The Parity Paradox: NWSL Structural Decay, Tactical Re-imagining, and Media Whitewashing

Oh my God, I forgot to mention I'm doing the dumbest thing ever and I will announce it right now because I'm a person who doesn't mind getting sick apparently. I've decided to launch what we are calling exo g on the road. Yeah, I'm going to subject myself to what I think of as one of the most insane ways to experience opening weekend. I will be at Washington Portland in DC on Friday night. I will then be at Boston's inaugural match in Foxboro against Gotham Saturday, noon time. There is a tailgate. Please come say hi. I will also announce some sort of gathering in DC shortly. And then finally, I will take a flight back to the old west coast and be there Sunday afternoon for Angel City's debut against Chicago. I'm going to make a video about all of this, but this is the inaugural exo g on the road. And hopefully we will be visiting all 16 markets this year. No guarantees just yet. We're still kind of hashing out all the details. But Eric is opening with a bang. Yeah, it's a big one. I've gone big. So if you are planning on being in the DC area for that game or in Foxboro for that game or in LA for that game, be sure to come by and say hi. Hello, and welcome to expected own goals. I'm Matt as hell, and I'm not going to take it any more addition. I am your host, Eric Morgan. I'm Evan Davis. Don't really know what he's referring to there, but we are true. Yeah. No, we are in our season preview set up. Yeah, because we are in the thick of it recording 16 individual bespoke team by team episodes that will all be dropping in the next week, leading up to the start of the regular season. So you're going to be so sick of us. Yeah. This is what it's going to look like, at least for one more main feed episode. But today, it's a lot of bits and bobs. It's a bits and bobs kind of day. We'll just round up some things that have been happening in women's soccer over the last week or so, including Portland getting a head coach San Diego getting another attacker, BFC getting another attacker question mark. Another body Emily Fox, maybe returning to her rightful home and her leftful home, maybe some thoughts on the latest NWSL docu series that premiered on ESPN plus last week. So where do you want to start here? I would love to start with annual XOG preseason fuckers, the Portland thorns and the hiring of Villainman is their head coach. Robert Villain, the the sweet who put you see Hecken on the map and has been running the Tottenham hot spare women's team over the last couple of years, according to Jeff Kasuf at ESPN. It's going to be named the next head coach of the Portland thorns. We had an extensive conversation, of course, with Fouquin, friend of the pod and Portland insider and know it all. And of course 24 hours after our conversation, this news drops. I just want to say, I really think here in Doyle, another guest of our preseason go around nailed it. If you're going to hire a new head coach two weeks before the season, make sure it's a guy who's been out of work since last June. Yeah, it's a great sign. And it's really just a sign that like Portland probably missed out on some other hires. And if they didn't, their process is somehow even worse. Yeah. I think it's the former. Yeah. But if that happens, the real question about the process here is not even necessarily for me anyway, the qualities of Vila Humman himself as a head coach is fine. He seems kind of fine. I key finished a second in the demos bench gone in 2022, had them sitting pretty in 2023 when he left. And then that squad was a one unit of gold difference away from winning the demos bench gone title. Got to an FA Cup final first year with Tatum Hotsper and they finished mid table, which spurs women's actually very good. Great. And then they were basically one spot above the relegation zone in year two, which got him his aster. For me, that record does not tell me really anything about him as head coach. I don't know how you maintain any level of consistent success with Tatum Hotsper women with the roster that is available to you and the money that spurs are willing to spend on their women's team. It doesn't feel like that falls on the head coach's shoulders. The problem for me is if you did miss out on some bigger candidates earlier in the process and it seems like that was what happened. Why are you naming a permanent head coach now rather than in the summer when a bunch of more people are going to be available to you? Why are you getting Villa Hum and on the dotted line now and granted the process with him probably began a long time several weeks ago, but even so, like the man can't take training until he's dead theoretically. And I don't even think the thorns of a formally announced the hires. So why not just go with Sarah Loudon for half a year, you know? And you're in your hiring search. Why not like set it up in the way that like Alex stress at Angel City or Jonah Harald has with Washington the year before did, which is like make the hire now, but have them come in June. Maybe they did offer that to a couple of candidates and it didn't work out. I don't know. But like the timing of this is just all very funky because Villa Hum and whatever his virtues is not Pep Guardiola levels of coach where this makes sense at given the timing. No, all of what he said is just bang on. I also think and this is something we talked about with Foucault knows how much of it will actually make our preview haven't edited it yet. But there was I think possibly an internal perception that if Portland went with another internal hire, it would look like they hadn't done due diligence. Right. And instead this is always when you're trying to control the perception game. Portland made huge mistakes, allowing Korean to Leblanc to manage anything, allowing Mike Norris to like keep a job and then not keep a job or get sort of reshuffled. They made huge mistakes, you know, in letting Rob Gale become the interim. The mistake is not if you have a good candidate internally, keeping them the mistake is feeling like, well, it's like on a multiple choice test. If you just keep hitting A on the third A, do you not select A because you don't believe the test makers did that? No, you just go with the right answer. And in this instance, the right answer to me is to take a young, exciting coach who is your interim and take that tag off and go from there as opposed to far too late in the cycle, bring in an underwhelming, just another Scandinavian dude. Yeah, higher. Which this league, you know, it's a copycat league and this is one of the worst trends they've copycatted. Yeah. And it's easy to hire Scandinavian head coaches, especially if they've been coaching in Sweden, because it's the same season that structure that the NWSL has. So this is their off season as well, which means this is when they'll be available. Fine. Is Villa Haman going to be any good? We don't know. Is this a sign that like, you know, white men be failing upward? Maybe a little bit. But the cynic in me when people wonder it's like this great, you know, legendary club with this history of winning can't get a big name to sign on the dotted line. I'm like, this team is very different than what it used to be through 2022. And there's actually some very good reasons for that. Like it's a good thing that it isn't what it used to be. Like the reason it used to be so dominant is that the they were the only club that offered the market and efficiency to direct to attract top talent to their shores, which is like they had good facilities and they generally treated their players well and set the times where they really really didn't treat their players well. That was Portland's competitive advantage. Portland doesn't have that anymore. And they haven't had it for a few years. And they're just the North Carolina courage on a slightly delayed timeline. Right. And if their new ownership is not necessarily interested in paying top dollar the way Michelle Kang has been on, you know, front and back office talent, then, you know, a lot of jobs in the NCAA pay better than NWSL jobs. A lot of jobs at like the top top clubs in Europe pay better than some NWSL head coaching jobs. So and it goes without saying that like head to be a head coach of a like top 15 national team program, maybe for some NWSL clubs like top 20 national team program is going to be a better paycheck than coming to the NWSL. So like the caliber of candidates, while we can't speak to it officially, might not have been as high as everyone presumed. And that is because maybe you have to adjust your priors about the kind of head coach that the Portland Thorns can attract. Now, is this the fault of the Bethals for like not opening up a checkbook to attract top talent? Very possibly. So, you know, blame still lies squarely on their shoulders for this higher, no matter how you slice it. But yeah, I don't know. Maybe Villa Humman will be a good coach. Maybe he won't, but all signs of the process to get to him two weeks before the season is to begin do not auger well, especially when you match it up with like the very shallow off season in terms of player acquisition that they had and not replacing Sam coffee and on and on it goes. A pattern is starting to emerge here. Yeah, it's not encouraging. I think if you're Portland Thorns fan, that said, I don't think it's materially changed where I've placed the team pretty so. Yeah. And that's because coaches, you know, as we often say on here, matter less than you think, especially a very middle of the road. Yeah, this coach. Yeah. And it's that they don't always distinguish themselves from one another. Right. Portland does a lot of talent. And we'll see what he can do with that. It's more talent than he's ever coached before. Moving on, let's talk Emily Fox left back. Oh my God. I've been screaming for this screaming for this. The US well, the first episode we ever recorded. So true. I mean, the US women's national team played a friendly against Argentina and the she believes cup over the weekend. And Emily Fox came in as a left back because half time sublily, we all got hurt like 18 minutes, 17 minutes into the second half. And Giselle Thompson was already on the right. And so Fox just slotted in on the left. I have heard a little bit of chatter under the under the hood that maybe left back is the way for Fox to keep her starting job, which is interesting for two reasons. One, it might mean that Lily real is no longer the front runner to take the other fullback starting gig. And the other reason is that like Giselle Thompson and Avery Patterson are just better on the right. And we've seen them play at times on the left. And it hasn't been so consistent. So moving Fox to left back is something that we screamed about in the early days of the show. And then I think we just stopped screaming about it because like, well, that that war is lost. We lost that war. People forget that her first two professional years, she played as a left back with racing Louisville. And she only converted her right back when it seemed like that was going to be how she stuck with the national team. And then that's what North Carolina did for her one year there. And that's what Arsenal has continued to do. But she is naturally left footed. And she was fucking great as a left back for very bad racing Louisville teams. Like she was one of these standout players on some very bad squads than those years. So Emily Fox's left back, I hope it isn't just for substitute cover because of an injury because I think if Thompson and Patterson are ahead of real now on the depth chart, this makes all the sense in the world. Yeah, I agree. I think that we've been clamoring for this for years and years and years. It makes me feel very old school and very uninventive to put a left footed player on the left side. Yeah, go figure. Go figure. But also I think a lot of what Emily Fox does well, she can do well over there too. I've always wondered why like one coach's adjustment of a player's positioning has set forth the course of the rest of their career. When in fact, that isn't necessarily what they do quite naturally. I think that there's like a really solid data argument to be made that Emily Fox is not the best fit at right back just in terms of output for what Emma Hayes wants. And that the US would be better with an Avery Patterson urge is El Thompson there. Yeah, I mean, when you think about Fox's role on the right, the thing that was always appealing about it was how much she liked to cut inside and essentially operate as like a Philip Blombsk central midfielder almost from the right back position. And also when you're in a rest defense, it's very natural for her to then switch in and become the third center back while your left back gets forward. Is this a sign if the sticks that Hayes is reimagining her defensive tactics? I don't know. Yeah, or a build-out tactics more importantly. I mean, maybe this is just how Herschfeld plays center back because she's the body that's available and needed, but it was interesting. Yeah, it's worth flagging. Yeah, let's move on and talk Aubrey Kingsbury. Oh, yes, some moves late in the in the off season window. Aubrey Kingsbury. Aubrey Kingsbury moving to motherhood. And yeah, great honor. Congratulations. How much does this, you know, like beyond like great joy to her or family? How much does this affect the Washington spirit to you? According to the ASA projection model, this drops them two points and moves them into six place. Now the spread between I think third and six is like four points. The spread between fourth and six is two points. So ultimately not that meaningful, like I wouldn't, you know, be banging my head against the wall of our spirit fan, worried that they're not going to play the quarterfinals at home. But Kingsbury, one of the most consistent shot stoppers in the lead even at her age and Sandy McIver while having played for the spirit. She hasn't played a consistent whole season. She's none known. Yeah, and maybe she doesn't get the job. Like we'll talk about this in our spirit preview with Riss Willet of Shea Butter FC, you know, maybe Kayleigh Collins wins the starting job outright. They need to go get a third keeper that puts some pressure on them with Kingsbury stepping away. Yeah, no, I think it's I think it's going to be significant because it's also, you know, I think as me Morgan and Tara Red talk about it a lot. She's a great communicator back there. Yeah, like she is the defensive martial. So it's a big experience gap. How much white you want to put on that is open to conjecture. But I'm sure that Morgan and Rudd and Paige Matier and Gabby Carl and everybody else who might be on that back line is going to be thinking about it. Yeah, I also think that the models sort of bang on about it's actual real take, which is a very good keeper. Alla Aubrey Kingsbury is worth a win a season. Yeah. And when you lose a good goalkeeper, you see a lot of knock on effects. I wouldn't be overly concerned for the Washington spirit because essentially the model is saying replacement level because it doesn't know what to make of the remaining keepers. Yeah, basically. And if you get a keeper who, you know, replacement level can sometimes also be the replacement is Jordan Bloomer. Right. Like we just don't know. Yeah. So I think it's mostly just good news for Aubrey Kingsbury and interesting problem solving for a very adept front office to deal with. No, it's right now it does not appear catastrophic for Washington, but we'll see what McIver and Collins can do. Christina Girelli to PayPal for basically five months. It's alone through August. I think probably driven by Girelli just wanting to get NWSL experience. I'm alone through August is so odd though. Yeah, it really does seem like they she just wants to go back to eventist for the start of this area season. What is Bay get out of this? I don't really know. I mean, Girelli turns 36 in a month. So it's a warm body up front. Yeah, you need a number nine, but I don't know what production you're going to get out of an almost 36 year old Italian striker who's not played at this level, this consistently ever before. Like if you discount Roma, which was a couple years, you probably should like eventist gets if they're in the Champions League group stage like three to five games against really tough opponents. That's being a little generous. Like Girelli, weirdly enough, even with Italy as well, like he's not tested against the best for what could be up to 15, 16 games. Yeah, this is so as is the case with a lot of loans, it's entirely possible. There's some function in there that allows her to stay longer. Yeah, I don't know why you would invest and stay longer with a 36 year old striker, even one of her pedigree. But you know, if she bangs you three essential goals off the bench, I don't hate this. Yeah, I think the worry is like, is she taking starting minutes from on Yucca Gamero and like, how do you figure that out? Yeah, but we also don't know how ready Gamero is. Exactly. So maybe this is just an insurance policy for whatever the state of Gamero's fitness and production looks like. But we haven't recorded our BFC preview yet. So hopefully Marisa and Gamy can fill us in. Yep. Moving on, we have Tyrna Davidson off the SEI list and with a new haircut. Yeah, great looking haircut. Yeah. Big pan. But this does shake up Gotham's center back death chart. I mean, she's off the SEI list, but like, I haven't gotten any indications if she is like day one starter in a couple of weeks, or is she going to have to get slowly work back into the team? I'm assuming it's the latter. We just don't know how long that's going to be. And then what that does to probably Jess Carter. Yeah. But then again, Brannina went down with an injury in preseason last week. So maybe Jess Carter is going to have to be tasked with doing some fullbacky stuff, especially if Lily Reel is out long term. But is Davidson ready for day one? We don't know. I'll say this. If you get 1,500 minutes of 2024, Tyrna Davidson. Amazing. Gotham, you just got much better defensively. We're talking about kind of the only left footed progressive passing center back that can even rival Sam Stobb in the passing department, and who is defensively almost certainly stronger. You're immediately adding back one of the best defenders in the world. It's just a matter of how often you can use Tyrna. Yeah. But this is basically only good news for Gotham. Another Gotham move and completes the San Diego all Brazil front three set. Not as you thought they would, but Gabby Portillo moving to Gotham for 175K. Given the age, given the production, given the years, this feels like good value for money. And depending on what you think about Trinity buyers, depending on whether or not you can get Caterina Macario, this feels like a this feels like smart business. Yeah, I agree. This is another slightly above league average attacker. And San Diego needed that. This provides options and depth and different ways to lock pick, which San Diego desperately needs. And puts her up front with an emerging Brazilian crew, along with Doudinian. I think that this is mostly just a really good move probably for both sides. Because I think on the Gotham side of things, this opens up pathways for a lot of their younger players to get more minutes. Yeah. This is also in its own way an affirmation of Mitch Purse's health. Because if you're willing to take that sort of gamble, it means you have confidence that Purse can take minutes. Probably the biggest benefactor in Gotham set up is Sarah Shepansky, but there are many who will benefit from this in terms of just their own availability. And Gotham gets by default younger through doing this, which is a good thing for Gotham. So this is one of those deals that feels intuitively correct for both sides and at a price point that makes sense for both sides. Yeah. Shepansky I think was a little bit up and down last year. If that just were key jitters or whatever, maybe. And if you like her on the wing, then slot her in on the wing and then you can play her Rose the Vel and Jaden Shaw together, which would be quite intriguing, I must say. And so now it remains to be seen what Gotham's going to do with that money. But for San Diego, even if they don't get Macario, like Portillo played some time on the right with Gotham last year when health and fitness required it. So Doudinian on the left, Ludmila through the middle, got me Portillo on the right. What can that front three do? Potentially school goals. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's I think it's mostly a good thing that you want to talk about the kit launch. Yeah. I don't know what I don't know what people see in these kits. I'm going to be honest. I love them. What are you talking about? Everybody loves them or a lot of people like a lot of them. They all kind of give me a headache. They're all very, very busy. You know, even the non-busy San Diego. Well, yeah, either they're too busy or they're not busy enough. You know, beige Diego, beige Diego. Yeah, I don't I don't love any of them. I got to be honest. And that's maybe just a me thing. I'll cop to it. I'm a big fan of Louisville disco ball. Loved that bit of history. Yeah. That Louisville is home to roughly 90% of the disco balls ever made. So strange. So strange. So wonderful. And also an interesting way to mix purple and green in a sensible way on a kit. I'm a big fan of what the pride did. I think they probably could have gone even further. That kids, but that kids sort of like joyous and wonderful and a celebration of pulse in the best way. I like the rainbow sherbert Portland Thorns kit, which I initially hated. And that's how you know, like I feel about it the way I felt about the movie spring breakers, which is to say I hated it. And now I think it's brilliant. That's that's how I feel about. But I feel like most teams got something unique and interesting and different. My number one beef when I look at kids are sports leagues where it's like, oh, it's red versus blue again. Yeah. And the NWSL will decidedly this year not look like that. And whether it's the preppy coated Chicago stars leaning into whatever they're doing or the bright poppy both of these, I think relatively subdued choices in the in the larger set. I like a lot of the kids. I think they make good color on television, which is really all I want out of kids. Can I tell which team is playing immediately? That's like my kick question always. You won't have any issues there. I will not have issues there figuring out which team is playing. Yeah. All right. The final third doc series. Did you watch? I did. I mean, we went and saw the first episode. Yeah. This thing. How to how to approach this initially? Well, final third is a docu series that's on ESPN plus for anybody who has ESPN plus. And it's chronicling basically like basically the last month, the ish two months of the regular season and then playoffs. It's it looks and sounds like every other sports docu series that follows a team around you've ever seen. There's nothing special about it. Really? Some of the personal information I learned, like I didn't know that Lola Bonta got married on the top of a tower before game. But otherwise it was extremely anodine. It's from the same production company that made for the win for Amazon last year. It felt familiar. Mm-hmm. I it fell flat for me until the fine. Well, we're in it. Yeah, we are technically in it. We're in it for a hot second and a half non-speaking role. As many other journalists are from the championship media events. But then in like the final 20-ish minutes, they do something that's like kind of unconscionable in that like Trinity Rodman. Is she going to sign, re-signed with Washington? How important is she to the league? Cut to she's re-signed with Washington. Nothing happened in between that. Yeah. As you just a burdened in veto the contract, there were no grievances filed by the union against the league for vetoing the contract. There was no back and forth about like why the league vetoed the contract. It was also all that ends well. It was just like, yep, we're wondering if she's going to resign and look at that. She is going to resign. It makes the theatrics of that re-signing press conference in Los Angeles make a lot more sense because it was pitched to ESPN cameras makes sense why Sebastian Salazar was hosting it because he works for ESPN. It's really kind of gross that in rewriting the historical narrative that like, oh yeah, it was just a simple thing that Washington needed to do and then they did it and the league is not involved in any way, shape, or form. It's how the negative space of editorial works. Yeah. Like what we don't say. Right. What I think so funny is the clip that we are featured in very, very briefly is we're talking to Robin. Yeah, we're talking to Robin. I believe I have just stepped up and said, don't worry, I'm not going to ask about your contract. Just how I opened with her. Yeah. And I'm so glad to see that the ESPN series decided to do the exact same thing. Well, the only thing that I can take any solace in for them for them rewriting history and like, it certainly smacks of the league being like, you can't include any of that stuff, but I don't know if that's actually true, regardless. My only solace is that no one's going to watch this thing because no, no one is going to watch this thing like it's been historically demonstrated like over and over again over the last couple of years that like people do not watch sports documentaries in volume at all. Like the only one that is ever like sniffed like hit status is like those middle seasons have drive to survive right after the pandemic, but their ratings have cratered over the last couple of years as well. And beyond them, like, you're asking for a couple, you're saying, you know, what you look at is like a couple hundred thousand people watch, you know, Netflix docu series about like high profile men's sports per episode, like those are extremely low numbers like to compare like the Harry and Megan docu series that was put out on Netflix, like three or four years ago, got like 11 million viewers per episode. And we're talking about less than half a million for like the Boston Red Sox or like famous men's tennis players or other series that should be bringing really big eyeballs in like yeah, and that's the biggest streaming platform in the world, like ESPN plus can't compete with those kinds of numbers. And the NWSL for all of the docs that have been released about the NWSL, whether it's for the win on Amazon or Angel City on HBO Max or the US women's national team one on Netflix about the world cup. That's the one that should have broken through because it's about the national team. It's about the world cup. It's on Netflix. Did Bukkis or viewership? Well, I think everybody already knowing the results of the tournament never helps a documentary like, but it fits this pattern where like people just aren't watching this content. And so then you have to ask yourself like, why make it? Who is it for? I think leagues would say, well, it's to attract new fans, but that's clearly not happening. And it's also pissing off the hard cores because the hard cores are like, well, you're leaving out the truth here, you know? So like, why do these things exist at all? As my mother said about West Side story, the Steven Spielberg version, I enjoyed it, but I don't get it. I don't get why they made it agreed. Yeah. And I frankly didn't enjoy it very much. If you, if my mom, yeah, I mean, if people, if people enjoy these things like, okay, great. I'm happy for you. But I say this to the NWSL, you're wasting your money, like you're not attracting new fans. You're just not. And you're annoying the fans that you already have who are pretty annoyed with you to begin with. So just cut the, cut the court. And then I say to the players, they better be paying you because this also isn't getting you the exposure that might be promised. So I hope you're making a paycheck. And if you're not, don't agree to do these things ever again, because nobody is getting anything out of them. I can say this for a fact. Just don't do it. It's not worth it. All right. Thanks, guys. Evan, you want to take us out? I do. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Hope you're watching on YouTube or Spotify or wherever you watch your podcasts. A lot of very cool video content coming to YouTube into social media for season preview week next week that goes beyond just the episodes themselves. So keep an eye out for that. We've launched a store. We have merch. You can buy official exo g merch at store.exongles.com, which we will link in the show notes. And one of the benefits of being a Patreon member, where I'll wear some of the merch on the episode. Yes, one of the benefits of being a Patreon member is that you get a very nice discount on said merch. So click the link in the show notes. So for as little as $6 a month, you become a member of our Patreon and get all of our bonus content as well. If you're not doing so already, follow us on social media at exongles. That's the lighter exongles across all platforms. And if you think we've made an own goal, drop us an email at exo g at exongles.com. That's the letter x o g at exongles.com. We'll be back with you on Patreon on Thursday and back with you on main feed on Friday to begin season preview week.