Hail GFOP!

Rog writes: And breathe… After being stung by Türkiye, and humiliated by Switzerland, our United States Men dropped down several weight classes to overwhelm a truly woeful Trinidad and Tobago side 5-0 last night. Despite the fact we were playing a Tomato Can, we needed this. The win summoned feelings of immense relief rather than dreams of future glory.  

ii. I loved breaking the game down with Clint Dempsey yesterday while taping a live episode of THE DEUCE at the final whistle. Thanks to all of you who joined us when the golf was at its apex. I loved hearing Clint talk about managerial-player stand offs, the way Bob Bradley handled player communications during his tenure, and how Jurgen Klinsmann forced him to wear the No 10. 🇺🇸♠️

iii. The highlight of my weekend: spending Saturday with Porto and their president/Renaissance man Andre Villas Boas, whom many of you will remember from his managerial stints at Chelsea and Tottenham. Portugal is, pound for pound, the greatest developer of coaches and possesses a stunning youth development pipeline. To talk about how we now live in a world in which 87% of Champions League players are named Joāo, was an honor. As an American, I hope we can learn a ton from what AVB had to say. Thanks to our friends at New Balance for setting up this conversation in such a stunning fashion, in their Portuguese coffee shop-pop up in downtown New York City which made us feel like we had been transported to the banks of the River Douro. Watch our full conversation here. 🇵🇹

iv. Today on our YouTube channel, the final of our Gold Cup Previews, with none other than the manager of Canada, Jesse Marsch himself. An incredibly honest conversation with Jesse… is there any other kind? 🇨🇦

v. We had a magical time in LA last week with Ted Lasso duo, Jason Sudeikis and Brendan Hunt, LA Chargers head coach Jim Harbaugh, '99 USWNT Legend Brandi Chastain, and USMNT legend Cobi Jones to celebrate the one-year mark until the U.S. kick-off their World Cup 2026 campaign on home soil. The show was designed to revel in epic moments past in that city, and to revel in this present moment of possibility. With all that is going on in Los Angeles, it felt really cathartic to be there and savor the optimism and the joy and the strength of all who joined us. It is an hour with some really transcendent, optimistic moments. Watch that full show here. 🌴

vi. This was my first Father’s Day without my dad, Ivor. Thanks for all your lovely letters, including one from the great GFOP Mark Dolce, who went to my favorite Chicago pizza place, Pequod’s, for Father’s Day and wrote: 

“I was thinking of your dad, more specifically, Ivor Bennett time, and I had a thought that we should all live our lives as if it were Ivor Bennett time. World events can make it feel like we are living in stoppage time (read: borrowed time), which is all about the dread, but with none of the urgency, which is the thing. It's the urgency.”

To more, Mark. I want to raise a glass to my old man’s memory, and to all dads who are no longer with us. 🍻

vii. Two things that made me laugh this weekend:

• This USMNT Tik Tok is incredible work.

• Also… this tweet about the Pope and his Premier League football fandom made me spit up my coffee.

Courage,

ROG

European Champs Can't Stop, Won't Stop 🥵 

- Written by Tommy Stewart

Paris St-Germain 4-0 Atlético Madrid

It looked tough out there for Atlético Madrid, where the heat of Pasadena's Rose Bowl cruelly collided with PSG’s high-energy style of football to concoct a hot French nightmare. Luis Enrique’s side are in that fresh and exciting phase that all generational teams have, where no one has a clue how to set up against them, never mind match or combat their arsenal of threats. Just over two weeks on from their 5-0 smothering of Inter Milan in the Champions League final, aside from an injured Ousmane Dembélé who was deputized by Gonçalo Ramos, PSG’s XI was unchanged, and despite the heat, they pretty much matched the intensity they exhibited in Munich. Quick passing and selfless off-the-ball movement led to Fabián Ruiz’s drilled opener, with the same principles applying for Vitinha’s counter-attacking second goal just before the break. Atlético looked more like their familiar rule-bending, ruthlessly aggressive selves in the second half and will feel aggrieved that VAR eradicated a cool Julián Alvarez finish thanks to an adjudged Koke foul straight from his manager Diego Simeone’s playbook earlier in the move. Clément Lenglet saw red, reminding us of the risk of the dark arts that have been Atlético’s brand for so many years, allowing PSG to punish them further with a gift for Senny Mayulu and another via a late, late penalty for Lee Kang-in.

More: There are misses, and then there’s whatever happened to Atlético’s Alexander Sorloth yesterday.

PSG Are Here to Stay

PSG are used to sweeping up domestic trophies in France; it’s something they’ve done routinely ever since Qatar Sport Investments gave them a lucrative repeat cheat code in 2011. Now that Luis Enrique is at the helm, selling established superstars and extracting ego while introducing an ultimatum to players that meant the team would always come before any individual, they have finally escaped their shackles by winning that elusive Champions League. It was impressive yesterday against such strong opposition, that even without Ballon d’Or favorite Démbéle, who is often the key to so much that is beautifully effective about PSG, their performance almost mirrored what they did in Munich. It feels like as long as a player buys into Enrique’s philosophy, it doesn’t matter what the cast looks like, the film will always be thrilling. PSG are gunning for the Club World Cup, and this performance was a warning signal for the rest of the competition.  

Also: No one has more aura right now than Luis Enrique.

Atlético Out of ideas?

Diego Simeone has been Atleti’s manager for nearly 15 years, which is pretty much unheard of in the modern game, and although his discernible style clashes with most modern football trends that have come and gone during that period, it has brought his club a lot of success. But against PSG, they appeared to drown, much of which can be attributed to the financial disparity between these two teams. Simeone put it simply after yesterday’s result, “When Luis (Enrique) needed support on the left flank, they (PSG) simply splashed out €70 million to sign a player in January.” Atlético’s stars, like Antoine Griezmann, Jan Oblak and Koke, have been instrumental in a lot of their recent triumphs, but are all in their thirties, and while Simeone is trying to assimilate a lot of younger players, they perhaps lack the match-winning qualities the aforementioned had in their prime. We’ll see how they bounce back against the Seattle Sounders in front of the MLS side’s home fans at Lumen Field on Thursday at 6:00 p.m. ET.

📬 Enjoying The Raven? Check out our other Men in Blazers newsletters here.

Elsewhere at the Club World Cup 🏟️

Bayern Munich 10-0 Auckland City

Vincent Kompany’s Bayern Munich clearly have no chill, and sometimes you have to admire that. Their opening fixture in the Club World Cup at Cincinnati’s TQL Stadium against New Zealand’s semi-pros, Auckland City, was an opportunity for the German giants’ swell of superstars to have some respite after a long-ass Bundesliga-winning campaign. But that’s not what compulsive winners do, is it? Harry Kane, Michael Olise, Manuel Neuer and the departing Thomas Muller on his swan song campaign for Bayern, all started, and that was enough for the game to be over before a ball was kicked. It’s impossible to say how good anyone’s performance was in this one yesterday, because the match was akin to playing your two-year-old nephew on FC, but it was beautiful to see Muller’s unmistakable smile after scoring two and reaching 250 for his club. A cold Michael Olise also bagged a brace and was magic throughout, but it was 61st-minute substitute Jamal Musiala, with probably the quickest (17 minutes!) and easiest hat-trick he’ll ever score, who stood out. He came on for a goalless Harry Kane, who was a walking emancipation of the Arthur fist meme all afternoon because all of Auckland’s defenders seemed to mark him and no one else. He will be out for revenge against Boca Juniors on Saturday. 

Inter Miami 0-0 Al Ahly

Based on the conveniently flexible ways teams could qualify for the Club World Cup, it wouldn’t have been obscene for FIFA to have opened this tournament with a more tempting tie. Fortunately for them, whatever the age or era, Lionel Messi will always be a draw, for not only football fans, but for humanity as a whole. Given the worries of low attendances that led to drastically reduced ticket prices to get butts in seats, the 60,927 strong crowd in Miami’s 65,000 capacity Hard Rock Stadium will go down as a success for FIFA, but individual player introductions and the imposing presence of YouTuber IShowSpeed, made the game’s accoutrements feel a bit more WWE than football. That might be enough to deter “proper” fans from consuming the competition until its latter stages, and save for Inter Miami’s veteran goalkeeper Oscar Ustari’s perfect performance, the football on display won’t have helped much, either. Al Ahly took the impetus in the first half, and were it not for 38-year-old Ustari saving former Aston Villa forward Mahmoud Trézéquet’s penalty amongst an array of other chances, the game could have been theirs early on. Inter Miami manager Javier Mascherano seemingly reminded his players of the quality of Africa’s most dominant team at the break, with Messi himself coming inches away from winning it for Miami in the second half, but in a game that deserved goals based on not only chances, but the Hollywood glamour that propped it up, a draw was just about just. 

📊 See the full list of Club World Cup match results here.

Fifth Time’s a Charm for USMNT 🏆🦅

USMNT 5-0 Trinidad and Tobago 🇺🇸 🇹🇹

Rog writes: The game itself was forgettable in terms of the storehouse of footballing memory. Trinidad and Tobago are 100th in the world, and played worse, summoning zero shots of any kind in the first half, and imploding defensively on repeat. Ultimately, this summer will be remembered for the two or three players who stepped up from this shorthanded squad and made themselves impossible to ignore in the absence of the Big Dogs, both absent and self-exiled. In that regard, the charismatic Diego Luna continued to snap, snarl, and create, Malik Tillman showed flickers he can be the force in a U.S. jersey what he has so consistently for PSV Eindhoven, and it was heartening to see the plucky Brenden Aaronson score for the first time in two years.

Most of all, this was a huge relief for Mauricio Pochettino, triage on the free-fall of the four-game home losing streak – the worst run since 1988. For him, it will feel so good to have the chance to talk about the players who are there again, and the games they have to come, instead of The Pulisic Distraction™.

For more of Rog’s thoughts on the USMNT’s Gold Cup journey, subscribe to our USMNT Only newsletter here.

Some Absolute Weekend Worldies 🚀 🥅

There were a lot of great goals this weekend, but these three get top marks:

Three Weekends With No Premier League Football 😢

It’s been three weekends without the Premier League and we already miss it. As we look forward to the 2025/26 season, we want to know: Who is your favorite Premier League club? 💙

Mid-Week Matches Worth Faking a Meeting for 📺 

Club World Cup 🏆

Chelsea vs. LAFC (Today, 3 p.m. ET, DAZN/TBS)

Enzo Maresca’s men are in this Club World Cup thanks to its vague qualifying rules that mean the Champions League-winning exploits of Thomas Tuchel, Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz in 2021 have snuck them in. All the aforementioned have moved on now, and Chelsea’s young squad comes off the back of Europa Conference League buoyancy with the addition of Liam Delap, a coveted frontman who should raise the standards of the rest of the band. LAFC were late additions to this tournament, but MLS is not a retirement plan for French World Cup winners, Olivier Giroud and Hugo Lloris, who will bask in the eyes of global audiences in a bid to prove that their class is enduring. The big and beautiful No 9, Giroud, scored six goals for Chelsea in the Champions League campaign that got them here, so it would be a somewhat bittersweet full-circle footballing moment were he to score against his former club today. 

Real Madrid vs. Al Hilal (Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET, DAZN/TNT)

When the Champions League was conceived in the 1950s, Real Madrid foresaw its importance, winning the first five, and giving them the head start that has allowed them to reign supreme and treat the transfer market like a sweet shop ever-since. That’s why they paid $11.4 million to sign Trent Alexander-Arnold early in the tiny shopping window designed especially for this competition, rather than wait to sign him for free. Although the Club World Cup has had a drastic glow up and expansion this year, Los Blancos have already lifted it five times, which is more than anyone else, so it’s unsurprising that they’re again understanding the potential prestige and marketing strength of the tournament going forward. This is also the first we’ll see of Xabi Alonso’s interpretation of the team, and although it’s not exactly a baptism of fire, the world will be keeping an eye on them and him to see how they set up and who will miss out. While they failed to tempt Bruno Fernandes away from his struggling marriage at Manchester United with £750,000 per week, Al Hilal still boast an impressive roster of former Premier League players. Rúben Neves, Kalidou Koulibaly, João Cancelo and Aleksander Mitrović are all on board, and while the odds favor Madrid in Miami, the Saudi side are no pushovers.

Inter Miami vs. Porto (Thursday, 3 p.m. ET, DAZN/TNT)

Other than some flashes, Messi and Suarez were a bit uninspired for Inter Miami on Saturday, and although this isn’t a vintage Porto side, they are accustomed to treading the tiles of elite knockout competition in recent years and have the goals and fearless youth of Samu Aghehowa and Rodrigo Mora spearheading the side. Their former manager and current President, André Villas-Boas, told Rog that the tournament has come “at a very bad time” for European clubs, admitting that “a lot of players didn’t want to be in the competition,” further raising questions about player welfare when it comes to the Club World Cup. They drew their first game 0-0 against Brazilian side Palmeiras, whose fans seem to have instigated a friendly takeover of New York, and were it not for the performance of veteran stand-in goalkeeper, Cláudio Ramos, Porto would have likely suffered a loss. Inter Miami might not be in pristine form, and many of their players are on the opposite end of the age spectrum to Porto’s youthful team, but their match-rhythm and fitness should be advantageous for the MLS side. 

Gold Cup 🏆

Saudi Arabia vs. USMNT (Thursday, 9:15 p.m. ET, FS1) 

Phew! Now that the USMNT have broken their four-game losing streak under Mauricio Pochettino with a 5-0 win against a hapless Trinidad and Tobago, hopefully the squabbling can stop and the team and footballing nation can reset. The game against Trinidad was one the USMNT should always be winning, whatever version of the team were picked, but as Clint Dempsey attested to with Rog on The Deuce, football isn’t always as straight forward as simply beating what’s in front of you. Saudi Arabia are ranked 58th in the world and will offer a tougher challenge in Austin’s Q2 Stadium, but hopefully Poch’s approach of giving opportunities to hungry young players like new national treasure Diego Luna will continue to prevail and the identity of his team ahead of the World Cup can start to be revealed.

Texas & DC, We’re Coming for You 🍺

This week Rog will be joined by USMNT legend Clint Dempsey for two shows at a couple of America’s Best Soccer Bars in Clint’s home state of Texas. We’ll join you, our magical community, in Austin, Texas on June 18 at BD Riley’s Irish Pub (the night before USMNT vs. Saudi Arabia) and in Dallas, Texas on June 21 at The Londoner Addison (the night before USMNT vs. Haiti). Both shows will take place at 7:30 p.m. and are free and open to the public. All we ask is that you RSVP ahead of time, as it is a first come, first served event until these fantastic bars reach capacity. You WILL need an RSVP to get in.

🎟️ JOIN US IN AUSTIN

🎟️ JOIN US IN DALLAS

Come and raise a glass with us, and ask Clint any question you want about United States football, fishing or life. We want to see as many of you as possible, so RSVP for both events ASAP. 🍻🦅 

ii. The Women’s Game x Men in Blazers LIVE! In Washington, DC, presented by Allstate. Join USWNT legend and World Cup winner Sam Mewis alongside her Good Vibes FC co-host (and World Cup-winning teammate) Becky Sauerbrunn and Rog to celebrate one of soccer’s greatest rivalries, USA vs. Canada, ahead of the Allstate Continental Classico. The trio will welcome football icons to DC’s historic Howard Theater at 7:30 p.m. on June 30 as they revel in the past, present, and future of these two storied women’s programs. Get your tickets now. 🏛️

Some Non-Football to Start the Week Off Right 📖

• "It creates a permission structure for recreation." Why Do Dads Watch TV Standing Up? 

• Teachers Are Not OK, so if you know one, buy them a beer or just give them a hug.

• The Met Opera’s ‘Diva Whisperer’ Takes Her Last Bow. We wonder if she and the Dog Whisperer ever link up to exchange tips? 🤔

• The U.S. Open (Golf) Wants to Break You. 

• Pop Culture Takes Up Smoking Again. Some (cough) of us (cough) never left (many more coughs)!

• The science behind the smell of rain. Now I need the science behind Dippin Dots. 

• "There will never be another 'WTF with Mark Maron'". God speed, Mark, God speed Boomer.

• Am I the Last Fat Person in America? (No)

It’s MiB Trivia Time 🤔

Tick tock, it’s Trivia Time!

This week’s question: Who is the top goalscorer in Gold Cup history and how many goals do they have?

Email us with your answer for a chance to win a much-coveted MiB patch.

Congratulations to last week’s winner, Matt DeAngelis, who promptly and correctly answered that Cristiano Ronaldo is the FIFA Club World Cup’s all-time top goalscorer, with seven goals between Manchester United and Real Madrid. Well played, Matt, the patch is in the post 📦