So first off, did you have the final four? Did you have this final four as your final four in the Gold Cup?
No, definitely not. I did think the US of Mexico would make it, but I also thought Canada and Panama would be there. I mean, look, I said there was the Tuesday last week, the final group day of B and C, the Canada group and the Panama group. To put it sort of where people might actually understand. I thought that that was either going to be concer chaos or chalk just boring. Hey, it's what we expect, and
it was basically not boring. Necessarily, there were some good games, but it was basically what we expected, right, and then the quarterfinals working chaos, that was not what we expected. All three of the matches involved teams go to penalties, and the Mexico Saudi Arabia match, which involves a guest team Saudi Arabia. I'm not sure they really want to
be here. The government wants them to be here, but do the players after a long summer, does the coach after you know, going to the next round in Asian qualification instead of qualifying directly. Probably not. I mean they went to some nice like San Diego Austin and northern California.
There are worse places in the US to visit. But yeah, but when you look at this quarter the quarterfinals, I look like, over and over again, I think those of US who keep track of CONCCAFF and look at our region, I think we just kind of you almost end up feeling like, hey, maybe the critics are right and it's just the US and Mexico and even Canada maybe can't get it done. But then you look and you say, well, every team that was playing another CONCACAFT team held extremely tight,
played a great game. And then Ondudas and Guatemala, two teams that have not been to this stage, in Honduras's case since twenty thirteen and Guatemala's case since nineteen ninety six, all of a sudden are back on this kind of big stage, in this final four. And even if you end up with the US Mexico final and people say, oh, the Gold Cup always ends up like this, I think you can still totally reasonably say, yeah, but we enjoyed
the ride. You know, so I thought it was a special quarterfinal round and not at all what I had forecast.
So Guatemala, what does this mean for the evolution of their program and where it is to be back here in the first time in almost three decades.
I mean, and even even in three decades ago. You know, you're talking about a Gold Cup that was just so wildly different. You know. Now we talk about this tournament that this year is smaller because it's only taking place west of the Mississippi. But in nineteen ninety six it took place in Anaheim, La and San Diego, and it was all in January and there were only nine teams. So you're just talking about a different idea. Really, this
has never been done before by Guatemala. The other thing that they've never done before is made the World Cup, and that's been the focus for Luis Fernando Thena, the Mexican manager, since he arrived in twenty twenty one, late in twenty twenty one, and so this is almost like a happy footnote. You know, this is almost like I just think that the momentum that they generate from this tournament, even if they lose handily tomorrow against the US, you know,
it's gonna give them a lot of confidence. In the toughest group of World Cup qualification. The format is that there are three groups of four teams. The top team goes. The two teams that are best ranked a little confusing in second place go to a playoff. So I think that they feel good about keeping that dream alive now and just being in this stage means a huge amount
to Guatemala. You know, it's the biggest country in Central America by some margin, and I think in the US we sort of almost overlook the migrant community of Guatemalan's in the US because we talk about Mexican immigrants, even on Gordon immigrants El Salvadora Salvadoran immigrants. But as we've seen at the Gold Cup, there are huge amounts of Guatemalan people that live in this country, that travel to this country, that are excited about this team. They've been
showing up at all the stadiums. I don't think that Guatemalan team themselves thought there would be anyone in Minnesota, and yet they're worth thousands and so, you know, I just think that it's a really special moment for this team, but also the culmination of a process. You know, there are very few countries that make the semi finals of
their continental tournament. However easy or difficult you want to say, that it is without some sort of long term plan, and when you look at what Tenna has done to empower some of the local players, but also to bring in some of the US born recruits, make sure that team meshes, make sure there's good synchrony there. I think has been really smart in a way. You say it's not a surprise for manager that's won a gold medal
with Mexico. That was a long time ago, and I think there are some real criticisms about how he managed that his last couple of the gamechi stops. But now he's got this Guatemala team in the semi finals in believing that they might be able to make the World Cup for the first time ever, which would just be huge in this region. You know, if they're back in the US next summer. We think the crowds are good this summer, they'll go crazy next year.
Who is the biggest disappointment in this tournament to date so far.
Well, until Sunday, it was pretty clearly Jamaica. Right until Sunday was pretty clearly Jamaica. Because Jamaica, with their project and their new recruits, everyone thinks that all that that they can do it. Steve McLaren not exactly an experienced manager. Literally coached England, right and all of a sudden he's coaching Jamaica and they can't get out of the group stage and they didn't. They beat wat a loop, so they ended with three points, but they didn't even look
like they were going to get those. But I have to say that after Sunday, even though it's a difficult result and they played better than Jamaica did in any of their games, Canada has to be a huge disappointment. They drew with Currasau in the group stage, that kind
of overcame, that survived it. But to me, when we talked about Canada after the Nation's League, John, it's like, well, okay, that's cool that they had two good games and they beat the US in the third place game, but the standard for Canada has to be trophies at this point and they didn't come close to it. Right, They're not in the semifinals, they didn't get out of the quarterfinals.
They didn't particularly close, and I think that, you know, I mean, maybe it's not fair that they didn't look close, you know, if that game goes differently with that with the red card to Schaffelberg. I think you're probably talking about Canada and the Semis. You're probably talking about US Canada. But the fact that that that standard has to exist now for Canada to be that much higher. And then the way I like Jesse Marsh. I like that he
sort of enjoys to poke the bear, it seems. But when you poke the bear, you set yourself up to having these moments where it looks a little silly. When you said before the tournament that everyone wanted to be here, and then after the tournament when you get eliminated at the quarterfinal stage, you say, ah, but I didn't have my old team. It doesn't really square. I think that Bombito, the center back was the most important absence in Canada.
That's one that people didn't really talk about because you end up starting a teenage kid who you know, bummer for him, doesn't convert his penalty. You know, these things happen, and think that when when the squad isn't as deep as you need it to be. In Canada's still in that process, especially at the back of who are the better players going to be? You know, you set yourselves up for these situations. So I think Canada's probably the biggest disappointment, but Jamaica's right there as well.
I was gonna ask what you thought about this whole Jesse marsh heel promo wrestling villain, dropping pipe bombs and waving his finger at the US kind of persona that he's developed these days.
I kind of think it's fun. Man, look like I'm I'm I'm in like a weird space of like both being of the generation that enjoys like you know, like Jose Marinos Special One TV was like one of the first things I remember consuming a soccer content to like marionette of Jose with the outsized personality, but you know, he became this sort of like God where you're just like, man, it's so funny that he's always trying to stick his
finger in the eye of the others. I watch a lot of Latin American soccer, as you know, there's a lot of character is like that in Latin American soccer, and I kind of think that in the US, in Canada, kind.
Of in.
English speaking North America, I think we could use more of that. So overall, I sort of enjoy it, but I think like part of the risk you run when you are a wrestling heel is that when the face takes you down, everyone really celebrates it, right, And I think that Jesse's a smart enough guy to know that. And I think he's smart enough to understands what he's doing, you know, and I don't. And maybe if you had him sit down on the record on your show, he
would kind of wink, wink, nudge nudge past it. But I think you know, you inject him with tru Saram. He knows exactly what he's doing, and I think he's smart enough to manage it. But he's also going to knows that he's gonna have to take his lumps when the team has a disappointing performance like they did on Sunday.
So if Jesse Marsh is the iron chic and that makes Murcia Pochettino Hulk Hogan, what have you thought about the US where they have problems up top, but they're still finding ways to push through at the end of the day to get to the semis.
Yeah, but I don't think you can play like that. I am a real Limerrikan for Pochettino, right, even though he he seems to have a little bit of I don't know, he made a weird joke about wanting to get invited to the White House, So maybe I don't know, Maybe we don't know exactly where his politics are unlike Hogan. But you know, on the field, I think the US
has been okay. I in a way, like after that game against Costa Rica, Bochettino said like, hey, these are the experiences that we need, and I think he's right. You know, when you talk about this, the tournament kind of fundamentally changed for me before it started, where for many years in the US, I think this tournament had been built up as the men's national team's test run
for the World Cup. But the Club World Cup takes two players three players from you Blissit pulls out the injuries, however serious they are or not mean you're playing with alternate fullbacks and alternate forward. So you know, all of a sudden, this changes from a goal cup of must take it seriously and win two Ah. Now we are in this sort of proto development mode that the Gold Cup is served for a long time. Who are the players that will impress? Who will in a roster spot?
And when that tournament fundamentally changes, the mandate becomes like like Porchettino says, we need these experiences, not we need to win convincingly, and and they're getting the experience. I think the important thing is to learn from the experiences. If the US rides their luck again in that in the in the game against Suatemala and gets through another penalty shootout, perhaps they didn't learn the lessons they needed to learn from the Costa Rica game. But I think
time is going to tell about those those results. Forward scoring, creativity, the things that I think they're looking worse at right now, asides from whatever it is Max Arfson is doing, sometimes being great and sometimes being yeah, you know. Aside from that, I think you're right in saying, like, hey, the forward, the attack, the goal scoring has been sort of the most confusing and inconsistent part. Again, like in theory, you say, well, Baligan's the first forward on your team sheet in the
World Cup, Ricardo Pepsi's your second. Maybe Azamon who's starting this tournament is the third. But I don't know that it's reason for long term worry. And I think it's sort of a credit to por Chatino and his staff that they are getting this group as far as they're getting them it's easy to pencil them into the final. They're clearly not there yet. But if they make the final and lose to Mexico, I think you say successful
tournament learning experience. Again with the kind of caveat, you actually have to learn from your learning experiences because if you don't apply the lesson, oh he.
Froze up, we'll sit with it. Hang on, John Arnold, get conca caft on substack, and it is mandatory subscriptions to get this, so basically it is getting concacaft. Get concacaft dot sub stack dot com. You can catch up with John that way and you can find out anything and everything going on in concacap. I do have another couple of questions for John when he comes back and tell you what, let me let me do this, because
he has frozen, so I will remove him temporarily. And my guess is someone tried to call him on whatever device he's on, and so, uh, he's going to be dialing back in at any moment, So tell you what, let me let me do this. I'm going to remove him and hope that the uh that the madness comes back in and hopefully you guys can still see me. I mean that would be a good thing. So hopefully the transmission on my end is still okay. But uh, there we all right, So here we go. I don't
know what happened, but he froze. He froze, but he's back.
Like the Uh well, I was gonna make a Marvel reference and then realize those over my skis whoever the one that he thaws is Captain America. Yeah, Chrisian ballistic.
That sounds good to me. Another couple of minutes. By the way, you have to get concacap dot substack dot com to get all of John's stuff. And as I fully disclosed at the beginning of this subscribe have from the beginning because for all of the diehards and all of the intel that we need, it is a go to place for for me.
This one.
We were talking managers and stuff, and since you mentioned Costa Rica, I wanted to know what you thought about Miguel Heneda being in charge of Costa Rica wearing that blazer these days.
That's right, he's got a new patch on his blazer. Nah, listen, man like Bojos Bojo, and I think that you get you get all of them, You get the good where I do think he puts a level of seriousness into the program and the tactical knowledge is decent, but you also get some antics and I think you get some
limited flexibility. He's a manager that I've been covering for man, this is crazy, but like more than a decade now, because I was I was with him in Chile in twenty fifteen when he was taking Mexico to Copamerica, did the Gold Cup in twenty fifteen, which they won. He gets fired after that tournament because you got in a physical altercation with a commentator at the Philadelpia airport after
he won the tournament. So these are the things you get with Miguelada, right, you get some trophies in in some fights. I think that you know, even in all that time, he's shown more tactical flexibility than he did at the start of his career, which you would expect. People grow, people of alved people get new ideas. But I still think that Costa Rica would benefit from him being a little more open to modifying some of his ideas.
But then you know there are some again, like there are benefits like where I wasn't so sure about him convincing Kaylor Navas to come back and then novel so fantastic. Kaylor looks like Kaylor and everything kind of works out. So I think Hereta has a really good eye for talent.
He's obviously a great motivator. I think players like playing for him, and maybe that's what you needed in Costa Rica, where there's been some sort of prickly personalities and yeah, like well and they got ditched by a really good manager in a Fato and so you know, and maybe you just need someone who's absolutely gonna be there, who's gonna wave the flag ahead of the tournament, and overall
is just a personality. And you know, I think the biggest thing for Costa Rica right now, it's Herretta kind of distracts from the fact that like this generational change that Costa Rica's needed for so long is actually happening.
So you have all these kids who are under twenty three, maybe under twenty five in some cases, who are absolutely the future of the Costa Rica national team, who look like they'll be very good at the twenty thirty World Cup, twenty thirty four World Cup, and he's kind of you know, he in a way provides the cover for those guys to make mistakes, and Kaylor does too, where it's like he's drawing all the attention. He obviously cleans up the
mistakes of the back. But you know, the uncomfortable truth is that maybe you need to finish that generational change. You're not gonna kick Calvo or Kalo off the team, you know, because it's good to have leadership. You need those guys in the locker room if you're going to get to the World Cup this fall with these qualifiers, those guys are going to play a part. But ideally you have someone who replaces them on the field who's better.
They need those players to come. I think Kaylor's replacement is obvious in Patrick Siquira. The less obvious is the defensive replacement for Godvo. You saw with Jalen Mitchell, the center back injured in the US game, they had to bring a gombola and experience. Put Calvo in the on the fullbacks side or on the outside, and all of a sudden, he's a big flashing red light. That's his attack here, attack here, and the US does it and
you know it leads to some results. So look like Ereda, he's fun, he's weird, he's himself, but I think this is a team on the rise. Is he the right guy for the job short term? Probably? Long term no, but it's certainly fun to see him in Conker caff and have him coaching a national team again.
And just make sure that the batteries in the walkie talkie you are fully charged when you need those, and make sure that you tell Francisco Calviot, look, bruh, if you're going to be at the spot, go left or go right, don't go down the middle because because then Matt free sits there and just perries it.
It was it was really remarkable that, you know, Freeze after the game credits the goal, keep a coach Tony Jimenez for the scouting. But you know, he said, I was wanting the plane watching penalties, and man, it's a good thing that like Prince is dying because I think back in the day he probably would have been reading a newspaper, but he's studying the iPad, watching the thing. And I mean, it was really remarkable how good he was.
It's funny because on the TV interviews like, ah, penalties are my thing, and I'm like, oh, yeah, he is good at penalty shootouts, and then you look and it's like, oh, he did a Harvard level research study on penalties and it showed. I mean, he really seems to know his stuff. And credit to those guys, because I don't think that Costa Rica realized how scouted they were, especially when there was a penalty earlier in the game that he doesn't stop.
But then the shootout different different animal there. And I mean so many great stories from shootouts and Conka Calf this weekend just really really look like whether you like him as a way to in the game or not, we all have fun watching them, for sure, no doubt.
I think he guessed right on all of them, and I think touched five of the six or five of the seven. I think he was like right there with most of them. Before you go, obviously we do have to talk about Texas Tech football eight and five last
year lost to Arkansas and the Liberty Bowl. And you are, I believe sixty days away from your season kickoff against Arkansas Pine Bluff, if I remember, if I remember my research correctly, do you ever get the chance to go back and watch home games to Jones at and T or or do you how you stuck watching him on TV because you're the busiest man in Conca CAF show business.
I make it to one a year. I've got a fifteen year old who has decided he's going to Tech, which is awesome. We'll see, we'll see if that takes. He's still got a couple of years to change his mind and you know, go somewhere less academically prestigious obviously, but yeah, no, I make it. I make it back to one a year. This year is the one hundredth anniversary of the student newspaper at Texas Tech, and we're all getting together for the Okie State game, which is
a big one. So yeah, man, you know, the Jones and the program itself. All of a sudden, you know, I think Texas Tech is so funny because it's like a lot of your your viewers in the in the South will understand, but you know, like it it's a nothing in place lub you know, you know, supposedly, but it's so special to those of us who are there.
And I think, you know, I see you sipping on an auburn cup, like I think it's kind of similar but smaller where you know, if you get it, you get it right, and and but like when I'm in Mexico or in the CONCAF region and I'm streaming these horrendous non conference games that they're like what are you doing? Man, Like why do you care about this? And like this is our thing, this is like what we care about. And so yeah, I make it back to one home game a year being based here in Dallas. This year
it worked out to make that Okie State down. I was worried it was going to be qualifiers, but it kind of fell in the right way. So yeah, especially this fall with the Somember October November, windows probably be watching more soccer than than American football. But you know, I obviously keep track of the Red Raiders in the in the college football picture.
As a whole. Yeah, the boss is the Auburn alumna and I am a Florida State grad. So we are a cross conference marriage. And that is the only way that we think this could have worked in the Southeastern United States.
Yeah, College Texas Women's so they're undefeated in football, but they don't have any games.
Right and so but hey, you get that zero to the right of the dash, you're still unbeaten. You up because if we look. Our first anniversary was the Rose Bowl Game No Lie with Florida State and Auburn for the National Championship. The seats ended up in the Auburn section. I don't know how that happened. And if our marriage can survive that National Championship game, I think we're in
good shape. I think one completely and totally promotional question, what has it been like for you to build becoming getting a concacaffe aated and the substack and get concacaf dot substack dot com. What's it been like for you to build all this stuff? Because it's been really cool to see this progression.
Yeah, it's funny, man, I mean getting Concacaf. The newsletter started in twenty twenty when I knew I wanted to leave my full time job and did. I was a staff writer at Gold. Still have a lot of great friends there. They're doing a good job on the US stuff. They're kind of they're back. I left when I was getting frustrated with the direction, but now they're doing great. So check those guys out too. But yeah, I thought it would just be somewhere to kind of give me
a place to scribble. I thought maybe like history projects about conkor CAF and you know, just stuff that I get curious about and go down a rabbit hole. But it's been funny to see it kind of become my niche and like also to get respect from major media outlets and kind of put some of the stories that I think they're realizing that work on the newsletter on that major media outlet as well. So that's been really cool. I think that overall, look like there's just more space.
Right People are interested in a lot of different things. I actually think college sports is a great example of that, where like the Sickos Committee, right, like they revel in finding these goofy stories that are the same types of things that I have always liked finding the CONCACAF region. It just takes people a little longer to buy in.
I think that the college football fans are already used to the idea of checking in on Appalachian State or watching a Sunbelt game on a Tuesday night or whatever the case. With soccer fans, maybe you know in this country at least are a little a little more, a little more pre disposed to watching Premier league match and thinking everything is very serious and you can consume sports
like that, and that's fine if you don't. If you liked it to get into the weirdness of CONCA chaos, then you know, I think there's a lot of people that have done that. So building those channels and being and being convinced that it that that that lane exists, I think has been the biggest key where it's just like, look, I'm gonna drink my coffee in the morning and talk about bottom all and soccer and people are gonna watch it and uh, and they have and it's been really gratifying. Obviously,
we can always use more. Everyone welcome to join, but it's been good man and and and sort of expanding to the video stuff and doing more. You're certainly not stopping ahead of twenty twenty six, and we're gonna have more conkor CAF teams in the World Cup than ever before, the Men's World Cup, but also the Women's World Cup. There will be more teams than they were in Australia and New Zealand. So you know, keep watching, keep looking. It's it's it legitimately is just a fun way to
consume sports. And I think especially now for American soccer fans in the US, man like in a lot of ways, the US. I keep telling my buddies, like, the US has grown into a real soccer country. And I know that because Tim Howard and Landon Donovan are grumpy on the podcast, and then it gets aggregated and people, you know, like, then you're just in the cycle of somebody who sees an article and they respond to it and then that's
a headline. Dempsey says that Donovan is X and then oh, but you know, Jermaine Jones says that Dempsey says that, and like that happens in every soccer country. Is it good? I don't think so. And if you want to get off that treadmill a little bit, dip into getting Concacaf, because yeah, we'll touch on some of that stuff, but we're also touching on all sorts of other stuff that you probably didn't know you were interested in, but hopefully it captures your attention.
And that's why we love having you here to talk about it, and that's why we subscribe, and that's why we followed get concacaf dot substack dot com at Arnold Common on the two hundred and eighty character app. All the socials be well, my friend, be safe. You now have with that email that I sent you this morning, you now have the garage door opener. You now know
where the key is under the mat. So if you're ever bored and there's like the Hour of Chaos on a Friday and you want to come in and talk about FC Dallas, like ten thirty to eleven oh five Eastern time, it literally can turn into the Hour of Chaos and people just come in and sit there and go, hey, latest update, or hey you suck you know, anything like that. To wrap up a week. You've got the garage door opener. My friend, it's carte blanche. Great to see you. Do
not be a stranger. We'll catch up soon.
I'll be here, man. I always appreciate it. John, thanks to you, thanks to the audience. We'll talk soon, man,