Catanese: Lindsey Horan and Lionel Messi Shouldn't Have to Apologize to Anyone
Star players shouldn't be responsible for poor decisions and mismanagement from administrators and promotors.
This column is going to touch on many subjects plaguing American soccer, not the least of which is the shenanigans PRO and MLS are currently involved with between its referee lockout and the US Open Cup.
Those specific topics might be addressed in the near future, but the overarching point today is the onus being put on players for things that are largely out of their control. They are the systemic failures of the American sports culture, or the shambles in which such culture might exist.
Lionel Messi isn’t the one promoting Inter Miami’s preseason tour. He might be the reason the tour is happening and is a big draw, but his job in preseason is to prepare for the regular season and do his best to put Miami in a position to win MLS Cup and other trophies - not play friendly matches every other couple of days in a different country for three weeks or however long Miami decided to go globetrotting.
Lindsey Horan’s comments earlier in the month with the Athletic I thought were taken well out of context, but the viral social media age must be fed its content. Horan is correct that U.S. fans don’t know about sports not because fans aren’t knowledgeable about the game or rules…but because we largely focus on results.
Because a results based business is a profitable one.
Yes, Horan’s remarks are rather inflammatory and perhaps not the best word choice and if she feels the need to apologize or clarify what she said, I don’t need that apology. Horan doesn’t owe that to me and as far as I’m concerned anyone else, because she has witnessed the USWNT’s growth (or lackthereof) firsthand while countries like France — where she plays her club soccer — have laid a foundation set to surpass the U.S. when it comes to player development.
There is more to soccer and sports than making money and winning — but in my opinion — that’s all the average American sees or cares about and that is to the detriment of the sport and athletics as a whole here. Pay to play, parent expectations, endless weekend travel tournaments, constant firing of college coaches, lack of (and abuse of) officials are all part of the failing culture of U.S. sports. That’s not a fan issue, but results are won largely off the field with practice and hard work with consistent feed back from coaches and good management and scouting skills.
We the average fan don’t see this, we only see the results and judge nearly everything on them because that’s all we have to go on. I’m still mad at U.S. Soccer for rehiring/extending Gregg Berhalter — not because their elimination to Netherlands at the World Cup was bad — but because I haven’t seen the growth I think the USMNT should have in his system. Player development shouldn’t only be putting the best, highest rated athletes on the field and expecting to win. There’s so much more to it than that.
But that is largely what sports fandom boils down to, and we’re largely doing it wrong.
The U.S. is very good at developing athletes, and likely always will be. But we’re largely bad at developing professionals because our youth and university system focuses far too much on winning, which is not the same as individual improvement as a player. Every player’s situation is unique and everyone develops and improves at their own pace, but largely fans and parents see game results and use that as total judgement on development when that shouldn’t be the case.
The U.S. is more likely to develop a soccer goalkeeper who can also mash baseballs (or softballs) for batting practice home runs than anywhere else in the world. That is an asset and a strength which I don’t think the powers that be in youth sports and league offices do enough to harness those abilities in players and turn them not just into world class athletes - but world class professionals.
I do not know if Horan meant any of this when that interview came out. She could literally just mean that we’re dumb soccer fans who every four years listen to the TV talking heads too much.
And even if that is what she means, she’s still right. The average sports consumer only knows the surface level of what goes on with their favorite teams. Even in the age of social media and instant highlights, I barely know what it takes to be a third stringer on a high school team let alone the captain of the USWNT.
But Lindsey Horan does, and no where in her job description should it say she is responsible for reversing decades of the USA’s poor sports culture. The only thing she can do is set the best example she can and make those around her better at the international level. The only culture she can change is the one in the USWNT locker room by being the outspoken captain I think she already is. I’m proud she said what she said regardless of how it came out.
If Horan thinks an apology is necessary for what she said, I’m glad she has the humility to do so and the courage to speak her mind. She’s going to need both.
Likewise, I’m pretty sure Messi isn’t the one saying he’s going to play in every Inter Miami game this year because…well that would impossible. And for MLS or anyone to expect him to do so is laughable.
What Messi does to fix the geopolitics of being a global superstar is his business and I highly doubt those tickets abroad did say Messi was playing in that game. The promoter is offering a 50% refund because they failed a customer base that bought tickets from them, not the other way around.
The promoter in Hong Kong made a promise he couldn’t keep and Messi took the fall for it. Maybe that’s the price of superstardom but if that kind of reaction happens over an MLS game this year, there will be no sympathy from me for buying expensive tickets from the snake oil salesman to watch Messi watch a Revs game in street clothes at Gillette.
Soccer seasons are marathons, not sprints. Yet in America those marathons are often extended unnecessarily to get more revenue out of fans, sponsors, and broadcasters to the determent of the players on the field especially and the most hardcore supporters. We were here prior to Messi’s arrival and will be here long after. Our youthful exuberance eventually becomes old age and treachery and we will have very long memories of the actions that occur this year in MLS.
There is a scourge in the USA when it comes to sports, that winning and dollars are the most important thing and quite simply that just isn’t true. There is still a large amount of growing this country needs to do — especially in soccer — to improve on and off the field at every level of the sport. All the money that is being extracted from the Messi era of MLS likely won’t end up back in the sport, the greatest travesty of all.
But Horan and Messi can’t change any of that, nor should they apologize for not being able to do so. As the USWNT begins their CONCACAF W Gold Cup against debutants Dominican Republic, the story should be on Las Quisqueyanas first major regional tournament appearance and not three week old comments that while poorly explained, are accurate.
We also get to answer the age old question - Can Lionel Messi do it on a rainy cow pasture in CONCACAF? Which should be way more important than a friendly halfway around the world, but such is the way things are.
Having spent 12 years coaching youth soccer, most parents are pretty reasonable in their expectations of their child's experience and that it likely will just be a hobby, not a profession.
But the smaller group of parents obsessed with winning, trying to steer their kid to a scholarship and way too caught up in what special league their kid plays in make ten times more noise than the reasonable parents do.
And the owners and directors of clubs are mostly obsessed with money above all else, even the sham "non-profits". They care nothing about player development and are only concerned about top teams winning to drive revenue and keeping the checks coming in for their lower teams.
I've sat in coaches meetings and had players referred to as "inventory" and been told that come tryout Tim we needed to "trim the fat" from our teams.
So right from the beginning at the youth level we get it wrong.
Finally was motivated to become a paid subscriber with this piece on Messi and Horan. Keep up the great insight.
For what it’s worth, so to speak, I kind of justified paying the five dollars a month (although it might be worth much more, no disrespect) because I canceled my Apple TV+ MLS season package. I will have to catch the Revs and any other MLS game I’m interested in either live or when they put them on for free on regular TV, which it seems happened a lot during the last season after I paid my $70 to Apple for a bulky platform that took forever to load on my TV. So I will depend on the Musket to keep me well informed!