Tag: Brad Stuver

MLS players are making an impact in their communities. Messi’s move to Miami can help amplify their causes.

Here’s one less talked about impact of Lionel Messi’s move to Major League Soccer.

Lionel Messi’s impact on MLS and soccer in the U.S. was felt long before he ever put on an Inter Miami jersey and scored the winning goal of his debut in front of a crowd full of stars like LeBron James and Serena Williams.

In the first 24 hours alone after Messi confirmed his move to MLS, Inter Miami’s Instagram following jumped from one million to more than 5 million. Today, not even two months later, it’s at 11.9 million.

Soccer was already a successful and growing sport in the U.S. But thanks to the world’s greatest player, that interest is at an all-time high. The obvious surface-level effect of that interest is the potential boon for the business of American soccer, as ticket sales and ad revenue likely see an increase. But another benefit of that interest will be how it amplifies the awareness of causes off the field.

“Soccer is an unbelievable platform to really create change,” Apple TV analyst and former MLS player Taylor Twellman told FTW in an interview about the “Celebrating Impact” partnership between The Players’ Tribune and Audi.

“I just think it’s a lot easier [to have an impact] than it was 10, 15, 20 years ago when I was playing, just because soccer is way more at the forefront of the minds of sports fans, but more so the youth. Lionel Messi has [480] million followers on Instagram. Those aren’t all soccer fans. Those aren’t all soccer players. Soccer now transcends around the world, transcends sports.”

Two players using that platform of soccer to impact change in their communities are Real Salt Lake goalie Zac MacMath and Austin FC goalie Brad Stuver, both of whom were highlighted as part of the “Celebrating Impact” series and participated in a roundtable discussion about their community work ahead last week’s MLS All-Star Game at Audi Field.

MLS All-Star panel discussion featuring Brad Stuver, Zac MacMath, Steve Brinbaum, and Kaylyn Kyle, hosted by The Players’ Tribune, at Audi Field in Washington, D.C. on July 17, 2023. (Sam Robles for The Players’ Tribune)

MacMath works with Special Olympics Utah to help spread awareness of the organization and create a positive experience for the participating athletes. Stuver partners with The Laundry Project to help bring clean clothes to people in underserved areas.

“I feel that I’ve been given this platform for a reason,” said Stuver, who ESPN announced as a finalist for the Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award for a second year in a row. “Just because I play soccer, it gives me the unique opportunity to reach more people that everyday people don’t get the chance to. So for me, I want to be able to use that platform for as long as I can.”

The ever-increasing reach of MLS and its players presents an opportunity to spread the message of giving back and brings awareness to causes like the ones Stuver and MacMath champion that might otherwise go unnoticed by a larger audience.

“I’m not the biggest social media influencer,” MacMath said. “I don’t do a lot of posts and stuff like this. So I think this platform has probably been the biggest for me to get my message out to really try to help in the community and continue to show that there are a lot of people that need help.”

Andres Cardenas, CMO of Minute Media, the parent company of The Players’ Tribune, said one thing that stood out to him from the roundtable was how the message of community work goes all the way down to the youth level of soccer.

“Now that you have the academy structure within MLS, these guys are veterans,” Cardenas said. “So, it’s not only mentoring them on the pitch, but the different things they can do off the pitch and really inspiring the new generation from a young age on how important it is to be involved and give back to the communities locally.”

With Messi coming over, the reach of those messages can go even further and last longer as more youth aspire to follow in the footsteps of their favorite MLS players. The attention he commands increases the platform of the MLS as a whole, allowing for the league’s athletes to have an impact that goes beyond even the U.S.

“Soccer’s always been the number one sport in the world, I get that. But that doesn’t mean it can’t continue to grow,” Twellman said.

“I think the greater growth is obviously in the Unites States, because this is still an untapped market in so many different ways. But I don’t think I’m going to be crazy to say soccer can still grow around the world, because there are still people around the world that aren’t soccer fans, but they’re still on Instagram following Messi. And for the last 48 hours, all they’ve been seeing is Inter Miami stuff.”

MORE SOCCER:

LAFC showed Austin FC and the rest of MLS how high the bar is in 3-0 playoff demolition

LAFC delivered a message to the rest of MLS in a dominant win

LAFC made sure that the MLS Cup final will be at their house, and in emphatic fashion.

The Supporters’ Shield winners dismantled Austin FC, winning 3-0 on a day where they could have probably doubled their margin of victory. From the opening whistle to full time, it was a truly dominant performance, with goals from Chicho Arango, Kwadwo Opoku, and an own goal from the unfortunate Maxi Urruti.

It spoke to the attacking menace LAFC offers that even a team so defined by a front-foot, aesthetically pleasing style as Austin opted to defend out of a low-ish 4-4-2 block rather than their normally more open approach. Josh Wolff wasn’t asking his players to hoof long balls — a spell of possession between the 7th and 8th minutes saw them connect nearly 20 passes, including one from Ruben Gabrielsen within 40 yards of the LAFC goal — but the men in green were certainly defending for long spells.

While Austin were having some success at luring the home side into unsuccessful pressing attempts, LAFC were still creating all the danger. José Cifuentes crashed a shot off the post in the 17th minute, and as Austin started to move their line up after weathering the initial storm, Brad Stuver had numerous worries on balls in behind for all three LAFC forwards. The biggest of those threats by far saw Stuver misread a diagonal towards Denis Bouanga. The Gabonese winger beat Stuver to it, but his angled shot towards an empty net was blocked behind for a corner.

Unfortunately for Austin, that corner resulted in a goal. Chiellini drew some extra attention on Carlos Vela’s delivery, allowing Arango to slip past Moussa Djitté and head home for a 29th minute opener.

Austin’s choice to stand off of LAFC’s defenders was repeatedly ending with longer-range passes that picked out runs from Bouanga and Vela; if anything, the visitors were in pure survival mode. Stuver made difficult saves on Cifuentes and Vela in the final minutes.

Halftime arrived, and Stats Perform had credited the Verde with just one shot attempt:

The second half continued in the same pattern, with Stuver making saves and Crepeau a spectator. Appropriately, LAFC padded their lead in the same manner, as their set piece dominance all year long paid off again. Urruti had just been sent on as an attacking substitute by Wolff, but his first touch was an unmitigated disaster: unsighted on Vela’s in-swinging service, the ball found his forehead, and he couldn’t react in time to do anything but nod it past Stuver.

Austin were adrift. Even when it seemed that they might be thrown a lifeline when Sebastian Ibeagha stepped on Diego Fagundez’s foot in the LAFC box, referee Armando Villarreal deemed it a clean play, and stuck to his call despite a VAR check revealed clear contact.

For the second-year club, it was just that kind of day. A minute after Crepeau made his first (and only) save of the day, an utterly bizarre bounce gave Opoku a gift at the top of the box, and the young Ghanaian gleefully fired past Stuver in the 81st minute.

Bouanga lashed home a potential fourth with virtually the last kick, only for an offside call to keep the scoreline from more closely reflecting just how big the gulf between the teams was on the day.

LAFC’s win guarantees an MLS Cup final at Banc of California Stadium on Saturday, November 5, with kickoff set for 4:00pm Eastern.

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