In 2016, Alexis Guerrero and Christian Polanco were in their first year as hosts of The Cooligans and “finessed” wristbands for a VIP MLS Cup party, sensing immediately that they didn’t belong there.
“We had no business cards,” Guerrero told amNY. “We were handing professional people stickers [of the show].”
The comedian duo was struck by being in the same room as former MLS commentators Rob Stone and John Strong, and noticed a few players not involved in that year’s championship were off to the side on their phones — including 2017 Gold Cup-winning striker Juan Agudelo. Guerrero and Polanco went up to the Colombian-American and “just started riffing, like the crowd work we do on stage,” and it worked.
“The first active player that we ever had on the show and always give credit to is Juan Aguedelo,” Polanco told amNY.
From recording their first shows in each other’s kitchens in 2015, Guerrero, a Cuban-American from Newark, NJ, and Polanco, a Dominican-American from Sunset Park, Brooklyn, have blended their unique humour and comedy with the Beautiful Game for over 900 episodes on Yahoo! Sports.
They’ve made appearances on CBS’s Morning Footy show, worked with FuboTV, and hosted soccer events around the city where they grew up. Polanco was an emcee for Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Cost of Living Classic soccer tournament before the election, and the duo were picked to host the U.S. Soccer Federation’s 2026 World Cup draw watch party at Times Square.
“We normalized having comedians in this space,” Polanco said. “In the first five years … we would have hardened journalists that cover American soccer [find out] we actually know our stuff, and we know the game. There’s a certain level of respect that we have to have for the game and for [professionals] to be fans and say we offer something really cool to the game — that’s the more validating statement [that] we’re contributing to something that people appreciate.”
The duo has since interviewed some of the biggest names in U.S. soccer, including women’s World Cup winners Megan Rapinoe and Julie Foudy, former U.S. Men’s national team captain Clint Dempsey, and former English Premier League striker Troy Deeney. They have also interviewed some of America’s biggest soccer fans in KidSuper and, most recently, Mamdani, a life-time Arsenal fan.
However, a favourite episode for both was with another World Cup-winning U.S. player, Ali Krieger.
“Doing a podcast with Ali Krieger is like doing an improv scene with Amy Poehler,” Guerrero said. “She could be on any comedy podcast and be as sharp as any of the other comedians.”
The pair met in 2010 on the comedy circuit, each with their own shows for the previous two years, and would link up after to hang out and play FIFA, the iconic football simulation game.
“At first I didn’t like this guy — he wore a suit for his show,” Guerrero said, “Turns out he was one of the biggest soccer fans in the scene, and little by little, I said this is the perfect guy to do a show with.”
New York City FC (NYCFC) joined MLS in 2015, and they bought season tickets in the supporters’ section together, setting the “foundation” of their show.
The comedians noticed other fans started to gravitate towards them because of their funny comments about the game, and Polanco credits those moments as the push the duo needed to start comedic soccer content. They wanted to give American players a spotlight and provide a different take on the sports all their comedian peers were just making fun of.
“The pitch I made to [Polanco] was that we are in the supporters’ section making people around us laugh because we’re making references to like hip hop and stuff from like our culture,” Guerrero recounted. “They don’t have anyone to listen to that does this, so all we’re doing is exactly we’re doing in the game, just on a microphone. And we hoped to bring in more Latin, more black, more minority fans that didn’t have something that felt like it was talking specifically to them.”
Their chemistry was evident from the start, having almost no trouble coming up with the show’s name. Guerrero came up with something “so bad it was so good” — instead of calling themselves hooligans, the historical term used for rowdy soccer fans in England, Guerrero suggested the Cooligans.
“It was the relief of it,” Polanco said. “I heard the name, and I’m like, ‘You know what? The fact that we don’t have to have a meeting to talk about the name is already a blessing.’”
“Also, he said, I want to do all the work,” Guerrero added. “I was like, I love this guy, fantastic!”
It worked so well that the duo were getting accepted as credentialed media to MLS matches and German Bundesliga matches. Guerrero and Polanco traveled to Germany to watch former NYCFC midfielder James Sands play for St. Pauli in the Bundesliga, Germany’s top soccer division. They met the New York native after the match, and his brown, match-worn number six shirt hangs up proudly in their studio.
“Seeing how impactful the game is, isI learned later in life, and now it’s something we’re trying to really push forward,” Polanco said.
Both have travelled to England as well, and spent time around content creators who have been surrounded by the Premier League their entire lives, speaking “to their audience the way they grew up talking about the game.”
“Us looking the way we do, and speaking the way we speak and having this perspective, that’s what our show has become,” Polanco said. “Let’s just speak about the game the way we grew up talking about it, because it’s not really publicized. It’s surreal that we’re still around.”
