The latest guests on New England Soccer Journal’s “The Goal” podcast aim to blend humor and soccer into their very own weekly podcast.
Paul Nardizzi, Dave Rattigan and Jim Ruberti are the hosts of the always entertaining Soccerheads New England Podcast. They are three professional comedians, who do comedy shows across New England. Two of them also happen to be diehard soccer fans. The podcast covers soccer topics at all levels, with plenty of jokes and laughs mixed in.
Nardizzi, Rattigan and Ruberti joined “The Goal” and host Matt Langone in studio for a fun conversation that touched on the motivation for starting their podcast, and the vision for what they hope to accomplish each week.
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Here are some highlights from our discussion with the hosts of the Soccerheads New England Podcast in the latest episode of “The Goal.”
On how the podcast was formed:
Nardizzi: “I think it was my idea originally. We do soccer fundraisers for four organizations, but there was no show that’s got a lot of soccer material in it, and I have some soccer material. So I approached Dave, who runs a booking company, and I said, ‘why don’t we do some soccer-themed comedy shows?’ And he said, ‘well, we should launch a podcast first to get to that next step.’ So I said, ‘you’re the boss.’ So, we’ve done about 35 episodes.”
On balancing comedy and soccer topics:
Ruberti: “I think it mainly depends on the subject, to be honest with you. We’ve done the men’s and women’s equal pay and some serious stuff like that. But then we also have when Paul chimes in with the wacky world of soccer. What’s going on out there that we find kind of funny and we could share with everybody?”
On who is the funniest of the three hosts:
Ruberti: “I would say all humor is different. If you come and watch the three of us, you’re going to like one of us, maybe like the other one, and hate the third. That’s usually the standard when you go and watch three comics. But these two guys, these two are monster headliners. They have the experience. These guys are absolutely hysterical. I’m a newbie on the team, having only been doing it for a few years.”
On the listeners they’re looking to attract:
Ruberti: “I personally think to increase the audience of soccer, you have to make it interesting and funny, and bring up things that you’re thinking that the non-soccer person is thinking, that we can make fun of with Dave. Dave is thinking like the non-soccer person, which I think is important for our podcast.”
On what you can expect from their comedy shows?
Ruberti: “We do have, all of us have, soccer sets. When we do our soccer shows, we all have our own sets written specifically around soccer. All of our experiences dealing with players and coaches and play on the field. It really is focused on soccer comedy, not just our regular comedy that we do on the weekends.”
“The Goal” podcast is brought to you by the Hoosac School and University of Nebraska High School.
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