I'm Roger Bennett, an American fiasco. It's not the only podcast that I host.

Because along with my great friend, Michael Davis, a fellow bald, a host of show called

Men in Blazers. It's also about soccer. In fact, our unofficial slogan is soccer! America

is sport of the future, as it has been since 1972.

We came out with that slogan in one of the very first podcasts that we broadcast,

really based on the hilarious expectation that soccer is forever tomorrow's sport in America,

forever the sport of the future always predicted despite its history of boom and bust,

to be the great overnight sensation that's going to sweep the country.

And while everybody is waiting for that overnight sensation,

slowly, steadily, while no one was watching, soccer has grown to become a major,

major sport with a huge demographic following every single hero, villain, ill-judged hair-cutter

neck tattoo. When I first came here in the 1990s, Americans were not just in Newark to soccer's

charms, they actively, passionately, continuously loved to hate on it. And I was always fascinated by

that hate. It's contours, it's motivations to me to be candid. They was almost protestive too much.

And so for this episode, if you'll allow me, we're going to take a journey into the hate.

Hit pause for a second on the story of the 1998 American team, and talk with a remarkable

2018 American, Dan Katz, aka Big Cat, a gent with a huge megaphone in the sports world. He co-hosts

the podcast Pardon My Take, which is a phenomenon, a juggernaut, and part of the fast-growing online empire,

barstall sports.

Well, I am the one you need to convert, like I am the, if people can follow my lead where it's

almost, I have a little side piece in its soccer. And I never will get married to soccer,

but I'll flirt with it and maybe go out to drinks with it every now and then. Maybe when everyone's

...