"I'm Rooting Against Team USA"

The host of The Ben Maller Show, filling in for Ben Maller, opens with a confession that he expects will anger listeners: he is rooting against the U.S. men's national soccer team in their World Cup knockout match against Bosnia and Herzegovina. He wants them to lose badly. "If they lose 26 to nil, I would be a happy, happy man." He insists this has nothing to do with patriotism — he loves America — but everything to do with three specific grievances that have turned him against his own country's team.

Reason One: The Manager's "Brain Dead" Theories

The host's first target is U.S. manager Mauricio Pochettino. He finds Pochettino's public explanations for why American soccer players underperform infuriating. Pochettino has argued that U.S. players are complacent because American sports lack relegation — the system in European soccer where the worst teams get demoted to a lower league. The host calls this "such a dumb theory." His counterargument is blunt: "Our best athletes don't play soccer. That's why the U.S. sucks forever in U.S. men's national soccer." He points out that no major American sport — college football, the NFL, the NBA — has relegation, and nobody thinks players in those leagues are just going through the motions.