The Pragmatist's Odyssey: Bob Bradley on Talent Ceilings and Structural Illusions

Welcome to the Scuff Podcast, we talk about U.S. soccer. Our guest today is a man whose coach soccer in places is varied as the suburbs of Oslo, Appalachia, Ohio, Egypt, Los Angeles, and Wales to name a few. He's a native of Montclair, New Jersey, got his degree in history at Princeton, fathered and raised one of the all-time great U.S. men's national team midfielders, coached the team from 2006 to 2011, including the Confederation's Cup run in 2009 and the World Cup in 2010. He coached the Egyptian national team in the midst of the Arab Spring. He was the first American to manage a team in a European top flight. He was the first American to manage a team in the Premier League. He is without a doubt on the Mount Rushmore of men's American soccer. Bob Bradley. Welcome to Scuff. Nice to be here. Thank you for having me. Okay, let's start at the beginning. It sounds like the biggest sport in your family growing up was baseball, your dad played, baseball and football. Your brother was so good at baseball he played in the big leagues. You were a four year varsity baseball player in high school. Can you talk about how your passion for the game of soccer was originally ignited? Sure. First and foremost, we lived across the street from the grammar school, the field, the basketball courts, and for the baseball in town, which was very low key. The equipment was in the garage, and so we always had bats and balls, and my dad threw his experiences and the fact that he was a father that spent time with us, three boys, so his ability to get us on the field, row batting practice, hit fly balls was all really important. You mentioned my brother Scott, probably he gets the most credit for me being in soccer because when your brother, two years younger, you play with him in high school and you realize at that age that he's way, way better than you are, and you realize that his baseball things probably not going very far. At the same time, the high school I went to had a good soccer program, and it was based upon like a lot of places, a man who had played a little bit of a legend, Ralph Dugan, and so soccer at West Essex High School was a big deal, and at a certain point as Ralph got a little bit older, he was way ahead of his time. He had a young Italian-American-teachered coach as his assistant, Tony Benavento. Ralph used to give the team talks, Tony would run the trainings, Tony saw me play in gym class when I was probably in seventh grade, saw something and took an interest, and so when I was in the seventh grade, eighth grade, my experiences were in gym class with some pickup teams that got put together with some games that took place on the field across the street, but luckily it got me started and I loved being part of the game. So did you play like as a four or five or six year old or not? No. Okay. So, probably for me, a ball, a soccer ball started because my uncle was a German teacher, and he would make trips to Germany and bring back some books, and I knew about Uwe Sailor, and eventually Gair Mueller at Frans Beckenbauer, and somewhere along the line because there were kids across the street that played a lot to do with the high school, and because there were some people in town, I remember one, Bud Attis, who played at Dartmouth, his boys, were good guys that we knew, and so Bud is the man that would sometimes gather a bunch of kids and take us places to play games, oftentimes he would set up something with Karnie, New Jersey, and what was going on, and Karnie was very different than what was going on in Essex Fels, but like I said, these were just initial experiences, but as a young kid, no, and therefore as I played, as much as I loved the game, as much as I was a student, I could watch games, pick up ideas, learn from Gurd Merler, learn from George Joe Kenalia, the simple fact that I didn't have that foundation at some point was a challenge. As I moved through high school, I was a good player, I ended up being a decent enough guy at Princeton, we had some pretty good teams, and I was still, I was so into it because I felt like there was so much more for me that I was just getting started, and when I graduated from Princeton, man, I wanted to play, and the first year out, but for different reasons, you also needed to get a job, so I worked for Procter & Gamble, I hated it, and I'd get home from work, and I would still take a ball off the wall, I was playing on a couple different sort of semi-pro type teams, and I went to a few different tryouts, Cosmos, different teams to see could I still get my foot in the playing door, and I realized that the opportunities for Americans at that time weren't great, and then to be clear, I wasn't a high enough level player, but I still, I was a player that always thought about the game, I think the guys that I played with at Princeton would say that after training, I was probably the one that would still remember certain plays or talk about what we did on a given day, and didn't make sense, didn't not make sense, and so I probably drove them crazy, there were a bunch of us when we played at Princeton, that also would travel into our home territory in North Jersey, and play on different teams, and so one of my teammates, one of my great friends, Charlie Stilletano, Charlie was a year younger than me, everyone thought that he would go to Columbia, like his brother Leo, on a recruiting visit, he stayed with me, we talked about a lot of different things, and somehow he decided to come to Princeton, and so for all those years, on weekends, when many of the kids at Princeton were probably heading out to the eating clubs, a bunch of us would jump in somebody's car, head up to North Jersey, play in a game, could be outdoor game, play in an indoor game, his dad sort of ran all the teams, big Charlie, and when we were done, we'd go to his house in Elizabeth, and his mom Tina, one of the most incredible ladies I know, would cook, and big Charlie would yell at us and tell us we were no good, but we would talk about football, and so somewhere in the midst of all that, my passion, my ideas all came together, and after a year at Procton Gamble, I had the chance to go to Ohio University to get my Masters in Sports Administration, but more importantly to coach their team, and the opportunity as a young guy to take all your ideas, and throw them out on a field, and see what worked and what didn't work, and because I still was young and loved to play, part of the way I coach was to actually go on the field with the players, but... You were 22, you were 22 years old, right? I was 22 years old, that were probably four or five guys on the team older than me, Ohio University had an interesting international population, my assistant coach was Algerian, we had players on the team from Lebanon and Iraq and Iran, and the experience as a young guy working with all of them, the most famous name on that team that some people would recognize was Rick Laws, who was the initial media guy at DC United, and has worked for ConquerCaff, and is a really interesting sharp guy, and Rick was a freshman on that team at Ohio University, and so it was a great experience, and it was an opportunity, like I said, to coach, and once I started doing it, it was very clear that that is what I wanted to do. Can you talk a little bit about the... I saw something about how you'd go to the Madison Square Garden as a teenager, maybe, to watch games on closed-circuit television? Yeah, not to cut you off, that was the 1978 World Cup, it was the only way to watch. And so I was actually at Princeton, and in order to watch World Cup games, you had to go to different places, capital, theater, and forsake, but for the final, a few of us ended up at Madison Square Garden. The final was Argentina versus Netherlands, and the crowd inside Madison Square Garden that day felt a little bit like being in Bombanera. There were fireworks that were being shot off inside Madison Square Garden, and for the few people that dared to show up where in orange jerseys that day, man, they took their lives, their lives were in jeopardy, but it was fantastic, and Mario Campus, and Ozzie Ardilis, so you saw an interesting team, Manate was the coach, and so even in a summer like this, where for the first time, I did a little bit of media work, and then you look and think about things that you can talk about. I thought one fascinating part of this World Cup is that there were six coaches from Argentina, coaching in the World Cup, and you think about Manate, and Bilardo, and what the game means, of course, Bielsa, for people who know him, and I coached against them one time, but the passion for the game in Argentina, I've been fortunate, I've been there, you know, I told a story, one of the days on media about, I was at Boca, and I kept asking about the youth, and they told me about a man named Jorge Grifa, and I said, okay, who is he? And he was an older man, and he did stuff with kids in the club, and I said, well, where does he do it? And they said, well, he doesn't have a social club, it's a club in Buenos Aires, okay, can I see it? And I was getting ready to leave, I had to get to the airport, but I had a little time, and so they actually set it up that somebody would pick me up, and take me to meet Grifa, and see the kids, and then get me to the airport, and the person who took me was a taxi driver, whose little boy was playing that day, and I saw a bunch of kids show up, and the way they do things in Argentina is still special, the kids would come in, and the respect that they had for Jorge Grifa, and they would immediately go and give them a kiss, and on this little wooden floor were kids, and it wasn't like they were doing anything incredible, that they would start almost with some version of stations, but then eventually there would be some kind of a game, and it's a type of football, but there were a lot of kids, and there were a lot of kids on the floor, and it was a bit chaos, but man, they played like their lives depended, and at the end of the training, the kids would, again, thank Grifa, give him a kiss, and you know, later on when I did a little bit more check it on Grifa, and you read how people like had been there and had talked about him, and so you saw something that day, so, again, Argentina, and that's the way it works there. How did they, how is that situation created where the kids have that much respect for the older, I mean, is it like difficult to get accepted into that program, and then the parents sort of impress it on the children, like how does that work? I can't answer that other than I think that there were some part of kids that played the game, and then this was the starting point of a coach and a place where the game took place. Now, again, I would have needed to spend a year there, and follow each one of those kids home, and see what they did on the days when they didn't show up at the social level. Most likely, they played, most likely, the father played, or the brothers played, or the kids on the street played, and so that part of it, when we get to an end of the World Cup, and then we start talking about youth development, and we start talking about pay for play and all the normal topics. I'm not sure that you can cover it with one brush, and so years ago, when I was in a room as national team coach with a lot of some coaches, some administrators, and I was asked what we needed to do, I hadn't planned out a speech, but I started to talk about what I saw at that time in my experiences of kids at different ages, and I tried to explain how the different experiences that kids would have with the ball in the game, that it was from that that it started, and that introduction to kids in the game. So, again, I would need, you would need to spend so much time, but at the end of what you would find in Buenos Aires, of all things, maybe it would be slightly different in month of a day, and for sure, if we traveled around the US, we would find things that work in one neighborhood, or in one state that might not work somewhere else. The thing that I believe is that, and this has been true in the US, is that oftentimes when something good is happening in a place, there's usually somebody there behind it. There's usually a person that loved the game. In many cases, in the old days, wasn't getting paid, but gave back to the game, maybe his kids played, and then as a result, he found other kids. One of the people that I speak about often is Manfred Shellshut, and so Manfred is, or many of us in New Jersey, a friend, a mentor, and any time that you spent in the game, in and around Manfred was special. It was special, so let's start with why it was special for kids, because Manfred had a background in the game. He had grew up in Germany in Solingen, and eventually, he had gone through the German coaching school in Kern, and he had been around people like Seb Herrberger, and had a spicefiler and that more Kramer. So I'm throwing a lot of names out today. I know the Shellshut Kramer names, anyway, keep going, sorry. So he was around these people, and when he came to Union, and his son, Carl, started to play, then Manfred made sure that the other kids on the block. I think Johnny Desazio, and Carl Resman, and there was some other German people in and around Union that Manfred knew through work, or through Farters Grove, which was where there was a field. And so those kids, Manfred would gather up those kids, and when they would show up, the game would come alive. It would be fun. He did a really good job of getting the parents of some of those kids who had never touched a ball in their lives to actually play sometimes with the kids. And so probably long before there was anything called the Union Lancers, which was the youth team that it became, and that I was lucky to be part of with Manfred. That was just football. That was soccer, and there were kids. And that meant that if you lived near Manfred, or if you were German, or you worked with Manfred, and you're a little boy played, that probably meant that some of the experiences that you would have with him were different and special. Well, am I in North Jersey? Geography is not as strong as it should be, but is there a chance that Manichelle Shite also had an influence on Karnie? Or is that too far away? No, it's close, but Karnie had their own little culture. So it's a very good question, because now in Union, you've got an in and around Union, you've got Manfred. It might be that you lived two towns away, in raw way. So there was a little kid named Scott Schweitzer, who became a good player. And yet, Scottie's soccer world didn't include Union. And that didn't mean that he couldn't become a good player. He became a good player. And he ended up at St. Benedict's, where a lot of kids ended up at a certain point. While all this is going on, yes, there's Karnie. Early on, it was Scottish American. And the Scott's club, and in the summer, Celtic Boys Club would come over. There's one great story that a boy that we had on the state team, Manfred and myself, I'm played for the Union Lancers, Robert McCourt. I believe still coaches at Mammoth, University. Haven't seen them in a while, but a really good guy. And one summer when in the Celtic Boys Club came to play at Gunnall Oval, not a great field, but that's where everybody in Karnie went. And when Celtic Boys Club showed up in Karnie in those days to play against the kids from Karnie, Celtic Boys Club was the home team. And Robert would tell a funny story that he went for a hard tackle, went over the touch line, and some woman starts kicking him. And he looks up and it's his neighbor. He didn't care because on that day, she was rooting for the other team. So again, I could talk about New Jersey, but the point is just that there were different places where the soccer cultures developed. And there's oftentimes one person's passion is behind that. But to be clear, it could be one person in Union. It could have been someone else in Karnie. Right. Again, did you grow up in Minnesota? No, I grew up in Iowa. Okay, lived in Minnesota for eight years, now live in North Georgia near Chattanooga. Okay, but I knew you spent some time in Minnesota. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, for me, I've coached Manny Logos and I've coached yeah, right, you know, and Tony Santa, great guys. And so somewhere in the Minnesota soccer world buzz was important. Yeah. And, and come on, we could spend an hour and we could go around the country and we could come up with different people, Derek Armstrong and San Diego and so many, you know, so many guys in St. Louis, obviously Mike Zorber was played for me and coach with me his father Pete coached at Florescent Valley Community College. There were other people at Scott Gallagher. So, there was still all of this in those days and to your point, normally there was someone that cared about kids and cared about the game and made sure that there were opportunities. Let me just finish with one thing about the Lancers. At a certain point, and again, now the team is playing in the U19 bracket. In fact, we won McGuire Cup two years in a row in 1987 and 88. And kids from other parts of the state would come up, would show up. And in some cases, those kids would need rides to get there. Or if we played in a tournament, their parents were working so that those parents couldn't go. But the parents all pitched in. It was a different style. And so, oftentimes, one kid would stay, would travel with a different family and they would get a hotel room and that kid would stay with that family. And, and please, it's important that if I speak about this with the Union Lancers, it happened with the Princeton Union and it happened in a lot of places. Yeah. Right. So, this is not unique. But what it highlights is how much people who love the game and spend time with kids matter. And I love that. Yeah. And that is, that'll never go away. Is that, yeah. So, is that the message to American soccer fans like shut your mouth and get to work if you want to, if you want to, well, you don't have to put the shut your mouth part into it. But get to work like in your community. That is the message. And sometimes you're right. Sometimes it does mean shut your mouth. And, and look, I had an experience a long time ago and I won't even say the name. But, ex-player had planted the NASL and somehow he asked if Manfred and I would meet with him because he had an idea about you soccer. And his idea was that, at that time, there were a lot of different, what were they? Like, different, I guess sport, sport clubs that were going under, maybe racquetball courts that weren't being used anymore. And so, this guy had an idea about a program where you buy all these places and then you use it to develop kids. And, but when you listen to him, it just sounded like a business. Yeah. And, and somewhere, and I was younger than he was. And, and I didn't mean to be disrespectful, even though I probably was. And I said to him, if you really want to make a difference, here's what you should do. Get a bunch of kids, work with them for a couple years in a row, find good games, and then in a few years, let's, let's see where some of those kids are. You'll probably develop more players doing that than you will with these racquetball courts. And, and so, yes, there's a place for everything, but people who love the game, who still give back, have to be honored. And the best way that you can honor them is to do a little bit of what they did. Man. Amen. Well, this is, we're kind of already talking about it, but let me ask about the big news of the summer in American soccer. Obviously, we've referenced it, but some excellent performances from the national team in June, and then out with the wimper in the round of 16 against Belgium. You've had a month to think about it. What do you, what do you take away from that? Is it some of what we're just, we're discussing or what, yeah, what does it tell you about the state of the game and, you know, specifically on the men's side? Yes, I think it's important that we're clear that, that we're talking a lot about the men's side, because a discussion that would also include the women's side would have different factors. Yeah. And it would be important to get into some of those, but for today, we're focused a little more on the men's side, given that, yes, we just had the men's world cup. So, what would I say? Hosting a world cup is special, because you can feel it, and that was awesome. And our US team kicked off the world cup, the home world cup in an incredible way. The first half against Paraguay, the way we started a few times I would talk about at the beginning of that game, the ball would come to Christian's feet, and he started the game in such a sharp way on the dribble, going by people. Weston, his mobility and his willingness to run deep and run into the channels and press, and Balagin waiting to strike in the right moment, and Tillman finding the flow and being clever and creative. So, the first half against Paraguay was awesome. I was there. And inside, so fine, you could feel it. And so, we started the world cup perfectly, and it created excitement, and it created momentum. And of course, we followed up with a win against Australia. Okay, Turkey 8 is different because we rotate, we had already taken six points. And now, we're moving on, and this is a different world cup. So, round of 32, Bosnia, they're still, I think, an understanding at that point that we are playing teams, Paraguay, Australia. Turkey 8 maybe could be different, but they didn't start the world cup well, and we didn't play our full team. And now, Bosnia, but those teams are at a certain level. And as you're watching our team, you're excited, and you're optimistic. And then football wise, there's some good things. There's very good movements on both sides of the field that are coordinated, where the understanding of two and three players, of how to play off of each other, and run into certain spaces. And then our ability, when balls were lost, to react and to counterpress. So, there were a lot, I think, interesting, good football things happening. But you could also say that in those games, in the run of play, open play, maybe we weren't creating enough. And then you always, not everybody, but if you have been there, you always look at things and ask yourself, what will happen when we play against a better team? What's going to happen when you play against better attackers? And so, I know from all my experiences over the years that as excited as you are when things go well, inside your mind, you're constantly trying to reference. You're constantly trying to think, okay, what's going to happen when the game is that much faster, when the windows close quicker, when the spaces are smaller. And so, for me, there were still some concerns, I have to say. And now we play Belgium. They're a good team, not a great team. On the day, they had a good game plan. For whatever reason on the day, we don't have anybody that plays well. And I don't know if the Baligan red card plays into it. It seems like it did. It seems like it did. I'll just editorialize there. But go ahead. I would agree with you because it seems like it did. He seems like a great guy. He seems like he's thoughtful and honest. He also seems sensitive. And maybe somewhere in the midst of all that, it mattered. I don't know. Honestly, you'd need to be on the inside and be able to observe and have discussions one on one and with small groups, which is an important part of your work, to know whether all of that was ultimately going to be a factor. So we weren't on the inside, so I tend to leave that alone. But I agree with you. And then again, it's a game where when things don't start well, then we don't find a good way to respond. And so at the end of it all, it's disappointing because we had high hopes and we were excited. I'm not one that typically uses every World Cup to reference everything that's going on in terms of the game in our country. Right. Right now, I could probably give you some positives. Yes, we have more guys that play on bigger teams. And that's a credit to them. It's also a credit to a lot of guys that played before them that maybe didn't get the opportunities on big, big teams because it was harder for Americans in those days. But they were still good players and they still helped pave the way. And so when you think about national teams, I would say two things. Normally, the teams that win, and this would be true in leagues, other sports, normally the teams that win or come close to winning have a couple of the best players in the league or in the world. And as much as we have done a good job of developing a lot of very good players over the years, we haven't managed or been lucky enough to have anyone that is a top, top, top player in the world. And so that means part two that if you don't have one of those players, a big part of the job as a national team coach is to figure out the right group and the identity and the best way to play and how to make sure that that group the sum is greater than all the parts. And I think that that's also a part of being a national team coach. So in the moment, you could reflect on different world cups. And everybody can have opinions as to whether the group that came together for that world cup was the right group, was put together, played like they cared, played like there was no tomorrow. And everybody will have a certain idea of each of those teams. I don't usually spend much time going back with any of that. It's not worth much. You know, there's some people that liked our teams when I was there and some people that didn't. And it's not on my list of priorities to try to convince somebody that didn't like us that they should have. There's people who don't like those teams. Are there really? I feel like that's still kind of thought of as the, I don't know, that I mean beating Spain at the Confederations Cup. Kind of the kind of the high water mark, really. I appreciate that. But my point is that there are people that felt like that there are still people that say that that we we just sat back and countered. And there are people that said, yeah, we played an empty bucket. And there's so many different. Oh, sure. Yeah. Right. Things like that that don't matter. Right. The point is still that when it's your turn and now you you get a chance and and you you have games qualifying games help. Confederation cups help. And then you hope that you can get a group together so that when the World Cup arrives, they are excited. They go for it. They care. And then you try to take it as far as you can. And so my point is just that there's no, for those of us that were on the inside, we remember certain things. That would be true of other teams. I did a roundtable before the World Cup was Steve Samson and Jorgine Klingsman. And again, the 1995 team in Copa America that beat Argentina. Yeah. If Eric went older or Mike Sorber or Frank Kloepus were on with us today, we could spend a lot of time talking about how that group at that moment came together. That was awesome. And then if we wanted to dig deep, we could get some of the same guys that were around the 98 and say, yeah, what happened? All right. So the point is simply that that with national teams, a lot comes together at the same time. And you hope as you begin a tournament that the foundation is right. And that when tough moments come, the group is ready. That's a lot of the work that happens over the course of those years or in the cycle. And then at the end, you reflect. And so I didn't last long after 2010. But when we finished the World Cup, there were things that we were proud of in 2009 and 2010. But we also said, all right, how can football wise we get better? How do we add a little bit more ability to play from the back? Who are players that bring qualities that maybe we didn't have? So there's a process. And again, I don't know Mauricio at all. And I don't know anyone on his staff. And I'm like, you and many others, I look from the outside and that's enough. I respect what they do. And now I'm sure that before he accepted the extension, he had discussions and those discussions included, where do we go from here? Yeah. That he's signed up. We're going to wait and see. I do want to talk a lot about that. But but real quick, you mentioned the feeling in the stadium that so far that like there was something you could feel. What is that feeling? You know, you've probably felt it in lots of different places or not felt it in certain places. What is that feeling? Is it is it spiritual? Is it chemical? Is it what is it? Yeah. For me, the spirit inside the stadium that they started when we were walking in from the outside. And we saw families, people from different backgrounds, different colors. I'm sure different neighborhoods, wearing U.S. jerseys. And like many others, in the lead up to the World Cup with all the talk about ticket prices, it wasn't clear what it was going to look like inside stadiums. Yeah. We didn't know who was going to be sitting in those stadiums. And on that day when we walked in and I looked around, I was already excited. And then the the pregame and the national anthem. And the the feeling inside that day and you saw all the jerseys. Yes, you felt like this is the game in our country. And and I think that when you've been lucky to be in the game for a long time. And when you have spent time with different age kids, different teams, different experiences, there's an appreciation for the game as a whole. For all the people who are who care about the game and love the game and play the game and referee the game and administrative the game and give to the game. Like you have an appreciation for that because sometimes that can get lost. Sometimes that gets lost because we love to debate where somebody says it has to be promotion relegation and somebody else says no. And like we lose track of of what the game can and should look like on a lot of days and a lot of places. And so it felt like all of that inside so far. And when the team came out with energy and football and skill and goals. Yeah, it felt great. Kind of a flywheel effect, I imagine. You just broached the topic of starting a second cycle after finishing a World Cup, which is obviously what Puchtino is doing currently and you did the same thing. What are the challenges with that? When I specifically when it comes to like the energy of the group and the I mean you've also spoken about and written about how of coach's voice can get stale over time with the players. So how do you kind of what are the challenges? How do you kind of hit the reset button? What do you do there? What is what is patch up against on that front? Those are great questions. Those are challenges, but those are opportunities. And so each cycle has its own journey. And I think coaches understand that. And whether you take the time to explain that to players or whether or not it becomes clear because the next time you get together it's not all the same players. And some young talents are introduced. All of that is stated or un-stated saying we had a good team. There were some pluses. Didn't finish the way we wanted. But we've got to find ways to keep moving forward. And that's the process. And that's always interesting. That's not just with national teams. That's every team. When you coach you can have a great team and you can win everything. And when you start to sit next season, even if it's the same guys, it's unlikely that everything's the same. Was at the end of a season when you've had success, every player will think that they had a lot to do with the success, or they were the reasons for the success. And now when you start the next season, everybody's ideas of how it came together actually are different. Even though you were together for a season, it changes. And now, as a coach, you've got to figure out how to manage and challenge all of that. And so, yes, challenge, opportunity. I think as a national team coach, when you start a cycle, there's a part where you think short-term, and that might include, in my case, short-term, I was in through. So, short-term was the next game, but in reality, the initial focus was on the Gold Cup in 2007. Okay. Because the Gold Cup was what determined who went to Confederation's Cup in 2009. Right? So, you are putting a group together, and you are immediately thinking about how are we going to have the team that's going to win the Gold Cup. That's the short-term. But in the long term, you're also challenging your staff and having discussions about which players are going to be there in 2009 and 2010. And who are the young ones that maybe don't play big roles yet, but need to be there. And so, the introduction of players, and again, in this period, as I go through some notebooks, and as I go through my memories and write certain things down, it's been interesting to look back on rosters. So, I went down that rabbit hole one day, and I looked at all the rosters from 2007, 2008, 2009. You have them all in a folder somewhere? Are they on the hard drive? Yeah, okay. There's a lot of things that some of them in my notebooks, I have more specific things on what we did in training, or sometimes what I remembered after a game. But you're just finding those rosters the same way everybody else would at this point. Those rosters, there's things you can find easily. And for some number of years, you can find the US rosters from the US men's national team games in order. 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011. And for me, what was interesting is to just see the process of different guys. One, I ended up, I did two other podcasts this year. I did the one with Jimmy Conrad and Charlie Davies, and then I did the one with Landon and Tim. And you know, the Charlie story is interesting. And when I did it with Charlie and Jimmy, we joked that the 2007 Copa America in Venezuela could be like 10 shows because we had just won the gold cup. And now we were going to go to Venezuela. And for all sorts of different reasons, you could get guys released for gold cup because it was the championship of your confederation. But you couldn't necessarily get them released as a guest team in Copa America. And you had players where the clubs were starting preseason and they weren't going to let guys miss preseason. And then you had MLS challenges. And honestly, you had some guys that played in gold cup that I would have, that I challenged, asked, encouraged to come to Copa America that didn't want to go. Right? So, but when all was said and done, we got to Venezuela with not our A team. But it was opportunity. And it was games against, and the first game we played Argentina. And yes, it was a young Messi. And it was Raquel May. And it was Mascarano. And it was, and for a while, 60 minutes, we played really well. And then by the end of the game, we had lost our way a little bit and we lose 4-1. But Charlie was there in 2007. He was a young pro. He had a long ways to go. He thought he was better than he was. And in everything, it was in 2009, two years later, that Charlie became a huge factor. So he wouldn't have been on that. He wouldn't have gone to Copa if the Copa America, if everybody had been available. Is that fair to say? Yes, that was 1%. But all those other games, we called them, we were lucky. We had two double summers. Right? A double summer meant that you had Gold Cup and then Copa America. In 2009, you had Confederation Cup and then Gold Cup. And there are people, the 2009 Gold Cup experience after Confederation Cup, a couple of the same guys. Some that were there for a game or two and then left because they had to go to their teams. And the Gold Cup rules, you could replace guys on rosters and so many crazy things to deal with. But it also meant that the 2009 Gold Cup group. And the journey of those guys for those weeks was incredible. And then we lost 5-0 in the final in Mexico. And it was 0-0 at half and like around 50 minutes or 55, we have a big chance, Robbie Rogers. And shortly after that, Jay Heaps is in a penalty. Good question. And at the end of it all, I remember when I said to those guys after the game, 5-0 feels terrible. It was hot, it was humid. And that group of guys for those weeks had come together in such an incredible way. And they wanted to win that final so much that when we got behind the game opened up too much, guys took risks and Mexico made us pay. And it hurt. But it was also because of everything that happened before that. And that group in the course of those weeks getting to the final. And then some of those guys, somebody like Stuart Bowman, right? Some of those guys, then those experiences helped them for 2010. And so it all goes together. And so how many people over the years make fun of the January camp? My God, camp cupcake, right? It was not a cupcake for the guys that were there. It was one of two things. For veterans, they hated it, right? Land and joke. When he got to know me in the first January camp, he couldn't stand me because I was trying to challenge him in a January camp. And he had been there before. But there were other guys that you saw play in the league or played in leagues around the world where in January you could get them. And having that group together for three weeks and then playing one game or two games, that meant that if you needed one of those players, two months later, three months later, you knew them. And it's part of it. And so. And some of those guys are desperate. They're desperate to prove themselves. It's like they just, they wouldn't rather be anywhere else on earth, right? I have one story with Land and he came to me one day and said, the players are physically and mentally exhausted. And he said it like he was representing the group. And I said, Land and with all due respect, right? Michael Parkhurst has played so well. He's so excited to be here. I doubt if he's going around telling other guys he's physically and mentally exhausted. I doubt it. Right? And so I was hard on Land and I said, are you physically and mentally exhausted or are they physically and mentally exhausted? Come on, man. Right? No, he didn't like that. That's why he hated me. All right? But I remember all those days and look, they count. That's how you get to know players. That's how you, when you have to make tough decisions for rosters in two months, three months, five months, all of the opportunities when you're together help you decide. And so there's nothing better than when you get these chances. And yes, Copa America, Venezuela, Gold Cup 2009, incredible opportunities, incredible situations to get to know guys. So when you finished 2010, you know, the 2010 World Cup, you've got the most probably the most iconic moment of in men's American soccer 21st century, at least the, you know, the win over Algeria. You come home from that after the after we go out in the round of 16, you start again. Are you thinking the same way you were before where you've got a short-term long-term goals or is it about the next big, big regional competition or are you mostly thinking about 2014 at that point? Oh, man, that's a loaded question. Because my contract was up at the end of 2010. And the discussions as to whether I would continue or not were interesting. No, wow, how are they interesting? Well, they're interesting because look, everybody knows by now, before they, before we went further with my discussions, they started it also having some discussions with your different points. Yeah, yeah. And so, they're within our staff, there was a sense that there wasn't much respect for the work we had done. And I felt badly for the other guys on the staff because many of them, young families, they didn't know what was coming. And when you're a head coach, you know that when you have really good, young assistant coaches, you've got to think about them. And look, I had a couple conversations with people inside the federation where I always said, it's not fair the other guys. What's going on? And so, at a certain point, I'm back, but not really. I see. Because it's not a four-year contract. And so, you know, had the World Cup ended and had there been big opportunities for me for some new next challenge, the timing for the new challenge would have been there. But when you finish a World Cup and you're already into July, there's not many opportunities. And so, as it came around, I still felt that we had done good work and that there was the opportunity to keep moving forward. And so, even on less than a four-year contract, I said yes. And now we've, okay, here we go. We're going again. Somewhere in the midst of that, the first friendly after the World Cup was against Brazil. And now it's MetLife Stadium and Giants Stadium. Yeah. It was Neymar's first game. It was a really good Brazil team. For the US that day, certain August, certain guys can come. Certain guys can't come. Believe it was the very first cap for Omar Gonzalez. So, already, we were looking at players and thinking about the future. And so, we lost to zero. Neymar scored a goal, header, past Johnny Bernstein. And then, and I don't have a pretty good memory. It's not in front of me. But as we moved on, we played Poland in Chicago. We played Colombia in Philadelphia. We went back in November. Incredible. We played another Mandela Challenge where we took a mixed group. Always tell Brad Guzan how lucky he was that he was the captain that day because after that Mandela Challenge with the South African team, we all got to go and beat Mandela. And for all of us, that's a moment we'll never forget. In the January camp, we played Chile and we also was the coach. We played Argentina, zero zero. We, in the middlelands, we played Paraguay, really good game. We lost one zero. We played really well. Eventually, just before the gold cup, we played Spain. That was a tough day because we had to start the gold cup a few days later versus Canada. So, we were down three zero and a half time and then second half was a little bit better, but we lost four zero. And then we got into the gold cup and yes, we lost four two in the final. And it was a great game and that was my last game. And so, with all of that, there was still a lot of days of good football. A lot of days where the ideas of Tim Ream started to come into play. And some of those days, we get his first moments, Timmy Chandler. Yeah, you gave him his first cap, right? Yep. And Jermaine Jones. Jermaine Jones got involved. You know, Timmy Chandler, we were desperate to have him for the gold cup, but he got pressured by his club Nernberg. And so, after he had played a little bit with us and he went back, the deal was that he had to go and get his official passport and he never did it. And so, when the time came for the roster for the gold cup, Nernberg was telling him, no, you need to rest, you're a young player. And Timmy's way of solving that problem was, I don't have a passport. All right, so, you run into challenges along the way, but nonetheless, when we got into that gold cup, we saw development, we lost a Panama. We should have won. We had more of the ball. We had more chances, but it happens. And then we moved on and we get to the final. And like I said, in the Rose Bowl, we did our best to push that game. It was a hell of a game. And yeah, when I got fired a few weeks later, I certainly knew it was coming. But I happened to say, you guys realize it was a great game, huh? And they said to me, what do you mean? You said that to Cineal? Cineal and Dan. And I said, you guys know, that was a great game, right? The meeting lasted like five minutes. And they said, what do you mean? And I said, look, I got so many messages from people in Europe that saw that game. They thought it was a really top match. And when it was three, two, clean hit the crossbar. And just out of curiosity, what would you guys have done if we won that game? And I never actually got an answer to that question. But it didn't matter because if you're going to go out and you never go out on your own terms, if you go out, you go out, trying to play football, trying to go after games, and look, with anything anybody can say, like our teams, not like our teams, I'll say this sometimes to Mike Sorner, that when you play in a big final, yes, number one is you want to win. And at the end, people only remember who holds up the trophy. And so that's the way it is. But there's also a responsibility when you play in a final. Of what does the game look like? Do you play like you want to win? You play like everybody is going to do everything and you're going to try to play football and not be afraid. And so in the years that I was involved with the US team, we won the final 2-1 in 2007, in the goal cup when Benny scored the great goal. We lost two finals in 2009. Yes, Brazil, 3-2 still hurts, but that was an incredible final. Yeah. All right, we talked already about 5-0. It's Mexico with the other group, and then finished up with a 4-2 against Mexico and a goal cup. But you knew, it sounds like you knew all along from the end of the 2010 World Cup, from those contract negotiations on that it wasn't that the situation was tenuous at least. Yes, man, walking. Okay, again, it didn't, it didn't face me. I, I, I, I felt badly for Mike Sorber and his family, Jesse Martian, his family, Pierre Barrio and his family, Zachi Abdel and his family. I felt terrible for those guys. They deserve better. Yeah. Well, I think time has vindicated you. But let's take a break. We have so much more to talk about. We'll be back in a minute. All right, we're back. Let's, let's keep talking about that era a little bit more. I have a question from a listener that I want to read, which I think will help us get into it. What was your, this is from Josh and Seattle. What was your preparation like leading up to the Spain game in Confederations Cup? How did you prepare your team to take down a giant like that? And is there anything you did that you think this current generation could learn from? Take that any direction you want, obviously. Sure. Simple thoughts on the Spain game. We had played them in 2008 in Santander. It was when our agonist was still the coach and it was the last friendly they played before they won the Euros. And we lost one zero. And as we prepared for that game, we showed the group Spain playing against Italy, where Spain had the ball the whole time. And we discussed that when you play as much as we'd like to push the game, when you play Spain, they're going to have the ball a lot. So here's the two things. One, when we have the ball, we still have to find ways to make them defend. We talk about that more in a minute and two, that we can't get frustrated in the moments when now we've got to stick together and defend as a unit. And so we lost one zero and we had some chances. And now we go to Confederations Cup. And everybody knows the series of events that got us to the Spain game. First two games don't go great. We have red cards in both. Incredible discussions and meetings. Oh, I want to talk about that. I mean, how do you get the team ready for that Egypt game? It's like, we believed then we were at Bacchia Bung Lodge, where we were right next to a game park. And the ability to breathe and talk and challenge argue, fight, all could happen. Quietly without anybody knowing what was going on. And so we had a real sense that there were good things in the first two games. We had made some mistakes. We had suffered with red cards, but it was still there for us. And that we had to go for it. So again, one quality of that team was that we had real discussions and as a group, we weren't afraid. So as we were getting ready to play Spain, we said that so far, Puyol and PK have had really easy games. And with the ball, nobody presses them. And every team plays one striker and they don't have to really defend. And so point blank to Josie and to Charlie. We said, these guys probably don't even know who you two are. In reality, they did know Josie a little bit because he was at Virio. But when the game starts, if you put them on their heels, if you show them that you're fast, if you make runs to go behind them, if you find ways to still when they have the ball, make it a little bit hard, they'll figure out real fast who you are. And they were able to do that. And then we also said that somehow we got to make the game a little bit hard on Javi. What does that mean? That means that maybe instead of a hundred passes, where he completes 95, maybe it's 90 passes. And maybe even though he completes a lot, maybe a lot of them go sideways and backwards because we close them down fast and we don't let him have a chance to play certain balls forward. And when we get the ball, then we still have to have the confidence to play. And between finding landed and Clint in good positions between Charlie and Josie moving and being on the wrong, and then there was an understanding that we needed to make place and defend, stick together, be compact. We didn't want them to play through the center of the field. So there was a picture of all of that, not new things because many of those ideas were part of our identity and our work. And in the first 20 minutes of that game, Spain knew we were there. And in a series of webinars that I did for coaches last year, I was asked to put together a presentation on our US team and how it developed from 2009 to 2010. And so we did look at the Spain game with coaches from Poland. And we know that if we play that game 10 times, maybe we only win that one. Maybe we get another draw. Maybe we win two. It doesn't matter. But nonetheless, when those coaches watched that game and we discussed it, they all said, Spain felt you guys at the beginning of that game, when I did the podcast with Jimmy and Charlie, we joke as Charlie had a bicycle kick early in the game. Probably it was it was very optimistic, but nonetheless, it was Charlie. And he was on a roll and he felt like I'm going to score. And there were runs from Clinton. There were shots from Landon and there were tackles from Ricardo and Michael and you saw Jay and Gooch and Carlos making plays in the back. And so Johnny Spector played well. And so it was just that there was a sense that come on, we can beat these guys. Here's what we're all about. And what does it mean? When you play against really big teams, you can't be afraid of them. But you still have to understand what you're all about. And whenever there are discussions amongst some of those players, we know that our pure ability to play from the back over the course of that cycle improved. But it was never going to be our strength. Right. And guys like Jay and Gooch, they weren't afraid of anything. Now, you had challenges because I mentioned before, Michael Parker. And so if we're just trying to figure out what kind of central defender do we have? Need. A player like Michael is interesting because you see football. When he played for New England and then he moved to Denmark, he played a lot as a right back in Denmark. But nonetheless, like Michael Parker was good player. And then you have to try to say like when for us, can we develop that? Can he be also someone who can defend? And who knows? Maybe like even when you look back and you have a group of guys, it doesn't mean you look back and say, oh, we made all the right decisions. Maybe we could have turned Michael into some other version of cabarsie. I don't know. Maybe that was our fault. Right. But the redeeming factors with guys like Jay Carlos and Gooch was that when we played against Sloton, when we played against Luis Fabiano, when we played against Rooney, man, those guys were, they were excited. They were, they weren't afraid of playing against those guys. And so every coach and his staff have, you have those discussions. You have those discussions that I sort of half mentioned it earlier when you say, what's it going to be like when we play against that kind of team? And because we had played enough big teams with top attackers right or wrong, we felt that those guys were real defenders that we needed. Now that also meant that our pure ability at times to play from the back. And like I said, we found ways and it got better. But under pressure at times, the alarm bells for Gooch, Jay Carlos went off faster, meaning, you know what? I don't like this. I'm playing the ball forward. And in that moment when they would play it forward, we couldn't have a bunch of other guys looking at them waving their arms and saying, what are you doing? Right. We needed to have other guys that were already thinking they're playing the ball forward. And we're going to start to move up. And when that ball comes loose, we're going to try to be around and take the second ball. And then if we get the second ball, we can play in their end. So we had a very simple expression that we had to find the right balance, the right mix of passes. All right. And did you say did you say that explicitly to the team like, hey, Gooch, Carlos, they're not not that good at passing out of the back. You guys, we got to do this. Oh, we didn't say it that way. But we worked on on the fact that in certain moments, they had to be able to connect with midfielders. And we worked on on how our midfielders could position themselves and how we could create certain ways to play from the back. But we also realized that in certain moments, we were going to, like I said, mix up our passes. Yeah. And again, your ability as a team to be on the same page, your ability to mix up the way you play two of the teams in history that I love are AC Milan during their incredible period with Saki in Capello. And then of course, Barcelona, all right. And okay, Pat, but Barcelona period, right? Croix, coaching crystal and learning about Barcelona. And when you watch those two teams, you see very different ideas when they played in 1994 in Athens, the power and commitment of Milan was too much for Barcelona for zero. Now does that mean that that way is better to play? No, it was better that day. It was better for those guys, right? And even today, in Italy, there's talk of identity. Because some people will say, we tried to become too much Goriola. And we lost our defending. And so you've got to find some mix of all this. I don't think that national teams, everybody's different. But for me, I'm not sure you go into a national team and you have your very set system on how you play and think that's going to be the answer 100%. I think your ability to understand the group have a sense as to what kind of players, identity, mentalities. And then what kind of games are we going to play? And yeah, you still need to understand that the type of football that maybe works when you're playing against good teams might be different than on the days you play against excellent teams. Not because you changed your style, but because the game changes. Because spaces get smaller and when those clothes and it's faster. And so like I said, you're preparing for Spain. In this presentation, there's a point in the game, US Spain. It's around the 80th minute arc. And on the TV screen, it shows I think possession. 46, sorry. I think at that point it was 56 Spain, 44 US. It was reasonable. That's not crazy. And even with that, you don't win games just on possession. The point when that number came up on that day was that in some small way when we had the ball, we still weren't afraid to play. Now, you can still find plenty of moments when under pressure, good just hit a ball long, hit a couple out of bounds. And yet every time it happened, you could see the group get ready to defend the next action. Right? And so when you watch football around the world, not everybody plays the same. And I think that's part of the beauty of football. And so when you there are different kind of coaches, some are very set in systems and some are more that they have principles and ideas and then they try to adapt. And I think with national teams is probably more be the night. Okay. Let me ask you about this Slovenia game before we move on to, you know, move past this era a little bit. You're down to zero at the half. What did you say to the team? How did you or what did they say? How did that discussion play out? Like what's, how do you get everybody together to pull off a result in that game? A few things. First, Slovenia had a good team. They qualified in the playoffs beating Russia, good hitting coach Russia. Defensively they didn't give up much. And so we understood going into the game. Things would be tight. We had some good moments in the first half versus scores from outside the box, left footed shot, late in the half. We don't handle a situation well and now it's two zero. And based upon results of the first game, we know that we can't lose. If we lose, we're out. And we had had experience along the way with tough games, tough moments, tough discussions. So halftime was intense. Halftime was screaming and we're not going down. It was two changes. Benny came on. Robbie Finley went off. That was a move we made all the time. That pushed clean higher. A low came on for Jose Torres. Why? Jose started because in the tighter spaces that we expected. Jose sharpness, his ability with the ball in tighter spaces. And he had also developed a pretty good understanding with Michael. But when we need to push the game and the game is going to open up, we need to help us cover more spaces. And we knew in the second half, we needed to play forward. We needed to again, mix pests, be more vertical, run harder. And so the second half was great half. And it was a product of the mentality of the group. And then understanding that we've got to push this game, we're not going down. It was a willingness. We had an expression that when you need to push a game you play, that means you play on the edge. And that means that on the edge, yes, you take some chances. Guys run forward. When you run forward, it means one ball turn over, you've got to run harder back. But there's an understanding that at this point in the game, this is what it's going to take. We had played on the edge in that crazy last qualifier in DC against Costa Rica, where we also went down to zero and fought like crazy to win, sorry, to end up to two. So we knew what these games were like. And so half time, yes, yelling, challenging, making some changes. You were yelling for everybody was yelling. I was yelling, but there were plenty of others. It was as a group, like I said, we knew what we were all about. We had tough days. We had had many tough conversations. On the inside, people held each other accountable. So that was just the way we did it. And so yes, half time, number one word, intense. Okay. You talk a lot about leading discussion, leading discussions as a coach. And I wonder if you could just give us a little primer on your approach to doing that. How do you make sure that the discussions are actually good? So people are comfortable to speak. How do you do it? Leading discussions is a huge responsibility. It's also when you have the opportunity to lead discussions, it's special. And then you're understanding of how to engage people, challenge people, make sure that their opinions are valued that there's this mix between in some moments' confrontation, other moments' listening. Yeah, they come in different ways. Obviously, it's different if it's a staff, it's different if it's a team. A discussion, a one-on-one discussion is going to be different. But that pure ability when it's your turn to find the right way to message, challenge, connect. And to be clear, sometimes you do everything possible to connect with a guy. And at the end, you know it didn't work. And so it's not like you leave every discussion. Sometimes you have to circle back to make sure that you're on the same page. But these discussions, and especially when you talk about direction, direction of a team, I can remember pretty early in the process with the US team. At a point when things had gone our way, and you could see it coming together. And I said to the group that whenever we have a camp, the camaraderie is incredible. Like, I love it. I hope we never lose it. Like, you guys really enjoy seeing your friends. Example, Carl's book and Edgar and Steve each other were friends. And they played in different places at that point. And when they came into the national team, they ruined it together. And you always got a sense of how much all of these guys enjoyed coming into camps, seeing their buddies, catching up. And yeah, in the midst of all that, then how are we going to work? How are we going to get ready? How are we going to move things along? But when that was going on one day, I said, we can't lose this camaraderie, but we're never going to become a good team if you guys only tell each other what your friend wants to hear. Like, somewhere in there, you've got to have an ability to tell your friends something that, you know what? We need you to give us more. We need you to stop waving your arms. We need you to defend a little bit more, because we'll help you when we have the ball, but you got to help us defend. And you need players to be able to talk to each other that way. And so part of the way you lead is to challenge and encourage leadership. And you know, in this summer, I've ended up doing a bunch of different things. And that included occasionally speaking to a group or being part of a panel. And they asked me about leadership. And I think I say again, you need to be real. You need to understand when you stand in front of a group, what you look like, what you sound like. Do you tell the truth? Is it about the group? Is it, do you end up sounding like it's about you? Are you, are you showing them that you're as a group or fearless or does it come across like you're scared? And in the midst of all that, I always remind everybody at the end that leadership is not just the one who's standing in front of the room. Leadership is happening all around the room. And sometimes the guy in the back never says a word in front of everybody. His turn to lead is that when training is over, he says to the guy in the locker next to him, you are really good today. You made a difference, man. Can you do it again tomorrow? Or look at a guy and say, is everything all right? Looks like something's bothering you. And so the ability to lead where you maybe aren't the one in the front, but where you observe and where you care. Yes, that this is all about leadership. And so leading discussions, encouraging discussions, all important. And my last point is that I always use this expression about who's in the room and who's not. And that's just that at a higher level, making sure that the people who should be in there are in there and are heard. What that you don't waste time with people that have other agendas or don't get it. And those are hard decisions. When you're lucky, you have a good staff and it works. And again, in certain cases, you might have a good staff, but there might be guys that never say anything real in front of others. And then you have to circle back and find out if they have something real to say to you. So it's, you don't do it out of a book. You do it in real ways. You try to encourage, but somebody said to me, how do you know if it's a good discussion? And there's no one answer, but there's a feeling that at the end, people are excited. Next day, they feel like like that discussion pointed everybody in a good direction. People know their roles. People know that their work counts. So yeah, it's all of that. That leadership around the room dynamic is, I gather something you're really proud of about the Chicago Fire Team that won in 1998 in Alaska. I am curious how you, I mean, you had Risto on that team, Piotr, lots of like very mature adult soccer players. But how did you get them to be leaders and get them to help out the younger guys? Was it easy with those guys? Or maybe let me ask this. Did you try to do the same thing with later teams? And it didn't work quite as well? Yes, of course. Didn't didn't work as well in Toronto. I'll tell you that right now. But when all is said and done, to a man, everybody that was in and around Chicago in those early years, loved being part of the group, the work, the discussions, it was a mix of different personalities, players with huge experience. But those guys cared about the other guys. Young players that were determined to prove themselves that listened and took criticism because they believed that the other guys liked them and thought they could be good. And the pride that Peter Lubos, Tommy Sone, Frankie Klopos, Risto, older players took when younger players improved, got called into the national team, had chances to go and play in different leagues. Yeah, you felt all that. And that was built in. That was that was old school, I guess, but it was fantastic. And again, there are aspects of all of that that you carry along when you were part of it. Go to Egypt in completely different situations, but you still look to bring a group together and challenge and encourage in the whole bit. So there's not one script for this whole thing. And I do think it's a willingness to hold people accountable, to hold yourself accountable, to be real, to be honest, to, yes, be serious and have standards, but laugh. Again, there were some really funny moments. One story that's come up lately, Lubos Kubik. And Lubos came, special guy, incredible player, was part of our staff in 2010. He stayed in Europe and every time I went to Europe to scout, he would meet me somewhere and we'd go around to games. He was incredible. And he loves football, he loved to play. And he was, in his prime, a midfielder at the end of his career, he was a liberal defender. And he was skillful. And he used the love to try to nothing, not make people, called it a tunnel. And one day we're doing video and he had tried in the previous game to not make a guy in our own box and it didn't work. And I was angry. I stopped the video and I screamed. You know why you do this? You do this because you think all the players you're playing against in this league are no good. You can do anything you want and it'll work. And I'm screaming and he stops. No, no. And I said, what? And he goes, sometimes I just can't help myself. Everybody laughed. And so yeah, how do you just stop? Okay, but okay, but that story, that is really funny. But also there's so much that led up to that moment where he can hear you screaming at him in front of the team and be okay to interrupt you and kind of crack a joke. Like it wasn't men as a joke. Okay, that's the great part. That was his reason, right? Well, still he had to feel comfortable to both interrupt you and to speak his mind. I can imagine some players when their coach says something like that to them, they're so pissed off they just don't even want to say anything, you know, or yes, and you hope that you create a culture where people hold each other accountable, challenge each other, criticize laugh. And as I said, Chicago, that all worked. I think we built something that worked like that with the national team. I've seen it in different places. And I know in other places for different reasons when you try, you try, you encourage. When you message and try to connect, you don't do it the same way with every guy, simple. And sometimes it's a good question when you talk about how positive you are when you message. And an example that I use sometimes is if you say to a player, I think you can be really good. But the only way you're going to get there is if we work on this, it's not good enough. So is that message positive or negative? In my opinion, I think it's positive. I do too, but some players know. But that is a clear way for me over the years, where I have tried in situations to challenge guys, but to do it in a way where it was clear that I cared about them, that I wanted them to get better, and that they could do it. And I think there's nothing better as a player than a coach that sees your talent and is willing to challenge you to help you get there. Coaches that never, again, it goes back to what I said minutes ago about players saying something that a teammate doesn't want to hear. And you could argue that in today's world, where you put the bar with this stuff has changed. One of my old friends is Gina Oriama, who is the legendary women's basketball coach at UConn. Gina was an assistant at UVA when I was an assistant at UVA. And when we exchange messages and we talk about this kind of thing, the idea of, in basketball, they say hard coaching. That's the expression they use, that players need hard coaching. And we would agree now that part of the deal is that you have to be willing to coach your best players, and in return, the best players want to be coached. But we also agree that in today's age, that is also more challenging. And so Gina will say, sometimes with your best players, it's hard coaching, but it's fluffier than it used to be. And so that's part of your tone. That's part of your body language. That's part of understanding who you're talking to, or the ability, the fragility of a team. If you have a really fragile team, you manage a different body. But if you're so soft with them all the time, probably you're never going to become any good. So those are interesting aspects of what you think about, and then what you discuss with your staff, so that when the time comes for discussions, everybody's on the same page about how you're going to do it. So I wonder, I do want to come back to some coaching stuff, definitely, but let's talk about Egypt. And you coach that Egyptian national team during a time of massive change in that nation to put it mildly. And I just, for the listener who maybe hasn't looked into this a ton, let me just give a few bullet points, if you don't mind. You took the job in 2011, seven months after the protests into Rear Square, that toppled Hosni Mubarak who had been president for almost 30 years. So already we're talking seismic changes in Egypt. Five months later, in early 2012, we may have talked about this earlier or maybe off air, 72 Al Ali Ultras were clubbed, stabbed and trampled to death after a football match in Port Said, which is up on the coast, the Mediterranean coast. The details here are chilling. I mean, many people will know, obviously you know, but the interpretation of it all was profoundly political. Al Ali is the biggest club in Egypt by a long shot. Its Ultras were a major force in the revolution. The deaths at the stadium caused the Egyptian primarily to shut down for a full calendar year. Then in March 2013, the verdicts in the trial over these deaths came down and several police officials were acquitted. Al Ali supporters set fire to the Egyptian FAA headquarters and the place was destroyed, including lots of Egyptian football history. Then a few months later, when the military ousted Morsi, the Muslim Brotherhood president in the summer of 2013, the league shut down again. Midway through the already delayed season, your decisive home qualif, I mean, away home leg with Ghana was three months later, basically three and five months later, three and four months later. So you're coaching this national team through a World Cup qualifying cycle right in the middle of all of this. Why? So here's my first question. Why did you decide to live there? Why did you and your wife Lindsay decide to live there? Because the only chance to be successful, in my opinion, as a national team coach that comes from outside is to immerse yourself in the country and the culture. And I just felt strongly that the only chance to make this work was to live in Cairo, not in a gated community, not outside Egypt. So that every day, I could understand better the culture, the people, the pride, all of it. And the two years were incredible, amazing experiences. And what you experienced every day, with what you saw, what you read, what you heard, that all factored into how you worked with the team, how you tried to deal with officials in the federation. So yes, it all goes together. There were players on the national team who you coached, who were there at the Portside massacre. Is that right? Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Portside, Ollie had a bunch of guys that were still part of the national team. And what happened on the field, what happened in the changing room after the game, they saw the experience. And you knew what it meant to them, the feeling at the memorial, a couple of days later, eventually talking to some players when we did restart. There were a year after there was a memorial at Ollie Club that Lindsey and I went to. And the mothers and fathers of some of the kids that were in the stands that lost their lives, that showed us pictures of their babies, really. So that was a sad day. And even now, with some of the different friends that I stay in touch with in Egypt, when February 1st rolls around, I send a few messages out because that day will stick with me. So February 1st will just mean one thing for me forever. It's the day that that massacre took place in Portside. You said one thing, that's interesting. And you said that the Ollie supporters burned down the federation. And it plays to a really important aspect of everything that went on in and around Egypt, that everybody said that it was Ollie supporters, largely because it was a bunch of young people that were wearing red shirts. Ollie wears red. But when you spend time in Egypt, then you quickly start to think, was it really Ollie supporters? Interesting. Wugs that put on red shirts that showed up that day and did it. And if that happened, who paid them to go there? And who paid them? So when I talk about the forces beneath the surface, it's all of that. Yeah. Okay. I'm glad you made that clarification. Thank you. There are so many unanswered questions. And we'd gone for a week if we turned this into a completely political discussion on everything that we see around us in the US right now. But nonetheless, the idea of truth. And where do you get news? And what's a source? And what's not a source? This is a challenge. And the number of times that I'm in discussions and I'll say to somebody, where did you read that? Who wrote that? Who said that? Is that true? And so the experiences for two years in Egypt on that side of things were incredible and difficult and challenging. But in it all, it was still at times frustrating because I would say to some of my closest Egyptian friends, coaches, don't you think about this? Don't you ask yourself these questions? It's your country. And in some cases, they actually didn't think about it because that's not the way they had been taught to think. Are you mean specifically critical thinking about the way they're processing their information? Information? And what they observed? Okay. And what goes on around them? And when something happens, did they one of the most basic examples? True. A hundred percent true. Young media guy. Fantastic guy. Abdul-Rakman Magdi. And Abdul-Rakman early in my time drove me to do one of these shows. And when you did media shows in Egypt, they were on the outskirts of Cairo in a media center. And getting there was no fun and it was kind of out in the middle of nowhere. And as we're driving at night, because a lot of these shows were one o'clock, two o'clock in the morning shows. That's when people are up and are watching. And Abdul-Rakman and I are driving. And most of the cars don't have their lights on. And I say, Abdul-Rakman, how come everyone in Egypt drives at night without their lights? And he says, what do you mean? And I said, come on man, what I mean is there's a car. And it's coming on us. And it's night time and they don't have their lights on. Do you know why? And he hadn't thought about it. It was just something he was used to. Now, to this day, I don't know the answer to that question. I just remember that when I asked Abdul-Rakman, it was something he hadn't spent one second thinking about. Yeah. So what's this guy talking about? Yes. Interesting. Very. Does it... I mean, I know we don't need to go way, way deep into it, but I am curious what you think happened at Port Said. Because it's still very contested, right? There's no like the court proceedings didn't resolve it at all. Who went in there with swords to kill people? So the Ultras, both Ali Ultras and the Zomalic Ultras were a big part of fighting the police in Tyrier. They had experience from a little football matches of no one how to fight against the police, no one how to make sure protesters could protest weren't... weren't whisked the way or shot or whatever. And I think that when all was said and done, there were plenty of people that benefited from Mubarak. And when Mubarak was out, I think that many of those people, again, forces beneath the surface, were looking for ways to get back. And I think that that was a set up. And I think that there were people behind it. And when you referenced the court decisions, the reason that it resonated was simply because none of the officials were found guilty, right? The people that were found guilty were some of the younger thugs. And again, it was always a challenge. There was a time when news around the world was showing pictures of some violence in and around the US Embassy. And like the pictures made it seem like it was major event. And in reality, it might have been a hundred kids throwing rocks at the security forces and the security forces either firing back or tear gas or something, right? And I used to joke with my wife that in Egypt, you can get anything delivered at any time. So I want some sushi, then they'll deliver it. And I would say to Lindsay that when we would see the news clips outside the embassy, that that's the kid that delivered the sushi last week. And I would say he got paid more today to go throw rocks than he would have been paid to deliver sushi. So there is. And of course, that's not true, but that is all part of things. And so, yes, Egypt was complicated for many, many reasons. And so when you experience that, again, not everybody could provide insight in those discussions, but some could. And when you looked around and you observed, then it stays with you. And your ability moving forward in other situations, you said, well, critical thinking. But yeah, that becomes, that's a good asset to have. Your FIFA ranking at Egypt was, I believe, at the time of the, when they made the pots for the, which, which team you would play in the third round was four spots below Tunisia. And you, that that meant Tunisia was in pot one and you are in pot two. Therefore, you had to play Ghana. And that was always going to be a difficult challenge. But I am curious how much you think the shutting down of the domestic top flight for, you know, two separate times? How, how much effect that had on your ability to get that national team ready for that challenge? It was a factor for sure. The coach of Ali at that time was Manuel Jose Portuguese, experienced coach. Good man. I sat with him a couple of times. And in the end, many of the guys that we put on the field in Kamasi were players from Ali. And it was because at the time they were still getting games. And we felt that that was still an advantage. How, how are they still getting games? Because, because African competitions were still Champions League, that kind of thing. We're still going on. So, some of the, so Ali was still at times traveling, playing matches. And, and you felt like those players were in better position to get on a field in an important game. And when it had been different if the whole league was going on, the early days of seeing the league with fans was important because you got a real taste of what each club was all about. And you got a good picture of the pool of players. Afterwards, it changed. And camps were important. And whenever Ali or Zamala played in Africa, you always watched. And because, because you knew that, that you needed to really consider those players for the fact that they were active. Okay. All right. I've kept you for two hours. I should probably be a reasonable person and call this. But maybe, maybe we, you could come back in the future some day so I can ask you these other 370 questions I have ready. But Bob, thank you so much for this. What a treat. I appreciate it. You did your homework and I don't listen to all of the scuffed podcasts, but I've heard some and I appreciate that you guys care. And thank you. You speak about the game in real ways and I always enjoy spending time with people who care about the game. So thanks. Yes. Thank you again. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.