Friday Newsletter: My Leeds United Story, a Day in Front of the Tube and Your Mailbag Questions

What the heck is up at Manchester United?

Cristiano Ronaldo and Manchester United—and their unsightly new kit—were down 4-0 to Brentford after 35 minutes (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)

Hi everyone! First off, my apologies for this Friday Newsletter coming out on Saturday. I put so much into finishing my 5,000-word story for Friday on the Leeds United Americans—working well past midnight Wednesday and Thursday—that I was a hollowed-out shell of myself for most of the day Friday. It turns out that pulling all-nighters in your 40s isn’t the same as when you were in your 20s. Who knew?!?

But I hope you enjoyed the Leeds story. If you haven’t yet, check it out. I’m really happy with how it came out. And I’d appreciate it if you could do me a favor: If you like the Leeds story or any of the 30 other premium magazine stories I’ve written for this site over the past 11 months, spread the word about GrantWahl.com to people you know. That’s the best way to help me be able to spend the money to keep doing ambitious stories like this that you won’t see elsewhere.

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This has been a wild work stretch for me. After reporting trips in July to Mexico and England (sandwiched around a not-fun, long-awaited bout of Covid), I’m at home for this part of August writing the stories that I’ve had in my notebook—Leeds and, next up, Qatar—while my wife is on a two-week reporting trip of her own in Asia. So it’s been me and our two toy poodles, Zizou and Coco, who spend their time watching me write or sitting on the sofa with me checking out games. It’s the start of the European season, so I’m trying to see a bunch of matches and get a handle on how teams look to kick things off. 

That meant our Saturday went like this:

• Watch Southampton 2, Leeds United 2. I skipped the 7:30 am ET game (Aston Villa 2, Everton 1) trying to catch up on sleep, but I think it’s fair to say I’m likely to watch every Leeds game live this season with the American coach (Jesse Marsch) and two USMNT stars (Tyler Adams and Brenden Aaronson). Leeds seemed like it was in control after going up 2-0 in the second half on Rodrigo’s second goal, but Marsch waited too long to make his subs and Ralph Hasenhüttl made a big tactical change for Southampton, which equalized at 2-2 in a brutal nine-minute stretch for Leeds. It’s a bummer for Leeds, which could have been at the top of the table with a perfect six points with Man City and Arsenal, but four points after two games isn’t bad at all for a team that was in a relegation fight to the final day last season. Leeds has Chelsea at home next weekend, which will be a US-palooza with Christian Pulisic coming to Elland Road.

• Watch Brentford 4, Manchester United 0. Easily the craziest result of the weekend with United being down 4-0 after just 35 minutes and David De Gea melting down in front of us. But don’t put the blame entirely on the goalkeeper. United deserves to be at the extreme bottom of the table after two ugly losses in two weeks, and every time the camera showed Erik ten Hag it was essentially a meme. Here’s an idea: Put Lisandro Martínez at the six (where I guarantee you he’ll be better than as a CB) and start Raphaël Varane and Harry Maguire in the central defense. I’d also rather see Marcus Rashford or Anthony Martial as the starting nine than Cristiano Ronaldo. The faster Ronaldo can get his wish to leave, the better for United as a whole.

• Watch Barcelona 0, Rayo Vallecano 0. Even if most of what Barcelona’s directors did this summer seemed shady and terribly risky for the future, the one thing we were supposed to agree on was that this Barça team would be much improved on the field. Well, not today! Robert Lewandowski, Raphinia and Gavi looked a bit off, Sergio Busquets got sent off, and while things picked up somewhat after Frenkie de Jong came on, it wasn’t enough to keep Barça from dropping points at home to start the season. One cool thing about today: The second and third games I saw were on over-the-air NBC and ABC, which I hope keeps happening more. I understand the economics of why so much soccer on U.S. TV is on streaming services these days, but we’re still a country where millions of new soccer fans remain to be created, and the best way to do that is by making good games easily available.

OPENING THE MAILBAG

We are less than 4 months away from the World Cup, and it seems like Qatar officials have so many issues to solve before the tournament, including the schedule for the first 2 days and whether fans can drink alcohol. Is this going to be a disaster?

Raúl

It seems kind of crazy that after Qatar has had 12 years to prepare for the World Cup, FIFA literally changed the opening day of the tournament this week! So now Qatar-Ecuador will kick off the World Cup on November 19 as a stand-alone game. That probably should have been the case all along, but I don’t like that FIFA seems to be accommodating Qatar and doing something at the last moment that will make life difficult for Ecuador fans. Based on what I learned from the announcement of the World Cup 2026 host cities, it seems like FIFA does a lot these days by the seat of its pants.

The Qatar World Cup has a lot of big issues, obviously. But I actually don’t think consuming alcohol will be a problem. I was in Qatar in late February, and it was pretty easy to get a drink at a hotel bar or restaurant, much easier than when I visited Qatar in 2013. One significant concern I see will be for hotel rooms for visiting fans. I’ll try and get more info on this in the coming weeks.

Dan Le Batard got BigSoccer riled up during the 2006 World Cup with some anti-soccer comments. Now he employs Fancy Lad Chris Wittyngham. How much is this an indicator of progress for soccer?

James

Ha! Maybe not the best indicator, but it’s something. Dan still isn’t a huge soccer guy, but he has people on his show who care about the sport. And I’m seeing a few other signs on big sports shows. Colin Cowherd had Stu Holden on his show this week, and Cowherd not only follows the U.S. national teams now, but he also knows what he’s talking about. We’ll see if we can get Stephen A. Smith (“Let’s do that soccer!”) in a place like that before long.

How do you think the NWSL compares in terms of quality of play to the European leagues? Do you foresee a day when there will be a match between the European champions and the American ones?

Roger Bauman

It was revealing not long ago to interview Lindsay Horan, who spoke about the differences between the NWSL and playing at Lyon. She noted that Lyon was better technically, while the NWSL was more rough-and-tumble athletic. I agree with her. But I’d also add that the NWSL is much more competitive than the French league and has a better distribution of talent among the teams. And while the WICC games next week will be fun, I’m waiting for FIFA to get its act together and get a Club World Cup for women started ASAP. We needs those games, and it should have already happened by now.

I feel sad about the rough season my hometown Washington Spirit is having after winning the NWSL championship last year. Do you have any insights—general or specific—about how they've gone from red hot to almost bottom of the pack? (I wonder if it's particularly hard for team cohesion to have a whopping seven players disappear from time to time for USWNT camps?)

Alison MacAdam

It’s been a crazy turn-around this season for the Spirit. There’s more stability under the new ownership of Michele Kang, and you’d think things would be better with previous abusive coaches out of the picture. But the team has gone a long time without winning (not since May 1), and the situation at Segra Field is a mess, and you’re right, it hasn’t helped to miss so many players with the national team. But if you have that many national team players, you should start getting results when they’re back. And that hasn’t happened.

From the USMNT perspective, is the team better with Pulisic playing with Chelsea as a super sub or as a regular player with a lesser Premier league team (ex: West Ham)? Ultimately, the goal is to have Christian at his peak going into the WC.

Paul Saiz

If you’re the USMNT, you obviously want Pulisic playing as much as possible. Right now it seems like Raheem Sterling, Mason Mount and Kai Havertz are being preferred by Thomas Tuchel, but I’m hoping Pulisic finds a way to crack that soon. We’ve seen some discussion about the potential of a Newcastle transfer for Pulisic, but it’s still hard for me to envision him making a move this month. 

If Seattle doesn't make the playoffs, is Schmetzer out? Does whether Lagerwey stays affect Schmetzer's future? If Brian is fired, is Preki the obvious choice for interim coach?

James

Even if the Sounders miss the MLS playoffs (and I think they’ll end up making it), I would be stunned if Schmetzer or Lagerwey would be in trouble at all this season after the Sounders won the CCL title. That trophy, and the two MLS Cups they’ve won in recent years, buys a lot of credit for those two. That said, I kind of like that the question is being asked, because I think it’s a good thing for there to be more pressure on MLS coaches and sporting directors than we have seen in the past.

What outrageously wild predictions would you have for the first half of the Euro season? Some team coming from nowhere or some player we never heard of? Who’s the next Sheriff? Or just who should we turn an eye toward?

Lou Hudson

I’m fascinated by what’s going on at Rangers. You’ve got a team that went to the final of the Europa League (losing to Frankfurt), a team that has USMNT players James Sands and goal-scorer Malik Tillman, a team that has one more hurdle to clear with PSV Eindhoven to get to this season’s Champions League group stage. So how about predicting that Rangers gets there, and that Tillman becomes the goal-scorer (his ups are crazy) that the USMNT needs for the World Cup?

Why is it that women's clubs in Europe are attached to men's clubs as opposed to the "expansion style" in the U.S.? Do you think one model is better for the development of the women's game?

MR

It’s just the soccer culture in Europe, where we haven’t seen any real situations pop up yet where someone wants to start a women’s team from scratch and compete with the established order. It’s instructive that it was seen as important for the women’s game in Europe when Manchester United and Real Madrid finally took women’s soccer seriously enough to start investing in top-division teams (even though they aren’t the best teams in their leagues at this point). I don’t think one model is clearly better, and you do see some NWSL teams owned by people who also own MLS teams, but as long as the owners show they care, that’s what matters to me.

With the self-imposed announcement date passed and nary a peep during the All-Star break, is MLS to Vegas off or do we still expect to hear something soon? Also, I'm assuming MLS goes to 32 teams. When will that happen and who are the most likely candidates?

Michael Mancini

I still expect that Las Vegas will get the next MLS expansion team to bring the league to 30 teams. At that point, the next leading candidates are San Diego, Phoenix, Sacramento and maybe Detroit. MLS commissioner Don Garber indicated last week that he’d like to get to 32 teams. But it’s in his interests for there to be the appearance of scarcity, so I doubt we’ll hear him say anything about the potential for more than 32 teams for a while to come.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and thanks for reading!