Hey everyone, Joe Lowry here. For this week's episode of Soccer 101, we're pulling in an episode of The Backhield Show, which is the new American soccer podcast that myself and the folks at backhield.com started up recently. On this episode, we look at how to win the World Cup. It sounds simple, right? But it's not so simple. We look at some of the numbers and what they tell us about the tricks

that good teams use to go far and knock out tournaments. It's a fun one. If you enjoy,

check out the back yield show. All right, with that intro out of the way, let's get to the

episode. Winning the World Cup is hard. I know I'm not breaking any new ground with that statement,

but it is true. Winning the World Cup is really, really hard. It's you against 31 other teams that also want to win the World Cup, and they're all going to try their absolute best to make sure that you don't get home with the trophy. Pretty much all of the odds are stacked against you. But what if I told you there were some tricks your team could use to boost their odds of making

a deep run at the World Cup?

Sounds pretty good, right?

Today, we're going to talk about some of those tricks.

Well, actually, university soccer coach, data analyst, and generally smart soccer guy,

Kieran Doyle, is going to talk about those tricks.

Kieran is a contributor to American Soccer Analysis and to backheeled.com, where he's just

written this lovely piece called How to Win the World Cup by the Numbers.

And that story is what we're talking about today.

I'm Joe Lowry and welcome to the Back Heald Show, where we bring you unique coverage of the

United States men's national team in just 10 minutes or less.

So hang out with us while you get up and stretch your legs,

or while you mow half your lawn,

or while you think back to that time when Kelan Acosta mastered the dark arts in the summer of 2021.

That was fun, wasn't it?

Here at Backhield, we believe that just because soccer games are 90 minutes long

doesn't mean that soccer podcasts have to be.

So let's get to it and talk soccer. because soccer games are 90 minutes long, doesn't mean that soccer podcasts have to be.

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