Ted Hudock

Matt Freese: USMNT criticism 'hurts my heart' USMNT goalkeeper Matt Freese said he felt hurt by the backlash following the elimination from the 2026 World Cup after losing 4-1 to Belgium in the round of 16. espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/4…

Hi Lexi, hope you're well! I come on the spirit of our sport. 4 years ago we chatted in California and you're one of the most engaging people I've interviewed, so my respect is genuine. Let's park capitalism, profit and loss for a minute and strip things back to the basics. You and I both played football and were lucky enough to make it our living. I could play competitive, organised junior football for almost no cost ( I didn't even realise there was a cost to junior football elsewhere becaise I presumed it was free everywhere!) because my Football Association ploughs big sponsorship money directly into grassroots football. So every boy and girl can access our sport. A good thing, right? If we're serious about spreading the gospel of a sport which joins millions across the world, creates friendships for life, teaches us discipline, fitness, winning and losing amongst many things. So I'd hope that you, as a big voice in your country would advocate for every child having access to our sport? But how can they when we insert ultra capitalist business practice to something that is way more important than simply making money (the things I set out above)? I'm a capitalist, not ultra, but I live and breathe in that system without (except when others are harmed, which is unfortunately growing globally) push back, but capitalism at the level you acknowledge isn't just hampering poor kids from enjoying the life lessons football teaches, but to effectively punish children and low income parents from participating in organised sport is morally wrong? I'm not here to lecture, I'm an imperfect human living on an imperfect planet. But at times we have opportunities do do something that includes, not excludes. In England, that comes in the form of almost free access to organised football, for all, from 6 to 66. There is no downside to this. The 66 year olds often have, for free, started teams giving their time for free to all kids. Trevor Cooper, a man from my home town, in his 30's started a team, Longford Boys( 11 to 15 age group teams, all coached by volunteer parents). Without him I wouldn't have been exposed to the sport, friends who are my besties to this day, a pro career or following my country, in yours, at a World Cup. One man gifted me that, for free. Sometimes in life, romantic that it seems on a planet taught "me me me, money money money ", the most joyous experiences and lessons come without cost. Football is proven to be one. Let's fleece sponsors and corporations to pay big bucks to sponsor our pro teams, stadiums, national teams. I'm all in on that. With that money, like in England, it gets put into grassroots football to allow anyone and everyone the gift of football. Charging $4000 or $15000 a season for a child to play organised football is morally wrong, Alexi. It just is. Campaign for grassroots football in the USA to be properly funded by the US FA. You'll have more support than you could imagine and people will follow you. Your gift to the country you love and game you love. Association Football, the world's greatest sport because it's affordable, inclusive, spellbinding, life affirming and joyous. I was the beneficiary aged 11 of Mr Cooper offering a free team to play for, coached for free, a league organised by the local and national association, lifelong friendshops, health and fitness discipline and a passion I'll take to the grave. Free can work in the USA. Fleece the sponsors, not the parents. They can pay for your free football. Yours in sport. Stan Collymore. 🇺🇸🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

So many things in life that seem phenomenal in theory are terrible in reality. The proposed split season for college soccer is one of them. Do I get the practical applications of a split season??? For sure! We complain all the time that soccer is the most demanding sport with the shortest runway. It’s crazy that we go to 0 to 60 in the amount of time that we do and cram all our games into an 11 week season. (tho at least they extended our season this year). But there are so many variables at play here. Think back to Covid when most conferences had their seasons cancelled but the P4 did not. They played all fall when the rest of us did not. Then when the NCAA announced we would have our official season in the spring, they all got a second season. This was in essence a trial run for the split season. One of my close friends who coaches at a P4 school detailed an eye opening account of all the reasons why the coaches and the players absolutely hated it. (And keep in mind this is a big time program, lots of national team players, and presumably, the most talented and most committed college players there are) 1) The obvious answer was it was just too long. He said they were all absolutely fried and over it by the end of the spring semester. And again, you are talking the upper echelons of talent and even they were miserable 2) When we are in season and focusing on games, the training is completely different than the spring. We are basically surviving and preparing for each subsequent game. We often say that every bit of player development comes in the spring. Hand in hand with that also comes playing time for the entire bottom, half of your bench who are given game opportunities to prove themselves. The same coach elaborated that those players we’re very discouraged after basically sitting on a bench, the whole YEAR and feeling like they were not getting the individual development that had occurred in a real off-season. 3) After sacrificing more than a decade of life, our seniors are so looking forward to being a “normal“ person for senior year spring semester. For the first time in life, as long as they can remember, they are able to relax and not have every single choice dictated by a sport for their last few months of “childhood”. The split season obviously requires that they play right up until graduation. 4) College athletes have a huge burnout factor, and the winter break is such a great opportunity for them to take a breather and recharge and come back with a renewed sense of commitment. A split season means that Christmas break is spent grinding with zero downtime as they prepare to come back and play games out of the gate. 5) Never mind where recruiting fits into all of this? Spring is huge for our recruiting efforts and we all just might lose our minds if we are trying to juggle all of that with also running an entire real season. 6) The entire northern half of the country will be completely screwed with this. This past winter that was so cold and snowy is a perfect example. There would have been no way in hell that games would have been able to be played in parts of February and March in many places. There are plenty of schools who have grass fields in cold climates as well—are they just supposed to now play some games on grass and some on turf and have zero consistency? 7) This will undoubtedly result in schools being forced to build turf fields and create logistical administrative nightmares given that many lacrosse teams and soccer team share fields. Someone else pointed out that it will be a good excuse for schools to eliminate more soccer programs especially when we are at a point with NIL that schools need to figure out how to save money on Olympic sports not create monumental new costs

Joe Gomez on the Anfield boos: "We get it, we understand it. For us older boys who have experienced so many good times here it does hurt. If it didn't then you shouldn't still be here. We want to make it right. "It's just a reaction to the whole year, and that's fair enough. The fans pay their hard-earned money to come and watch us and they're entitled to show their frustration."