouble, But was my
perception that the players liked ben Steedie? Was that wrong? I think that
the Seed is sort of of aplace and time that is not America in

(15:00):
twenty twenty one, and I don'tnecessarily think that they didn't like him.
I think the problem was they didn'tlike him a lot. And you know,
being able to be cordial, beingable to you know, work under
a coach is different than really likinga coach and believing that they know how
to get you there. And Idon't think the players believed that Ben Seed

(15:22):
could figure it out. I thinkthey gave him a decent amount of time.
It wasn't like, you know,you have five weeks to turn this
team around or your your can likehe had a decent amount of time.
I think the players thought he wasfine. I just don't think. You
know, Jes fish Luck and LauraHarvey have a bond that you can't break,
and when you're used to that,and when you have that for years

(15:43):
and a lot of the Rain Corpsis still there, I think then you
know, Vladiko comes in and he'ssomebody who you super respect in the league,
and the players have talked about howmuch you respect him, and then
you go to somebody who is completelydifferent, and I think that complete different
friends seemed to have been a bigissue because I don't necessarily think they hated

(16:04):
him, and from what I haveheard, they didn't hate him. It
just was a matter of he isnot of the place and time that these
players are sort of used to makeof that what you will, no,
I get it, I get it. Next is Orlando under somebody who I

(16:27):
what is it? More than halfthe league has changed managers since the last
one of our shows, so thisis going to be a recurring themes.
Teams have changed managers and teams arein message. Those are the themes of
tonight's. Tonight's broadcast is the sayinggoes. Mark Skinner left Orlando for Manchester
United, which raised a few eyebrowsover here. He seems to have not

(16:48):
changed his temperate at Manchester United atall that much, which is to say,
sir, you can talk a biggame, but you gotta go out
and win every once in a while. And Orlando's manager now is Becky Burley,
who has the job on an innerand basis has been without Alice Morgan
because she's dealing with a calf injury, but has had obviously plenty of other
good players. They went up toGotham in one last weekend, a game
I was at, and I thinkI want to alight on this with Becky

(17:12):
Burley because she is on a listof coaches who I think should have been
in this league a long time ago. I think she should have been the
Pride inaugural manager back in the day. But college coaches don't come up to
the NWSL because when they do,they generally the best ones take very big
pay cuts, and that is aproblem that this league needs to solve,

(17:37):
and it needs to solve it fairlysoon, I think, not tomorrow.
It needs to solve it soon enoughso that it develops black Going and Oski's
successor, which I'm not currently convincedit's going to do. And I'm not
calling for black Goo to be fired, thank you. Before everybody who wants
them out starts wondering why I've changedmy tune. I've written pretty forcifully that

(18:02):
I don't think he should go.I think he was hired, not he
was hired for the Olympics and thento overhaul the roster afterward. But in
fact, he was hired to overallthe roster afterward. So this is now
what he's going to do, andlet him do it. Back to Becky
Burley, Becky Burley is in aclass of coaches in college with Amanda Cromwell
at UCLA, Eric at Domback atPenn State, and a few others who

(18:26):
I think should be moving up tothe NWSL right about now. Eric at
Domback, for example, I thinkshould be in three or four years the
next head coach of the US women, whether it is during twenty twenty seven
or after. But if she's themanager, she's the manager of the US
team in twenty thirty one on homesoil, that would make a lot of

(18:47):
sense to me as things standard moment. But Cromwell, for example, we
know makes two hundred and forty thousanddollars at UCLA. That's a matter of
public record, folks. I'm notbetraying anything because he's CLA as a public
institution. So Amanda Cromwell's a publicemployee there for her salary is out there,
and she knows that Manda Cromwell isnot going to make two hundred and

(19:10):
forty thousand dollars in the NWSL coachingAngel City or anybody else. So it's
not all that surprising that Becky Burleydid not take the Pride job until she
had retired from the University of Floridaand had to be convinced by a MANA
Duffy to come over to Orlando tomanage the Pride. Which is a long
way of saying r J suthing,You've made point plenty often we've got a

(19:32):
problem here. Yeah, I thinkthere. I think there are a couple
of problems first and probably not theeasiest to fix. But easier of the
two to defects is the coaching pipeline. We're getting to a place where more
players are taking coaching licensing and they'redoing more coaching sort of through the tree.

(19:56):
Now, in a perfect world,how it works is you have a
assistant coaches, and as head coachingjobs come up, you have five or
six assistant coaches who are all qualifiedto be head coaches apply for a job,
and most of your coaches are formerassistant coaches. That is sort of
how it works in most other sportsleagues. And then you have occasionally somebody

(20:17):
brought up from college or from anotherleague or how have you. But getting
more former players, getting more peoplewho are qualified in assistant coaching roles who
are not, oh I coached amen's you seventeen team for a while or
different things like that, I thinkis really going to help finding qualified people

(20:37):
because one of the problems right nowis there are not a lot of qualified
people sort of ready to go thatare former players, and I think that
is a big deal. So Ithink that is something that we see starting
to getting the coaching licenses starting tochange, or at least potentially can change.
Soccer is one of those weird sportswhere you meet a coaching license.

(21:00):
Most other sports are like you're aformer player, you're going to be my
assistant coach. Awesome. So socceris a little bit right there. And
the second is, like you talkedabout, they don't the money is not
being willingly spent on going out andgetting a big name head coach. Now.
I don't know what Paul Riley makes, but I'm guessing it's probably a

(21:21):
pretty decent salary. He's not onan NWSL minimum player salary, right,
Like, he's making good money.Now it becomes this thing of if he
was, you know, to goinstant durance retires, right and he goes
coach UCLA and makes say two hundredthousand that's probably more than he makes now.
I don't think Paul Riley wants theoverturn every couple of years. I

(21:45):
think he likes to ride players outa little more than that. But yeah,
I think that the problem becomes ifthese coaches are making more money in
college, if it's more stable incollege, because you don't see a lot
of the big programs turning their coachesover because they can get the best players

(22:06):
so they have a better player pooland it's like I said, it's a
different mentality. College coaches get torecruit. They get to turn their roster
over every year or every couple ofyears, where in the end of yourself,
if you're you know, Kansas Citynext year, you might not be
infinitely better the way you can ifyou bring in a great freshman class.

(22:26):
Yes, you have the draft,you of other mechanisms, but it's a
different thing than going out and recruiting. If you can convince the number one
you know high school player to cometo your program, you can have that
versus you know, if your picknumber seven, moving up in the draft
pool is a lot more difficult potentially. So I think there's a couple of
things that play sort of the drawingthe coaches in and then having that organic

(22:49):
pool. I think the sort ofneed both prongs to fix the problem.
Unfortunately, the first one is notquick and the second one requires money.
There will always be college coaches,as there are in college basketball, as
there are in college football and everywhereelse, who don't want to coach in
the pros for any number of reasons. There are many famous examples in men's

(23:14):
college basketball. In my neck ofthe woods here in Philadelphia, including Jay
Wright at Villanova who was going intothe Naismith Hall of Fame in a few
days up in Springfield, Massachusetts.And they're you know, in college football
and women's college basketball too, obviously, Gino Warriama Pats, Summit, lots
of others have never left the collegeranks. And and in the WNBA you

(23:38):
would make enough money to britt beworth it. I was talking with somebody
recently who's who's in our business inthe soccer world, who said, you
know, this stability, as youmentioned r J, is very appealing.
I want Erica Domback's not going toget fired Amanda last Sorry, Manta Qualm

(24:00):
did get fired because she was caughtin the scandal um, you know,
but they are I don't remember actuallywhether she got fired, but they're Anton
Dorance, you know, eric atDomback, lots of Janet Rayfield, who
was at Illinois for a long time, is a great example. Becky Burley

(24:21):
was another. There stability in thosejobs. You're not going to get fired.
You have a life, you buya house, you raise a family,
you get in house tuition, etc. And lots of great things,
for sure. But I'm pretty surethat if the money was high enough in
NWSL manager jobs. Of course,a lot of these folks want to coach
in the pros someday and they woulddo it. Yeah. I think that

(24:45):
the hard thing for owners is theinvestment in a coach, right, because
if you can get a decent coachfor safe, we'll say forty thousand dollars
in most of these markets, whywould you pay one hundred and fifty thousand
for a great coach. There area lot of clubs that that ninety thousand
dollars like they don't want to spendthat ninety thousand because well, I want

(25:11):
to spend not maybe as little aspossible to run my team, but I
don't want to break the bank torun my team. And I think player
investment and coaching investment sort of showsthat the league might not be as mature
as the league thinks it is.I wonder if the day will arrive some
time when the NWSL is at thepoint where MLS was for a while and

(25:36):
in some cases still is where teamowners would rather spend big money on a
coach who thinks that they can makecheap players good instead of the other way
around. Your point about the NWSELSgrowth and maturity. Well, we've also
I mean we just saw a coachgo from Gotham to Angel City. I'm
assuming there's a pretty substantial pay raise. Yeah, because coaching in you know,

(26:00):
the New Jersey, New York areaand coaching in LA, like those
are two very large markets. NowLA seems to be throwing all of the
money in the world, both inNFTs and kristin press and discuss finds.
But there's a pay raise we wouldimagine there, right, And that's how
you're going to have to lure coaches. You know, if you're making if

(26:23):
you're offering a coach to go fromsay Chicago to Houston on the same pay,
they might not want to do that, even though it's the same league
where you know, you double thepay and you might get the coach you
want and you get the benefit ofsomebody knows the league and if you think
they're good, and then it mightbe worth it. But but owners have
to be willing to spend money,and the NWCL has a history of owners

(26:45):
kind of being cheap. You willalight upon gothamesc in a few minutes when
we get there. As we makeour weighted standings, we might stay there
in fact too, the Chicago RedStars are up next, currently in fifth
place as we record and in yours. I have a flaw of mine when
I do these podcasts is that Ithrow to the guests in the form of

(27:07):
a declarative sentence instead of the formof a question, which is how I'm
supposed to do it. So I'lldo it right this time and throw it
to you or Jane the form ofquestion, what do you think of the
Chicago Red Stars. I think theChicago Red Stars are about as middling as
you can get right now. Theyare not a bad soccer team. I
unfortunately think that Rory Dames is justnot the correct coach for that club anymore.

(27:33):
I think Rory Dames is not abad coach, but the problem is
all of the extra Rory Dames hasbeen able to get off of that roster
in years past. The last coupleof years, it seems like he can't
eke out anymore. And I thinkthat's that's one of the great tragedies of
having, you know, the DeBernardo and the Cola Preco midfield for so

(27:57):
many years, is he was ableto have them play above their sort of
hitting way and it just not happeninganymore between injury and just them not playing
sort of above their levels and allof that. So I think Rory James
is the problem, and also thereason they're in fifth in sort of a
weird way is they need a differentcoach, even if they take a dip

(28:21):
for a little while before that coachcan sort of build in their style.
They might also need a big gun. I'm not going to name any big
guns because you get in trouble whenyou name big guns about Chicago Red Star
touch this is true now, theyneed a big gun because the top teams
in the league have big guns andthey go win things and they tend to
beat the Red Stars at some pointalong the way because of that. And

(28:44):
that comes down on Arnham Whistler andwhether he wants a big gun. But
to your point about Rory Dames,the Chicago Red Stars are a team where
culture tends to where so we aretold matter a lot and create results and
all of these other things. Andyou're gonna say, well, I don't
want somebody who's not going to fitthe culture. In my response to that,
as somebody who's dealt a lot withteams over the years, that seemed

(29:06):
to say, oh, we're goingto win games because of culture. I'm
gonna say, no, you wanta big guns, you got and win
a trophy. I'm sorry, isthat fair? I mean, Chicago has
historically done pretty well with the guns, right. They had Kristin Press for
several years. They had Sam forfor I believe a Paaris seasons and they
did well. They got into thefinal one of those years. They got

(29:27):
what Kristin Press was three inches awayfrom beating North Carolina the year that Chicago
headed to North Carolina for a semi. So Chicago has historically done well when
they have a forward who likes toscore goals. The problem is that if
they rely only on having an excellentmidfield and one great forward, when that

(29:49):
one great forward has a bad game, Chicago historically has not been able to
find another way to win. Wewill come down to the Washington spirit and
this is unfortunately Yeah, and weare going to spend a lot of time.
Look, I don't think I haveto tell the audience of this show.

(30:14):
I don't have to rehatch the factsgenerally of what has happened. But
I am going for those who arenot fully aware, excuse me, of
all of the details. The keystory that has been written in all of
this came on August thirtieth from MollyHensley Clancy and Steve Goff of The Washington

(30:37):
Post about how Michelle Kang, whowas one of the part owners of the
Spirit, is fighting to get SteveBaldwin tossed out Steve Baldwin who hired Richie
Burke because Burke was his daughter's youthclub coach. And it was revealed that
Burke, for all his efforts tobe a nice guy, was in creating

(31:00):
an abusive work environment, as werethe men above him in the hierarchy,
which ran a number of players off. I think we can now say on
the record that Kay McCullough was oneof them. Yeah, that's been said
on the right. The alienated numberof players ran them off, caused a
toxic environment. The buck stops withSteve Baldwin. He has seen to it

(31:26):
that that buck comes from a defensecontractor not the first time that a sports
team in Washington has done that.Here's what I will say about that,
as somebody grew up there, thereis a lot of money in the defense
contracting business in the Washington area.I am thirty seven and there has been
for all thirty seven years of mylife. If you want big money from

(31:48):
the private sector in Washington to fundyour sports team, that's where it is.
From there. It depends how muchof a deal with the devil you're
willing to make. Steve Baldwin andevidently does not mind making deals with the
devil in a number of different ways, I think it's fair to say,

(32:09):
including how he hired his manager,which then blew up on him. And
again the fact that Richie Burke isa loudmouth and a profane loudmouth. That
and that that's not gonna go oververy well with people who haven't known him
for twenty years is really no surprise. And I know that a number of

(32:35):
people who follow me on Twitter knowthat I have known of Richie Burke since
I was in high school, whenhe was yelling at me when I was
the ball boy on the sidelines frommy high school's girls soccer games. He
has always been allowed me. Somepeople take to that better than others.

(32:55):
I'm not excusing to bit what hedid. I'm saying prized and the times
have you said earlier on this show, the time to change and people are
not so willing to be coached bya profane, loudmouth anymore. And if
you're one of the people out therewho sometimes these people email me every once
in a while and they say thatthese people need to buck up and so
on, it, well, thereare again, there are some environments where

(33:22):
the players are willing to be coachedthat way. I don't think we should
deny that, but it's not theway it used to be. It's certainly
not like that now in women's soccer, with a much greater degree than it's
ever been before. And the playershave stood up for themselves and said,
hey, we want to play professionalsoccer. We want to work hard,

(33:43):
we want to play hard, wewant to play well, and we want
to win games. But we'd rathernot be treated poorly, thank you,
and we'd rather treat be treated bysomebody who understands our lives. And it
was a little more sympathetic to us, thank you, and so see,
so excuse me, So Richie Burkegoes. Steve Baldwin has not gone yet.

(34:05):
Do I think he might? Youare J and I both think he
might. I think I can safelysay yes, we do. It's a
matter of when, and maybe wecan alight on that here for a moment,
r J, because we should attemptto figure out how that might happen.
Oh where where to start. Ithink at some point within the next

(34:32):
month he's gone, and I don'tthink it's necessarily going to be willingly.
Um. I don't think he willdo anything willingly that makes his ego feel
like it is being disrespected, becausesome of the last week has been his
own doing, you know, sellthe team. Steve is a relatively small

(34:55):
banner that would have gotten you know, maybe a hundred, maybe two hundred
likes on Twitter and retweets, andhe turned it into at least one Washington
Post piece retweets by National Me likeall of these things, by simply not
being able to have that sign up. The Rose Room Collected had a banner

(35:19):
up for those who don't know hewanted it taken down. There was a
police officer hiding out of sight.This is a predominantly people of color supporters
group, and that is not greatoptics, whether you're in Washington, DC
or whether you're in any other stadium. So I think that that Steve Baldwin

(35:43):
is sort of his own undoing,which a lot of these a lot of
the people connected to Washington seam inthe sort of in some of the statements
lately, people have forgotten Bill Lynchis still an owner of the team,
smaller portion then he used to be, but he's still involved. And it

(36:05):
seems to be like Washington never reallyhas had to clean house. They've just
sort of gussied up the front walkand have been able to skirt by.
And I think this might actually bethe systemic change that Washington needs if the
NWSL is willing to do that.And that's my biggest question, and my
question back to you is do youthink the NWSL is willing to take the

(36:27):
steps on a team like Washington wherethere is history and there is eyes on
it versus something like a Utah whereit was easy to just move them back
to Kansas City and sort of pretendthat it never happened. I think they
are willing. I think there aredefinitely people around the league in positions of
power who are willing. I don'tknow if Lisa Baird is one of them.

(36:50):
And I don't say that to impuneLisa Baird before anybody jumps on me
about that. I genuinely don't know, because I haven't been able to ask
her. I would like too.I hope to have the opportunity to one
of these days. I'm sure,I'm not sure all of us in the
media. I would like to havethat opportunity, but I have not had
the opportunity to ask her about thatsituation yet. So from that, I

(37:15):
know of people in power who arein the process of trying to make it
so that Burt Baldwin is gone.We know that Michelle Kang and Baldwin had
discussions for Baldwin to sell the teamto Kang, which he then backed out.
What I don't know, and Idon't know if these rules are public

(37:38):
because this is the NWSL. Ialso haven't had the time to look them
up. They may well be public, so if they are, somebody will
let me know. I don't knowhow one forces an owner out of this
league from league headquarters. If youare Major League Soccer or the NFL,
are Major League Baseball or the NBAor whatever, you probably have a bag

(38:00):
of cash in a closet was safethat you can use to buy a bad
owner out with and get them outand sit on the asset of the franchise
until you can buy some find somebodyto buy it, who then replenishes the
bag of cash in the safe andthe debts and whatever else. I'm not
sure the NWSL as an entity hasthat cash one hand right now. Yeah,

(38:24):
I feel like they would have toborrow it or do a loan from
US Soccer, potentially which US Soccermay have their own reservations for a deal
like that. I would imagine thatborrowing it from a commercial institution would be
the way to do it. Butthat's again. I also, you know,

(38:46):
the league thinking about thinking about anythink of whether or not the league
has operated a franchise yet. Ithink in technicality they operated as a city
for like two days, either comingor going, but they've never long term

(39:06):
operated a franchise. It's not likethe you know MLS when they were operating
a franchise. I believe that's right. I know you will be able to
tell me they have done that.I forget which one it was, but
it was a while ago, butthey have done it. The people are
people are comparing the situation to theUtah Royals. I actually think the comparison
might well be the old Kansas Citysituation. Yeah, I think I don't

(39:30):
think the NWSL haves staff, resourcesor the ability to run a franchise.
I think if something like this wereto happen where they need to borrow the
money to buy out Baldwin and potentiallyLynch as well, I think what likely
would happen. What would be theywould use the money and then they would

(39:52):
have Kang actually run the team orsomebody that Kang appointed running the team.
I don't think the NWSL is willingor able to do with them solves in
terms of being able to approve thingsand things like that. And I will
say one other thing for people who'vebrought up their Utah situation, and here
is why Kansas City is the copbecause the NWSL had to be the NWSL

(40:19):
office had to be directly involved inbooting out the Kansas City owners twice.
As it turned out, Yeah,the NWSL did not actually boot out Deloy
Hanson. Major League Soccer booted outDeloy Hanson and forced him to sell the
whole holding company that included the UtahRoyals. The NWSL didn't technically have to

(40:42):
force him to do anything as faras I know, right, and then
Kansas City got the team and theholding company got a franchise for twenty twenty
three if they wanted it right,and we'll see what comes to that.
But for that's just a little historylesson for folks out there listening who might
not have been following the NWSL orits entire histories. As we were about

(41:06):
to start recording this show, thenews came down from the Spirit that they
have hired Ben Olsen to be theteam's top executive. This club president is
the technical name. I've known BenOlsen for a long time. There are

(41:30):
very few people in the history ofsoccer in Washington who are more respected in
that town by the soccer fan base. He'd be a great asset for any
professional soccer team of any stripe inthe Washington area, especially as somebody who
might well be a public facing figureto a great degree. I don't know

(41:54):
that I would have hired him withthis job. I think he is in
potentially an unwinnable situation. Obviously,there are diversity issues in relating to the
hiring of a white guy who wassitting around without a job, who happened

(42:15):
to be close friends with one ofthe part owners for a long time and
an investor. In that guy's defense, contracting company, although I will bet
the amount of money that Olson putin was very small at the time because
when he was manager of DC Unitedin twenty fifteen, he wouldn't make it
all that much and he was tryingto raise a family living in the city.

(42:37):
He's a very, very politically liberalperson, very one of the most
politically active managers in Major League soccerhistory, and I think the Spirit fans
who don't know that yet, we'lllearn that, hopefully soon, if Steve
Baldwin lets Olson talk freely, whichI hope he does, and that's I
should know better than hope that rJ. I wouldn't hired him. And

(43:00):
I wonder what you think of thesituation. I think that Ben Olsen is
in an unwinnable situation because nobody fromthe fan base, I think, is
going to give him the time ofday. Which you put somebody in this
because you want to win over thefans. You want them to see,

(43:21):
Hey, I know that name.If I'm if I'm a Spirit fan,
this is somebody I like. Thisis you know. I've seen a couple
of people on Twitter who feel conflictedand they have his jersey hanging in their
closet. And it becomes this thingwhere you're trying to buy that loyalty.
But I think because you're putting anotherstraight white guy into a position, there
are people who are going to seethat. They're going to see he was

(43:44):
friends with one of the owners andit does not matter what policies or positions
he put in. Now, isthat fair or not. I'm not gonna
I'm not going to litigate somebody's personalfeelings on this, but what I will
say is I think that rushing toput somebody in and I do feel like
this is a rush by the ownership, rushing to put somebody in without even

(44:07):
going through the motions of we're goingto interview candidates, we're going to talk
to women, We're going to talkto other people, We're gonna, you
know, learn from our mistakes.I think they're not even going through the
process of the show. And oh, Ben was the best person for the
job. And I think that's partof the problem is that the Spirit ownership

(44:29):
don't seem to actually want to evenpretend that they care. They just want
to Baldwin just wants this as anego project, and Kang may or may
not have the money to do this. On her own. It seems like
she probably can't do it solely onher own, and if she can't do
it with some of her own peopleand getting the money together, and then

(44:52):
I think this gets messy. Whenyou have an owner who can just buy
out the other owners without you know, blinking an eye, that's one thing.
But when you have sort of anownership fight where nobody has all of
the money to be able to dothis, things get a lot messier.
And when you have one owner puttingsomebody in without the other sort of major
owner knowing, and then that becomeseven a bigger problem. Yeah, that's

(45:16):
what I was going to get to. The Washington Post reported that Michelle Kang
did not know about this. SteveBallwill went around her. That that is
blazing, red light sirens, allof it, you know. Yeah,
And I question a couple other bitsof this that I'll try to handle quickly.

(45:37):
To your point earlier, you saidyou're not sure how the soccer fans
are going to react. I thinka number of the soccer fans in Washington
are gonna like this. Are thewomen's soccer fans slash women's sports fans who
don't follow soccer, writ large.Are they gonna much care? I don't

(45:59):
know. I've noticed that some ofthe reaction against him, certainly in my
mentions, has come from outside ofthe Washington area. Understandably, I'm not
saying anything wrong. I'm just happeningto observe that. I also noticed the
timing, and this is mean alittle inside baseball media stuff on my part.

(46:23):
They announced this on a day whenSteve Goff is in San Salvador or
El Salvado are covering the US men'sgame national team's first game in World Cup
qualifying. The extreme conspiracist conspiracy theoristin me, who really probably shouldn't say
this on the record, but thespirit or at a point where they have

(46:46):
so little benefit of the doubt,I'm gonna throw it out there. The
conspiracy theorist would like some reassurance thatthey did not time this announcement to a
point when Steve wasn't around and whenfocusing on other things and might be able
to slip it by and have somebodyelse righted who wasn't paying closer attention.

(47:07):
As it turns out, you can'tdo that, because he's paying attention even
from down there, four hours beforekickoff in a stadium that opened. We're
recording this at just about eight o'clock, two hours before kickoff, and sensor
the stadium gates will have been opened, I believe, for eight and a
half hours by the time, no, sorry, more than that nine and
a half hours by the time thegame kicks off. When you're on the

(47:28):
road covering the US Men, youare in the door and sat in the
press box long before kickoff as asecurity masher. Are you trying to get
around some people by announcing it atfive o'clock on game day? I hope
not. It's my outlandish conspiracy theory, RJ. And I know you're always

(47:51):
one for outlandish conspiracy theories. Feelfree to tell me if I'm wrong.
But you know, I mean,I don't know if it was specifically aimed
at golf, but I do thinkthere is something to it. Right of
people are going to focus on themen The DC area, you know,
has a long history of supporting themen's national team. It doesn't strike me
as unrealistic that they were like,well, if everybody's focusing over here,

(48:15):
we're gonna just slip out this pressrelease. We'll put a couple of nice
quotes in everybody likes Olson or I'msorry, everybody likes Ben so we'll be
fine, right, And it's easynow have NWSL clubs put out information during
the Olympics and when the US women'snational team play, hoping that somebody won't

(48:36):
cover it. Absolutely so using themen's national team it cover doesn't seem like
that much of a that much ofa stretch to me. And it's of
course a compliment to Steve Goff,who's one of the best in the business,
has been for a long time thatyou would try and pull that off.
Okay, let's let's let the peoplebreathe for a minute. We're gonna
take a quick commercial break before wecome back and discuss Gotham and the rest

(49:01):
of the league. This is thewomen's soccer review here on the Sports Podcasting
Network. It is great to beback, and we'll be back in just
a moment. Welcome back to thewomen's soccer review here on the Sports Podcasting
Network. Jonathan Tannenwald of The Philadelphiainquired with R. J. Allen of
Backline Soccer and the Internet at large. We are making our way slowly through

(49:25):
the NWSL standings, reviewing the goingson with each team, and we have
now come to Gotham FC, whichis the team that I know the best
and have been covering quite a bitlately, as you all have seen,
to the point where I got someemails from people asking me why I had
stopped covering the Philadelphia Union to gocover Gotham FC, and the answers.
I have not stopped covering the PhiladelphiaUnion, thank you. But I cover

(49:52):
more than one soccer team. Icover many of them at once in Gotham
is one of them. In thetime since our last show, elis La
Hugh was five as general manager.We don't know very much about why,
except that the league, according toEqualizer Soccer and we all believe it,

(50:13):
opened a harassment investigation investigation into herabout harassment charges which then led to her
departure. Yeah, we will leaveit at that for now. They have
not they have hired well, Iwas about to say they have not hired

(50:34):
a replacement general manager, and hereis what I mean by that. They
have hired yl Avery bush West onan interim basis. It took until this
week as we are recording this onThursday. It was earlier this week that
I was probably the first person whohad the opportunity to ask her, do

(50:57):
you want the job full time?And she does, and we'll see if
she gets it. You'd think ofthe rate she's going, she probably will.
So now we get to Freya Kum, who took the Angel City job

(51:22):
after Elisla Hugh had given Angel Citypermission to interview her, which may or
may not have been above board.We will might get into that get in
a little now. There is ampleprecedent for coaches to sign pre contracts,
for teams to get permission to interviewa coach whose contract is expiring for a

(51:44):
future job. However, there werepeople who thought that Freya could stay on
for the rest of the year,it would be just fine. Well,
no, she can't, because youare it's not like German soccer. It's
not like the NFL. You arecoaching players who you might take in an
expansion draft and whose stock and saidexpansion draft you might affect by how much

(52:06):
or how little you play them.So freyk Crumb had to go, and
ultimately she did, and nobody reallyhad any idea as to who was going
to replace her until we've to thepoint where I went to the Gotham Houston
game on Sunday, which was freykCumb's last game, and McCaul Zerboni gave

(52:32):
it to us pretty straight as Ipull up the quote here. I want
to be transparent. It's been really, really difficult. It's been an emotional
roller coaster, and it's been avery uneven environment off the field, and
we're all just trying to navigate itand figure it out and deal with the
news and deal with the anxiety ofwhat's to come and the changes that we're
going through. And I walked outof Bullerina saying publicly because it was a

(53:05):
fact, Gotham FC is not goingto have a manager tomorrow in the middle
of the season, and a bunchof people told me, oh, it'll
be we're in the process. It'llbe finally announcing a dude as a shore
great and it was announced on Tuesday. It was fine, but in the
middle of the season they didn't havea manager, and that, yeah,

(53:28):
I think that's allowed to stand onits face for a minute and illustrate some
of the absurdities of what's been goingon here. The weird thing about Gotham
is there there is more than oneowner, but one of the owners is
the current governor of New Jersey,and it seems like because of how Gotham
is structured, the owners themselves don'treally want to be public facing. You

(53:54):
look at a team like Chicago,everybody knows who the owner is, right.
You look at Angel City, everybodyknows who's the who the main owner
is there other obviously at Washington,you know who the owner is, whether
you want him to continue in thejob or not. UM. But with
Gotham, it's it's been Laque rightshe as the GM, has been the
face of that team. And Ithink when you when you don't have an

(54:17):
owner, that's very present, whenyou don't have um sort of a president
of soccer or something like that,when you're your GM, whatever other titles
they have, it's sort of themain face. When that person has gone
justified or not, you know,should be or not. People are going
to be confused and they're going tofeel like if you're not putting out information

(54:43):
that there's something perhaps worse, perhapsbetter going on because they don't know.
So they're gonna go on Twitter andthey're going to search for a Laque and
they're going to see all these wildconspiracy theories ranging from she eats babies too.
She's one of the lizard people thatQueen Elizabeth has planted in the US
for you know, nefarious reasons,and they're going to pick one that they

(55:05):
like and they're going to run withit. And that has been in my
Twitter mentions for the last three weeks. But it becomes this thing where if
the clubs aren't putting out information,and it seems in this case it's because
of legal reasons, which we'll getto in a few minutes, for other
legal reasons, it becomes something wherethere's that information vacuum, and I think

(55:29):
le Hue sort of being forced outand then Freyakum leaving of her own volition
to take a different job. Itis a hard thing for fans, whether
you're a fan of Dothan or atthe end of you sell at large to
take now. They made the smartestmove possible by bringing in aberpush West because

(55:49):
she is somebody who has been incrediblyonline, who has been incredibly in touch
with fans, who is really reallysmart about soccer, and who is thoughtful,
and who has sort of shared herlife with her dog and her kid
and the husband. And it's beengood because people trust her so I think
if you're going to sort of havelike you leave and you're gonna have leave,

(56:12):
and you're gonna have everybody else leave, bringing her in is really great,
um, sort of without the differentchange in coaching and without the assistant
coach that they brought in to JacobCrista Ball during her playing days named the
Sun China Assassin, which is stillmy favorite nickname in the league, Jacob
Krista Ball out of Seattle, Soshout out there. But yeah, I

(56:36):
think that there is a giant messin Gotham and we'll see if it gets
healed with sort of the new peoplein new positions in The interesting thing about
Yale Abrawish West is that she wasbasically down the street and I had a
little lucky in that regard. Ithink she's always cared very deeply about the

(56:59):
organization, that is for sure.Her mom was with the team for years,
I think on the administrative side aswell. Plus she played for them
right she started her pro career then. And she's from mont Clair, New
Jersey, which is you want totalk about the heart of the New Jersey
women's soccer landscape, Mark Claire whopretty well nails it and and they hired

(57:27):
Scott Parkinson, which is a universallyapplauded higher I was surprised by that,
to be completely honest, I wasexpecting a lot more pushback than I saw.
I was too, but yeah,and you know, I was one
of the reporters who got you know, the tip in advance and the exclusive

(57:50):
interview before the announcement saw on,which was great, and Scott was directic
in Bev was terrific. In y'all, I've known for a long time and
obviously mentioned her husband as celebrity women'ssoccer fans go Aaron West to a number
of you all know of is verymuch on the list. He's plenty.

(58:12):
He's just been over in Venice,Italy, where unfortunately he did not bring
us all back from Easia Jersey's eyes. I had hoped he would, but
yeah, no. I I kepthearing from players and coaches alike at Gotham,
I think we're gonna be okay,and sometimes I'm too cynical. I

(58:32):
didn't believe it. They might actuallybe okay. Even though Parkinson now he's
not going to coach his first gameon the bench until the twenty fifth of
September because It's funny the Gotham's firstgame since to hire him is against the
Red Stars on Saturday, but Parkinsonwas always going to miss that game because
he has a family, a commitmentand funeral in the family to go to.

(58:57):
It's his first head coaching job.That is a rare example we alluded
to earlier of an assistant coach movingup the pipe, and a lot of
people are very happy for him.And we will see how excuse me,
how he does, and Bev Janezdoes, and Becky Tweet is staying on
the staff, which will make oneof our former guests on the show,
Syl Benjamin, very very happy.He knows her pretty well. We'll see,

(59:22):
We'll see how they do with ateam that, as I wrote,
has got a lot of veterans anda lot of young folks. It's the
right mix. If somebody can putit together, they can get going and
go on a run. They canshoot right up the table. And I
don't think any of us would besurprised r J if that happens. No,

(59:44):
I'm I'm confident enough to say Icould see them hosting a playoff game
if they're able to put it alltogether. Everybody can get healthy and get
back. I think they have allthe parts. The Parkinson's hire is interesting
to me because, like we said, we don't get many assistant coaches moving
up, and he unlike a lotof assistant coaches. Usually if if you

(01:00:07):
see it moving up, people aregenerally happy. Players were almost writing love
letters to him, not in sortof a very organic, very like you
have been a great coach, Iwish you luck sort of way. We've
seen it Chicago players, former players. I believe there's in Utah for a
while players there. We're writing aboutit, and I think he just genuinely

(01:00:30):
comes off as a nice person wholoves his job, loves soccer, and
who is very sort of well received. And it's nice when good things happen
to good people, right like youand I are, or maybe more of
the cynical members of the wisso mediacobble, But we are not so cynical

(01:00:52):
that when a good thing happens toa good person we are not happy for
it. So I am. Isaw that, or I heard of it
the night before it was going todraw up, and I was just happy
that a good thing happened to somebodywith knock wood. But no scandals attached.
He hasn't like buried an old personin a room somewhere like it's an

(01:01:12):
episode of Stranger Things. So I'mhappy that a good thing happened to a
singingly good person. And having explayers come in as assistant coaches as Jana's
is doing is excellent. She isa very fun person and I got to
interview her back many many years agowhen I first started this, and it
was a great experience. So I'mhappy to see her back. And Scott

(01:01:37):
Parkinson a guy with a real socialconscience, as we saw when he stood
up for Sarah Gordon and I asked, I asked him about that, and
I'll read you what he said.What we're doing to improve the world,
to improve our communities here in theUnited States, across the country is way

(01:01:58):
bigger than football. Football is justthe platform. Pause here a note.
By the way, he's from Liverpool. He's got a fixed Scouse accent that
I cannot replicate, so I willnot try to. And he said,
as a privileged white man who cometo this country and was given everything because
I had an accent and I couldplay soccer, Okay, I've seen what
I have. What I've been ableto have and achieve that others haven't,

(01:02:21):
and it breaks my heart. That'snot a turn of phrase you hear often
on the record from all that manypeople in the context of race, in
the context of class, or inthe context of the simple old story that
a lot of English folks come overhere and make money teaching young American kids
like me back in the day,I was one of them how to run
around and kick a soccer. Yeah, he seems to be a good mix

(01:02:47):
for that team you have, youknow, players like person and others who
are very socially active. And youknow, one of my favorite images I
think to ever come out of women'ssoccer is Megan Rapino and Midgepurst sitting midgepurs
sitting in the president's chair, andit's one of those things, like,

(01:03:07):
you know, women's soccer has comea long way in many years, and
I think he's somebody, especially forNew Jersey, New York. I think
he will fit in well. Andthere are also, you know, enough
places where he can go and hearfamiliar accents from home in the city,
so I think he'll be right athome. There are are there are no
small number of places in Manhattan whereyou can be an Evertt fan, that's

(01:03:30):
for sure. Um, I evenknow a couple of them, because I've
got a very good friend who livesin New York who is an Everton fan.
We come to the Houston Dash,about which we will not have as
much to say for perhaps the betterin this case. Yeah, as Gotham
in Washington and some of the others. You know, I think I wondered

(01:03:52):
every once in a while once thatwhat their ambitions were, and they showed
some hints of it in the waythey played Barcelona and took a lead on
him at one point. And nowthey've gone out and signed Abbey Dalkin.
Right, I know it's only goingto be for I've seen, I've heard.
I'm inclined to believe, We're allclined to believed because they've said it's
only going to be for a fewmonths. But that's a move to me

(01:04:14):
that that has a little bit ofambition in it. For what it's worth.
I emailed the Houston Dash and that'sdirectly is this alone or is this
a trade? And they said inblack and white writing, this is a
trade and any further questions need tobe referred to the league, and it
was one of those like, ohso it's a it's a trade with a

(01:04:34):
little asterisks that you didn't put nextto the trade. One of the reasons
they had to call it a tradeis because per NWSL restrictions, you can't
have one NWSL club lone a playerto another NWSL club. So I'm very
interested. We will never see thelanguage that they put in to make this
happen, but I would be veryinterested to see the language put in to

(01:04:57):
make this happen, because per andbasal rules, it should not. But
anyway, I think Houston is ateam that when they play their best soccer,
they are fun and exciting and doreally cool things, and when they
cool off, they go ice cold. There is no barely acceptable Houston dash.

(01:05:21):
They are at a ten or theyare at a two, and I
think that Houston has always had alittle bit of that. I just think
that it seems to be turned upin an Olympic year where they lost Muis
and Bailey and all of the Canadians, so unfortunately, I think they suffered

(01:05:41):
from They're super fun and super dynamicunless they cool off, and then it
seems like if one player has acooling off period. Everybody follows. They're
they're good friends like that. Theonly the only thing I will add is
that this is another one of thoseexamples where really the NWSL does not have
to follow the Major League Soccer RosterRules Book to the square inch, because

(01:06:06):
the rule that you can't loan aplayer between clubs in the league and a
single lanity operation was MLS's rule fora long time until the league got so
big and the teams actually wanted todo things that they scraped the rule.
And I would imagine that the NWSLwill scrap this rule tool too, ultimately,
because too many of the clubs aregoing to be able to want to
do this. So it's you know, if she gets traded back to it

(01:06:30):
for exactly the same amount of allocationmoney for which she was traded, then
we won't know, although we keephearing that there's something big and more substantive
to it. We'll see, allright, are we ready for Louisville?
Oh? Is anybody ready for Louisvillewithout a big thing of bourbon next to
them? And I only have abeer or so, well, we'll see
if we can get through the Jonathan, I am not drinking alcohol during this

(01:06:56):
I don't drink alcohol on the air. I am of lesser constitution than you
and some of your colleagues. Iadmire those of you who are able to
do all of this in that manner. So Christie Holly is out fired for
cause with ann and phrase which meansyou cannot sue us to get your job

(01:07:19):
back. That's why you say forcause. W DRB, the Fox affiliate
in Louisville is what I believe.It is reported that some players complained about
a quote toxic environment end quote theyallege was fostered by the coach, as
well as other potential improprieties. Youand I and a few other people in

(01:07:45):
our business have heard some things overthe last few months that we cannot say
on the record because either we arefirstborn from saying them on the record,
or in my case, look,I've heard them, but that doesn't mean
I know them, so I'm notgoing to say them. None of us
are surprised that Christie Holly was fired, where a few of us still wondering

(01:08:10):
why he was hired in the firstplace. And the only thing we think
we're sure of as it relates tothe turn of phrase for a cause.
I e. Don't sue me toget your job back over wrongful termination.
Is it was not about the wholeGPS youth soccer visa scandal that Holly was

(01:08:33):
part of. We think the toxicenvironment had more to do it. And
at some point I assumed somebody willreport out what happened. I don't know
when, but I will now turnto somebody who was even less surprised than
I was that Christy Holly was fired. And in fact that is our guests,

(01:08:56):
our jail. So when I readthis statement Christie Holly was fired for
cause, the problem is like threeor four things sprung to mind that could
be the cause. And any timesomebody who lives, say a thousand miles
away from your club, can justsprout off three or four things that you

(01:09:17):
may have done, is not reallya great one. A full disclosure.
I knew Christie Holly back when hecoached Sky Blue. I talked to him
many times. He's a perfectly lovelyperson, and he is one of those
coaches that does not seem to havea filter. If he is talking to
somebody that he enjoys speaking with,then I always seem to be somebody who

(01:09:41):
enjoyed speaking with so this is oneof those situations where I have to be
as careful as Jonathan, but itis not surprising. I don't think anybody
in the media was surprised by this. I don't think most fans were surprised
by this. Holly scenes to havea character flaw of just not knowing when

(01:10:03):
he's gotten himself into deep and thatseems to be what got in this time
he I think. I don't thinkit would be remiss to say Louisville or
was not happy with their performance onthe field, and he was a big
part of that. Some of hisdecisions, some of his setups, and
I think were this not to havehappened or the situation didn't arise, I

(01:10:27):
still think he probably would have beenout of a job before the end of
the season. I think they justhappened in this case to have a cause
that they want to do. Idon't think that saying that you're trying to
use your Foot Commendment rights was aparticularly great job. I believe it was
the president or one of the gmswas James O'Connor, who oversees the hiring

(01:10:49):
of the coaches in the organization,who was on the hot seat himself,
by the way, for a numberof of soccer related reasons, has been
for a little bit here he madethe fifth. He pled the fifth in
jest, as many of us dowhen we're making jokes with people. That
probably wasn't the time to do that, though. Yeah, I only read

(01:11:09):
the transcripts, so some of thatcontext it was a little bit lost.
But yeah, I'm not surprised Hollyis out. I don't think anybody is.
The problem. I think is alot of people weren't surprised when Holly
was out the first time and neverexpected to see his name, and then
he cropped up for US Soccer,and then he cropped up as the coach

(01:11:31):
of Louisville in their inaugural season.So I do wonder if he might find
his way into a scouting position atUS Soccer, he might find some connection
there. It is no secret thathe Christie Pierce Rompone are together. She
has as many connections in US Socceras he does, likely more, and

(01:11:55):
that is a factor, right.Somebody who has a lot of connections has
a lot of opportunity for a job, and Holly seems to be affable enough
to find himself in jobs. Soas much as I feel like a lot
of people think that this is theend for him, give it a couple
of years. Soccer has a veryshort memory. I have a hunch this

(01:12:19):
end for him might be a littlefirmer. I agree with you that soccer
is a very short memory, butI think the context around this one,
I dare say hopefully might hang onhim for longer. Because when he was

(01:12:40):
fired from sky Blue, it wasfired because it was doing a bad job
of managing the team. Maybe therewere other factors involved that I didn't know
about at the time, but Iwasn't entirely surprised that he had popped up
as an off the radar, neverreally having to talk to anybody US national
team advanced scout of other teams.This one's different. This one disqualifies you,

(01:13:08):
I think, from from future employmentfor a whole lot longer than at
least my recollection of how things endeda Skyblue. Oh, we thought Craig
Harrington was also going to have thesame fate, and he went down to
Mexico and himself head coaching job.So it depends on if somebody in France

(01:13:30):
or Germany, England or Mexico wantsa head coach who has NWSL experience,
they might take a risk on Holly. It seems like that is not out
of bounds. Now. Do Iknow if he's going to take one of
those jobs. No, but itwouldn't surprise me if in a year or
two we see him attached to anotherclub. So we're going out of Kansas

(01:13:53):
City, the last place team inthe standings, and we'll start by talking
about the fact that they traded.You know, they've made a lot of
deals this summer. One of thembrought them Adi Franch and the Portland fans
obviously were very upset by this,understandably because she's played very well for them

(01:14:13):
and couldn't understand why anybody would possiblywant to leave Portland for any reason for
the rest of their lives. Onegets the impression, RJ that eighty Franch
is actually quite happy being back atKansas What is your sense? My sense
is Portland had the problem of toomany good goalkeepers and eighty Franch was going
to be the odd one outcome theexpansion draft if she didn't leave. Going

(01:14:39):
to Kansas City seemed to be somethingshe was at least on board with,
not outright happy about for her commentswhen the trade happened. She seems to
be happy to be back, asyou said. And sometimes a player who
is very good on a good teamwhere there's a lot of competition for their
position, especially goalkeeper where you can'tsort of switch in and out as you

(01:15:01):
want, means that there's a move. There's enough good goalkeepers in the league
where even the bad teams can havea really good goalkeeper see a listener in
Boston for several years. So Idon't think it's necessarily a bad thing for
Portland, for Kansas City, orfor Ady French that the trade happened.
That I actually think it's good forall three in this case, and a

(01:15:24):
lot of nbas L trades are notgood for all parties. This seems to
be one that is good for allparties. And it looks like the Kansas
City ownership as they you know,sail the ship while building it out at
the same time because of how quicklythey had to do everything, you know,
and they'll be in a much morestable, hopefully better financed situation last
year and eventually moving into their ownstadium as we've heard. But it seems

(01:15:47):
like that ownership group is really reallywilling to make Ady French the face of
that franchise to the public, whichis I think good for her. It's
good for her, and I alsothink it's good for that club to have
somebody that they can sort of goout and use. There's other players on
that team that are obviously talented andcan be used as well for marketing,

(01:16:08):
but I think having a hometown playeris something that is important for some clubs,
and ad French is able to havethat. Now. Hugh Williams,
I don't know if he is necessarilythe person to help build the ship out
and to coach he was. Ibelieve a GM in Kansas City passed well.

(01:16:29):
Vladco is the coach. I thinkthey need a real coach. As
much as people may or may notlike Williams, I just don't think he
is an NWSL caliber coach, andI do think that is partly the reason
that Kansas City has looked the waythey have. Ologies for the dramatic pause

(01:16:55):
there. Some news broke while youwere talking that the National Hockey League is
going to allow fully vaccinated and maskedmedia members into the locker rooms this season.
This is relevant to a soccer broadcastbecause it is just about time for

(01:17:16):
MLS and the NWSL to acknowledge thoseof us in the press box who are
fully vaccinated and masked, and maybeit's time for us to get back to
doing the same so that we cantalk to better, talk to people in
person for once, and start todo our jobs. Now, I'll get
back off my soapbox. This hasbeen the soapbox sag of the Women's Soccer

(01:17:36):
Review. It is not sponsored byanybody because we have no sponsors. Hugh
Williams, you mentioned six teams inthe NWSL this year have changed or are
going to change. In the casethe Portland Thorns their manager. I'm not

(01:17:57):
going to be surprised if it getsto seven when all of a sudden,
honor you, No, I wouldn'twouldn't be surprised at all. It feels
like Kansas City sort of had topull things very very quickly, and Williams
was sort of the person that puttheir hand up and settle a coach um.
Another bit of breaking news from JustinMcMullan is the NBA sell is not

(01:18:19):
doing an investigation into Christy Holly atthis time. As we just talked about
Louisville, So that's interesting. We'llsay, um just to diet back to
Louisville for a moment. But whateverhappened, the league is not investigating it,
so it seems it's going to standas as it were. I wonder

(01:18:42):
if that's because he's been fired.I don't know it very well. Could
they? It would be nice ifsomebody would say we're going to shut the
door on him anyway, but youknow, I don't know what the what
the technicalities of that are. Okay, we have made our away all the
way through the standings. We havebeen on the line for almost an hour

(01:19:02):
and a half now, so wewill close out by getting to Angel City.
And I want to say, we'regoing to have some fun with this,
but I get in trouble when Ihave too much fun. Are we
not talking about San Diego? We'rejust going to skip the boring team that
seems to actually know how to puta soccer team together and was doing everything
by the rules and might actually AsI was leaving Portland the night I left

(01:19:30):
the Freya whom news was breaking andthe Christen Press news was breaking, and
at the airport I ran into acouple of fans who were flying down to
Los Angeles, one of whom recognizedme. So we chatted for a few
minutes, and they're Angel City fans, and we were talking and I said,
I was curious as to what youall think of the way this team

(01:19:51):
is doing its business. And theyweren't necessarily thrilled with all of it too,
and we both we all three ofus, came to the conclusion that
San Diego might beat them on thefield next year, and if they do,
it will be an interesting little scene. Here is what we know at
the moment about Angel City. Theyhave signed Kristin Press. They were then

(01:20:15):
fined an undisclosed amount, which weassumed Alexis o'hanion paid out of the cat
change in his couch for announcing thesigning of Kristin Press before the contract was
actually Jeff Kasuf of Equalizer, friendof the show former guests on here,
a very good friend of r JNnie Both. The NWSL has fined Angel
City FC for announcing the signing ofKristin Press before the contract was actually signed,

(01:20:43):
and for ignoring the league's instructions tonot announce the signing until it was
approved. Last week's announcement was movedup for a specific media rollout. First
of all, they pay the fine, and they'll pay the fine and again
tomorrow and the day after and theday after that. It ain't gonna matter
with the buney that they have.Second of all, that was some announcement

(01:21:08):
for being illegal. Third of all, by way, Kristin Press has now
taken a selfie in front of thead and billboard in downtown LA, so
that Genie ain't going back in thebag. We all know that. And
third of all, and I'm goingto get myself in trouble now. And
as I said, I'm not drinkinganything alcohol. Angel City comports itself as

(01:21:34):
an organization existing for the purpose ofblowing up olden stated rules about how things
are supposed to be done in sports, not limited to, but including obviously
how women athletes are treated, andfrom the look of things, who can
own a sports teams and having womenin the c suite and all such,

(01:21:55):
which for the most part is greatand we all agree with, except some
of the rules created and implemented bywhite men and old white men, though
they may have been exist for thepurpose of having a fair competition in a

(01:22:15):
sports league. And I don't thinkthat Angel City should be allowed to get
around them, even though they havea lot of money in big names and
people saying that they're here to disruptthe soccer world the way that they disrupted
the technology thing the technology industry andsaid the rules do not apply to me.
Here I go making my money andyou can't stop. I believe the

(01:22:38):
NWSL being a sports league competition whereunless in fact, the scales are going
to be tilted, which I thinka lot of other people who are fans
of other teams in this sports leaguewould say they should not be tilted.

(01:23:00):
If the scale should not be tilted, then the NWSL needs to put its
foot down and saying no, youcan't do these things. And the person
who needs to say them is LisaBairge needs say them on the record.
That fair. No, I thinkthat's absolutely fair. The NWSL has not
had really a mega well at theowner outside of the Rain with their Leone

(01:23:25):
connection, and the only thing thatreally seems to come out of that is
just the loaning players between Leone andthe Rain. It hasn't been We're going
to break rules and just pay fines. It seems like Angel City's motto is,
as long as we're just going toget fined for it and can do
it anyway. We got the moneyto pay the fine, we might as
well do what we want, justpay the fine and then we'll be happy.

(01:23:50):
And it does sort of make mechuckle because the press rollout wasn't particularly
great. It's like a video ofher walking down the street, like thanking
fans for her being an angel City, but it wasn't like, you know,
and look, Utah did a tonof bad things. I'm not saying

(01:24:10):
Utah is the paradon of anything,but at least their videos were produced well,
like you had the players talking aboutthings. You had sort of this
really good media experience, and itsort of felt like Kristin Press was also
cut off art by the fact thatshe was announced the way she was.
It was like she was walking tolunch filming it on her iPhone, which

(01:24:31):
maybe if you're trying to disrupt thesystem, is what you want, but
it seems like, for as muchas this is a sports team, it
feels like a brand whose only jobis to sell jerseys, so famous people
can be photographed wearing a jersey ofa women's team the way in the nineties,

(01:24:53):
everybody was filmed wearing Lakers jerseys likeit doesn't feel like they actually care
at all. If they're very good, and we already have a team like
that, it's called Orlando. Wedon't need another team that is marketing.
We don't need another team that looksgood on paper, or looks good in
press releases, or looks good everywhereelse like we needed. LA needs to

(01:25:17):
be good for the league to havethat in their back pocket. And if
the LA team is not necessarily interestedin being good, they're just interested in
being profitable and being able to dowhat they want because they have the money
to pay the fines, the endwe sell is going to really need to
figure it stuff out and quickly,because I don't know if you let LA

(01:25:38):
go a year or two just doingwhat they want and paying fines, if
you'll ever be able to rail themback in. And I'm gonna say one
other thing about something that annoys mewith how Angel City it's doing it's business,
and I'm gonna get in some troublefor saying this, and I'll just
have to deal with them. Oneof the things you get when you have
an ownership model where everybody pitches infor their percent of the stake and whatnot,

(01:26:01):
and you have all of these formerUS national team players who are among
the ownership. Two things have happenedthat have caught my eye. One is
you have some of those players goingon the Instagram pages of players who are
not Angel Cities and trying to enticethem to join Angel City. Have you

(01:26:24):
won back? Did that? Now? Granted it was very early in the
process, so I think she wasforgiven. But she got one strike.
And you know, it's like afalse start track and field, there's one
false start, everybody gets flagged.The next one's out. I'm not going
to throw anybody out, obviously,but that is I haven't seen it happen

(01:26:44):
to that degree the same way.And I think somebody might have said behind
the scenes they don't do that,But what they have not said yet is
that if you are a television commentatorwho calls US women's national team games regularly
or other major international events in women'ssoccer properly, you've got to watch what
you say on air, and you'vegot to watch how often you are in

(01:27:06):
Angel Cities promotional videos. And that'swhere I'm going to get in trouble because
Julie foud is a friend of mineand I respect her work too. Great
decree, But if I was theleague, I'm going to take it out
of a lot of people's hands andput it in the league's hands and say
you can't do that. Whether youand it's you know, Branna Scuries,

(01:27:29):
It's not just about an Angel Citygranted stories in Washington. Sarah Spain was
an ESPN personality as an investor inChicago Red Stars and has said on the
record that she knows where to drawthe lines. And I think she does.
And you want to call me astage old journalist at great, I'll
take it on this one because Ithink there need to be some lines.

(01:27:53):
There is that fair. I tweetedabout this and I got a lot of
very annoyed people at me. DuringI believe it was the bronze medal match,
Arlow White made a joke about somethingto do with Angel City and and
Foudy sort of played along with it. And I think it puts everybody in

(01:28:15):
an awkward position, right Because JulieFoudy is one of the biggest names when
it comes to media in women's soccer. She interviews players she talks the players,
she reports the news, she callsthe games. She is somebody who
people trust. They trust her judgment. I'm not saying that I don't anymore.

(01:28:35):
But when she doesn't make it clearbefore she calls the game that she's
an owner of an NWSL club whowill very soon have players on the field
that where her club's kit, thatis a conflict of interest. Whether I
think Julie Foudy is a good personor not, and I happen to agree
with you. I respect her agreat deal, and I think she's one

(01:28:57):
of the best, but it's ahuge conflict of interest. Abbey wandback on
her podcast had Kelly o'haron, oneof them, was on the other's podcast,
and she said, you should comeplay for Angel City. You can't.
You can't do that. But here'sthe problem. I don't think the
NWSL gives the minority owners or theowners that don't hold a great steak.

(01:29:19):
And I'm sorry the former players.You're not putting in fifteen twenty million dollars
to Angel City. They're putting ina couple of thousand, maybe one hundred
thousand. They're not putting in aton of money. So you have a
bunch of people who have ownership steakat a very small prevent who have no
Abbey Wanback does not know. Shecan't say before she said it. Probably

(01:29:42):
does know now, but before shesaid it do. I think Abbey wan
Back genuinely new I am breaking arule here. No, She's just a
former player talking to her buddies sayingI'm doing a cool thing. You should
come do a cool thing with me. And I think that's a huge problem
for the league because you have everybody. Every Womback is going to say a
thing. Everybody's gonna want to dothat thing. Now, if you're a

(01:30:04):
former player and you have an Asianand you have other things, are you
maybe going to do it? Maybe? But if you're really good friends with
Abby Wamback, and Abbie's like,come on, we'll come play for you,
well, you know, we'll raiseyour salary, we'll give you a
car, we'll give you an LAapartment. It's a really enticing deal,
right, Yeah, And that's whyI think it needs to come from the

(01:30:25):
league. Yeah, to say toeverybody, this is what you cannot do.
We're gonna spell it out, thisis what you cannot do. The
one thing that the get got me. And again I hate to keep coming
back to Julie because I have alot of respect for her. The video
where the twenty different people said welcometo Angel City, Kristin Press and they

(01:30:47):
were all wearing Angel City gear,and Julie Foudy was one of those people,
and that's the one where I wouldhave said, we need to keep
Julie out of this one, becausethat to me, if you're calling,
if you're calling a game and peopleknow that you're an Angel City investor,

(01:31:09):
this happens, and others this happens. It's happening right now, in fact,
in men's soccer with one of theUS national team players. His name
is Matthew Hoppy, who just signedfor a Spanish club MAJORCA, in which
to hold in the former US Nationalteam player and Athlete Council member speaking of
a whole other Hornets nest of conflictsof interest, who calls games on FS

(01:31:30):
one and is going to be callingHoppies games for the national team of a
team that he owns. Not greathappen in baseball. RJ is a bigger
baseball fan than I am and knowsthat there have been ESPN baseball analysts in
recent times who have been owners orfront office people even or scouts of major
league teams who have games they calledagainst other teams whose players they might want

(01:31:53):
to sign in its problem, andultimately that got resolved in one of those
players quit the team she was workingfor for the better and god willing,
ESPN's paying that person enough so thatit didn't quitting the job didn't make that
much of a difference. But thereare people like RJ and I raise these

(01:32:13):
things at times when it is uncomfortable, when people don't want to hear them
because at some point it's going tocome up and blow up. And let's
say, no, we raise thesea while ago to get them fixed at
the times that these things wouldn't happenas a preventative measure. I mean,
you know, and I haven't eventouched on how Angel City handled Free Coon
because again, expiring contracts, thisstuff happens in sports. I get that,

(01:32:42):
But the stuff with press and thestuff with courting players, somebody needs
to say it out loud, andRJ, I'm glad we've said it here
on the show. I think aslong as they're getting fines what they can
pay in pocket change. It's goingto keep happening. And the problem is
they have really deep pockets to putchange in and you can't find them one
hundred million dollars though, you know, Lisa Baird might be able to do

(01:33:04):
that and get everybody flights from oneplace to another that don't have three hour
layovers, so you know, somethingto put in the idea box on Friday.
All right, we finally made itall the way through. We've been
ambling on here for a very longtime. RJ. Thank you for the
indulgence of going all the way throughthe standings and beyond, of course,

(01:33:25):
and we'll end it there for rJ Allen, who you can follow on
Twitter at the Soccer Critic and fromthere get directed to all of the podcasts
and the writing that she does.I'm Jonathan tana Wald to the Philadelphia Inquirer.
I really hope it will not betwo months until the next show.
I don't think it will be becauseI'm trying to line up another gift some
other guests, especially from the whenthe US women's national team comes back to

(01:33:49):
action and a few weeks and webegin the countdown to what is going to
be the end of an era forCarl Lloyd and who knows whether it will
be for other players, So we'llbe back when that happened for our j
Allen. I'm Jonathan Tannenwold. Thanksfor listening to the women's soccer review here
on the Sports Podcasting Network

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Women's Soccer Review Podcast - Catching Up After Two Months Away

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