Steven Mandis, Author of "What Happened to the USMNT"

Fútbol with Grant Wahl

Grant Wahl

Sports, Soccer

4.8 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 20 May 2021

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Grant has an in-depth interview with Steven Mandis about his just-released book What Happened to the USMNT: The Ugly Truth About the Beautiful Game. Mandis, who has written previous books about the culture of Real Madrid and Italian soccer, explains his data- and interview-driven approach to studying the identity and styles of the U.S. men's national team over the past three decades. That research has led to some conclusions about the USMNT that might surprise you. This episode of Fútbol with Grant Wahl is brought to you by Fanatiz. La Liga has the best title race in Europe, and it's heading down to the final day. On Fanatiz, you can watch all the action in La Liga, Ligue 1 and other international leagues and tournaments live and on-demand from your mobile phone, tablet or directly on your TV with the Fanatiz app. Fanatiz features channels you know, like BeIN Sports in English and Spanish, GolTV and many more. And it costs only $7.99 a month. If you’d like to try Fanatiz for yourself, you can get a free week-long trial by going to fntz.co/Grant-FZ. Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqIhXWUw0H4 Get full access to Fútbol with Grant Wahl at grantwahl.substack.com/subscribe

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there. Welcome to Food Ball with Grant Wall. Thanks so much for joining me. Today's interview guest
0:12.4	is Steven Mandis, who has a new book out called What Happened to the USMNT, the Ugly Truth
0:20.0	about the beautiful game. We've had some great guests lately, including Dwayne de Rosario
0:25.3	and Brendan Dunlop, Emma Hayes, and Christina Uncle, so check those out. Now here's my interview with
0:33.2	Steven Mandis. Our guest now is Steven Mandis. He's the author of a really interesting new book called
0:42.3	What Happened to the USMNT, the Ugly Truth about the beautiful game written with Sarah Parsons
0:50.1	Walter. Steven, congrats on the book. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
0:55.6	Thank you. Thank you for having me. Lots to talk about here. I've read the book. I've enjoyed it.
1:02.8	There's a lot to digest. But first off, I feel like listeners should know what is your background
1:09.9	and what have you written in the past about the sport of soccer? Sure. My background is I had worked
1:16.8	at Goldman Sachs in investment banking and private equity and proprietary trading. I also had worked
1:24.8	as a senior advisor to McKinsey Company during the financial crisis. Then I went back to school to
1:30.5	get a PhD and become a professor at Columbia Business School. My dissertation called What Happened
1:37.6	to Goldman Sachs was read by Real Madrid executives, unbeknownst to me, who really enjoyed the book.
1:44.8	Then out of pure coincidence, I met them and we became friends and they explained to me how
1:51.0	Real Madrid worked. I was not a fan of soccer or European soccer. I didn't know much about Real Madrid
1:56.0	at all. They allowed me to write a book called The Real Madrid Way, which explains how they run
2:02.4	the club. I did that in collaboration with David Stern, who was the chairman of the MBA,
2:11.4	commissioner of the MBA, Sir Alex Ferguson and Billy Bean. That was a really fun project.
2:17.6	Then that led to another book about what happened to Syria. Why was Syria so great in the 80s and 90s
2:22.7	and then why did it decline in the 2000s and why I thought it was going to come back?
2:26.1	And the US men's national team, obviously it's a soccer topic, it's a different topic.
	...

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