In the leadup to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Front Office Sports hosted Global Goals: The World Cup and Beyond, a captivating virtual summit featuring soccer’s leading analysts, former pro athletes and broadcasters who shared behind-the-scenes highlights of one of the world’s most impactful business and cultural events in sports and its reverberations on U.S. soccer.
Roger Bennett, acclaimed broadcaster, podcaster, author, and co-founder of the Men in Blazers Media Network, joined Writer Doug Greenberg for an insightful and entertaining look at football’s rise and growth of the game. Some highlights:
Let’s talk about United States soccer.
This is a remarkable time to be alive in the U.S. We failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. And in reaction, all our young players realized that to be the best they could be, they couldn’t stay here. They had to move on mass to Europe. And so, it’s a delirious, incredibly young, incredibly raw set of individuals. And when a team is young, they don’t know to be afraid. They don’t know what they should, they’re just like, let’s do this. We’re going to win it.
And spoiler that they are probably not going to win the World Cup, but they’re going to learn an incredible amount together as a collective.
To be fair, there has been a team that has actually made a lot of progress for soccer in the United States – it wasn’t the US men’s national team, it was the women’s team.
It’s the women’s team and their glory every four years back-to-back winners. And now the NWSL, the league rising commercially.
The USWNT just played America at Wembley Stadium – 90,000 people were there. And it’s growth not just here but across the world. That is the dizzying story. America loves winners and they are bloody winners. They’ve risen the profile of the sport in the United States. But the second effect is that they’ve been pathfinders for England, for Spain, for Germany, for France, now Africa, Nigeria – so many nations look to what these U.S. women have done fighting for equality.
Note: Above has been edited for clarity and brevity.
