Maybe the best way to understand what Alexi Lalas understands as the North Star of his job is to understand the first commandment of media-trained figures in sports: Thou shalt avoid talking about Donald Trump in public.
This goes for all sports, all the people adjacent to sports, liberal or conservative, American or otherwise. If asked, deflect, and certainly, under almost any circumstance imaginable, do not bring up the president unprompted, because this can only get people upset.
Lalas breaks this rule, unasked. He breaks it all the time, and does so toward the end of a conversation with The Post last month.
“Regardless of your political affiliation, having the soccer that emanates out of the White House, out of the Oval Office, having a president that is engaged and recognizes the opportunity and the soft power of a World Cup, that’s a good thing,” Lalas told The Post during a promotional junket for Fox’s World Cup coverage. “Anybody would want that.”
Lalas wasn’t making news here. His politics are a matter of public record. What he understands, though — well enough to have made himself one of the faces of American soccer punditry despite a playing career that he’s happy to admit was fairly unremarkable — is that if Trump’s name is in the headline of this story, more people might read it. How they react doesn’t concern him. And it’s not as if his beliefs aren’t sincere.
Now apply the same logic to soccer, which is what Lalas talks about for a living. He’s been a ubiquitous part of Fox’s coverage of the sport for more than a decade, having left ESPN to join the network ahead of the 2015 Women’s World Cup. Among fans of the sport — a decidedly left-leaning community — Lalas has, let’s say, a reputation.
He’s happy to be critical of U.S. national teams, and it seemed Christian Pulisic was referring to Lalas, along with Landon Donovan and other former national team players, when he called it “the biggest cop-out of all time” to be criticized for his commitment to the national team. Four years ago, when the World Cup was in Qatar, Lalas came under fire for donning a thobe — traditional loose-fitting robe worn primarily by men in the Arab world — during a segment, and there’s been plenty more controversy in between.
“I’ve been a player, and I’ve heard him yap and tweet and say I’m not good enough and maybe I don’t deserve to be on the roster and our team’s not good enough — I’ve heard all those things,” former USWNT star and current Fox analyst Carli Lloyd told The Post. “And you hear the noise. Our team [the USWNT] has proven him wrong. I’ve proven him wrong.
“And then you see him and he’s like, ‘You proved me wrong.’ It’s no big deal. Now working with him, getting to know him as a person, I’ve spent a lot of time with him, his family, just a really, really good human being. I know that he voices his opinion a lot soccer-wise, politically wise. But at the end of the day, he always is wanting to listen to anybody and everybody.”
As for the suggestion that people love to hate him, it’s clear Lalas is not only well-aware, but perfectly fine with it. After all, it’s a substantial part of why he’ll be on your television for large chunks of the next five weeks.
“I enjoy poking. I enjoy being provocative,” Lalas said. “But the question I get most is: Do you believe everything you say? And my answer immediately, my unequivocal take, is yes. It doesn’t mean I can’t put myself in other people’s shoes and I can’t argue other sides in the grand tradition of debate.
“… I understand that there are plenty of people out there that disagree, some vehemently, and some take that disagreement and paint everything with it. Nothing I can do about that. Most importantly, I think there are people that enjoy and respect that I will offer an opinion that they don’t agree with, but they still find interesting and entertaining.
“My job isn’t to have people agree with me or even like me for that matter. My job is to say what I feel, to be honest about it, hopefully do it in an entertaining and informative way and let the chips fall where they may.”
Here’s another piece of the puzzle: Music has always been one of Lalas’ passion projects. He’s released eight solo albums and played in a band, The Gypsies, that once upon a time opened for Hootie & The Blowfish during a European tour.
So it’s not surprising, really, that he considers himself a performer. Go read the clips from his playing days, when his long hair and goatee made him the most recognizable face of the 1994 USMNT, and it’s clear his TV career is a continuation of this.
He’s always been someone comfortable with putting his personality on the table and dealing with the ramifications.
“I never looked at it any different in that you go on a stage, which is the same thing as a field,” Lalas said. “You go in front of an audience, which is the same thing as a crowd, if you will. You put on a costume, which is the same as a uniform. You rehearse, which is the same thing as training. And so I just looked at it as a continuation of being an entertainer and a performer.
“Doesn’t mean you aren’t authentic and you’re not truthful or you aren’t comfortable. There’s still a persona and a character, if you will, that you play. And at times exaggerate for effect. I don’t think that’s a problem. I think it’s probably a tradition as old as time when it comes to performance. But I think you have to. I think television in particular lends itself to that.”
Lalas’ character in this analogy, to borrow a wrestling term, would be the heel.
“The people that don’t like me, whatever, I can’t control,” he said. “I don’t want them changing the channel. Plenty of them hate-watch, which is fine. We still get the rating.”