Dummy: Interviews with smart people about soccer

Portland Timbers' Amobi Okugo joins the show to talk about his one-man mission to help young athletes learn how to manage their money. Amobi, George, and Bobby also touch on the homophobic slurs directed toward Robbie Rogers recently and the Hope Solo controversy. Oh, and Bobby talks about wearing an R2D2 jersey for Harrisburg City. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Bristol Rovers, aka the Gas, played Chelsea in the League Cup Tuesday night. George was in London and met up with Dummy’s own Gashead, David Goldblatt, for a chat before the game. Since 2010, the Gas have been relegated twice and promoted twice. They began life as the Black Arabs (David will try to explain) and their fans yell “Arrrrgggghhh” (because pirates). Recorded on location in and around Stamford Bridge, this episode also features David’s mate and fellow Gashead Tim as well as Dom Bliss, a writer for the mag. No tiki talka this week, but stay till the end for George’s review of the mushroom soup in Stamford Bridge’s press room. ARRGGHHHGHHHH!!!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Because sometimes we’re dummies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dummies beware! Rick Karr is back in the host’s chair after hacking into the servers at the very posh and definitely real Howler Tower. Rick is joined by Bobby Warshaw for a wide-ranging conversation on Indonesian soccer culture and the pros and cons of a European Super-league. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George, Bobby, and David answer your questions—they dive right into it with a debate about desired rule changes to the sport of soccer. They then talk about what drives and motivates their respective careers. Finally, the three discuss the most important topic of all: players and their hair. After your questions, they Tiki Talka about Xavi's fantastic gesture, Alejandro Bedoya's move to MLS, and green pools at the Olympics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James Dorsey joins to discuss the ways that soccer fans and administrators play a role in Turkey’s complex and tumultuous political realm. Then Sam Patterson explains why roughly 50 members of La Familia, Beitar Jerusalem’s ultra right-wing hooligan group, were taken off the streets in a recent sting operation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Dummy’s second installment of 1v1 we bring you Carli Lloyd. You’ve probably heard of her, but here are the basics anyway: current FIFA World Player of the Year, the second person ever to score a hat trick in a World Cup final, and all around badass. Oh yeah—she was also on the cover of Howler. Twice. Somehow her Wikipedia page fails to mention that. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Robbie Rogers played for the Columbus Crew and the U.S. national team before going abroad and joining Leeds United. Soon after, he abruptly quit the game and announced that he was gay. When he came out of retirement, with the LA Galaxy, Rogers became the first and only gay male athlete in any of the the big American sports leagues. He also wrote a book about growing up with such a big secret, keeping it from family, friends, teammates, coaches—everybody. This is the first in a Dummy companion series we’re calling 1v1. The idea is to talk to some of the leading players, managers, businesspeople, journalists—and not just about the usual stuff, but to really go deep on the experiences and points of view that make them unique. In this interview, Robbie talks about what it was like in the U.S. residency program in Bradenton as a teenager—he only stayed for a little while because it was such an unwelcoming environment. He speaks about locker room culture here in the U.S. and in England. He spoke about his internship in London, where he would transform from celebrated pro soccer player in the morning to the guy who fetched the coffee in the afternoon. Rogers says he believes people think he’s stuck up when he first meets them because he’s an introvert and very shy: “I’m probably that way because I’ve been closeted for so long and I don’t trust a lot of people.” He says that he’s always felt like an outcast. All told, it’s an incredibly honest and open and enjoyable conversation. In the coming weeks and months, we’ll publish similar interviews with Carli Lloyd, Sean Johnson, Alexi Lalas, Christen Press, Paul Gardner, and others. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week in the New York Times Magazine, Jay Caspian Kang published a confused mish-mash of a story claiming, among other things, that “crowds who gather in M.L.S. stadiums and bars and sing songs inspired by groups who shove black men off subway trains and travel to foreign cities to taunt Muslim immigrants” are the reason “why so many Mexican-Americans choose not to root for the United States.” What? We’re using the occasion to speak with Simon Evans (Washington Post, Reuters), who has actual knowledge of English and Italian supporter traditions and is also familiar with the Americans trying to adopt them. He joins George and Bobby for a more informed discussion of American fan culture. Simon, who traveled to France for the knock-out rounds, also helps George convince Bobby that Euro 16 wasn’t boring. Next, Wes Burdine talks about the $700,000 transfer of Poku from NYCFC to Miami FC and what purchases like this reveal about the NASL. The country’s second division is struggling to keep pace with MLS and is now being squeezed from the USL below. In Tiki Talka, Bobby explains the phrase "penis bandit” (sorry everyone). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jorge Arangure of Vice Sports joins to discuss his reporting on the case, filed Friday in Texas, that could upend everything from pay-to-play to MLS’s single entity status. Plus: Abkhazia, world champs? George and Bobby talk to Max Seddon, Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, who reported on the CONIFA World Football Cup. And in Tiki Talka, George answers a listener’s questions about how we make the magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re having a live show with special guest Anatol Yusef! Thursday July 7th in Brooklyn. It’s an intimate venue and we can only accommodate 30 guests, so please check out shop.howlermagazine.com and get a ticket soon! Today on Dummy: Messi’s retirement and the shenanigans/crimes of the Argentine FA that may have prompted it. Ivan Lopez-Muniz lays out the backstory: Messi will probably come back because he now has the opportunity to remake the Argentine federation LeBron-style. (Argentina’s contract negotiation with Adidas also comes into it.) Then, Megan Rapinoe talks about her new role as an ambassador with Street Football World, the dumb questions people ask female athletes, how her twin sister helped her become an elite soccer player, and why there seems to be some tension between the male and female U.S. internationals over the pay question. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Plus: David survived France. How ’bout that Iceland!? Bobby makes his friend Kelley O’Hara deeply uncomfortable. George’s tiki-talka gets even grosser than Joachim Löw. And Dummy’s lone listener in Greenland wrote us an email. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

David joins on the eve of his trip to Marseille to talk about the unrest rocking France and the sky-high ticket prices at the Copa Centenario with George. Then George and Bobby speak with Chris Billig, the man behind @gay4soccer, to talk about how soccer communities can be more inclusive and try, even in small ways, to combat the bigotry that leads to unspeakable crimes like the one that recently took place in Orlando. In Tiki Talka, Bobby suggests a new look at hand balls and George talks about a man who can't seem to keep his hands off his balls even when he knows he on TV. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

George and Bobby welcome Amos Barshad, who wrote in The Fader about the murders that have ripped apart the mafia-style barra brava of Newell’s Old Boys in Rosario, Argentina. George and Bobby also discuss the U.S. performance against Costa Rica—in particular, how the U.S. improved on its lack of movement versus Colombia, which was the topic of discussion in this week’s episode of The Play. Check out howlermagazine.com/podcasts and click on this week’s episode to see a gif of Bobby’s absolute golazo from the weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

…But that doesn't mean U.S. fans should be happy. Note: The new iTunes feed is not ready, so we’re publishing the second episode of the Double Pivot here. The next one should have it’s own feed… Okay, onto the podcast. In this episode, Mike Goodman and Michael Caley discuss the first weekend of the Copa Centenario, but first they preview Euro 16: why France deserves to be the favorite; how Germany weird brand of soccer is even weirder than you thought; and good but boring Spain. Also, El Tri’s oddly struggled with a man advantage against Uruguay plus DON’T WORRY: the USMNT isn’t that bad, and Klinsmann isn't necessarily wrong when he points that out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices