ESPN gathers worst imaginable soccer panel to discuss World Cup

With the World Cup currently occupying the world’s attention, the focus on soccer in the United States has increased dramatically in recent weeks. That led to a lot of people giving opinions on the World Cup and soccer, including many who are far from experts in the sport. Sometimes, those people were even given a loud voice to spout their opinions, like on Wednesday when ESPN’s Outside the Lines welcomed an interesting panel to discuss the state of soccer in the United States.

There was some good on the panel, including Seattle Sounders majority owner Joe Roth, ESPN analyst and former USWNT member Brandi Chastain and Edge of Sports editor Dave Zirin. They were joined by ESPN sports business reporter and lover of #brand and #strat Darren Rovell and Boston Globe columnist and over the top anti-soccer narrative pusher Dan Shaughnessy. As you may expect, the opinions varied drastically.

Here was some of the good and a lot of the very bad.

On the MLS:

“The fact that the marketability can translate from ‘hey this player also plays in our country’ helps.”

“I do think people will sample, I do think people will check it out. But you have to realize, this World Cup had a lot of goals, a lot of goals in the final 15 minutes. This was an American World Cup, we are SportsCenter’d out in terms we look for the highlights. For us Americans, a highlight is only one thing in soccer cause it is in every other sport, and that’s a goal.”

“I do think that the amount of goals will determine whether a good portion of people stay.”

On viewing parties and interest in the U.S.:

“Knock yourself out, I’m glad everyone had fun. It was a great party, it was all good. I don’t think there will be a lot of interest in the World Cup now that America is out of it.”

“Hey it’s July, it’s a party, it’s great. We all tuned into Nancy Kerrigan, Tonya Harding. We all tuned into Kerri Strug landing the vault. These are events we get into them every four years when it’s there and this is a really good world party, the rest of the world is all over it. We’re into it when our team is in it. Our team is now gone and I think it kind of fades from view at that time.”

On not embracing soccer:

“Why do you insist that I like the game that you like and embrace? If you don’t like baseball, I’m okay with that, I’d just ask the same courtesy from our soccer friends to not push it on us and we’re stupid or ignorant.”

On the interest of soccer in the United States:

“I get some humor from people saying when is soccer going to be here.”

“The future of soccer in America is going to grow, regardless of how Dan Shaughnessy or Keith Olbermann or any 50-year-old plus sportswriter feels about it.”

On the increased interest:

“There is a huge soccer culture in the United States that I think a lot of us in the mainstream media did not see and only revealed itself with this World Cup.”

On contrasting partisan viewpoints from political pundits:

“I think it has everything to do with anxiety and tension and frankly racism about immigration and it’s using the World Cup as a stand in for that.”

On sportswriters not embracing the World Cup:

“This is our time to shine as sportswriters because the drama is so amazing.”

On soccer in America:

“Soccer is here, I know that to be true and soccer is an American sport now.”

“I don’t think this World Cup is the thing that’s made soccer American, I think it’s just given us this uplifting feeling about how great this game is.”

“I don’t think soccer now goes away, I think this World Cup shows there is a lot to watch.”