geoff: It is another big weekend
for soccer fans, everything from
the premier league title race to
the upcoming champions league
final.
Lucky for us, we've got Roger
Bennett -- no relation -- to
help us break it all down.
Roger is a british-american
broadcaster, author and
filmmaker.
He's also the co-host of the
"Men in blazers" podcast.
Roger, it's great to have you
with us, friend.
Roger: It's a joy to be with
you.
Geoff: So let's talk about the
premier league title race.
How did that race become so
competitive between Manchester
city and Liverpool?
And I ask the question because
at one point Manchester city had
a dominant 14 point lead over
Liverpool in the standings and
then it all fell apart.
Roger: In January, everything
changed.
Manchester city are an Abu Dhabi
owned powerhouse.
Liverpool, owned by the Boston
red sox group.
This has been like watching
rocky and Apollo creed go round
for rounds.
City are a nation state backed
team hoping to win their fourth
title in five years, like a
footballing terminator, the
result of roughly $2 billion
invested in the team by their
owner, sheikh Mansour, and the
palace tactics of their manager.
A gentleman called pep Guardiola
.
Think Catalan Stanley Tucci.
But he attacks tactics with a
frenzy of Russell Crowe in a
beautiful mind in the search for
footballing perfection.
And Liverpool have taken another
pathway.
They're backed by American
sports entrepreneurs John Henry
and Tom Werner, and they don't
have infinite wallets.
But what they do have is a sense
of statistics and analysis which
they've taken from their
ownership of the Boston red sox.
And they've created a powerhouse
by looking for intangibles in
talent and recruitment.
And they also have a German
manager, Jurgen Klopp, who is
really a human phenomenon.
He's essentially a large
teutonic care bear dispensing
life wisdom and hugs on the road
to glory and Liverpool are
challenging for an unprecedented
quadruple, a clean sweep of
every tournament they've
entered.
And it is remarkable to watch
these two different approaches,
these two heavyweights week on,
week, round and round, just
slaying all comers.
Geoff: You always paint quite a
picture.
I want to ask you about Dane
Murphy, because this is quite an
inspiring story.
He's this 36 year old American,
a former DC united player.
He successfully turned around
the once great but more recently
underachieving Nottingham forest
football club.
Tell us about him.
Roger: Dane Murphy is an
intriguing story.
He is a 36-year-old from
Redding, Connecticut.
He was a professional footballer
in mls and Nottingham forest are
essentially a gray gardens of a
footballing club.
They were great in the 1980s but
they have fallen below the ice
and they're in a essentially the
footballing equivalent of
aaa baseball.
In comes this gentleman, Dale
Murphy, he's a brilliant mind.
He's chopped up the deadwood,
promoted young players, brought
in one of the best young
managers.
And when he inherited the team,
they were at the bottom of the
aisle, but he's overseen a worse
than their first season.
Nottingham forest started off
for their worst campaign in 108
years, but they're now in the
final four.
One of the teams that emerges
for this will be promoted into
the major leagues, the premier
league and it's worth 165
million.
They call it the richest game in
sports.
And so when you look at Murphy,
he's further proof that American
men were not quite world class
yet at football but were so
bloody good at owning teams and
also running them.
Geoff: So you talked about what
the promotion to the premier
league means financially.
What does it mean emotionally
for some of these clubs?
Roger: Well, this promotion,
which is moving up, there's also
relegation.
It's like the bottom three teams
in the premier league get
punished for their dismal
performance.
In America, if you've had a bad
year, you just say, we're
rebuilding.
We get a great draft pick.
In England, it's much more
ruthless.
The bottom three teams are flung
out through the moon door,
essentially relegated.
Think in baseball, if the
Cincinnati reds were punished
for being so impotent and move
down and let the Portland sea
dogs move into the major
leagues.
So for the fans of the team,
many of whom have generational
memories, it can be utterly,
utterly crushing.
My team I support, Everton, have
been flirting with wave
relegation and I say football
has given me some of the
sweetest memories in my life of
my grandparents, for my parents,
for my children.
But this darkness of the
possibility of relegation right
now, I couldn't hate it more and
it's fairly all consuming.
But for Nottingham forest and
Dale Murphy, if they can come
up, they will never have to buy
a drink in that town again.
Geoff: Indeed.
As we wrap up this conversation,
I want to shift our focus to the
states here and talk about the
champions league, because at the
start of this month, the Seattle
sounders won this one, the
concacaf championship league, a
historic victory for that team.
Tell us about it.
Roger: Yeah, but the mls has
been trying to win this
champions league, which features
the club teams of our whole
region, North America, central
America.
For the last two decades, it's
become a real symbol that they
utterly crave.
They failed time and time again.
But the Seattle sounders beat
the Mexican team massively.
Mexico has always felt like the
scooby doo league and mls has
felt like scrappy doo, and they
beat them 5-2 in front of a
packed stadium of 68,000
delirious fans in Seattle.
The club is really reinforcing
its status as the jewel of our
nation.
A first win for mls in this
tournament in 20 years.
Seattle will go into the club
world cup where they could play
the likes of Liverpool or real
Madrid and really test
themselves at the highest level.
And when you watch those
delirious scenes, we've always
joked on our show that soccer is
America's sport of the future,
as it has been since 1972.
But when you look at these
scenes, you get a sense that
it's really the sport of the
now.
Geoff: Indeed.
Roger Bennett, always great to
speak with you.
Thanks for making time for us.
Roger: Send my love to Judy
woodruff.
Geoff: I absolutely will.