The Soccer Media Podcast with John Shrader

CHRISTIAN MILES calls soccer matches for MLS Apple TV and Fox Sports . He has been with John throughout the World Cup after the USA matches. In this episode they talk about the 4-1 loss to Belgium in the Round of 16 match in Seattle. Plenty of talk about what happened and where the US team goes from here. Recorded July 6, 2026 THE SHOW: American soccer’s frontline storytellers interviewed by Emmy...

MAX BRETOS is a veteran American soccer announcer. He is one of the voices of Major League Soccer’s Apple TV broadcasts. He is working with Sirius XM FC during the FIFA World Cup . He is still attached to LAFC and is a former ESPN broadcaster. In this conversation it’s all about the World Cup, including USA prepping for Belgium without Folarin Balogun, the big stars who have shown up, and finding...

CHRISTIAN MILES of Apple TV and Fox Sports joins us again to talk about the US in the FIFA World Cup. The United States prevailed in its round-of-32 matchup with Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2-0.  Along the way Folarin Balogun became the first player in two decades to score a goal and get red-carded in the same game. We talk about the US playing with Balogun and going against Belgium without him. Also,...

CHRISTIAN MILES of Apple TV and Fox Sports joins John to talk about the USA after its 3-2 loss to Turkey in the final group stage game. They discuss the lineup changes, the impact of Christian Pulisic and look ahead to the first knockout game against Bosnia-Herzegovina. Recorded June 25, 2026   THE SHOW: American soccer’s frontline storytellers interviewed by Emmy Award-winning John Shrader . It i...

ERIC WYNALDA hosts a show on Sirius XM FC (Channel 157) with Jason Davis during which he talks everything soccer. The show is titled WTF, Wynalda Talks Football. In this conversation Wynalda talks about the quality and depth of this U.S. soccer team. He says the coach is doing a very good job and praises U.S. Soccer for the work it is doing. He of course has a comment or two about the pundits and...

CHRISTIAN MILES joins John to talk about the USA’s 2-0 win over Australia in the second game of the FIFA World Cup. Two wins in two games for the US. They haven’t done that since the first tournament in Uruguay in 1930. They’ve advanced to the knockout rounds sooner than any other time in history. The game was played without Christian Pulisic who continues to nurse a calf injury. Christian talks a...

MIKE WOITALLA is the Executive Editor of SoccerAmerica. He and the publication’s Editor-in-Chief Paul Kennedy are covering the World Cup, including the US team up close. In this conversation Mike talks about the USA’s 4-1 win over Paraguay and looks ahead to the match-up withAustralia Friday afternoon.  Also, the environment around the games in Los Angeles and Seattle, the controversy surrounding...

ROBERT ABRAMOWITZ has been the Spanish language voice of NYC Football Club since its founding in 2015. He is a commentator for the New York Jets, CBS television. He has worked at ESPN and for MSG. In this conversation we talk about what he calls the ‘best US soccer match ever,’ the controversy around no questions in Spanish after the Brazil/Morocco match, MLS and Spanish language broadcasting and...

CHRISTIAN MILES joins John to talk about the USA’s 4-1 win over Paraguay in its opening World Cup game Friday night in Los Angeles. Miles, who calls games for Apple TV and Fox Sports, analyzes the US effort, which included Falorin Balogun’s two goals, Christian Pulisic’s big first half, and Gio Reyna’s late game stunner. Pulisic left the game for precautionary measures at the half, according to co...

MICHAEL LEWIS has been covering soccer for most of the last four decades. His new book is titled Around the World Cup in 40 Years, An American sportswriter’s perspective. He is covering the 2026 FIFA World Cup for Forbes.com, his own Substack View From the Front Row and Front Row Soccer. In thisconversation he talks about the US team, its prospects and the bigger pictureof the World Cup, on and of...

SHARNI YERKE has been working as a producer of soccer television for about a decade now. She is the lead producer for the Friday night NWSL games on Amazon Prime and works ESPN games for the league on weekends, and has some other duties as well. She is a native of Manchester, England who moved with her family to Florida when she was a teen. The Florida State grad studied broadcasting in college an...

MIGUEL GURWITZ of Telemundo, the NBC Universal Spanish-Language network, is working his eighth World Cup in 2026. He will be pitch-side hosting all the games involving the Mexican National team and will have other duties as well. Miguel is the play-by-play voice for Telemundo’s Sunday Night Football in the NFL, and the voice of Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime.  The native of Mexico has wor...

MAX BRETOS is a veteran American soccer announcer. He is one of the voices of Major League Soccer’s Apple TV broadcasts. He is working with Sirius XM FC during the FIFA World Cup . Max is still attached to LAFC and is a former ESPN broadcaster. In this conversation it’s all about the World Cup, including USA prepping for Belgium without Folarin Balogun, the big stars who have shown up, and finding...

ALAN ROTHENBERG was asked to be a part of the team that put together the 1984 Olympics and that led to his role as president of U.S. Soccer, which put together the 1994 World Cup in the U.S., and created Major League Soccer as well. As a young lawyer in Los Angeles, he went to work for the mercurial sports owner Jack Kent Cooke. Rothenberg jokes he was a sports lawyer before they were called sport...

KOREY DONAHOO co-founded the American Outlaws , the leading supporter’s group for the United States men’s and women’s national soccer teams.  They founded the group in Lincoln, Nebraska in 2007, then quickly developed it into an organization. They now have 24,000 members from more than 200 chapters around the world.  Donahoo says they have been a bit frustrated by the ticketing for the World Cup,...

Glenn Crooks is a former college soccer coach (14 years as the head coach of the Rutgers’ women’s program) and broadcaster, and now an author. His second “Put it on Frame” book is now out. It’s the second in a series of three that, according to the book cover, “shares some of his most interesting and illuminating conversations with soccer’s most important voices.” Glenn is the voice of the NYC Foo...

Sammy Sadovnik has been a talk show host and play-by-play announcer at Fútbol de Primera (FDP) for more than 25 years. During the 2026 FIFA World Cup he will be the lead announcer for FDP i its seventh consecutive tournament as the Spanish-language presenter in the United States. Sadovnik will be among a crew of more than 30 people, including play-by-play announcers, color commentators, studio ana...

CLYDE BEST left his home in Bermuda in 1968, at age 17, to pursue his dream of playing professional football in England. He joined the club West Ham in London where he played for seven plus seasons. Then, it was off to the US to play in theNorth American Soccer League, first with the Tampa Bay Rowdies and then the Portland Timbers. Along this journey he became very good friends with Clive Charles...

JOSH LILL and PHILIP GALATI are young soccer announcers plying their trade at VISTA Worldlink in Florida, where they call scores of soccer matches, including USL, MLS Next and in other arenas.  Josh is a graduate of the University of Nebraska Sports Media and Broadcasting program and Philip is a graduate of the broadcasting program at Syracuse. They’ both in their third year of calling games, hopi...

CLEMENTE LISI has updated his 2022 book The World Cup:A history of the planet’s biggest sporting event with a 2026 edition that includes a look at the tournament in the United States, Mexico and Canada. In this conversation we talk about the history of the event, including the 1994 tournament in the United States. Clemente has a comprehensive look at the World Cup, from its origins in Uruguay in 1...

TYLER TERENS is making his World Cup announcing debut for Fox Sports in 2026. He’s been assigned to work with former U.S. National team player Maurice Edu, starting with a game between Sweden and Tunisia June 14 in Monterey, Mexico. Terens started his career working lower level games at Vista World in Florida, calling games on a monitor. He then did Chicago Fire games for three years before doing...

STEVEN GOFF spent nearly forty years with the Washington Post , for the last three decades he covered most of the biggest games in American soccer, including MLS titles, World Cups, Open Cups and much more.  He now reports on soccer for Yahoo Sports , mostly covering the U.S. men’s team and the World Cup. He chats here about the U.S. men’s roster decisions as well as what would make this tournamen...

KEVIN EGAN has been host of studio presentations on AppleTV’s Major League Soccer coverage since 2023. He does the Countdown show before the games, MLS 360 during the broadcasts, and ends it all with MLS Wrap-Up. He talks about the league’s impact on world soccer; the growing number of superstars coming to the league; the World Cup and what he will be doing during the games; and he has a new Irish...

MIKE WOITALLA is the Executive Editor of Soccer America . Here he chats with John about the US men’s soccer team in the weeks leading up to the World Cup and just days after the Americans lost back-to-back games in Atlanta, first to Belgium 5-2 and then to Portugal 2-0. The names Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie are uttered, and Mike talks about what would be a good result for the US in the W...

ALEX SILVERMAN covers soccer and hockey for Sports Business Journal . We talk here quite a bit about the World Cup to be held this summer in the United States, Canada andMexico, from the impact of the war in Iran to the politics of Trump and Infantino. Also, in the conversation: MLS and the Messi Effect, the league's TV deal with Apple TV. Alex also talks about the bounce from the Olympic hock...