Hi, I'm Grant Wall. And welcome to the Planet Football Podcast, where I go in depth with the most intriguing people in the world of soccer.

Just one podcast this week, not to as we finish the holiday season which I hope you are enjoying.

On today's show I'm joined by the renowned sports writer Will Leach who explains how he fell

down the soccer rabbit hole and fell in love with the sport

including becoming a season ticket holder for Atlanta United one of the stories of the

year in 2017. It was almost as if Atlanta United had minted so many loyal hardcore fans as if they were a cause almost

before they'd ever actually played a game then have such an exciting team and a team that played in such

a different way and listen that's part of the reasons that people were excited about them before.

I think if they would have brought in a bunch of old Premier League players, I don't think that people

would have just been naturally

excited. I think there are enough smart soccer fans in Atlanta because again a lot of

these people are from other places. A lot of people have been following them for a

long time. There's people from all across the world that live in Atlanta now and they saw

that what Atlanta United was doing was different than what typically a new

MLS team does not just in roster construction though there was that but just

in sensibility and the hiring of the coach and in kind of what they did and of course then

to have this new stadium it was just very exciting it was a really cool thing to be a part of all that and more coming up.

Our guest today is one of my favorite writers in America.

Will Leach is currently a senior writer for Sports On Earth, a contributing editor for

New York magazine, a film critic for Vulture and Paste, and a contributor at Sports Illustrated.

He's also a man of many hats the founding editor of Deadspin and for our

purposes today a fairly recent and full convert to soccer fandom for the United States and for Atlanta United.

...