The former Aston Villa and Whitecaps player joined Mic'd Up to discuss the UCL format, the Prem title race and educating U.S. fans
Nigel Reo-Coker has a unique perspective. Born in London, pushed through the academy systems of English football, before eventually settling in three different long-term stints with Premier League teams, the center midfielder put in the hard yards in one of the game's more traditional formats. Then, things changed. He moved to MLS and played in America for three years.
And now, he's back, a pundit, analyst and talking head for CBS Sports Golazo Network. Few of his English peers returned to embed themselves in the U.S. broadcast landscape. Reo-Coker has no regrets, though. Educating new American soccer fans, he feels, is important.
"I think now Americans are really starting to understand it and starting to get deep," Reo-Coker tells GOAL. "It's only going to be because of different players' experiences, and how they communicate. My biggest thing I always say to my American fans is: watch the game. When you really watch the game, then you truly understand it."
His journey has been an interesting one. For starters, Reo-Coker is a rare English analyst on American television who never represented his country or played consistent European football. His experience in MLS, too, was in the early 2010s, when the league was still in an awkward spot between a niche micro-culture and global relevance.
But in many ways, that makes him singular in his analytical efforts. He has been in MLS and seen it from the outside. He played in the Premier League and watched it from afar. There are some constants here, though. Reo-Coker will remain an Aston Villa loyalist – although he believes the Birmingham club should have a bigger footprint in America. He will also always root for old-fashioned football; it's why he loves Nottingham Forest this year.
"We always say as ex-players, there's more than one way to win a football match," he says. "You know, what might be palatable to me might not be to you. But at the end of the day, we grew up in a generation and culture about winning, and that will never change in football. So there's many ways to stimulate conversations from many different points of view."
And all of that knowledge is being applied on American TV every week. Reo-Coker is a CBS Sports analyst and co-host of The Golazo Show on Paramount+, where he covers football worldwide, ranging from the Champions League to the Premier League. It's a broad remit, but one he has embraced.
Reo-Coker weighed in on the state of American soccer, the Premier League, and why jeopardy is good for the Champions League in the latest edition of Mic’d Up, a recurring feature in which GOAL US taps into the perspective of broadcasters, analysts, and other pundits on the state of soccer in the U.S. and abroad.
AFPON THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE
GOAL: What have you made of this new Champions League format? There's been a lot of discussion about it, but how do you think it has played out?
REO-COKER: I wanted to see how it's played out, and I'm excited. I really do like it. I think that from the start of just hearing how the format worked, my first thought was that every game has to be played like a Cup final – you have to win every game. You can't be as strategic as we've seen other clubs and big clubs do in the earlier rounds – take it easy in some games. I think now you have to be aggressive all the way through. And just to show that that's the case, you look at Liverpool being perfect throughout, top of the group stages, and they get to miss that week of having to play two later two games in the knockout rounds. And then you look at Manchester City and PSG hanging right on the edge. So it has made it exciting, and big clubs potentially could be on the way of not making it through.
GOAL: And more broadly, do you think it's good for the competition to have Liverpool play Real Madrid, or City play PSG so early on? Is that part of the appeal?
REO-COKER: I mean, it's part of what football was heading to, and what a lot of people, the powers that be want. They want to make it, as they called it, the Super League. And this revamp kind of gives that bit of Super League effect, where you are guaranteed to get big clubs going at it, and it will draw fans and people around the world to watch it. So it's worked. It's still early, but it's worked for what football fans want. You know, we've got a lot of big games in the earlier rounds. I mean, you just have to look at Manchester City versus PSG. It wasn't Manchester City versus PSG. It was Manchester City, PSG, both teams needing a win to make it into just a knockout round. So it does add the excitement. All around, a lot of people will be very happy with it, and I think this new format will maybe temper the expectations, for the need of a Super League.
GOAL: Do you think it's good for the competition to have this kind of jeopardy?
REO-COKER: I think it's great for the competition to have this jeopardy. And I think also for people like us in the media field, we have to kind of give our input from our playing days and clubs that we played for, because sometimes there's a danger of when it's certain voices that people are listening to all the time who had a career at a top club and they stayed at a top club their entire life.
That's not the journey of every player. So the reason why I say that is for the likes of Brest, the French team, who have absolutely exceeded expectations of a small community club that to make it into the Champions League was an absolutely extraordinary achievement alone. That's their first time in European competition. They've never been in the Europa League, never been in the Conference League, never been in any of the previous European cups. This is their first time in Europe. They're in the Champions League, and they're in the knockout stages, a small club that can't even play at home, that they have to play an hour away from their home.
Stories like that are the ones that need to be pushed forward. And when you look at even in knockout group place right now, you still got the likes of Bayern, Munich, Real Madrid, Juventus, Benfica, PSG, and at the moment Dortmund, last year's finalist, all in a knockout round. So the stories are there, the excitement, it's there. And it's not a given that it becomes the same old story.
AdvertisementGetty Images SportON THE PREMIER LEAGUE
GOAL: Switch gears to the Premier League. You played there for a while, you had a lengthy career in England. Are Liverpool going to run away with it? Is it going to be a bit closer?
REO-COKER: Liverpool have set extraordinarily high standards and they are locked in. There's that tunnel vision at the moment at the club, even with the contractual situations of three of their most valuable players. I've got to give them credit that they've just kept up the level of performances. In other clubs, in other situations in the history of football, you've seen players in this situation down tools. So I think a lot of credit needs to be given to Trent Alexander-Arnold, Mo Salah, and also Virgil Van Dijk for how they've continued to conduct themselves at such a high level.
I don't think they're going to run away with it. I would say they've got one firm grip on the Premier League Trophy right now, and it's theirs to lose. But the competitiveness and competitive nature of the Premier League has been exciting. I think you can't look past the likes of what Nottingham Forest are achieving this year with Nuno and how he's turned them around. They have been consistent in their performances. They're not there by luck. They're very well organized defensively. All the players are playing to their strengths. The wingers are dangerous. But also they've got an old-school striker in Chris Wood who deserves all the praise because he's scoring goals. The game has evolved so much, where we talk about this withheld striker or this false nine. No, we've gone to traditional strikers scoring goals, and it's been amazing.
But then you've also got to give credit to the likes of Bournemouth in what they're doing. Newcastle came alive until recently…You've also got Brighton in there. You've got Aston Villa. There are so many teams in the Premier League, especially in that middle pack, that can cause an upset to any team on any given day. There will be a little reliance on results against each other, but I still feel that it's going to be a very close fight to the end.
GOAL: What you said about Liverpool and the contract situations – you must have been in a dressing room at some point where you know that maybe a contract's running down, or there's off field talk, or if you don't know if the guys are going to be with you next year. What's that like as a player?
REO-COKER: I'll be honest with you. The majority of footballers are very selfish individuals at times. Remember, when we were young, we were told that, basically, it's not going to pay your mortgage. Yes, we're a team, but we're all trying to compete for the same goal. So when you do become a professional, a lot of players will just continue. If it's not them, they're not interested, it's not their doing.
So, if you take the Van Dijk, Mo Salah, and Trent situation, all the other Liverpool players, they will just want them to perform at a high level, which they've done. But they know they have no power or anything to be involved in that situation because it's not their doing. It's not their jurisdiction. There's nothing they can do about it, and they have to worry about themselves. The only thing that they could get annoyed with, or that might upset them, is if they see that these players are no longer trying for them to win matches and perform at the highest level.
But again, it just goes to the point of what I said earlier, you've got to give them credit, especially Van Dijk being club captain. They've done ever so well in this situation, but the majority of the time, if players are honest, they've been doing this their entire life. They know the professional element. It's nothing to do with them. There's nothing they can do. All they need to do is make sure they perform week in, and week out.
GOAL: Should Trent go to Real Madrid?
REO-COKER: That's Trent's decision, but I feel it's the right time for him. He's been a great servant to the club. He's won everything. He's won the Premier League, won the Champions League. He's at the right age. I feel for him to go to Real Madrid, it's a great move for him. You know, there's an aura about Real Madrid, whether people like to admit it or not. They are the biggest club in world football. They've won the most Champions Leagues. They've always had the best players in world football play for their club. And I feel that, if Trent feels it's the right time for him, I think it's great. And I think from from my perspective, I think it's only going to benefit England, as in, the English National Team, that more of our players playing abroad and go and broaden out their horizons and try new cultures and understand new styles of football.
AFPON MLS
GOAL: Whatwould you say the energy is like around MLS now, compared to when you played?
REO-COKER: There definitely has been a progression. There's a lot more opportunities for players. And I'll probably say the players are probably treated a lot better than when we were playing. They don't have to fly a commercial as much now. There's a lot more chartered flights for them. And you know, you can see the fan base is growing and the quality of the play is getting better slightly. So there has been a tremendous progression from when we played.
GOAL: I've heard other former MLS guys talk about the commercial flights.
REO-COKER: It's massive. Because we used to fly commercial, and you have no idea who you'd be sitting next to. So I think for me, you got to remember you're coming from playing in the Premier League and playing against, you know, some of the best players in world football, and then you're doing that. I had no problem with it. You have to humble yourself because I came through Wimbledon Academy. I came through the school of the hard knocks of being very humble. But now is definitely a big change compared to what we experienced.
Getty ImagesON ASTON VILLA
GOAL: What do you make of Aston Villa, your former club?
REO-COKER: Great. Yeah, unbelievable, man. Great fan base, sleeping giant, one of the clubs that I'll probably say a lot of Americans don't know a lot about. They don't know the history of Villa. And I think Villa are to blame themselves. They don't market themselves enough when it comes to the American market and educating people about what the club's about.
GOAL: Yeah, I don't see loads of Villa fans in the wild.
REO-COKER: It's mad. Because the crazy thing is, one of their biggest, most known Hollywood supporters is Tom Hanks. He's a massive, massive Villa fan. He goes there a lot, and you think that they'll probably use that a bit more to kind of market the club over here. But I think they got left behind compared to other clubs, in the way that Arsenal, Chelsea and all those clubs have marketed themselves over here and kind of used the history of the club to get more fans.
GOAL: Is it also that when clubs in the UK started showing real interest in the UK, Villa were going through their poorer years?
RREO-COKER: Yeah, it is, I think. But the thing is, with American fans, they love a sense of being. And I think that with Villa if they let people over here know the story of the club, the history, the traditions, and stuff like that, I think loads of American fans would love to identify with that and would have probably just stuck with them through thick and thin. But I think that they just kind of stayed behind while you've got so many Arsenal fans, Chelsea fans, and new modern Manchester City fans now in America – who are just obviously more recent fans!
GOAL: What do you make of Unai Emery as a manager?
REO-COKER: Emery is sensational. You gotta give him credit for the way he's turned the club around, from fighting a relegation fight to taking them to a top-four finish, and then now they're in the Champions League. And even in this year's Champions League, people question whether they've got the squad depth to be able to handle it, and they've done quite well. So it's all credit to him. Everything they're doing is him.
You can see that the tactical element that he's doing at the club, the team he's got around him when it comes to recruiting, it's been a breath of fresh air. And Villa, for me, have always been a sleeping giant. They're a massive club, and I think a lot of American fans don't realize they're one of the few English clubs who've won the Champions League. There are so many Villa fans that I know who talk to me and they're so excited about what's going on now. And I think for them, it's just they're enjoying the journey. There isn't any real expectancy, because it's been so long since Villa have been in this situation that they're truly enjoying the journey.
Emery, credit to him, is competing not only in the Champions League but also making Villa very competitive in the Premier League, which is very hard to do. So it speaks of the quality of a manager that he is. I think a lot of people would be happy if they were just competing in the Champions League, and if they don't make the top four this year, that would be acceptable. But he's raised the standards and expectations so much at Villa Park that they are expecting to finish in the top four again this year while still doing well in the Champions League.
