Dummy podcast
Interviews with smart soccer people
Subscribe: iTunes • Stitcher • Google Play • RSS
Howler editor George Quraishi interviews soccer journalists, managers, players, and activists. Dummy is about everything except what happened on the field last week: the business, politics, history, personalities, and social issues that touch the world’s favorite game.
Get an email every time we publish a new episode.
Scroll down to listen.
June 1, 2017
This week, Hartlepool United unveiled a new crest, and the designer of that crest, Mick Watson, joins the pod to discuss what makes for good (and bad) soccer badge design. He also explains the grotesque reason that the club’s mascot is named H’Angus the Monkey (readers of the mag may recall that the man who played H’Angus was elected — and then reelected — mayor of Hartlepool in the 1990s).
May 25, 2017
After a pair of matches, the US U-20s currently lead Group E at the world championship in South Korea, and they’ve already played their two toughest opponents. Today I speak with Brian Dunseth, who called the match for Fox Sports this morning and was himself a prominent member of the US U-20 team back in the day. We evaluate the first two games (a 3–3 draw with Ecuador and the 1–0 victory over Senegal), and look ahead to the final group match against Saudi Arabia and a likely knockout-round match-up with New Zealand. We also talk about what we can really learn from players at this age — Josh Sargent, 17, is tied for the tournament’s top scorer — and what it means for the team and American soccer than some of our best eligible internationals, like Christian Pulisic, aren’t on the squad.
May 18, 2017
Steve Fainaru’s new feature for ESPN on the Syrian national team reveals how the Syrian government has targeted athletes for murder (38 soccer players and counting) and turned Team Syria into a mouthpiece in support of Bashar al-Assad. Steve joins Dummy to discuss the peril faced by players who choose to speak out and boycott the team and FIFA’s cowardly response to the crisis. You can read Steve’s story here.
May 11, 2017
Last year, Dirty Tackle joined up with whatahowler.com, and now the dudes have their own hilarious podcast. In this episode of Dummy, George and Dirty Tackle impresario Brooks Peck talk about why players in Europe are funnier than those in America, why covering FIFA will never be boring, and how Brooks came to own a pink Palermo jersey. Also: Does Zlatan feel empathy? Is Bastian Schweinsteiger bored? And Gigi Buffon has kind grandpa eyes, don’t you think?
May 4, 2017
Is it just me (George), or has Cristiano Ronaldo subtly changed the way he plays? The data, provided by our friend Oliver at OPTA, backs him up: Cristiano’s goals in the Champions League have been coming from closer and closer to the goal over the last few years. I discuss this with Jeb Brovsky, who talks about Ronaldo’s transformation from inverted winger to center forward. We also talk about the first leg of the Monaco-Juventus semifinal and what a Real Madrid-Juventus final could look like (hint: Marcelo vs. Dani Alves). Yes please.
April 27, 2017
On Tuesday, the MLS Players Union made its annual release of league-wide player salary information, which revealed that 28 players make more than a million dollars per year… and none of them play for the league’s best team, FC Dallas. Jeb Brovsky and George sit down to navel-gaze/discuss.
Then, Tim Froh joins to talk about his story in the Guardian about the lack of diversity among Major League Soccer head coaches. Froh argues that the uniformity in background fosters a sort of group-think among the men who coach MLS teams, and perhaps an ingrained hesitation to extend opportunities to people who are different. Could this be a clue as to why FC Dallas has been so successful graduating its academy players to the first team?
April 20, 2017
David Goldblatt just got back from Nigeria, where he watched A LOT of soccer, including Lagos’s entry in the Nigerian top flight, Mountain of Fire and Miracles FC. He and George also talk about the Madrid vs. Munich Champions League quarterfinal and disagree about whether we should start using instant replay to officiate soccer matches. And he weighs in on the CANUSAMEX 2026 and offers a more hopeful verdict than either George or Jamil could come up with last week.
Next, George interviews Austin da Luz of North Carolina FC about his initiative Playing for Pride. He and a bunch of other professional players have pledged to donate small amounts for each match they play in order to support the Human Rights Campaign’s fight to extend equal rights to LGBQT people. You can support Playing for Pride here.
April 13, 2017
Jamil Chade is a sports business journalist for O Estado de Saõ Paulo who is based in Switzerland, where he covers FIFA and the IOC. On this episode he chats with George about the internal politics that make the joint North American WC bid for 2026 likely to succeed, and what the changes it entails mean for FIFA and for the future of the World Cup.
April 6, 2017
After Minnesota United’s Jeb Brovsky wrote about the shortcomings of statistical analysis for whatahowler.com two weeks ago, our friend Oliver Miller-Farrell emailed George and Bobby to say that while Jeb wasn’t wrong, he might have been “stats-abused.” (Oliver works for Opta in New York.) So on today’s episode, Jeb and Oliver join Bobby and George to talk about how we quantify soccer and soccer players and how statistical analysis can benefit teams and fans.
March 30, 2017
George and Bobby discuss the U.S.’s 6–0 win over Honduras and 1–1 tie with Panama. George gives his ideal starting back four; Bobby disagrees. Is there any way to avoid a dreary game when Bradley and Jones are paired together in the midfield? And how could some of the missing players — specifically Fabian Johnson, Bobby Wood, Sacha Klejstan, Benny Feilhaber, and DeAndre Yedlin — fit into this team?
Then Jake Walerius joins to discuss American soccer culture. He says that England’s obsession with its national sport is a way for Brits to grapple with the decline of their nation’s status in the world. Baseball, football, and basketball have similar cultural heft in the United States. But American soccer fans, he argues, are still negotiating over the meaning of our own story. This is the essay Jake wrote on the subject for fansided.com.
March 23, 2017
Jeff Maysh wrote one of Howler’s best-loved stories, about the West Ham fan who heckled his way onto the field for his favorite team in a pre-season friendly back in 1994. Now he’s back to discuss his latest story for Howler, about an equally colorful character: Cyril the Swan and the man behind the beak. Cyril may have helped save Swansea City when it was on the brink of dropping out of professional football in the late 1990s, and his antics made him a bonafide celebrity. Then he was arrested.
March 16, 2017
Like the best players in the world, Ryu Voelkel sees soccer differently than most people. But unlike those players, who often struggle to describe how they do what they do, the genius of Ryu’s vision is evident in his photographs, which have been a staple in Howler since our very first issue. I spoke with him this week for our Dummy podcast and asked him to describe how he captures incredible images time after time.
Check out Ryu’s work from the latest issue in this post at whatahowler.com. You can also pick up a copy of the Spring 2017 issue to see it in print. And we currently have two of Ryu’s photos available for purchase in the Howler Art Shop, framed or unframed.
March 9, 2017
This week George chats with his friend Karl Taro Greenfeld, a journalist, novelist, and now TV writer (for the show Ray Donovan). They talk about yesterday’s ridiculous Barcelona-PSG match, why Karl loves LigaMX, the ascendancy of Russian hooligans, and the short story Karl wrote in the new issue of Howler.
March 2, 2017
Dax McCarty on his career thus far, playing with the US national team, and how he thinks the Chicago Fire can improve. Clint Irwin on almost winning MLS Cup, politics in the locker room, and prepping for the new season. We have a new Howler Book Club selection — check out whatahowler.com to learn more (hint: this one has lots of pictures).
February 23, 2017
A liberal soccer journalist (George) speaks with a conservative soccer journalist (Dave Martinez, formerly of Empire of Soccer) about Bryan Curtis’s essay in The Ringer about how sports journalism has become the domain of lefties. But first, Will Parchman discusses his story about Bayer Leverkusen from the new issue of Howler and details what American teams could learn about how the club goes about scouting local talent, developing community ties, and spending limited resources.
February 16, 2017
Jordan Morris is a striker for the Seattle Sounders and the U.S. men’s national team, and he makes his Dummy debut to discuss playing for Jurgen Klinsmann and Bruce Arena, what he has learned from Clint Dempsey and Jozy Altidore, and whether he is maximizing MLS’s 3% match in his 401k.
February 9, 2017
David Lindholm, who worked in the front offices of several MLS teams, was last on the podcast to discuss his essay for Howler on why the best American goalkeepers tend to be bald. Now he returns as the head coach of the NPSL’s Stockade FC of Kingston, NY, to describe the special challenges of coaching a team of aspiring amateurs. Then Edward Domain, a citizen of St. Louis, joins to discuss the particulars of St. Louis’s public financing plan for the proposed MLS stadium, which he says unfairly burdens the taxpayers of downtown St. Louis who would be better served if their money went to pay for basics such as health, safety, and transportation. (Here is his blog post that got George interested in speaking with him in the first place.)
February 2, 2017
George and Bobby discuss Bruce Arena’s first match back in charge of the U.S. men’s national team and the three questions that need his immediate attention. Sutton United, which plays in England’s fifth tier and trains twice a week, has beaten much bigger clubs on its way to the FA Cup’s last 16 and a home fixture (on a plastic pitch) against Arsenal. Dominic Bliss has been going to those matches and joins to tell us how Sutton keeps defeating much stronger teams.
January 26, 2017
George and Peter Wilt discuss his essay about pro/rel from the new issue of the mag. (You can read The Pro/Rel Manifesto here.) Then Matt Pyzdrowski, goalkeeper for Helsingborgs IF in Sweden, joins to talk about his own experience being relegated with the club in November. (He also wrote about it for Howler — you can read I Got Relegated here.)
January 19, 2017
Daryl Grove and George get into the nitty gritty about how we make Howler and especially the newest issue, which we just sent to the printer! Topics include the big story on pro/rel, our package on Hard Men, and the many differences between a great story pitch and a terrible one.
January 12, 2017
Bobby and George disagree about whether changing to a 48-team World Cup will detract from the tournament. George asks Stefan Szymanski, co-author of Soccernomics, to explain the huge changes taking place in Chinese soccer.
January 5, 2017
Mexico’s LigaMX is the most-watched soccer league on American TV, but it receives relatively scant coverage in English-language media. Maxi Rodriguez joins to discuss. Check out Maxi’s newsletter on the subject.
December 23, 2016
Keith Rados built Cinco Soccer from scratch. We talk about what it’s like to run his outdoor futsal spot, why he thinks it has become so popular in the Tampa soccer scene, and how the rise of five-a-side’s popularity could impact American soccer.
December 15, 2016
This week, Dennie Wendt and David Peace discuss his masterpiece, Red or Dead — the first selection of the Howler Book Club. We’ve published several essays about the book.
December 8, 2016
First, we catch up with Clint Irwin, starting goalkeeper for Toronto FC ahead of Saturday’s MLS Cup final, aka the Biggest Game of His Life. Then, we hop back to the summer of 2015, when George was passing through Denver and dropped in on the Colorado Rapids starting goalkeeper, Clint Irwin. Same guy! In that interview, Clint tells his amazing story of bouncing around the lower leagues of American and Canadian soccer before finally making it in MLS.
December 1, 2016
Rob Stone on soccer, media, and his place in the soccer media. Plus: MLS Cup finalists are too random and a new candidate for the best goal of the year.
November 23, 2016
Two relatively sensible people (the other being Simon Evans) with two quite different takes on Jurgen Klinsmann’s time in charge of the U.S. men’s national team.
November 17, 2016
First up: a calamitous few days for the U.S. men’s national team. What went wrong against Costa Rica. Can it be fixed? Could Bruce Arena take over? And does that open the door for Landon Donovan’s return (OMG). Then Dennie Wendt joins to introduce Red or Dead by David Peace, the Howler Book Club’s first selection. This week’s poll: is it okay to wear the jersey of a player who is younger than you? Give your answer here.
November 3, 2016
The phenomenon of a single away fan traveling to support his team. Mike Goodman on squad lifecycles and how the best teams manage their rosters to stay competitive every season. David Goldblatt makes an announcement and the decade of soccer since he wrote The Ball Is Round.
October 27, 2016
The Tampa Bay Rowdies and Ottawa Fury announced that they would be leaving the NASL and joining the USL, a move from the U.S. second to third division. Peter Wilt comes back to explain what this means.
October 20, 2016
Let’s find out what happened to the 22 men who voted to give the World Cup to Russia and Qatar. Then, Will Parchman and Bobby Warshaw join to discuss Darlington Nagbe, Jurgen Klinsmann’s coaching style, and the U.S. men’s national tea.
October 13, 2016
Veteran soccer executive Peter Wilt (Chicago Fire, Indy Eleven) looks at the demographic data and predicts what’s next. The answers may surprise you. (Omaha? Seriously?) Peter’s story for Howler:
October 6, 2016
Alexi Lalas became the face of the U.S. men’s national team during a breakout period for the game in this country. His performance at the ’94 World Cup and his finely tuned public image catapulted him to stardom — and he credits his infatuation with the world of rock music for the way he was able to turn opportunity into celebrity.
September 22, 2016
Most people know Florentino Pérez as the rich dude who likes to overspend on soccer players so his club, Real Madrid, can win lots of trophies. And that’s true, but his story and his relationship with the players and fans of Real Madrid is a lot more interesting than that. Dermot Corrigan wrote a massive profile of the two-time Madrid president for the latest issue of Howler, and he joins to discuss what drives one of the most powerful men in the world of soccer — and the whole entertainment industry, for that matter.
