Intro(00:00):

Welcome to The Taylor Ten. A fast-paced, 10 minute deep dive into the minds of those shaking up the marketing world, bringing you the sharpest insights, boldest ideas and breakthrough trends driving the industry forward. So tune in, get inspired, and stay ahead.

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Holden (00:19):

Hello, I'm Holden Hill and welcome to The Taylor Ten. I'm here with Andy Deossa. He's a soccer writer with Apple Sports and has previously covered the sport across outlets like Yahoo Sports, MLS Soccer, and ESPN. With the 2026 FIFA World Cup set to kick off the summer in North America, I'm excited to chat with him about the tournament, his cultural impact, and how the world's game is evolving here in the US all in just 10 minutes. So Andy, appreciate you joining me today, man. I just wanted to give you a second quickly to introduce yourself and your background and history covering the sport of soccer.

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Andy (01:01):

Yeah, man. It's a pleasure to be here. Always get to connect, Holden. Yeah, my background in the sport goes a long way. I'm Colombian, so it's just part of a cultural thing where I grew up with the sport, grew up playing the sport. And then luckily enough through just career paths and things I wanted to do, I grew up, kind of progressed covering the sport in terms of media, being able to do different things around soccer as early as newspaper days back in Boston to working for the MLS League website, to covering the Columbia national team in different ways and more of a cultural standpoint to now being really entrenched in this MLS Apple deal and how that's moving forward throughout the year. So it's just something that's always been part of my life and I'm just happy to be able to call it work is what I tell people all the time.

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Holden (01:49):

Today is December the 11th. The World Cup draw was just last week. And without getting into any of the pomp and circumstance surrounding the draw itself, with that in the books, are there any World Cup storylines or group dynamics that have jumped out to you and why?

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Andy (02:08):

I think it's a little different because you have so many teams this go around that the groups kind of seem a little set already where you have certain favorites that are going to likely win the groups and you have certain teams that will be second place. But I think with the World Cup, what the fun part about it is you're going to get an upset or two that's going to end up being a massive storyline. Nobody predicted that Saudi Arabia would have beat Argentina four years ago, and that kind of started the tournament for Argentina who ended up winning it. So that was a crazy storyline that's unforeseen, or a team like Morocco just taking the tournament by storm. And it happens every World Cup, so it's hard to predict one, but there's going to be a little bit of that. I think for me, the biggest storyline is going to be how these whole cities and nations organize this tournament because there's so much emphasis on where these games are being played, the stadiums that they're being played at.

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(03:03):

I think the opener being South Africa down in Mexico City is going to be just massive a monumental game. The US opener is here in Los Angeles. So there's going to be so many of these tent pole moments. And then you have teams like Brazil, Argentina, Columbia, these South American teams, England, the teams from Spain that are going to draw all these massive crowds in these huge stadiums that have hosted these big games. It's going to be really an emphasis on how the nations do hosting this tournament that I'm mostly excited about and obviously trying to be at as many as possible.

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Holden (03:36):

Yeah, absolutely. What makes 26 such a pivotal moment for soccer in North America?

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Andy (03:42):

I think it was just the lead up. Everybody knew that this was happening and when it was happening, obviously once it was announced a while back, and then it was kind of just a race to the calendar and it still obviously is now, and we're going to be in the fast track for the next few months, is trying to set this up the best way possible, knowing that this domestic league, MLS is here in the States because of a World Cup that happened in 1994. This is how MLS was formed. And it's like to see the transition of what the league was back then to what it is now, and you're talking about a league that just crowned one of the greatest players ever in the sport as champion of the league. There's so much that MLS had to do in terms of infrastructure and interest and just player.

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(04:23):

And they probably still could have done more to get us even more ready. But I still think that it's so pivotal because you are going to start seeing a new wave of MLS after this World Cup. And you're also going to see the interest that's already here and that's been growing year after year and it continues to grow at a super rapid pace is now, as I mentioned, going to be super fast tracked because you're going to add all these star players and all the emphasis. Whereas soccer fans are fans of players necessarily, sometimes they'll say teams as well, but you're going to have the chance to see all the biggest players in the world perhaps in your hometown or perhaps in a town that your relatives are from. So the interest is already here, and I think this is going to magnify exactly maybe what some people like to gloss over, that the interests in the States and Mexico and Canada are massive for soccer.

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Holden (05:10):

As someone with a multicultural perspective, obviously you mentioned your Columbia and yourself and have covered the game broadly. What do you think North American fans and media can learn from how the game is lived and experienced in South America and Europe?

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Andy (05:25):

I think it's all about approach there. I think it's all about approach mentality. For us, it's a cultural thing that we grew up with that it's part of the everyday fabric, but it's the approach. And I love that the US has an Argentinian head coach now because that was the first thing he said. He wanted to change the culture. He wanted to change the way that the approach was. And Greg Barholzer also said the same thing, but it's hard to do when it's not necessarily something that you grew up with. So it's going to be the approach. And the fanfare is going to be one thing because any South America team that's playing, you're going to see these parties, any team from Europe that's playing, you're going to see these parties. But it is going to be an approach need to see how these teams prepare for a thing of this magnitude and how the US could learn from that in terms of fans, in terms of just setting things up and the team itself.

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(06:07):

The players have to feel that that passion and that approach is exactly what Pochatino is trying to do to the team. And I think that this is going to be a good showcase of

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Holden (06:15):

That. With that in mind, you've obviously watched American soccer to your point, a point that you made previously, you've watched it evolve and the culture around it evolve over the years. Are there any changes that feel particularly significant to you, whether it be over the last few years, since the last World Cup as the MLS has changed and grown rapidly over the past five or so years, to your point, just as we head into a World Cup on US soil?

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Andy (06:42):

Yeah, I think it comes down to the players with that one, and some people might not like this, but the US in the past was rarely based on personalities and based on these certain players that for the most part worked out in their advantage because these personalities were able to have some success. And I say success lightly because that's a word that gets thrown around a lot in the US circle. But now it's like you look at some of these players and they're not necessarily personalities. They just want to play soccer. And I think that is probably the right approach for this core group of players that the US has right now. And then mixing the fact that, hey, man, as much as you like it or not, there might be a handful of MLS players that could really play a role on this national team.

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(07:21):

And that has not necessarily been something that has been received, I guess, positively. But if you put a team on the field that wins games, that changes everything. So I think it's the players and the mentality once again to that point of how it's kind of changed where it's like the biggest profile player on the US men's national team is not somebody that really wants to be a guy. He just wants to be a soccer player. And I think that is probably the best thing that could happen for the US going forward.

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Holden (07:48):

The media landscape bore soccer has transformed super quickly, as I mentioned over the last few years, especially domestically through Apple TV's deal with Major League Soccer. Have you seen that shift influencing the kinds of soccer stories that get told and how fans domestically engage with them?

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Andy (08:07):

I think so. I think there was a lack of that in general and for MLS specifically. And biasly now with Apple, you have the opportunity to just have a one-stop shop where if you're looking for something on the league, you could probably find it going through different team pages and things of that nature. But it's also how much do you want to do? And I think this is the window now that you have to start leaning into the profiles of certain teams and certain players because this is soccer fans, as I mentioned, are fans of players. And if you don't really know much about a guy, then it's like, okay, it's kind of hard to roof for him. And I'm talking about this on the MLS level, just a complete difference to what I just said to the US Man's national team. But I think that approaching it that way, because at the end of the day, you want the coverage.

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(08:51):

You want to know what these players are just like. It's not easy because it's a lot of teams, a lot of players, but I think that there's a lot of interest now specifically on MLS storylines that maybe had not been there in the past. And I think that's a testament of a few things of interest, of coverage, of opportunity, and as somebody that has been covering MLS in different landscapes, I think I'm starting to see now that we're leaning a lot more into that, which is good because the only way the league grows is if you grow a bit of these profiles. So I definitely think that it's shifted and it's going in the right direction.

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Holden (09:25):

Man, I really appreciate you taking the time again, Andy. For folks listening, definitely give Andy a follow on X, Twitter, whatever you want to call it, Andy_Deosa. He is definitely a great follow and certainly will continue to be as we get closer to the World Cup and throughout. Andy, thank you again for joining my man. Really appreciate you taking the time and have a great one.

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Andy (09:52):

Thank you, man. It's a pleasure. All

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Holden (09:53):

Right. Appreciate it.

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