Seeing the Present
A newsletter about my thoughts on current global trends in soccer, with an eye toward what they might tell us about the future of the beautiful game.
Welcome to Seeing the Present, a newsletter about my thoughts on current global trends in soccer, with an eye toward what they might tell us about the future of the sport.
I came across the phrase “seeing the present” in a 2022 New York Times op-ed by Ezra Klein, who borrowed it from an essay by Kevin Kelly, the founding executive editor of Wired magazine. In his essay, Kelly argues that “the best futurists… study the past to see the future… because most of what will happen tomorrow is already happening today.” His framing struck me as novel but also true and brilliantly simple, which is why it has stuck with me since then.
If most of the trends that will shape the future are in motion right now, then the ability to truly see the present—that is, to look at things that are already happening and discern between what will continue to matter and what will become unimportant—is a powerful tool in trying to understand what tomorrow might bring. Short of having a magic crystal ball, seeing the present is also easier than outright predicting the future, but that doesn’t mean it’s easy; in fact, Kelly thinks that “the greatest challenge for seeing the future” is actually “perceiving the present as it really is.”
While I was Chief Soccer Officer and Assistant General Manager at Gotham FC, the way we tried to stay ahead of the dizzying pace of change in professional women’s soccer was by staying on top of every recent development, almost obsessively so. I didn’t know it at the time, but one of the experiences that best prepared me to succeed in my role at Gotham was starting a group chat with 3 friends called “WoSo News” a year before landing the job, where we would just share breaking news in women’s soccer as they happened, sprinkling in additional men’s soccer and women’s sports updates we found relevant.
Obviously, a lot of different factors contributed to the club’s fortunes last season, but I’m confident that our obsession with meticulously understanding the moment in order to inform our forward-looking decisions and strategy was a huge reason why Gotham was able to first get ahead (winning the league) and then stay ahead (being the only team that qualified for the 2023 playoffs and is on track to host a 2024 playoff game).
The way Alexis Ohanian talks about his decision to invest in Angel City is a perfect example of what it means to see the present. Ohanian didn’t just think that the value of the club would increase enough in the future to justify the cost of entry into the league; he knew from the same information available to any investor paying attention that the present value was already multiple times higher than the $2M franchise fee. In 2022, Ohanian claimed that “ten or fifteen years from now, when people look at Angel City FC, I think they’ll actually see this one as being the most obvious [investment I’ve made].” Only two years later, he and his partners just sold principal ownership of the franchise at a valuation of $250M.
With all that said, I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years thinking about how soccer is or should be changing in response to both internal and external pressures, but I haven’t spent as much time sharing those thoughts as I would like to. The last thing I wrote publicly before joining Gotham was an op-ed in The Equalizer about how American women’s soccer teams would be smart to take steps to better connect with Spanish-speaking communities on and off the field. In the following two years, the Spanish forward we signed scored the game-winner in the 2023 NWSL Championship, the Spanish coach we hired became the 2023 NWSL Coach of the Year, five teams began the 2024 season with Hispanic head coaches (up from zero in 2022), and the NWSL teamed up with Liga MX Femenil to host a joint tournament this summer. Now that I have some more time on my hands, I’m excited to share my thoughts on some of the other topics I’ve been mulling over since writing that piece in The Equalizer.
In what I plan will be at least monthly posts, I will share my perspective on soccer subjects such as:
The growing impact of math and analytics
The meteoric rise of the women’s game
The intersection of sports and social issues
I hope that those who read my musings find them enjoyable and thought-provoking, and I’m curious to hear what topics other people are contemplating when it comes to the present and future of soccer. In the meantime, make sure to sign up so you don’t miss future issues!