20230908 Raven Newsletter

Hail GFOP!

I type with fingers surprisingly invigorated by the International Break. A weekend I normally resent. Granted that is mostly because there is no Premier League football so that Everton cannot disappoint me. But I am also elated to watch our US boys reunite, so many players arriving with the upswing of new club teams, as we prepare to slam into the 2024 Copa and all that is to come. I have spent a lot of time with members of the US Squad this week, and have acquired their clear excitement as a contact high. These gents, who are working so hard individually to grind a pathway through the thicket of European club football, genuinely adore being together as a collective. It is restorative for them. They also truly fancy their chances. I cannot wait to watch them begin to prove themselves to themselves once again. I will break it all down below, and touch on the other stories of the weekend.

It has been a slightly insane week professionally. We are working on the launch of a new daily 10-minute morning show designed to give you an immediate, informed, and joyous sense of every piece of news crackling across Europe’s sportspages overnight. The show, Early Kickoff, is our first to be produced out of a studio in London which has been a fascinating task to build. It launches every morning at 6 a.m. ET the week after next. On top of it all, our studio overfloweth. Filmed some real USMNT gems – Antonee Robinson and I talked about the best chip shops in Liverpool, which is as heated a convo as best cheesesteak in Philly. That truly nourishing human being, Matt Turner returned to tell his side of the Aaron Ramsale “It’s a dawgfight out there” story. And yes. It is true. We also filmed a pretty remarkable conversation between our friend JJ Watt and Vincent Kompany which touched upon the leadership, management, and the complexity of Belgian waffles. I am headed off to watch the Artic Monkeys this weekend and then hope to be in Chicago to watch the Bears begin the first step of their inevitable Justin Fields dynasty. Nothing can go wrong now, right?

PS. Liverpool fans. Rejoice: The Saudi transfer window has now shut and MOHAMED SALAH remains a Liverpool player. The Saudis believe this deal is merely “on hold.”

2. USA! USA! USA! 🇺🇸

Weston McKennie tried out the US Men’s Team’s new mission statement at the team’s press conference yesterday: “We set out on a mission four years ago to change the way the world views American soccer. Now our motto is to change soccer in America forever.”

Lofty goals. The former is undoubtedly well under way thanks to the grinding progress of our players at club level – and even more so, by the barrage of American owners across the Premier League, Serie A, and more. In terms of the new focus – it feels like our gents are getting a healthy assist from Lionel Messi on that one at the moment.

Ultimately, as we swagger towards a pair of games against Uzbekistan 🇺🇿 (Saturday at 5:30pm ET on TNT/Universo) and Oman 🇴🇲 (Tuesday, 8:30pm ET on TNT/Universo) what matters is all that occurs on the field inside the 90 minutes of the next two windows. Gregg Berhalter is back. The headline of the Vanity Fair interview he dropped last week frames his challenge well: Can He End the Drama and Take the US Men’s Soccer Team Forward? Unfurl a positive idea of cohesive football, and everything will feel good before the profoundly complex challenge of re-integrating a back-in-training Gio Reyna occurs in October. Speed bump results and fan patience could wear very thin, very quickly.

The good news is – this group of players adore being together and so many of them are in searing form in the wake of moves to new clubs. Christian Pulisic told me ahead of his Milan debut that his goal was to deliver club football that matched his international performances. He was just named AC Milan’s player of the month for August, so it is now a case of continuing his sizzling Serie A form in a US jersey. Dest, Pepi and Malik are at PSV. Balo at Monaco. Matt Turner surging at Nottingham Forest. We have never been blessed with a greater abundance of talent. The ability is there. The idea of football – stripped from the loftier mission statements and big picture goals – is what is needed now. When I speak to the savviest Premier League owners, all of whom want to win hearts and minds of the American fanbase – they all say the same thing: Winning football on the field is the first and foremost thing. Everything else that you dream of follows that. The same is true over the course of the next year for our USMNT boys.

More: Herc Gomez and I will pod on Monday to break down the Uzbekistan game. Then we will Do it Live! Tuesday right after the final whistle of the Oman game. Come be with us, listen to a live recording of the Pod and ask your questions. It all goes down on AMP.

And as I mentioned, dropping later today: our sit down interview with USMNT and Nottingham Forest No. 1 Matt Turner. I loved sitting down with Matt to discuss how he experienced making the move from Arsenal to Forest. And - in a piece of hard hitting journalism - asking him the real story behind him telling Kevin De Bruyne, “Relax, Dawg. It’s a dog fight out there.” If this doesn’t win us an Edward R. Murrow, nothing will. It drops at Noon TODAY. And it is a must-listen. Also coming up, a sit down with Antonee Robinson.

3. We’re Eddie Nketiah’s England Now… 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇺🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🇨🇾

In other big watchable games this weekend, England face Ukraine in an emotion-loaded Euro 24 qualifier at the Wrocław Stadium in Warsaw (Saturday 12 PM ET, ViX, FOX Sports App, Fox Sports 2, and Foxsports.com).

A perfect Scotland play Cyprus tomorrow at 2:45 PM ET at the AEK ARENA in Cyprus. (Viaplay Sports 1). What could go wrong now. Then the two teams play a friendly against each other, if there is such a thing between Scots and Englishmen, in Glasgow on Tuesday at 2:45 PM ET on FS2.

4. Lionel Messi wonder strike for Argentina: Another game. Another Banger 🇦🇷🐐

It took until the 77th minute of the game against Ecuador in Argentina’s opening World Cup qualifier, but then Messi casually dropped this wonder. He learned to do that in MLS, obvs.

5. Rubiales and Spain. The ongoing meltdown which we must not take our eyes off 🇪🇸😢

Toxic coach Vilda fired. Spanish star player Jennifer Hermoso has filed an official legal complaint with prosecutors against the president of the country’s football federation, Luis Rubiales. Spanish state prosecutors presented a case against Rubiales in a Madrid court on Friday morning, officially accusing him of sexual assault and coercion as he clings onto power and the systems that enabled him in the first place struggle to determine their next move. The new Women’s coach is Montse Tomé, one of Vilda’s former assistants, who becomes the first woman in Spain’s history to lead the team. However, Sandra Rqiquelme, who covers football for DAZN España, wrote a warning about the surface changes that could be executed and how merely appointing a female is not all it might seem, tweeting “My Opinion: a very half change. Same methodology, way of working. And a big but, it will be the debut of Montse Tomé as head coach. Wow, I wouldn't call it a revolution, precisely... That being said, all the luck in the world.“

I taped a long YouTube deep dive into the realities of this moment with the magical Spanish broadcaster Semra Hunter. How Rubiales came to power, and the different outcomes from this truly awful moment – as well as the connection with the arrival of Mason Greenwood. It drops on YouTube on Saturday. (Subscribe, Subscribe, Subscribe)

6. This Week at Men in Blazers World Headquarters 🍻☕️🍻☕️🍻☕️

This week has felt like Season One of “The Bear.” Instead of Italian Beefs, we’re slanging football content. And instead of Carmy, we most definitely Richie (who we’ve long maintained is proper Bundesliga). This week, the Men in Blazers Media Network has taped with JJ Watt and Vincent Kompany (together!); Matt Turner; Antonee Robinson; Christian Pulisic; Weston McKennie; Ben Cremaschi; Brandon Vazquez and Spanish Football expert Semra Hunter. Let us just say, we never take a second of it for granted. Here’s a few pieces of content we’d love to recommend.

b. This Week in The Messiverse. 🇦🇷🐐 Classic story of World Cup Champ packs up his Sun Airlines economy flight and heads to LA with a dream of hitting the big time. And he picks the defending MLS Champs apart in front of some of the biggest names in Show Business. A tale as old as time.

c. The American Dream with Christian Pulisic. Tim Ream and Steve Schlanger sit down with Puli to talk his MVP (for realz) start to life in Milan, his pre-game superstition, and which USMNT newcomer is catching his eye. Please note, this Pod is on a different feed than our regular fare. So please subscribe, rate, review and share.

d. VAMOS with Brandon Vazquez. Herc goes deep with the Cincinnati big man to talk a childhood spent crossing the border to pursue his footballing dreams, what makes the fans in Cincy special, and… his future.

Men in Blazers x Bud Light Sweepstakes - Exclusive Prizes for GFOPs 🍺

You’ve long known about the GFOPs at Bud Light’s support of the game we all love. Now, they’re giving us the chance to give away some exclusive prizes only to those of you reading this newsletter. Entering is easy: just head to budlight.com/MIB to enter for your chance to win signed gear, exclusive Bud Light merch, and more.*

7. More Football, Did Ya Say?

a. Arsene Wenger sat down with Miguel Delaney. Really loved all of this youth development and global trends conversation which centered on such ideas as the need to create “Striker Schools” and why tiny Croatia and Uruguay are so consistently strong.

For American readers, so much to learn from this. Especially the danger of over-coaching: “What has dropped in recent generations is that of course park football has disappeared… if I play in the park, I have to make decisions. If I’m shrewd enough to think why did that not come off, and have a right assessment, the next time I am in the same situation I am correct. We have lost that a little bit. And maybe today we are overcoaching a little bit sometimes, and we lose a bit that freedom, that creativity, that individual personalized training that happened before.”

b. I enjoyed Tifo Football’s analysis of Tottenham’s tactics under Ange. How they will score loads. And when worked out, leak a ton.

s. Quaint and lovely: Liverpool’s local paper writes a story of the Liverpool fan from Iowa who walks into a bar and ends up spending the rest of the day and night with a family of Everton supporters. This piece sent to me by James Hollis who noted “this is why we love football.”

8. Not Football, and all the better for it

ii. Watch this: For a slice of the England I grew up with. Fred Dibnah. Who became famous when I was a kid, as the master of the lost working class art of Steeplejacks.

iii. ‘How To with John Wilson’ Bids Farewell in the Most John Wilson Way Possible. Will miss this show immensely. A weird and wonderful look at New York and the people who make it what it is.

iv. Reporter Tom Vanderbilt attempts bike jumping for Outside Magazine: To Air Is Human. Outside's insurance premiums must be through the roof.

v. The Evolution of the Hip-Hop Hunk. Go the sex-symbol route, risk failure. It's a lesson we know well here at MiB.

vi. Adeline Harris Sears’ Autographs Quilt (1856–ca.1863). The history of the 19th century all in one blanket. A selfie quilt just won't have the same effect.

vii. As the NFL kicks off the Times looks at The Plight of the N.F.L. Running Back. As if getting beaten up professionally wasn’t enough.

viii. Is There a Right Way to Post About Your Hike on Social Media? These are the kinds of questions that keep me up at night!

ix. "The first time I heard about Taylor Swift, I was in a Los Angeles County jail, waiting to be sent to prison for murder." Top Three Opening lines of an essay in 2023: Listening to Taylor Swift in Prison.

x. Ellen Perry takes you on Michelle Brennen's extraordinary journey through grief and time: Fifty Years Later, the Orphans of Flight 723 Return to the Scene.

xi. All of the 8,291 License Plates in America. Buying my next car in Tennessee to get that elusive Dolly Parton plate.

xii. BlackBirdSpyplane asks: Where did all the cool small cars go? R.I.P. to the Honda Fit. A “true subcompact slapper”, much like myself (I don't know what that means).

xiv. This Book: When the Game was War: The NBA’s Greatest Season by Rich Cohen. Rich is an incredible storyteller and his re-living of an ascendant Bulls team attempting to grapple with the darkness of the Pistons in their pomp makes you feel like you are living the games for the first time page-to-page. More than that, you are reminded about the joy and innocence of youthful fandom, which Rich says he has lost, but it certainly does not read like that, and your life as a reader is all the better for it.

xv. This Song: Sweet Taste by Smol Fish. Let this song, this band, grow on you.

That is it for today. I am going to leave you with a lovely note from GFOP Kyle Strosahl who writes: “I was watching your latest show on Peacock with my newborn daughter as she slept in my arms. Since the volume was so low, I put the captions on. And when you were introducing Mauricio Pochettino, the Peacock captions types it out as: MORE ITCHY AL PACINO. Once I read it like that, I can't hear his name any other way.”

To MORE ITCHY AL PACINO and the joy we make out of football.

Let’s Savor Every Second

Go Bears

Go, Go, Go USA!

Big Love

Courage

ROG

P.S. - Like this newsletter? We have two more that keep you up to date on all things US players abroad and the Women’s Game. Every Wednesday is AMERICAN STATES UNITED purpose-built to accessibly, intelligently, quickly break down what every American player grinding away in leagues big and small around the world has achieved. SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Every Monday is THE WOMEN’S GAME where we aim to deliver a concise, intelligent framing of every day of football during the World Cup so you can maximize your viewing pleasure and keep you updated on all things women’s football. SUBSCRIBE HERE.

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*BUD LIGHT® “MEN IN BLAZERS” SWEEPSTAKES. No Purchase Necessary. Open to US residents 21+. Begins 4/4/23 and ends 12/31/23. Multiple entry periods. See Official Rules at https://budlight.com/MIBSweeps for entry deadlines, prizes and details. Message and data rates may apply. Void where prohibited. ENJOY RESPONSIBLY. © 2023 Anheuser-Busch, Bud Light® Beer, Light Beer, St. Louis, MO