Soccer: An American History - Part Three: Boom to Bust
It Was What It Was : The Football History Podcast
The Overlap
4.9 • 667 Ratings
🗓️ 26 March 2025
⏱️ 49 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Welcome back to It Was What It Was.
It's the final installment of our three-part series exploring the rise and fall of the American Soccer League. Jonathan and Rob dive into internal conflicts within the ASL, the 1929 Wall Street crash, and how its devastating effects exposed the vulnerabilities of the fledgling league.
But all is not lost - with another significant attempt to establish professional soccer in the U.S....
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00:00 Introduction to the Series and Bela Gutmann's Influence
01:13 The Rise of the American Soccer League (ASL)
01:51 Innovations and Controversies in American Soccer
06:23 Financial Growth and International Tensions
08:17 The Playoff System and League Complications
10:53 The Struggles of Smaller Franchises
15:06 The Breakaway and Formation of the Eastern Soccer League
17:31 Chaos and Competition Between Leagues
22:24 The Soccer War and Its Impact
23:57 The Decline of the American Soccer League
25:27 The Wall Street Crash and Its Consequences
27:20 The Struggles of Key Figures and Teams
29:36 The Final Collapse of the ASL
34:25 Analysing the Failure of Soccer in the US
38:08 Comparing US and European Sports Models
45:36 The Future of Soccer in the US
49:17 Conclusion and What's Next
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I poked holes in the eyes of Abraham Lincoln on my last $5 bill. |
| 0:12.1 | I thought then it wouldn't be able to find its way to the door. |
| 0:16.4 | Well, welcome back to It Was What It Was, and this is the third part of our epic series on the early history of US soccer, |
| 0:23.8 | how it grew and how it eventually failed and didn't get a foothold. |
| 0:28.1 | And that was a great Bella Gutman, the great Hungarian player and coach, |
| 0:31.9 | who was fated in the burgeoning and US soccer scene when it was in its boom years, |
| 0:36.2 | but also will experience the big crash, |
| 0:39.4 | which obviously coincides as a Wall Street crash, |
| 0:41.7 | and that's him talking about the Wall Street crash |
| 0:43.7 | and the economic decline of the early 1930s |
| 0:47.6 | and its impact on both America, on his life and on the game. |
| 0:52.2 | And Jonathan, yeah, when we left it in part two, |
| 0:55.8 | the US Soccer League was up and running. |
| 0:57.8 | There were big crowds. |
| 0:58.8 | There were tours coming from all sorts of different countries. |
| 1:02.3 | It felt like something a foothold was really been established |
| 1:05.5 | and that soccer was going to get going in the United States of America. |
| 1:09.8 | So today, talk us through what goes wrong. |
| 1:13.8 | Well, I think it begins with the owners. Well, we mentioned that there's some underlying issues, |
| 1:19.9 | which we'll come back to the end. I think we'll, you know, the second half of this will, |
| 1:23.5 | we'll really talk about why it doesn't work. But the specifics towards the mid to end of the 20s |
| 1:30.7 | is that the ASL, the American Soccer League, |
... |
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