Let's Fix Football

Eyyyy! Sorry about the extremely late LFF--and this is just a bonus, too. Gabe has been having some personal things go down, so fuck it, we decided to record while I was at the JFK airport bar because I was talking to long-term friend of the show Teddy Maglio (surprise Ted!) and Om Arvind about the Champions League, Liverpool, ManCity and the future of English sides in Europe and the USA.

It was a fun-ass show, including numerous times I was interrupted by our server to give me a new beer. Because I'm a regular, normal guy.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer are back and this week they're talking MLS teams in the CONCACAF Champions League, and why New York and Toronto's victories might be surprising to Liga MX fans (hint, it has to do with the guy who says MLS requires its teams to play bad keepers on purpose).

Then it's on to the UEFA Champion's League, and they're all in on Manchester United's hilarious UCL failure, the draw (and pundits reaction to it), and the awesome Greek league where they have totally regular club presidents who do normal things.

Finally, they talk about how a bunch of American cities have now given FIFA the middle finger on World Cup hosting because of FIFA's insane legal requirements.

RIP Steven Hawking, the legend.

Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer are back to have a heart-to-heart about Spurs Spursing like Spurs and how, somehow, this time hurts more than previous collapses, despite it being all too pretictable. Also Gabe has some choice words for Chiellini, who was absolutely classless in his post-match interview--we'll give you a hint, there's definitely some carefully chose words about rabies. 

Then, Gabe lifts Evan's spirits with an amazing story being floated in England (arguably the funniest single story we've covered yet) about Russia potentially poisoning the English national team to make them not win the World Cup.

Finally, they break down how every single MLS side absolutely dominated their first leg CONCACAF Champions League match, and Gabe gives a quick #SaveTheCrew update.

On this week's show Gabe is joined by reigning guest host champ James Rushton of 7500 to Holte to discuss taking revenge on cults, FIFA corruption and its relation to the incredibly stupid Pro/Rel people, Russian ultras taking cocaine into stadiums because it's legal for whatever reason, and calling the cops on twitter.

In their actually serious segment they discuss the Crewe Alexandra scandal, and the way fans can deal with their favorite club betraying them in this manner. Then, Evan joins (belatedly) to discuss the way forward after this kind of trauma, and how you as a community can put everything back together again.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer break down the news from a chaotic week in world football, from Sepp Blatter popping back in to, for whatever reason, weigh in on who should host the 2026 World Cup (spoiler: it's a country with a monarchy and almost unlimited amounts of money that also doesn't have a warrant out for his arrest!), some metal-ass incidents in Spain and Brazil, unhinged Milan fans and more. 

Then, it's the TAM GAM show, where they try to dissect the absolutely incomprehensible MLS transfer requirements, and diving in to how they compare to European leagues and other American sports.

*wheezing* *panting* .......IT'SSSS

Your Let's Fix Football.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer are joined by reigning LFF guest-appearance champ Ernesto Alvarado to break down the most recent updates in the FIFA corruption trial in Brooklyn, talk about the broader scandal, the new corruption allegations at the IOC, and the logic of anti-corrpution work generally. Ernesto is a practicing Foreign Corrupt Practices attorney based in Paris with the American law firm Hughes, Hubbard and Reed LLP.

Evan and Gabe are also joined by journalist Jess Houwen of MLSFemale.com to discuss some MLS news, chat about her thoughts on Real Madrid's smashing of PSG--and, most importantly, to sing the Ballad of Aura and Marco. 

Jess, Gabe and Evan finish the show by breaking down USSF's most recent atrocity--the not scam regular website run by "nutritional partner" Thorne, which itself sells regular, normal things and doesn't market supplements to child soccer coaches.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer are joined by Kevin McCauley of SBNation (and many others) to discuss the NWSL's financial issues and future, the USSF election, and more. It's a really revealing interview where Kevin correctly predicts the way the voting would break down (if not the eventual result). 

But first: they talk Tottenham's 1-0 victory in the North London Derby, Eric Lamela punking out Jack Whilshere, and the Huddersfield dude hanging dong on national television. 

Come for the interesting discussion about the NWSL and USSF, stay for the dong jokes.

Wow, has it been a week. Hosts Evan Mateer and Gabe Lezra break down all the drama at the end of the transfer window, focusing in particular on Pep Guardiola's half a BILLION pound spending spree, and some weird MLS topics. (Totally normal relationship between Manchester City and NYCFC). 

And...yeah, they have to go all in on Arsenal, because my oh my has it been a week for them. In particular, they chat about Gabe's awesome normal uncle Aubameyang, and, well...it's all Piers Morgan. The widely-loathed Morgan interviewed United States President Donald Trump...and well, they talked about Arsenal. 

Oh and Paul Lapointe--totally regular dude with normal opinions about purging journalists from covering USSF.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer are joined by Kevin McCauley of SBNation to discuss his revealing, exacting article about USSF's failures in recruiting talent from marginalized communities. It's a really interesting discussion that touches on everything from the Jonathan Gonzalez saga to USSF's institutional failings in recruiting talent.

Also on the docket: USSF's newest scam, a $70 hoola hoop marketed to rich divorced parents who don't understand soccer and the candidate showcases at the USSF forum in Philadelphia.

In Europe, the guys move on to Real Madrid's crisis (and why net transfer spend is a dumb AF metric for determining if a team is playing well), why Karim Benzema is actually a total baller and the people who are hating on him are wrong, and, well, Leeds' Nazi Mr. Clean crest. They also briefly discuss an update in the FIFA scandal.

Hosts Gabe Lezra and Evan Mateer shoot some sh*t about finances, superheroes and FIFA with their good friend and media mogul James Rushton of The AC Milan Offside, 7500 to Holte and the Swinging Into Spiderman podcast. It's a rather eclectic show, where the guys touch on everything from superhero tropes, which Batman was the best, Spiderman's representation in movies, and much much more. 

There was also some football talk. James helps the guys break down the newest updates in the AC Milan financial saga, including the fact that Silvio Berlusconi might be the least shady person involved. They also discuss the comments from interim USMNT coach Tab Ramos about dual nationals, and Gabe's newest article about identity in football. 

They finish up with one of the great riffs on FIFA's Russian doping problem.