Oregon Ducks college football reporter shares experience of covering World Cup Northwest games

The U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team will face off against Australia in Seattle tomorrow for its second match of the World Cup. Excitement and expectations abound for Team USA after its thrilling 4-1 victory over Paraguay in its opener last Friday.

While this isn’t the first time the U.S. has hosted the men’s World Cup, it’s the first time our nation is co-hosting it with venues in the Pacific Northwest. Portland-based sports writer Tyson Alger is covering three of those games in our region, including Friday’s match at Lumen Field.

It’s the first time that Alger is covering the World Cup after more than a decade’s experience of writing about college football. Alger writes about the Portland Timbers in his Substack publication, “The I-5 Corridor,” while also reporting on University of Oregon athletics for Lookout Eugene-Springfield. He joins us to talk about making the leap from covering college football to World Cup soccer, and the storylines he’s pursuing on the sport’s biggest stage.

Editor’s note: This description has been corrected to specify that this is the first time the men’s World Cup is being played in venues in the Pacific Northwest. Portland hosted women’s World Cup matches in 1999 and 2003.

Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.

Jenn Chávez: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Jenn Chávez, in today for Dave Miller. The World Cup is upon us. The U.S. men’s team plays Australia tomorrow in Seattle, its second game in the cup after a 4-1 victory against Paraguay last week. It’s the first World Cup ever to have games played here in the Northwest. So naturally, Oregon sports journalist Tyson Alger is all over it, covering games in Seattle and Vancouver, BC. It’s his first World Cup as a reporter too. He covers University of Oregon athletics for Lookout Eugene-Springfield and also covers soccer on his substack, The I-5 Corridor. That’s where he’s now chronicling his experience at the World Cup. And he’s with us now to talk more about it. Tyson Alger, welcome to Think Out Loud.

Tyson Alger: Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Chávez: Yeah, thank you for being here. And just to start off, yeah, first time ever in the Northwest. What does it mean to the Northwest, to you as a Northwesterner, to have the World Cup come to our region for the first time?

Alger: I think it’s just such a reflection on what kind of the soccer community and what soccer means to people here in the Northwest. Portland is obviously a fantastic soccer city. Same with Seattle and those two, along with Vancouver have created one of the more intense and passionate soccer rivalries in MLS. And so for the World Cup to be able to come here to the Northwest and it’s not in Portland, but you know it’s part of the region, and for us to be able to kind of showcase a little bit of of what soccer means to our community in this region to the rest of the world, while at the same time getting to experience that type of soccer as well too. I was up in Seattle on Monday and just to be able to see not only the game but just so many different cultures and people and fans and journalists. It was a really cool experience to have here within a short drive of Portland.

Chávez: Awesome. So I definitely want to hear more about that game, but first, I know you have covered football for much of your career as a sports journalist, but you made the leap to covering soccer three years ago and I’m curious, what has that transition been like to covering a sport that you were still learning about as you go?

Alger: Yeah, it’s been really challenging, and I often feel like I’m kind of drinking from a fire hose in terms of trying to learn all of this. I grew up in Alaska. We didn’t have a whole lot of soccer in Alaska. I played hockey and baseball and I followed American football and for much of my career I’ve been the Oregon Ducks beat writer, primarily covering college football. And it was quite the difference, jumping into not only making the leap from covering what I guess used to be “amateur sports” to a full on professional organization with MLS.

It is such a drastically different experience. With the Portland Timbers, for example, if there’s 11 players out on the pitch, there might be six or seven different languages that are being spoken. I can’t remember any time that I’ve ever needed a translator doing my job covering the Oregon Ducks, and that’s a daily occurrence when you’re covering soccer. And obviously the different nuances to the sport and the different pace to the sport and just the way that you watch it, there’s so much loud action in American football.

And soccer, it’s all about more kind of like appreciating and finding those little moments that really matter during a match and so it’s been a big adjustment for me. I’m glad that I was able to get a couple of years of runway here to learn about the sport and cover a few games before covering this World Cup. But also I found on Monday when I was up there I just was completely overwhelmed by just the magnitude of the event and what the sport means to everybody else.

Chávez: So this is your first World Cup game that you had covered. It was up in Seattle earlier this week on Monday – Belgium versus Egypt – and that was also the first ever World Cup game ever held in that city. Tell me more about the vibe there, because from your writing it just sounded so exciting.

Alger: It was one of the cooler sporting experiences that I’ve ever been to, and I didn’t really know what to expect either. I’ve been to plenty of games at Lumen Field, which is now called Seattle Stadium for the World Cup. I’ve covered games there. I’ve been in that press box and so there was part of me that was wondering, how does this kind of cavernous American football stadium turn into what I’ve seen on TV or what I’ve anticipated and I ended up getting there early Monday morning and was just blown away by just the vibe, the celebration, the energy.

I mean there’s people in jerseys from every country walking around the streets. There’s people in face paint, there’s people in costumes, there’s groups gathered around a soccer ball juggling together, people from different countries who hadn’t ever met before all of a sudden in unison together, like playing a little game. To see Belgians and Egyptians waiting in line for Seattle dogs outside the stadium was just unique, and kind of the type of thing or scenes that I think only really events of this magnitude can bring.

And then mix that in with you get into the stadium and it’s a noon game on a Monday and there were 67,000 people there. It was a sellout. I know there’s been a lot of talk leading up to this World Cup about whether there’s going to be sellouts or if the stadiums are going to be energetic or if it has the right vibe, and it was just fantastic the entire time. It really felt like a party and it felt truly different than any other event that gets held in that stadium, even though there’s fantastic sporting events that get held there year round.

Chávez: Hmmm. You have really created the vibe of the scene so well. What was the most exciting moment of the game for you?

Alger: So it was a 1-1 draw, which, before I started covering soccer, I don’t think I would have ever said that there was an exciting draw, but this was actually great. Egypt was a big underdog in this game. Belgium’s the number nine team country in the world, and Egypt scored in the first 10 minutes and not only does like the stadium explode, but one of the cooler experiences for me is you’re in this press box and kind of the American sports writers are positioned in the middle, and to to our left is all the Belgian sports writers and to our right are all the Egyptian sports writers.

And kind of one of the standards here in America is you go into a press box and there’s usually some sort of warning or reminder that there’s no cheering in the press box, but when Egypt scored the first goal to take the 1-0 lead, all of the Egyptian reporters just exploded in celebration, and it was funny to just kind of gauge everybody else’s reaction in the press box of, there is some old stodgy American reporters who were looking over there like, that’s not what we do here. I think the Belgian reporters were more upset just because their team just fell down

1-0.

And I was just kind of sitting there taking in the whole scene because as I said, I’ve been in that press box before, but I’ve never been in a World Cup press box, like I’m the guest here. I’m not one to judge how reporters from a different country celebrate or cover their teams and so just little different experiences like that throughout the game were just kind of really fun to track.

Chávez: I have to say I’ve heard from other sports journalists about this rule that you’re not supposed to or allowed to cheer, and just to me that sounds so difficult. So I salute you and any other sports journalists listening right now. OK, so you are heading back to Seattle to see the U.S. team play Australia tomorrow. What are you looking forward to? What will you be paying attention to in your coverage of that game?

Alger: Yeah, I’m obviously focused on the scene again. It’s the same stadium, same time, but this is arguably one of the biggest U.S. soccer events in probably the team’s history. They’ve made it past the group stage in the World Cup before, but they’ve never had the opportunity to do that here in America. They played incredibly well in their 4-1 win over Paraguay. They were assertive from the start and I think just the kind of the overall anticipation of U.S. soccer for this game is unlike anything I’ve really experienced, because for much of my time following the national team, it’s always been either you’re pulling a win out at the end or you’re the underdog or it has to be a miracle.

And the way the tournament is set up right now, the U.S. has a fantastic opportunity to advance to the group of six, to the knockout stages, and they could do that here in this game. And I don’t know if anybody else has looked at the ticket prices right now, but on the secondary market I’ve seen the cheapest get-in prices is around $1,700…

Chávez: Oof!

Alger:…and that’s for upper deck seats.

Chávez: Wow.

Alger: Upper deck seats in football stadiums are very far away with people, I think the coverage is fantastic on TV if you don’t want to spend that money. However, I do think that for everyone that is in that stadium and then just kind of the general vicinity of it as well, because there’s so many different bars and restaurants and just kind of pop-up venues around the city, I think it’s going to be a truly special sporting day in Seattle.

Chávez: OK, I also want to ask about this game that you’re going to over the weekend in Vancouver, BC. It’s a New Zealand versus Iran match. What are you interested in with that game?

Alger: Yeah, so Sunday it’s actually New Zealand versus Egypt.

Chávez: Oh. I’m so sorry, my mistake.

Alger: Yeah, no worries at all, but the allure to me for that one is one, I want to see what the World Cup looks like in Vancouver as well, a different country. This thing is obviously being hosted by Mexico, U.S. and Canada, so I want to get kind of a flavor of how a different country does it. But the local angle is New Zealand has the one Portland Timbers player who is participating in the World Cup.

Chávez: Oh, cool.

Alger: He’s Finn Surman. He’s a Kiwi. This is his third season with the Timbers. He’s turned into one of their just absolute best players. He’s just a very sturdy and heady defenseman, and so he’s making his World Cup debut. He played incredibly well when New Zealand played Iran last week, and so I just kind of want to go up there and check in and kind of see what this moment is like for a player who’s not only very important to the Portland Timbers, but somebody whose career really seems like it could be blossoming from this spotlight in this platform.

Chávez: In your most recent piece about the game you attended in Seattle, you wrote, “If you’re lucky enough to be caught by the game, if you allow it to grab hold of your attention long enough to sink in, there’s so much to love.” I want to wrap up with you today. Just tell me about that. What do you love about soccer?

Alger: Yeah, yeah, I had avoided soccer most of my life just because I was busy with other sports. I didn’t have a lot of friends that were generally into it. And so I never felt like I needed to give it the time. I kind of believed in a lot of the stereotypes of maybe it’s soft or there’s no scoring or you can’t deal with all the faking of injuries. And I have started to come around to it slowly since I’ve been in Portland, but then being around it essentially full time for the last three years, I’ve just come to realize that there’s so much beauty and nuance to the game, not only from like the sport specifically, but just from the people that have made their like livelihoods and their fandoms around it too.

One of my biggest concerns the first time I went into the Providence Park press box for my first Portland Timbers game is I thought that I was going to be looked at as like the ugly duckling in a way, like here’s this American football writer who thinks he can come in and start writing about our sports because soccer might not be as prolifically written about here in the United States. There are so many dedicated writers and bloggers who either work for independent sites or smaller publications that know and love the game, and I was really kind of nervous to be around those people at first because I very much didn’t know anything about this.

And what I have found about soccer is almost every single person I’ve come around has been so welcoming and open and generous about sharing their knowledge and their love and and what excites them about the sport, and that can go from those reporters who welcomed me in to the players on the Portland Timbers to Phil Neville when he was the manager to even at the World Cup here on Monday when I was there.

I haven’t been nervous to go to a sporting event in a long time, and I had a little anxiety for this one and just getting to a press box and being around people who do the same profession as you from all over the world that have the same general interest and the same excitement level, that’s what I love most so far about soccer. I’m still learning to truly appreciate like a scoreless draw. Maybe we’ll get there, but for right now I think we’re doing OK.

Chávez: Well, Tyson, thank you so much for joining us and please have lots of fun at the game tomorrow.

Alger: I’ll do my best. Thanks so much for having me.

Chávez: Tyson Alger covers University of Oregon athletics for Lookout Eugene Springfield and covers soccer, including this year’s World Cup, at his substack, The I-5 Corridor.

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