This past Sunday saw the Portland Hearts of Pine play their first game in their home stadium in Portland after three memorable nights up in Lewiston, Maine. Thomas is joined by Sam Minton to talk about the first night and Thomas had some insight of his own with his trip up to Fitzpatrick Stadium a few days before the opener. We also have an interview Portland's head coach, Bobby Murphy, who shared some insight into how he prepares for each game.

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

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The NWSL is just getting started and at the same time the new USL Super League is coming to season's end and the playoffs. And beyond that, there's two more pro women's leagues starting in the US in 2026. All this while we await the arrival of Boston Legacy and the return of pro women's soccer to New England.

Jessica Charman does play by play and commentary for NWSL, USL Super League and USL Championship games and is also the host of Played In, a weekly show on SiriusXM FC. She joined us to share all the riveting story lines in both the Super League and the NWSL and shared her thoughts on the ever growing women's soccer landscape.

You can follow Jessica on X and check out her show on SiriusXM FC right here!

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

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The New England Revolution will enter the US Open Cup in the round of 32 on May. They will face Rhode Island FC, who beat Portland Hearts of Pine, who themselves beat Hartford Athletic already in this year's Cup. It's a great time then to have Michael from US Open Cup News join us! He knows it all when it comes to the Cup and he talked all about it's rich history, its comeback from Covid, previous winners, previous cupsets and what makes this tournament as special and enjoyable as it is.

If you haven't been following the Cup this year, it's not too late and Michael will get you right up to date and excited for the rounds to come.

There's also local amateur teams trying to qualify already for the 2026 edition of the Open Cup, Michael let us know who and when they play next.

You can follow the Cup round by round at thecup.us and keep up with Michael on BlueSky as well.

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

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Sebastian Bush maintains an excellent set of BlueSky accounts that puts together a visual data package after every MLS, NWSL and USL game that gives you everything you need to dive deeper into the underlying performances of both teams. They also have season long and historical data on league and team goal creation, xG figures, shot charts and shot types.

It's an impressive and useful array of data and visuals to go with them and Sebastian joined the show to walk us through it all and let you know how best to utilize it all!

You can follow them on BlueSky at the below links:

MLS Analytics

NWSL Analytics

USL Analytics

And for the season and historical data, check out Stateside Stats on SubStack

Lastly, if you like what you're seeing, please consider buying Sebastian a cup of coffee on Ko-Fi

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

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The Blazing Musket Podcast's first roundtable show!

Our crew of writers and podcasters got together to talk about how each of New England's pro teams and it's most beloved amateur team are doing so far this season.

We discussed:

• The US Open Cup, Jägermeister Cup, Maple Cup
• How the teams are meeting or not meeting early season expectations
• What's to come this spring and summer
• Local enthusiasm, ticket sales, vibes
• How the presence of the Revs effects the rest of New England soccer

It was a great, humorous, wide ranging discussion of all that's going on with the Vermont Green, Portland Hearts of Pine, Rhode Island FC and Hartford Athletic

Our guests this month:

Mike from United in Green a podcast covering the Vermont Green

Shawn from The Blazing Musket and From the Forest to the Tide podcast covering Portland Hearts of Pine

Matt from Raising Anchor a podcast covering Rhode Island FC

Nathan from The Blazing Musket covering Hartford Athletic

You can find all these podcasts on The Blazing Musket as part of our podcast network along with Revolution Recap

We hope you like this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review if you do wherever you get your podcasts from.

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Sam Minton, fearless leader of The Blazing Musket is in this week to get you caught up with all soccer news in New England.

We talked about Hartford and RIFC's early season struggles, the Revs first win, Portland Hearts of Pine early success, Open Cup predictions, Boston's NWSL team has a new name and a banner that popped up in Foxboro this past weekend.

It's all New England, all soccer and all here with Sam this week!

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with the Revs and all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It may only be five weeks into the 2025 MLS season but a lot has happened in the Eastern Conference already! We've had our first coach firing of the season, three teams still in search of their first win and several teams off to impressive starts. Matt joins us to break it all down and tell us what trends will continue and what might change in the weeks ahead.

Matt also weighed in on what the USMNT needs to do to bounce back from the Nations League disaster.

Matt covers MLS for MLSsoccer.com and his SubStack, The Tactics Free Zone.

If you're enjoying the show be sure to like, subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

To keep up with the Revs, the USMNT and all the soccer in New England, head over to The Blazing Musket!

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Sam Spencer joined the show to share the history of AFC Wimbledon, a supporter owned Club in London that rose up through the English football pyramid after a Club was taken from them and moved to a new town. Sam tells us the whole tale, the progress the Club has made and what it's like to be a part of the ownership group as a supporter.

Sam also covers soccer all over the Charlotte, North Carolina area for his SubStack, Soccer Sheet. He catches us up on how Charlotte FC's looking for this season, how the local fanbase has embraced the team and just how good could Wilfried Zaha could be. We also touched on the Charlotte Independence in USL League One and Carolina Ascent FC, the newly formed women's team competing in the USL Super League.

Be sure to give it a listen!

Keep up with Sam's AFC Wimbledon experience and soccer in Charlotte on his Substack, Soccer Sheet.

If your enjoying the show, be sure to like, subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts from!

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We welcomed Neil deMause this week to get a better understanding of the economics behind state and local money funding sports stadiums operated by privately owned teams. It's a topic worth diving into as the White Stadium development continues to be a big story in Massachusetts.

BOS Nation is set to move into White Stadium when they take the field in the NWSL in 2026 but not everyone is onboard with the use of a public stadium, taxpayers money and the missed opportunity costs spent to make it all happen.

Neil is the author of Field of Schemes and has daily updates about stadium construction on his site, FieldofSchemes.com.

He's heard and seen it all before and he joined us to break down why these deals happen so often when the benefit to the wider public just doesn't seem to materialize when these stadiums are up and running.

It was a great, wide ranging conversation, so be sure to give it a listen and keep up with BOS Nation and White Stadium with us at The Blazing Musket.

You can follow Neil over on BlueSky and Thomas is there as well!

If you're enjoying the show, be sure to like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from!

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This week's show welcomes John Morrissey from Backheeled.com, The USL Show and USL Tactics for a preview of the USL Championship and League One. We'll also take a close look at what to expect from Rhode Island FC, Hartford Athletic and the Portland Hearts of Pine in 2025.

John also touched on how the USL Super League is doing, potential expansion across the USL's many leagues, division one sanctioning and offered some thoughts on USL's stated goal of bringing promotion and relegation to the US.

Thomas tries to work in as many references as possible to Vermont Green but we'll get a preview of their season later in the spring.

You can find John's extensive, insightful and excellent coverage of the USL at Backheeled.com, The USL Show on YouTube and USL Tactics on BlueSky and Substack

If you're a paid subscriber to The Blazing Musket, don't forget you have access to all the content on Backheeled.com thanks to our partnership with them. And if you're not a paid subscriber, please considering it. Your $5 a month gets you the best coverage of New England soccer there is, access to exclusive content and helps supports this new podcast venture.

Be sure to like and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts from and we hope to have you join us for our next episode!

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