Why does Fox keep making Alexi Lalas a thing?

The United States broadcast team for the World Cup on Fox is extremely bizarre. The network was lauded before the Cup began by getting two legends on the desk to provide analysis. There’s France and Arsenal legend Thierry Henry, who scored 175 goals in the Premier League and won a World Cup in 1998. Zlatan Ibrahimović, an international icon best known for his incredible run with Paris Saint-Germain, where he scored 113 goals in 122 appearances. Rounding out, we have … Alexi Lalas, who had big hair and one tryout with Arsenal in 1992 before it was deemed he wasn’t skilled enough.

The disconnect on the desk is incredible. It’s a bit like assembling an NBA analyst group that consists of Michael Jordan, Tim Duncan, and Jimmer Fredette. It’s especially stunning when Fox already has a legitimate, brilliant USA legend on their broadcast roster in Clint Dempsey, who has infinitely more international chops due to his runs with Fulham and Tottenham, as well as playing in three World Cups — but Fox has resigned him to analyzing C-Tier matchups, while Lalas inexplicably has the top job.

It’s led to a lot of friction in the analysis as Henry and Ibrahimović provide on-point, insightful, brilliant analysis — then Lalas chimes in with a hackneyed cliché. There was no better example of how awkward things have gotten than on Tuesday afternoon, when silence fell on the Fox Sports Studios as Zlatan called out Lalas, not only saying he’s “ignorant,” but also insinuating he’s stupid in saying that France was “arrogant” in the first half against Senegal.

“It’s not arrogance; it’s confidence. Ignorant people will say that it’s arrogance. Intelligent people will say that it’s confidence.

Zlatan then turned to the camera and smiled, knowing he’d just skewered his co-host. Lalas just figeted awkardly with his pen to try and distract himself from the moment. Tierry Henry froze, turning himself into a meme.

This has been brewing since the Cup began, and it raises the question why the hell Fox insists on continuing to make Lalas the face of their coverage? Sure, he was a charismatic member of the ‘94 USA World Cup squad, and there was a time when soccer fans in the United States couldn’t do much better than Alexi Lalas — but that time is gone. Fans are smarter now, more invested. Not only have we seen MLS explode in popularity, but more than ever we have fans from coast-to-coast watching the Premier League, La Liga, the Bundesliga, Serie-A, and Ligue 1, broadening their depth of understanding to where Lalas just doesn’t cut it.

Condemnation of Lalas’ broadcasting chops are all over social media. Do a casual search of his name on X, and you’ll find THOUSANDS of people criticizing his lazy takes during the World Cup. Broad swathes of fans are boasting about how they’re using VPNs to watch international broadcasts, just in an effort to avoid Lalas saying things like “Spain did NOT have a good game,” as if emphasis replaces actual analysis.

This isn’t some new revelation either. Lalas has been a part of the World Cup broadcast team since he left ESPN in 2014, and he’s more or less done the same, lazy job ever since. It’s less of a specific Lalas problem than him continuing to operate as if he’s in an era where Americans don’t understand the nuances of soccer, tactics, or the game as a whole — and when he’s placed next to guys like Henry and Ibrahimović, who are truly offering insight into the game, well, at that point he’s woefully inadequate.

Two things can both exist in isolation: We can appreciate what Lalas did as a star of the 1992 Olympics and 1994 World Cup teams in terms of making U.S. soccer mainstream, but also realize it’s 2026 now, and he’s irrelevant to the vast majority of people tuning into the Cup. Try as they may, Fox isn’t able to turn Alexi Lalas into the John Madden of soccer coverage, a prestige veteran voice that is outdated, but we love for the nostalgia of it all. Lalas was never that likable to begin with. Instead, we’re forced to keep listening to his hot-take-fueled nonsense about French arrogance, his lazy quips that offer no insight, while two of the greatest players in the world flank him and need to keep pretending that he belongs at their table.

We deserve better.