This is ‘Watching With…’. Our soccer staff sits down with past players, coaches, fans and other people involved in soccer to watch and discuss a Women’s World Cup match together.
“You guys, we have mugs!”
Tobin Heath is proud. She reaches down into the cardboard box placed at her feet and lifts out a white coffee mug. She holds it high in the air with her right hand and some folks inside Headgum’s studios cheer. Christen Press, sitting in a chair nearby in hair and makeup, smiles. That’s when you know you’ve officially made it, Heath says, when your show is on a coffee mug. It’s a fitting trophy of the day for those who made it through the late-night, nail-biting experience of the U.S. women’s national team’s 0-0 draw against Portugal in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
Heath fills up the mug with coffee, takes a sip, and gets ready for a long day in the studio. It’s 11:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning and Press and Heath are prepping for the fourth episode of their new video and podcast series, The RE-CAP Show. The adrenaline of the near-disastrous loss to Portugal — which would’ve eliminated the USWNT in the group stage — kept Heath’s energy coursing until about 3 a.m.
For the next nine hours in the eclectic Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, Press and Heath film episode four of the show, and go in-depth on the state of the U.S. squad that has looked adrift so far at this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand. Outside the building is an old-school movie marquee telling passersby to watch the show on YouTube in big black block letters.
They’ll interview teammate Abby Dahlkemper, who missed out on this tournament due to injury. They’ll take questions from fans. Heath runs through topics of note from elsewhere around the tournament. There is an interview with Andrea Brimmer, chief marketing officer for Ally Financial, who has helped women’s soccer grow in the marketing and media world over the last few years.
But fans of the U.S. have already grown accustomed to wanting to hear what Press and Heath — who were part of the last two World Cup-winning sides — have to say in the episodes immediately following a USWNT match. The frustration for Heath was palpable at the final whistle, despite the U.S. still advancing on.
“I lost it. I think I lost it,” she said on the show. “We should all be happy we’re filming now and not directly after the game because I can understand the reactions that we saw.”
The next day at a coffee shop attached to a chic motorcycle shop in Venice, Heath and Press sat down with The Athletic to discuss balancing honesty and friendships within the U.S. side, the Round of 16 showdown with a familiar face in Sweden and why this group has looked like a shell of its once-world dominating self.
On the USWNT, “You have to tell a sugar they’re going to be a salt”
“At this point, everybody is acting like we’ve lost when we haven’t,” Press said. “The only thing that can turn on its head here is if we win. I love the unpredictability of football.”
Outside on the patio at Deus Cafe, Heath talks about baking a cake. She uses this analogy when asked why the U.S. have looked so disjointed — like they aren’t part of the same perfect recipe that the soccer world has seen for decades. In the Daily Discussion portion of the fourth episode of The RE-CAP Show, Press says it’s the system and the structure that has allowed the U.S. to be so good for so long. And so far at this World Cup, the lack of cohesion is obvious.
Heath follows by saying from a macro perspective, “You can’t have everything.” Asked to expound upon that the next day, Press laughs when Heath holds out her hands in the shape of a cake, but Heath explains it like this.
“In a cake, you’ll have like 50 ingredients but on a team you have 11 ingredients. It’s, like, not everybody is going to be the flour, which is the biggest one; or sugar, which is the most flavorful one. That’s a cake. You can’t have 10 flours and 10 sugars to make a cake. That’s what harmony is, especially in team sports,” Heath says. “Where you get kind of handcuffed with the U.S. women’s national team is you have 50 sugars to choose from. That’s what’s tough. We’re not just talking about the football side of it, but also you have to talk about their mentalities and behaviors, too. Then you have to get buy-in. Then you have to tell a sugar they’re going to be a salt. And the sugar is like, ‘No, I want to be a sugar.’”
It’s the person in charge of baking this theoretical cake that has to nail the ingredients.
“I think they absolutely want to be a cake,” Heath said. “You hear every single one of them say, ‘I want to win the World Cup. We’re going to do everything to win the World Cup.’ But I don’t see any of the ingredients right now.”
So, what are they right now?
“What are they?” Heath continues. “I think it’s when you realize you put a cake in the oven and you think, ‘(expletive), I forgot something,’ and then it doesn’t rise.”
Press jumps in. Maybe they didn’t rise in the last game, she said, but maybe they will rise next time against Sweden. For those who’ve watched the U.S. and paid attention to the system implemented by head coach Vlatko Andonovski, this near-calamitous ending shouldn’t be all that stunning.
“We’ve been trying to make the same cake for a while,” Press said.
If that ball ricocheting off the post in the 92nd minute isn’t the ultimate wake-up call — or in the case of this baking metaphor — a timer buzzing loudly, then what will be?
“We just have to hit the right temperature,” Heath said.
“There’s superficiality and there’s substance”
Guests on The RE-CAP Show so far include former USWNT manager Jill Ellis, NWSL manager Laura Harvey and teammates Lauren Holiday and Dahlkemper. They’ve all sat in the new studio created inside Headgum for the show. Heath said she’s stingy about guests. They seek out those who can blend into the tone and intention of the show’s ethos, which is blending analysis and personal experience within life and sport.
“I want to say this not rudely, but there’s superficiality and there’s substance in this world,” Heath said. “Having been a part of the team for such a long time and interacting with the people around the team on a really deep level, we know substance. And that’s important for us to bring the substance and the appreciation we have.”
Press said one piece of the mission of the show is to use the spotlight of this summer’s World Cup and showcase more women’s sports across the spectrum, not just soccer. This is a potential launching pad for more shows revolving around other women’s sports.
“It’s a completely different feeling if you come on our show or go on ESPN. That we want to replicate in scale,” Press explained. “From a business perspective, we can’t be dependent on just Tobin and I. From a business standpoint, we’re going to scale this through not just other athletes, but people that are deeply knowledgeable about women’s sports. Whether that’s other hosts, TV personalities, thinking through a real media lens, but the big differentiation being honesty, truth-telling and authenticity, realness and not pushing the big-broadcast agenda.”
How, then, do Press and Heath straddle the line of addressing shortcomings honestly to the fan base while not making waves with teammates? Both Press and Heath say they would say the exact same things to their teammates at the tournament.
“The greatest seal of approval with what we’re doing is we hear from our teammates all the time and they tell us, ‘what you’re doing is amazing,’” Heath said.
“They know who we are,” Press said. “I think it’s actually quite easy for Tobin and I. Because we’ve been there. We’re not going to sit on the outside now and say, ‘We should’ve won that game.’ That’s the vibe of the media, vibe of the outsider. We know how hard it is to win game three in your group. We come with empathy and compassion and we get it. We also, like, want the team to do well. It’s not the job of the world to pretend they’re doing well when they’re not, right?”
“Straight-up nervous” for USWNT vs. Sweden
The Round of 16 match with Sweden is scheduled to kick off at 2 a.m. Pacific time. Press and Heath know they already have to prepare for two drastically different shows.
“I’m going to go into that next game nervous,” Press said. “Like, straight-up nervous.”
“We’re so ingrained with this belief that of course, they’re going to figure it out,” Heath adds.
Press leans forward in her chair on the patio recalling the slow start to the 2015 World Cup tournament. “We were getting reamed!” she said. The U.S. drew 0-0 against Sweden and scored four goals in three matches, but recorded three straight shutouts that preceded the memorable 5-2 World Cup final win over Japan. Heath scored the last goal of the match that day.
Eight years later, they’re going to be tuned in at home in Southern California in the middle of the night hoping to be discussing a dramatic turnaround win over a longtime rival. They’ll also be ready for the other possibility. They hope the cake rises.
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(Top photo: Getty Images)
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