About
Hosts
Patrick Mauro & Chris Matyszczyk
Hosts Patrick Mauro and Chris Matyszczyk represent soccer talk with an accent. Well, two accents.
Soccer Radioactive doesn’t just tell it how it is. It tells it how it should be.
It’s irreverent, it’s entertaining and it’s the contrast of one man who talks like a sophisticated American and the other who talks like a snarky Brit.
On Soccer Radioactive you won’t hear cliches. You’ll hear two men who don’t know what to do with their excessive intelligence dedicate their over-sized brains to the world’s most beloved game.
There are no mentions of ole’ onion bags, never will you hear the phrase “the goalkeeper had no chance”.
This is brains meeting balls. An explosive combination.
Patrick Mauro is the host of the internationally syndicated Sports Overnight America radio show, NBA writer for Protect the Paint, and political satirist. In a former life, he was a video game journalist hosting television and radio shows, writing for 1Up.com and IGN, and consulting video game companies on marketing strategies.
Follow Patrick at twitter.com/radiopat
Chris Matyszczyk has written about sports for various European and Asian newspapers and currently covers the NBA for Protect the Paint. He is also a multi award-winning creative director who advises global corporations on content creation and marketing. Oh, and he created the Technically Incorrect blog on CNET.
Follow Chris at twitter.com/ChrisMatyszczyk
Writers
RAFAEL GONZALES a.k.a Rafa
Rafael was born and raised in Palm Springs, California. He attended college at Arizona State University, spending six years enjoying his college experience. He received a Bachelor of Interdisciplinary Studies with concentration areas in Creative Writing and US History.
In December of 2008, Rafael left Tempe for the Southern California coast. Required to complete an internship for his degree and after hounding the radio show World Soccer Daily, he was given the opportunity to intern for the Sirius Satellite radio talk show. Within the span of eight months, he was asked to fill a variety of roles, ultimately ending as Producer.
Rafael has supported the game of soccer since he was ten and officially began supporting the Scottish Club Rangers FC when he was twelve. The story of how he began supporting Rangers is a tale for another day, but he has been buying official Rangers team kits every season since then. He’ll be making his pilgrimage to watch the Old Firm Derby in February. Although a ‘Gers supporter through and through, he grew up in the states, making Rafael an overall supporter of the beautiful game. Who can deny the entertainment value of the EPL, La Liga, or the Italian Serie A?
Rafael has played soccer for over a decade even trying out and making the ASU Men’s Club team. To this day, he still plays competitive soccer on the weekends for two adult leagues in the Orange County area. Of course there are other hobbies. Living seven blocks from the beach, he manages to surf a least two times a week. Last year, Rafael was one of a five man team who took part of a 24-hour mountain bike race. Other than that, he lives with his college sweet-heart of six years and five-year-old Siberian Husky who keeps him incredibly active.
DANNY CAMPOS a.k.a BlueCelery
Danny was born in Pasadena, California, raised in El Monte and currently resides in Rancho Cucamonga where he runs local City soccer leagues.
Football entered his life in a fashion typical of American youth: by way of AYSO. It has always been the sport that he most loves to play simply because of it’s flowing, spontaneous nature. In his eyes, there truly isn’t another game comparable in the world.
Growing up in Southern California as a soccer kid meant knowing who Arsenal and Celtic are, since youth club teams everywhere carry these names. That, along with learning footballers’ names through the miracle that is the FIFA videogame series was usually the height of any average So Cal kids’ knowledge about the World’s game. That was Danny in a nutshell.
It wasn’t until years later during High School that Campos finally splashed the cash on that essential piece to life’s puzzle, Directv, truly getting a taste of what would ultimately consume his life. The old Fox Sport’s Net channels used to pick up the random Premiership replay and he would habitually peruse the guide to discover when the next match was would air. He already knew that the game was brilliant, but what captured his attention most was the frenzied atmosphere surrounding the game. It made his appetite for world football insatiable, as it remains so today.
MICHEAL HANNA a.k.a mmhanna
Michael Hanna is a budding soccer wordsmith who moonlights as a law student on the side. You can find him on weekends and Champions League matchdays at pubs all over the Los Angeles and Orange County chugging beers and fervently supporting his beloved Manchester United, sometimes a little too fervently. If you hear glass breaking and an American slurring songs that praise Wayne Rooney to the high heavens, you’ve probably found him.
Michael is OC born and bred, having attended UC-Irvine and receiving a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. Since graduating in June 2009, he has started a law internship in preparation for law school.
Michael has always retained lukewarm interest in the sport, having attended the World Cup Final in 1994, but it never grew into an obsession until fate intervened. It is often said that our fated club will find us and although Michael is consistently accused of being a post-’99 treble bandwagon Yank, nothing could be further from the truth. In the summer of 2003, United found Michael.
His cousin, a fellow passionate Red Devil, was watching Roy Keane pull the strings in the second game of the 2003/04 season, which turned out to be a 2-1 win at Alan Shearer’s Newcastle. Michael happened to pop in right before United went up 1-0 and when he saw that first goal in, inexplicable magic happened and he was hooked. From then on, he has never looked back; United has become one of the centerpieces of his life and the obsession carries on to this day.
