⚽️How to Invent a Football Club
⚽️How to Invent a Football Club
MAX MANSFIELD is the CEO of Brooklyn F.C. — and joins the show this week to explain how a brand new footballing institution gets built.
To the extent there’s any kind of offseason for men’s football this summer, it might be the two weeks where we now find ourselves between the Champions League final and GERMANY vs SCOTLAND in the opening match of EURO 2024. Well, it’s lawsuit season — just ask Man City — but for the most part, the football folks are taking a fortnight off.
What better time, then, for a quick change of pace. It’s all well and good covering the game at the top level, but how does a football club come to be in the first place? Right here in TFW’s own backyard, Brooklyn F.C. is sprouting up out of the asphalt to become a fully fledged professional outfit. So we decided to ask the young enterprise’s CEO, MAX MANSFIELD, how exactly that happens:
Find out more about Two Bridges Football Club here. It’s a wonderful project that Max also spearheaded.
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SATURDAY
PORTUGAL vs CROATIA
12:45pm ET, 7:45pm GMT
Two EURO heavyweights clash in a friendly. We could get a look at whether the legs are starting to go in Croatia’s aging squad, led by 38-year-old Luka Modrić, though on the other side there’s 39-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo. The latter has a glittering array of young stars around him, however, and the Portuguese could be worth keeping an eye on when things kick off in Germany.
USA vs COLOMBIA
5:30pm ET, 10:30pm GMT
The USMNT will ramp up their Copa América preparations with a first match since the Nations League final triumph over Mexico in March. Colombia has quality—Luis Díaz, Jhon Durán, Luis Sinisterra, Jefferson Lerma, and even James Rodríguez is still kicking—so this will be a nice level-setter for the Americans ahead of a tournament on home soil. Are they now among the Colombias of the world, or have they reached a higher level?
MEXICO vs BRAZIL
8:30pm ET
In the Americas, the highest level means Argentina and Brazil, and the Seleção have a date with Mexico before a friendly with Team USA the following Wednesday. The Mexicans are in some crisis after they caught a 4-0 hammering from Uruguay in midweek, one where Darwin Núñez became a cold and ruthless marksman overnight. El Tri need a decent showing here.
SUNDAY
SOCCER AID
2:30pm ET, 7:30pm GMT
If you’re feeling charitable, you can find an England XI playing a World XI with the proceeds directed towards UNICEF. There are names like Eden Hazard, Jack Wilshere, Jermaine Defoe, Roberto Carlos, Michael Essien, and Alessandro Del Piero in the mix, so it could make for some wholesome entertainment.
ITALY vs BOSNIA
2:45pm ET, 7:45pm GMT
The Italians are a perennial mystery, either crashing out of major tournaments at the qualifying stage or winning them. Here’s a chance to see which kind of squad this Azzurri outfit is as they test themselves against Bosnia & Herzegovina, who missed out on a ticket to EURO 2024 through a dramatic defeat to Ukraine in the playoffs.
FRANCE vs CANADA
3:15pm ET, 8:15pm GMT
Here’s a chance to have a look at the favorites for the European Championships, as well as (perhaps) a rising power in North America. Canada have young talent these days, plus a new manager in American Jesse Marsch that plenty of USMNT-watchers wanted to fill a job south of the border. A 4-0 blitzing by the Dutch on Thursday was a rough start for the new regime, but if Canada outperform the Americans this summer, it might suggest that a coach with top-level European experience can make the difference.
ARGENTINA vs ECUADOR
6pm ET, 11pm GMT
The chances of an extended GOAT sighting are fairly low, but Lionel Messi and Argentina are gearing up for a Copa América that they’re surely planning to take home and shove in the cabinet next to the 2021 edition and the World Cup they claimed the following year. Ecuador will be at the tournament, too, and they’ve got some decent talent including Premier Leaguers Moisés Caicedo and Pervis Estupiñán. But this is the kind of opposition the Albiceleste will expect to sweep aside over the next month and a half.⚽︎