Schaerlaeckens’ Long History of ‘The Long Game’

Leander Schaerlaeckens and his new book, The Long Game. Photo by Ava Battinelli '26

Moments before joining a Zoom call as an interview guest for Alexi Lalas' State of the Union Podcast, covering domestic and international soccer, Leander Schaerlaeckens grabbed a copy of “The Long Game.”

The senior lecturer of sports communication at Marist University flipped through some pages. He attempted to refamiliarize himself with the 384-page book, a comprehensive history of the United States Men’s National Soccer Team, as he prepared to join Lalas’ podcast to talk about the contents of what was inside.

He hadn’t only read these words before. He wrote them.

Schaerlaeckens spent over four years planning, researching, interviewing, writing, reading, rewriting, rereading, editing and working on “The Long Game,” which was officially released on May 12. 

“The shoes on the other foot, suddenly, where I’m getting interviewed, which I don’t like,” Schaerlaeckens laughed. “It’s been so long since I finished it that I couldn’t remember half the stuff that was in it.”

Schaerlaeckens had put the finishing touches on the book in the summer of 2023 – a little over a year after he began it in the spring of 2022 – but he had always known it would be a while until he could hold the book in his hands. “The Long Game” had always been scheduled to come out in the run-up to the 2026 World Cup.

In a sense, Schaerlaeckens has been working towards this book for the better part of the past two decades. ESPN hired him to be a full-time soccer writer ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Four years later, he went to Brazil to cover the World Cup for Fox Sports. He continued to cover the U.S. men’s soccer teams in the years to follow for Yahoo! Sports, including their failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. 

In August of 2021, Schaerlaeckens penned an extensive profile on then-head coach Gregg Berhalter for The Ringer; the lengthy article analyzed Berhalter’s tenure after being hired in 2018. It caught the attention of an agent, who pitched Schaerlaeckens with the idea of writing a book biographing the U.S. men’s national team's history and future direction.

He wrote a proposal for the book that fall and struck a deal with Viking Books, a subdivision of Penguin Random House, in early 2022. Then, the fun began.

“You just start calling people. I think I did probably 150 interviews or so for the book,” Schaerlaeckens said. “You just talk to as many people as you can from every team.”

It was a lot to handle for Schaerlaeckens, who was still teaching four classes a semester at Marist. Luckily, he had Ricardo Martinez-Paz ‘23, a senior at the time and deputy editor-in-chief of Center Field, the club that Schaerlaeckens still advises.

Martinez-Paz transcribed interviews and provided Schaerlaeckens with valuable research after sifting through old archival newspapers and books; it hardly felt like work for the devout soccer fan.

“I thought it was pretty cool, honestly, especially hearing from players I’ll definitely never meet and hearing their perspectives on the growth of soccer in America,” Martinez-Paz said. 

Schaerlaeckens also had Martinez-Paz read and edit his original 147,000-word manuscript, which was over 500 pages long.

“That part was a little tedious,” laughed Martinez-Paz. “But it was cool to see the book before it actually got published.” 

Martinez-Paz, much like Schaerlaeckens, is excited to read the finished product and see what he remembers, and what other information he had forgotten about in the nearly three years since he last helped edit the book.

For Schaerlaeckens, “The Long Game” is a culminating project for the experienced soccer writer. Long inspired by authors like Michael Lewis, writing a book has always been an end goal of sorts for Schaerlaeckens in his career.

However, he hopes it isn’t the last time he opens a book that bears his name on the cover.