Beyond Euro-Snobbery: Donald Wein, the Pro-Rel Myth, and American Soccer Realities

We're bringing you everything about the US national teams, the players, the leagues, and everything else the impacts of Game of Soccer in these United States. I'm Donald Wein and we are going to talk about something that has basically dominated the discourse online since the World Cup has ended. It's about what we as soccer fans do to kind of keep everyone interested, keep the entertainment coming in the form of soccer for fans who got hooked during the World Cup and are looking for more. And of course it revolves around the discourse about who to support what leagues to watch, what teams to watch, and a lot of people are curious and seeking out advice as to where they should consume their soccer, whether it's through the Premier League or teams local, La Liga, what have you? And of course there's this section of the internet that I don't like to entertain, but speak very loudly when these debates happen. And they speak loudly about their desire to seek for everyone to not support Major League Soccer because of a lot of reasons. And Major League Soccer is not perfect, but I think when people were actively saying, hey, look, they're soccer near you, check it out. It's not just about Major League Soccer. It's about supporting your local team, whatever league they may be in. And there's a ton of leagues in this country that have soccer for you to watch from the small to the top divisions like Major League Soccer and the NWSL, USL Super League and on the men's side, the USL Premier, which is starting in a couple of years. But I want to push back, at least give my take on the notion that supporting local is a dumb idea because there's some people on that that believe that they truly believe it or they're at least doing the engagement rage bait that they need to get whatever clicks they want to have to feel important. And I usually don't give these kind of topics air, but it's important to discuss what's next after the World Cup. And local soccer is a part of that conversation. And so let's spend some time talking about it. And it's not just Major League Soccer. I want to go through some of the leagues, at least on the professional level, that are here in the United States where you could have a team near you. Of course, Major League Soccer is the top flight division in this country. They also have MLS next pro, which is their second teams and even a couple of independent teams that operate within that structure. The USL currently has the USL Championship, which is Division 2, USL League 1, which is Division 3, and not professionally, but they have the USL League 2, which is a regional series of leagues that also pull in a lot of great teams and have a lot of great crowds. Starting in 2028, as of right now, they are launching a new league which would operate in Division 1. At the Division 1 level, I should say, of the USO equipment, and that's USL Premier. And what they plan to do is to institute promotion relegation among USL Premier, USL Championship in USL League 1. We're going to put a pin in the pro-relside of things for a second. I just want to explain where all these leagues are. On the women's side, you have the NWSL, and they even have proposed a Division 2 league that is supposed to start either next year or the year after we will see how that progresses, but that's going to be NWSL Division 2. Another Division 1 League is the USL Super League, which started in 2024. They also have, the USL has the USL League, which is not professional. There are some semi-pro teams within the leagues, but it's again like USL League 2, a regional type of league. There's also the WPSL, which is proposing a pro league as well, and United Women's Soccer. So on the women's side, there are still a bunch of leagues, and while there are a lot of small teams, the focus is mainly on the NWSL and the USL Super League and USLW League. The issue with the discourse out there is that a lot of it is very disingenuous to my opinion. A lot of people who just have plugged in their mind that MLS is the anti-Christ, has used that to say you should not support local, you should support leagues abroad because they're the best leagues. And no one saying on the MLS side, fans who are fans of MLS teams, no one is saying that MLS is the best league. No one is. One of the best things about supporting Major League Soccer is supporting how dumb it can be at times, and they have their issues. All of these leagues have their issues. But supporting local is how we start getting people interested in soccer at the grassroots level. It's about access. It's not just about access on television. It's about taking people to soccer games and watching either the current stars or the next stars play in real person and real time. A lot of us didn't get hooked on soccer by watching games abroad. Sure, we got interested in the game, but we didn't get hooked on it until we went to our first game. And that's not going to happen for most people with the English Premier League or LaLiga. Yeah, sure, they have those teams come over now. But growing up, they didn't do that. They didn't come to the United States because they were so focused on what they do there. And I will say, for every other league in the world, they support local. Even in Spain, right? Let's take Spain, for example, because a lot of people focus on the Premier League, and they focus on the English table, the English pyramid, and how it works. And think that the United States, which is like five times as big at generously, and has six times the population, should operate the same way, and it shouldn't. But let's go to LaLiga, for example, because a lot of EPL fans will look at LaLiga and say, oh, it's just a two-team league. It's just Real Madrid and Barcelona. And in a lot of ways it is, but there's still a lot of great teams in that league. In the last 20 years, LaLiga has systematically been better than every other league when it comes to European competitions. That's the fact. There was a point where if a LaLiga team, the only time they lost in a final of a European competition, was when they were playing another LaLiga team. Again, facts, go look it up. They were dominant for 20 years, secretly, all because people dismiss the league as just Real versus Barça, and that's it. And I'll tell you, in Spain, fans of other teams that are not Real Madrid or Barcelona, when it comes to El Clasico, the biggest rivalry on the planet, yeah, sure, they pick teams. They pick sides. They're definitely people who are fans of Rio Vallecano and SC Barça, and there are fans of Sevilla and Real Madrid. And that's how they get around it. They support their local team, no matter what level they may be on, but when that game comes on, they're super bowl. They pick sides. Just like us in the Super Bowl, we may not be fans of either team, but when that game comes on, everybody in the nation has a rooting interest for the most part. They either is for life or for three hours, they pick one of those teams and say, hey, I'm a rock with this team for this game. That's how we do it in every other competition and every other sport. When we get to the championship round, is people stop and put away their local allegiance for a night or for a series and say, this is the team I'm going to rock with. They're not my team for life, but at least for the next week, they are or for the next three hours. And I think a lot of people don't want to take that mentality to apply to soccer. They think that supporting a local team is dumb because it's not the best soccer out there. And I'll tell you, every other league around the world, when people support their local team, they're not looking at the best team. They're supporting the team that is local to them. They're supporting the team that means something to them, their community. And I don't understand of all the things that some of these Euro snobs want to bring to the United States and to our American soccer system, that they forget about that most important part. The community aspect of things. People who are fans of Lutentown don't become fans of Lutentown because they are good. They are from Lutentown. They grew up there. Their parents took them the games. Their grandparents took their parents the games. It's a family thing. It's a community thing that they are getting behind and they're supporting their community. And that is their community's team. If their team gets relegated, if their team goes, yeah, sure, you have them flow of people, fans who are coming in and out, but those hard cores are still there because that's their team. That's their community. That's where they grew up. That's what they were born into. And that is the most, that is the biggest aspect of this thing that all the quote-unquote Euro snobs are forgetting. When they talk about promotion relegation, they talk about having no salary, caps and all these things that they think are going to fix Major League Soccer and fix all these other leagues and make our pyramid all of a sudden the best in the world. They are forgetting the community aspect of things. They are forgetting that for 99% of all those fans in Europe, their team isn't good. Their team isn't the best. And they don't support their team because they're the best. They support their team because it's their team. So, again, on the discourse part of things and people like to be, again, disingenuous. A lot of people will say, oh, if you have an MLS team, then you're just, you know, you're not a real fan because you chose an MLS team. That's not true. Yeah, sure. MLS has been around for 30 years. For fans here, at least for here in DC United, there are fans here who predate the league. There are people who started supporters groups for a team that did not exist. And now we're calling them disingenuous, they're calling them people who are fake fans who just support, you know, the glory of Major League Soccer, whatever glory there might exist in that. Come on now. I think for anyone, right? And I'm a very unique case because I moved here to DC and the first soccer game I went to here in DC was a DC United Match and got hooked into the team and the culture around the team from there. From there is what has bred a lot of my other interest in the game on a professional level. It's where I met people, some of my dear friends who together we started the American Outlaws DC chapter. It's where I found some friends that lived in Detroit where I grew up who wanted to bring any team to Detroit and how we launched the Motor City supporters from there and the Motor City supporters started with Michigan Box when they were in the Metro Detroit area and then we're profoundly instrumental in helping Detroit City get its roots. Acetene. Again, stating facts here. But that came from a love for the game and wanting to see it thrive at a local level in community that I grew up in and I cared about, that I know had soccer fans and wanted to experience more than just watching it on TV. That was a community effort to get Detroit City off the ground. That was not a big wig coming in and splashing a bunch of cash and saying here's a franchise. But in Major League Soccer a lot of people think that's all it is but in Atlanta in Seattle in Portland where again those two teams kind of existed but in Charlotte in Philadelphia there are people whose passion for the game is what made those cities viable candidates to get soccer teams not Major League Soccer teams soccer teams in general. The sons have been created themselves to try and bring Major League Soccer to fill Philadelphia and they succeeded. Atlanta had a grassroots campaign, sure they had to serve back and not a lot of people were going to those games but they had a ground spell of support when the team was under its candidacy to try and become part of the league. That's where they got a lot of their interest. That's where a lot of the supporter groups came about to try and say hey let's get this across the finish line. It's fans in these communities who were helping with stadium deals and practice facilities and making sure that everyone in town knows about the games creating the culture that is around each team which is so unique. Every single city has something different. No one tries to copy off of each other while again Euro snobs are saying that all of this is just copycat but at the same time they want us to copy Europe which can't even copy themselves because there are 54 different nations with 54 different attitudes in cultures and we are as the United States just the continental 48 by itself is as big if not bigger than the entirety of the European continent. We have our cultures we have our different parts of the country that are very different from each other and what works in DC is not going to work in Philadelphia what works in Philadelphia is not going to work in LA what works in LA is not going to work in Atlanta but they're all part of the same league. They all got their teams in different ways and I think the community aspect has been missing from this discourse. We're not asking you to get into supporting your local team because there's some bravery in it. Yeah sure it might be for some teams. DC night last year was a brave young supporting team that wasn't good but that's not why most soccer fans around the world get into soccer for all these different countries. Most people aren't getting into their soccer by supporting the team that's the best. They may have that as an ancillary team as a secondary team or even a third team but a lot of them their primary team is the one that's sitting down the street or is in their town or in their city. Sure in the big city you might be able to pick one but a lot of them go with the one that represents their community represents their neighborhood maybe represents their block and I think a lot of that has been missing from this discourse and I want to put that out there because whether you live in a big city that only has a major league soccer team or you live in a small town that has USL league two or WPSL or a USLW league that's cool. Check it out. I invite you to do that because you might find your community in that team and that's not going to stop you from supporting someone else also but our ask is not that you pick a local team and stick with it and that's your only team for life because no one around the world is doing that. We're just asking you to support your local team. Check out a match bring your friends bring your family take your kids because it may not be you that gets hooked on that team and that atmosphere and that community it might be the person you bring and that might help you in your quest to become more of a soccer fan and to get more into how this country proceeds as a soccer nation. I have a lot more to talk about this but we're going to take a quick break. More about the local soccer discourse on the other side. Hey everyone are you looking for the latest gear for your US national teams? Major League Soccer the NWSL or any other team in the world soccer? The USA Soccer cast has affiliate partnerships that are ready to help you out. Head to linktree.com slash USA Soccer cast where we have links to homage, fanatics, the ambulance store and breaking feet. You can get the jersey, shirt, cat or accessory you're looking for to support your team while also saving some money and helping this show in the process. Again linktree.com slash USA Soccer Cast. Click on the links and get your gear and we thank you as always for your support of the show. We are back and again we're talking about the discourse that's online about what's next for American Soccer. How do we air quotes fix American Soccer and a lot of it has centered around really major league soccer but really just local soccer and how we are not shaped like the rest of the world and a lot of people think we should be. Release the sizeable loud portion of the internet things we should be. I want to talk for a second about a couple of things that again I think stemmed from this and what stemmed the reintroduction of this conversation about promotion relegation pay to play or just the state of major league soccer is the fact that we lost in the round of 16 the way we did the Belgium and I would like to state two facts. Lack of promotion relegation is not why we lost in the round of 16. Pay to play is also not why we lost in the round of 16. The reason why we lost in the round of 16 to Belgium and the way we did is because we did not play well. It's as simple as that and I think a lot of people in the promotion relegation debate and the pay to play debate make some good points. I think one thing that people don't recognize is that when it comes to promotion relegation most soccer fans are in favor of it. It's just that there are a lot of us that recognize that we as a country are not ready for it yet. We don't have stable leagues. We have a stable league but even within that they're expanding at a high rate. You have the USL championship USL league one who let's be real. They have been expanding and contracting every year on the women side. NWSL is expanding but the USL super league just lost the team. USL W league has been regionalized and every year you don't know who's playing and what. There have been teams that have quit weeks before the start of the season after they've put out a whole schedule. They have said you know what we're not actually going to play in this league. We're not going to play this year. We're going on hiatus and some come back and some don't. So, promotion relegation is not something that we as a country are ready for yet but the ideas to work towards getting ready for that and it's not next year and sure the USL is going to try it in 2028 but we don't know who's going to be in the top division. We don't know who's going to be in the championship. We don't know who's going to be in league one and those are if you're going to have promotion relegation between those three divisions, those three leagues that needs to be something that's established and it's not yet. I'm not saying that to say that the USL is making a mistake but there's a lot to do between now and when this gets fully implemented including a lot of these teams having stadiums that they can have access to and have the capacity that is required by US soccer. And we're not talking about 40,000 seed stadiums. We're just talking about 15,000 seed stadiums. The USL doesn't have that many of those teams that have that ready to go. Some are building them, Sacramento, Detroit or Monkdom, Louisville City can expand maybe another thousand or so when they're at 15 and ironically after that I think there's maybe one or two other teams in the USL championship that have at least plans for that and then you have the Annapolis Blues which is in league two and play as at Navy Memorial Stadium over here in Annapolis. Those are the teams that have stadiums ready to go but no one's saying that the Annapolis Blues as a team is ready for the top flight but they are doing well where they are and they are thriving and successful as a team so far in league two. They're building the steps to get better and they're building the steps to eventually maybe move up but that's a timetable that works for them. And so we get to promotion relegation and the pay to play discourse that was in and out and keeps getting rehashed and saying oh that's the reason why we're failing as a country and soccer we are not feeling it's if this is failure if finishing 12th overall the world cup is failure then I need to know what success looks like because if you want to put the failures of our team playing bad in one game against Belgium to lose the way we did if you want to put the failure of that on lack of promotion relegation and pay to play when again half the guys are playing in leagues in Europe that have promotion relegation and a lot of them were discovered and came about and were developed through MLS academies if you want to put the failures on that they also got to include the successes and that includes the women's national team winning four women's world cups and five gold medals the same system bred both and that's not to say that the system can't be changed or shouldn't be altered but everyone talks about these air quote failures of finishing in the round of 16 like it's so easy to win a world cup the women have won four and every time it becomes more and more difficult they've won five gold medals and we don't need to talk about how difficult those gold medals were to achieve they didn't just go out and beat the brakes off the very body they had to fight and beat teams that are just as successful as them just as good as them and so you have to include those successes in the discourse is changing our entire system fundamentally going to affect one team over the other if we're doing it just to get one men's world cup at the sacrifice of all the women's world cups that we won then we're not doing it right and we're not doing it with the right approach and again that's just people wanting to cookie cutter capy something that they think works in Europe in some small country that has a hundred years head start on us and move it over here as if it's going to take flight and all this investment is going to come again that's why I think it's a little disingenuous some of these some of these arguments that are coming through about promotion relegation and about play and play and about how majorly soccer and you know the other leagues to a lesser extent envelop themselves in this discourse so I think when it comes to all of these leagues there's still a lot of work to do to continue to capture the hearts and minds of people who became excited about soccer through the world cup we didn't have majorly soccer in 1994 majorly soccer is the legacy from 1994 that's how people became interested is hey how do I get more soccer we're opening up in your backyard come check it out and majorly soccer for all his flaws is one of the reasons why we were ready in 2002 we made it to the quarterfinals it's why so many other teams in the region have become better because they're sitting their players here to get better against Americans so you can't put it all in MLS you can't put it all on our system our system is complicated a lot of things are convoluted and I think a lot of people need to understand that we have to approach it in a unique way because this is a unique operation I want people to think about this stat first of all I think a lot of people have heard the stat that no team has ever won the world cup without a player coming from this domestic league and you're probably saying yeah that don't yes Spain with La Liga or England with you know with the top flight back then in 1966 they've only won one they have the best league in the world right according to most people the EPL is the best league on the planet and they have only one world cup one world cup from it you also have Germany who's won four but is like a very very good I get it Saria with Italy and therefore Saria one of the best leagues in the world Italy has missed the last three world cups sure they have a they've also won a euro so again that might be an indictment on the state of their program but all of these different teams eight teams have won the world cup not one did it with only players playing in foreign leagues no team is also also no team has ever won the world cup with a foreign coach they've all been coaches who understand a domestic league how these guys develop how they got to where they are and figuring out a system that brings them all together and sometimes doing it top to bottom and making sure that from the under 15 level all the way up to the senior national team level everyone is on the same page and that's what we're starting to do here in the United States both on the men's and women's side and that is that I think is fundamental to understand what the system is going to be like how we're going to play and having that be bought in from bottom to top so that a kid who's coming in at at the u15 level as a right mid can look all the way up to the top and see the guys that he should want to emulate no matter where they're playing for the club but on the national team he can say hey one day I can be surginio desk I can be Alex Freeman as a wingback those sort of things are what we should be striving to do but the main stat that I wanted to that I think a lot of people would be surprised to hear is again centering around this notion that because of the United States and where the one of the biggest countries in the world the richest country in the world that we should be able to essentially invest all this money and that's going to take us to the top of the top 10 most populous countries in the world only one has won a world cup in that's Brazil just one let that part sink in that if you think about the world cup when's the last time you saw China in there it's been a long time India it's not been there in a while Pakistan you're not thinking of Pakistan being in the world cup you're not thinking I mean Nigeria has missed out on the world cup and they're you know the fastest growing country on the planet and you're looking at teams like that Bangladesh they're not they're not sniffing a world cup anytime soon in Indonesia that's different world cup anytime soon it's difficult to win it very difficult you can have everything in place like again a lot of European countries do a lot of South American countries do because those are the only teams that have won world cups have come from those two continents there are teams that have it all together in the minds of the Euro snobs and they still have never won one Netherlands never won one Croatia has not won one Italy again even the teams that have won have their struggles Italy has not won has not even been in a world cup since 2014 they haven't won a knockout stage game since they won it all in 2006 so it that might be the you know scenario that is most extreme right now but again the best league in the world according to most people is the English Premier League and England has won a grand total of one world cup and that was in 1966 when the Premier League was the need of the Premier League Spain just won and congratulations to them they had not seen a semi-final since they won it in 2010 and those are the only two that they have and that took a complete revamping of their national team program to start getting back to their basics and really building from the bottom up and some of those guys that we had seen at the younger levels had now won gold medals and now they won the world cup women's side won a world cup they're the first nation to hold both the women's world cup and the men's world cup trophy at the same time of course the United States had a couple opportunities to do that the men didn't hold up their side of the bargain air quotes but the women want to steal that trophy from them next year and everyone's looking at Spain as this new world order but even they weren't playing well leading up to this tournament if there was a dynasty brewing it was in France who had made the last two world cup finals they had won one they made the semi-final this time Argentina made the you know final one in 2022 lost this year those are the two but even within that and I guess with Argentina they've won two Copa Americas on a row as well so they had this you know again with between their region and the world they had this dynasty brewing that feels over now that they have lost sure they have the Copa America to defend but are they going to do that with Lionel Messi and what's their future when he decides to hang it up because yeah they're good but their hopes hinge on him and that does not create a dynasty at least with France without him bapa they have another balloon to aura winner and uzman d'embellé they have a bunch of young guys coming up they could be the future for a very long time they could be at or near the top for a very long time England might be at the end of their generation despite some of the younger players because some of their older players who were there to kind of get them to the top have gotten to the semi-final to the last three world cups but haven't won it they got to a euro final didn't win it soccer isn't coming home soccer's already home and that home is outside of the United Kingdom outside of England and that's something that they have to accept as well so in the United States like people we keep looking abroad for the answers to questions that can be answered right here at home it's about supporting our players on the local level because those are the guys who are going to one day represent this national team both for the men and the women the women's national team who now start on their road to the world cup which is next summer a lot of those players started at the NWSL sure some of them play abroad but a lot of them started here they developed here and they have made the national team and are the number two national team in the world behind Spain and of which they will see Spain right here in D.C. and in Chester, Pennsylvania in October in two friendlies a great great measuring stick of where do we need to go how how do we need to improve to get ready to try and win a women's world cup next summer Brazil with teams like Brazil and England and France and Germany and Norway trying to come after us that in Canada those those that is our what we face and despite the fact that we've won four women's world cups it's still going to be difficult to win a fifth and it's because everyone is trying to implement their tactics to see if they can do it and at the end of the day is the players who win this thing on the field it's not the system the system might get some of these players in the position to be on that field but nobody is losing the women's world cup because they don't have promotion relegation Mexico just got rid of or decided to extend their moratorium on promotion relegation and I know the lesser leagues are not happy about that but they think that's the way to envelop more money and get more investment into the game they've done that and they've had promotion relegation for 50 years and they get rid of it in the advanced further than they ever have they get to that fifth game that they had so coveted and had alluded them for so long so it's not a fail safe process what works in one country is not going to work in another even within these different countries promotion relegation is different between the Bundesliga and La Liga and France and England they're all they may have promotion relegation but even within it they adapted to the system for them and I think people need to understand that that's what the United States needs to do and we are not like any other country on earth we have all of these different perspectives we have all of these different ideas we have access to more soccer than anyone but we still have to take all of that and figure out how to make our own system work for us then have to work for the rest of the world just work for us and that is where we need to continue these conversations with a curious not judgmental approach to it to borrow from Ted Lasso 20 people are judgmental by our system and they like to get off these hot takes because they know it's going to get engagement and I'm here to say miss me with all that we need the real people in the room who are going to understand the nuances that this system presents and how best to approach it and attack it so that we can continue to evolve for the next 30 years and people on the internet having this conversation aren't set up for the next 30 years they're set up for the next 30 clicks or 3000 clicks or whatever clicks they're looking for to feel validation so in closing I just want to say if there was a team near you check it out it doesn't matter which level it's on and you should approach going to a game with the same curiosity that you approach the world cup no you're not going to see the best players on the planet on one field but you could see some that years from now could be among those players that you will see at a world cup you could see a team building its roots with you as the water that helps it grow doesn't have to be majorly soccer doesn't have to be the NWSL if you have a USL team near you go watch them if you have an MPL team near you go watch them if it's MLS next pro is in the name you're going to be seeing hopefully some of those stars that are next to be on the international stage and as that continues to evolve so must our approach to the game and we need to modernize we need to get better in a lot of different areas and even with the big buzzwords like promotional relegation or pay to play sure we need to investigate how we make these things work how we make our system work the best not for the financials but for the game and all this investment is not going to come overnight but the interest is here now and that's what we need to cultivate and we do it by getting people access to the game it's not about promotion relegation because no one everyone loves the promotion part no one loves the relegation part and if you say that you do you're lying to yourself and you're lying to everybody else it's about latching on to that team and making it where no matter what level they're on you have a group of people a foundation of supporters that will support them some people are happy where they are because their community is what they're happy in and then soccer I think we need to remember that that will do for episode 196 of the USA Soccer Cast thank you for listening remember you can find us on blue sky twitter and youtube follow some all those sites at us a soccer cast subscribe rate and review our shows it helps us get in front of new people and it's greatly appreciated tell your friends about it's finally head to linktreat.com slash us a soccer cast to check out our affiliate links and our stimulus store we have everything you need to watch beautiful game and follow your teams and using those links also helps support the show we'll talk to you again soon y'all peace