How is the expansion helping the NC Courage?

The sport of soccer has I believe done exploded in this country. We can't get enough of it.

I know my son is a player. It's probably because of that that I became a fan. Now I'm a fan and I'm spending time Saturdays and Sunday mornings watching the Premier League. I may or may not have been stopped at red lights watching the Champions League last night on or yesterday afternoon on CBS. And PowerMound Plus has the NWSL and you can watch the North Carolina Courage host O.L. Reign on Sunday afternoon at three o'clock.

Or you can go over to Wakeman Soccer Park and watch Sean DeAs as the head coach as they go for their third straight good result. How are you sir? Good. How are you guys? I'm doing very well.

Appreciate your time. I know that they announced, I don't know if it was an announcement, we knew that there was going to be expansion next year. And then Jessica Berman, the commissioner mentioned in an interview that there were two more teams coming in 2026. What do you make of the expansion of the league and the popularity? Yeah, I think it's great for the league. I think anytime you're adding teams that raises the standard of the league, it provides more opportunity. I think we're in a situation now where the league's growing and trying to have the positive impact that we all expected it would. But I think the addition of teams, it's only going to benefit the league as a whole. I think that the other side of it is, at some point you start looking at, do we get enough teams in where you can have an East Conference and a West Conference where now maybe it helps with the travel dynamic.

But I think other than that, I think anytime there's expansion and the ownership groups that are coming in want to invest in the women's game, I think it's only a positive for the league and for the players. How has, and Sean Nahas is joining us as the head coach of North Carolina Courage, how has your, not your job, your situation, where the courage are as a team, how has it changed in the few years you have been on the job? Many people will, maybe somebody, people don't know, that Paul Riley, the guy before you, was essentially fired because of behavior. And at the time, the team was basically at the top of everything. And it's very different today than it was then.

How has your job changed over the last few years? I think even if you looked at last year, you know, when Paul was still here, you know, we weren't at the top. You know, we were still fighting for a playoff spot. Right.

Right. And I think the years we had success, you know, we had arguably the best players in the world in every position. And then, you know, things happen and the agency kicks in and players want to do different things. And, you know, we've obviously lost players. And I think, you know, the situation right now, you know, I'm really happy with our growth. You know, I'm pleased with our players and the current roster. We, you know, we have, obviously we always want to look to improve it, but, you know, we're young.

The, the players are really coachable. I think the difference between last year and this year for myself is, you know, we were trying to keep the system and the style that we played in years past that gave us success, but we make, we didn't have the same players to be able to do that. You know, so we've, we've really changed things this year and we feel that we're playing a really entertaining brand of football. And, you know, I think overall you could see the, the evolution. We knew this was going to be a process.

It's small steps. It's, it's about development. But I think right now the players have been completely brought in and outstanding and do what they were asking. So it's been enjoyable for myself and the staff. I know there's a great relationship between the fan base and the team. How has the, like the change from the, I guess the perspective, you know, for, for many, many years, the fans were like, oh, we've got a juggernaut.

And now it's a different, it's a different mindset. Has, have they expressed patience? Have they been encouraging? Has, have you gotten that kind of feedback?

I mean, you get a mix, right? Cause everyone wants to be successful. And I think patience is important. You know, I, I, I think overall people see what we're trying to do.

I mean, there's people in the stands from the last couple of games that are being really supportive and are really excited about what we're doing. And they've, they've seen the growth in these young players. I think overall, you have to look at it from, Hey, you look at the arsenal men's team, you know, when, when the car tender took over, he had a team that wasn't his and it's taken him three years to get to the situation that they're in now.

You know, it doesn't happen overnight. You know, you look at, you look at so many different pieces and you look at like the Colorado avalanche, where they went on like a complete change and how they, and they went like, they weren't like a five-year plan. And part of their plan is to win the Stanley college. You're standing confident year five, they want to stay on the cup. So all these teams have this evolution and this changeover, and you can't always be at top, but you know, we're working in a situation to get us back there. It just takes time and a process and the players have been really responsive to it. So we're, we're really happy for that. Shawna house is the head coach of the North Carolina courage.

He is the Miguel, Miguel Arteta of the NWSL. I'm just, I'm just twisting what you said. That's fine. That's what I, that's what I do for a living.

I just make jokes about me. The, the, when I first started becoming a fan of what you guys do, and this goes back to when the team arrived from Western, Western New York and be, you know, started laying waste to everybody. I was unaware and I, as a new fan, I'm still learning every day about certain things about different leagues and whatnot. The impact of the women's champions league in Europe and the bigger clubs in Europe, which started taking players away, sometimes just borrowing them and giving them back. But how has that been?

Has that been more of a drain on the league than you thought, or are the players starting to come back? I mean, there's, there's, there's, it's an interesting piece. I mean, look, champions league is champions league, whether it's men's or women's, there's something special about it. I think the investment overseas, I think the, the, the success of the English women's national team with the euros this past year, the investment grew tenfold, if not more. So there's always an attraction there. We still have some players that are overseas that are, that are comfortable in playing there. And that's what they feel is best for their development.

And you support that. But I think, I think that the fact that there's choices, I think is great. I think the fact that that league is developing, that's fantastic. I think that's only going to benefit our league as well, because now it drives our standards off because of the competition piece. So we have, you know, I think, you know, you have like the category to McCarrios, who was still there. She's still coming back from injury of Lindsey.

Herring, who's having a great career over Leon. You know, sometimes they just want to get different experiences. And when the opportunities come, the players have choices to make, but I think that's great for everybody involved. But I think you, I think you'll start to find less and less players going there, maybe, and maybe less and less, maybe hopefully more players coming here as the league continues to grow and the investment increases. So I think it's, it's going to be a fun little competition between the leagues and hopefully players help make, you know, they're, they're, they're comfortable making decisions that best suits them. I mean, certainly you make the argument that the NWSL is the best women's soccer league in the world, right?

Oh, for sure. I mean, you look at it on any given day, anybody could beat anybody. You know, you, you have from the top of the table to the bottom of the table, two games, separate people and teams. And I think the drive and the commitment and the, you know, there's so many X factors that go into it that, you know, I think this league is only going to get better and stronger and younger. And I think it's, you know, the, the groundwork has been laid and now it's just a matter of us carrying that torch and providing the opportunities for these players to continue to compete. But the standards have definitely increased over the last couple of years since I've been involved for sure. Yeah.

Iron sharpens iron. Sean Nahas is the head coach at North Carolina courage, and there's no shortage of talent coming up through the US pipeline. Because, I mean, we see it every year that the names, some of the names stay the same on the women's national team, but there are so many new names coming through. It can't help, but raise, raise the profile of the league. Yeah, I think it's fantastic. I mean, even if you look at our league as a whole right now, we have so many players that are 15, 18, 17, and they're having great, great starts to their career. You know, the Alyssa Thompson's of the world, the record, the Coyle records of the world. You know, I think there's, there's so much positive that, that that's coming from it. And then you have, you know, just the, you know, the Sam coffee is who just, we just played against with Portland. You know, she's having a great start to her career.

They live in Moultrie's. I think there's just so much promise with the young players in this, in this country. And, you know, I think the more they could be in a professional environment, sometimes that's, you're going to start seeing that more and more, which I think is great.

If they, if they're, if they're quality enough to do it and they're at the, you know, with gosh, of their age, if they're able to do it and they want to do it, then they have every right to, in my mind, just like they do overseas. So we're, we're happy that the league made that change. And these young players are coming in and starting off their careers on a positive note. Win over Houston, a draw with, who was it? Was it Gotham? Recently, recently.

And OL rain coming up Sunday at three o'clock wake med soccer park, Sean Nass, the head coach of the North Carolina courage. I thank you very much, my friend. I appreciate your time.

We'll talk again. All right. Thanks. Appreciate it. Have a good day. You got it shown a house here on the Adam gold show.

Look for, if you go out, Mike, again, I keep, I keep making this reference because I'm out there a lot at WRL soccer park in North Raleigh. And that's their, that's their main training complex. And it is a mad house every day of the week, thousands and thousands of kids. And it's cool to see the, the talent level of the girls teams. And you can tell how much ability is out there. And it's just an incredible thing. I like the fact that we're, that this league is growing and it will eventually I mean, I think it already is the best league in the world, but I think that you can make arguments because so many of the best players are choosing to play overseas. But if you go down the rosters in the NWSL, I mean, just about all of the women's national team, the U S women's national team is playing here.

So that's just, that's just awesome. And we have champions league, men's champions league, semi-final, the first one today, Milan V Milan inter versus AC Milan today. It would be as if, let's try to, there was a time, well, the Jetson Giants share a stadium. They do the Jetson Giants share a stadium, the Yankees and Mets for a short period of time, like a two year span might've been three years. Well, new Yankee stadium, which is now the old Yankee stadium was being built in the Bronx.

Both played their games at Shea. So AC Milan and Inter Milan, they, they all, they play in the same stadium in Milan, duh. And that's where they're going to play two legs of the champions league, semi-final, in the same place. I don't even know what it matters who the home team is. Like AC Milan is the home side for today. Inter is the visiting side. Inter is a fairly sizable favorite to, to win. It's not, not huge. They're plus, I think the plus one 45 and AC Milan is like plus two 25, something like that. That seems like a big difference to me.

But I don't think it matters who's home and who's away. Although city, Man City was a favorite at Real yesterday, that match ended in a draw, which frankly, we saw coming. We saw coming all along. Finding great candidates to hire can be like, well, trying to find a needle in a haystack. Sure. You can post your job to some job board, but then all you can do is hope the right candidate comes along, which is why you should try zip recruiter for free at zip recruiter.com slash post zip recruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you. It's powerful technology identifies people with the right experience and actively invites them to apply to your job. You get qualified candidates fast. So while other companies might deliver a lot of hay, zip recruiter finds you what you're looking for the needle in the haystack. See why four out of five employers who post the job on zip recruiter get a quality candidate within the first day zip recruiter the smartest way to hire. And right now you can try zip recruiter for free. That's right free at zip recruiter.com slash post that zip recruiter.com slash post zip recruiter.com slash post.