Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard
Jason Kidd talks Everton FC, Liverpool Win the League, and Barcelona Win the Copa Del Rey
Tue, 29 Apr 2025
Jason Kidd is officially a Toffee! On Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard, the guys are joined by Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd to discuss his new investment in the ownership group behind Everton F.C. and the pride behind playing for your national team in any sport. Liverpool have clinched the ‘24-’25 Premier League, Manchester City and Crystal Palace head to the FA Cup final, and Inter Miami are laser-focused on chasing trophies in MLS. Plus, Barcelona take the Copa Del Rey in this week’s Unfiltered Refresh Presented by Coors Light. In the AT&T Mailbag, our hosts are talking Bruce Arena’s comments about American USMNT coaches, some World Cup facts, US Soccer are selling some very expensive bricks to fans, and we hear back from Joey’s Dad! New episodes of Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim drop every Tuesday. Subscribe to the show on YouTube and follow on all your favorite podcast platforms. For bonus content and to send your mailbag questions in to the show, follow on all social media platforms @UnfilteredSoccer. (https://www.unfilteredsoccer.com). Unfiltered Soccer with Landon Donovan and Tim Howard is presented by Volkswagen. Learn more at https://bit.ly/4g8bZG3. Thank you to our additional sponsors: AT&T. Connecting Changes Everything. Visit https://att.com/guarantee to learn more. Coors Light. Choose Chill. Get Coors Light delivered. Go to CoorsLight.com/USLNT Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who are the hosts and guest of this episode?
Now, practice was fun because guys wanted to get after it. Talk about Kobe and LeBron. They were, you know, on separate teams. Coach K knew that was going to be an incredible practice.
Kobe and LeBron going at it in practice. I mean, when's your book coming out? Because I'm reading it. I mean, you got stories for days.
Unfiltered Soccer with Landon and Tim presented by Volkswagen. Volkswagen has long been a supporter of soccer in America and has proudly been a partner of U.S. Soccer for the past five years.
My man, LD, another week, another episode, another opportunity for me and you to hang and riff on all things soccer. How's things, bro? Tell me where you just were. I'm jealous.
Chapter 2: What recent soccer games and experiences did Tim Howard share from England?
Yeah, I'm almost over the jet lag. Last week I was in England, had a phenomenal trip. So I went to three games. I asked on social media if people could guess the games, but I don't think anyone did. By the way, if you did... Let me know. I couldn't go through hundreds of messages to check what you guys said.
But I went to three games.
So I landed on Friday. I went to Reading to watch Reading versus Lincoln City in League One. I have a very, very dear friend who is a shareholder of Lincoln City. So I watched Lincoln City win there. Spent the night in London, went up to Liverpool on Saturday to watch our beloved Toffees. Unfortunately, I lose to Man City, but amazing to be back there.
And then I went to Lincoln from there and saw them play Monday. against Bolton and win that game as well and then went home Tuesday. That's a lot of soccer. It was a lot of soccer.
It was an amazing trip. Before I press you on some Everton stuff, it's crazy. The English football pyramid's crazy. You just said Reading and Bolton. I played against those teams in the Premier League. Totally. And now they're in League One. You scored against Bolton. I did score against Bolton. Thank you for that. I appreciate it. But that's, yeah, it's incredible how the pyramid works.
So how was it being back? Did the grass smell the same?
Oh, man. It was phenomenal. And the best part, Tim, the best is like you'll see a face and you go, I mean, you way more than me, but I'll go. recognize that face and they go, London, brilliant to have you back. Welcome back London. You know? And like, even up in the hospitality area, this woman, I, I don't remember her name, but I just know her face and she's so sweet.
And she was there when I was there. She's probably been there 30 years. Yeah. So sweet. Like, oh man, I just, I loved being back there. That's great. I saw Moyes as well. He was obviously in the best mood. After losing, but his dad was there. So he had his dad, him, his son, and his daughter, his wife, and his grandson. And his dad sat down and I said, how old's your dad? And he said, 91.
And then he goes, dad, do you want a wee bit of scotch? And I said, scotch? And he goes, aye. So he poured him a scotch. He's 91. Go on, Moisey.
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Chapter 3: What are the perspectives on whether the USMNT coach should be American or foreign?
The team you play against. When you go on the road and you get three points, it's the same. Or if you get a point, you're basically stealing two points from another team playing at home, okay? So the goal for us in qualifying was win all of our home games, which would get you to 15 points, win a game or two on the road, draw a game or two and you're in. And that's it. Simple as that. Okay.
When you lose your first two and one of them's at home, you are so far behind the eight ball because of the points the other teams picked up. that you are in a race that you almost can never win. And the fact that Bruce got the team back to a place where they just needed to win in Trinidad, and everyone will say that game was a failure, no question.
But to say you're going to only lost two games and that it was just so easy for those remaining eight games. By the way, one of those games was going to be Mexico away. Those remaining eight games, which is almost never a win or even a point, is ridiculous. So... That's a, that's just a dumb comment in 2002 to say the team was lucky at the level that we are at with our national team.
And we're still there. You have to have some element of fortune throughout a tournament.
to advance that's still where we're at we're not brazil argentina or germany or france or spain we still need an element of fortune along the way but to then say that it was lucky to get to the quarterfinals i would encourage you to go back and watch the games um we did have some fortune but we had some great great performances too um So yeah, that's my take on that.
Javier, I feel like we're friends. I want to call you Javi. So Javi, listen, don't go back and watch the games, as Landon suggested. You're just completely and utterly wrong. So we're not going to have that conversation for a team, any team, US, England, Spain, to get to a World Cup quarterfinal. You can't be lucky. It's impossible. It's impossible to be lucky.
That team was incredible, and they performed incredibly well. That's the end of that story. What Landon said about Bruce Arena coming on board, everything was 100% accurate. The chips were so far stacked against him once we lost as a team, once we lost those first two games in qualifying. I am not a decision maker at U.S. Soccer. I've never been.
But I was a part of, and this is, you earned the right as a senior player who's given everything for your country, that in these dire crisis moments, when a manager gets fired, you are part of big conversations. Right, Landon? So you're part of conversations with the heads of U.S. soccer. It doesn't mean you make the final decision, but they want to know what's going on on the inside.
And as the conversation started to surface about who would next take over, I was certainly one of the powerful voices that said, if it's Bruce Arena, he gives us the best possible opportunity to drag ourselves out of this hole. And we were under no illusions of what hole we were in. What I would say is that team didn't qualify based on performances on the field. That's on the players.
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