“This wasn't gonna be a soccer book. This was gonna be a book about a weird soccer team.”
Leander Schaerlaeckens returns to the show to talk about the writing and reporting of his excellent new book, “The Long Game: U.S. Men’s Soccer and its savage, four-decade journey to the top, or thereabouts.”
Leander talks about the idea for this book dates back to the US failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup and how an article he wrote for The Ringer got him started on this process. He discusses how he landed on the book’s structure, how he picked which historical events to focus on and how he worked to make sure the six player profiles are not just standalone pieces but also speak to larger issues facing US Men’s Soccer. He also describes the leap from writing magazine-length pieces to a book and the biggest challenge.
Leander tells Brian about how this generation of US men’s players don’t view media obligations the same way as previous generations did, and how that created both a challenge and an opportunity. There’s also a quick digression about Christian Pulisic’s coffee table book.
“What I’d like people to take away from the book is just how weird and wacky the US National team’s history is and how kind of miraculous it is in a sporting sense where they are now."
Note: We recorded this episode in June 2026, early during group play of the 2026 World Cup.
Links
The Long Game at an independent book store near you.
The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hi (The Best Thing Leander’s read lately.)
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