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I call balls and strikes ⚾ — because politics needs referees, not cheerleaders.
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For soccer fans — like me — the last month has had very high highs and one very low lows.
The United States men’s national team was dominant in the group stage of this year’s World Cup. The USMNT convincingly beat Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round 32. I’ve never — in my adult life — seen more people more excited about soccer.
And then came the Belgium game. And a 4-1 beating that was incredibly dispiriting — less because of the final score and more as a result of the fact that we simply didn’t look like we belonged on the same field.
In the wake of that stunning defeat, a whole lot of people — mostly casual fans — loudly declared that the reason the U.S. wasn’t better at soccer was because our best athletes didn’t play the sport.
I wrote a big piece disagreeing. If you haven’t read it, I hope you do here:
👀 What Dave Portnoy—and Almost Everyone Else—Gets Wrong About U.S. Soccer
I left legacy media to build something different: independent, honest political analysis with no corporate or partisan agenda.
My longtime friend Dan Helfrich — who after nearly three decades at the top levels of Deloitte took on the role as Chief Operating Officer at U.S. Soccer last fall — reached out.
He had thoughts — on both my piece and, more broadly, the state of American soccer.
We talked via Substack Live on Monday afternoon. Our full conversation is above.
If you care about youth sports — soccer or any other sport — this is a conversation you are going to want to hear.
And if you want to get involved with U.S. Soccer — like Dan did! — you can click here to get started!
