BSI Podcast Mega Thread

I will take a listen. Anybody talking soccer with the right perspective on Klinsmann will get a chance from me.

 

theres nothing cheap about bennys shots at klinsmann.

we should have had a full decade of bradley, jones, benny and kljestan (not to even mention holdens knees)- a central mid pool as good if not better than mexicos at the very, very least. and "as good" is being polite.

as great as bradley and jones were (at times) for us we were never able to build through the middle (much less actually have attacking cm).

fact: us soccer would have been far better off if klinsmanns ego could handle personalities, if he could man manage at ALL. thats low key his biggest negative attribute.

 

The Edu interview was the first one of these I've heard, and it was fairly entertaining.

Benny's bitterness and take no prisoners attitude makes for an entertaining podcast, even though it also maybe sheds some light on his otherwise puzzling omissions and lack of playing time at the club and national team level. Probably the best example is his breakdown of the 2008 Olympic team where he trashes the coach, lists off all the players in the lineup that should have been replaced, and slightly mocks Brian McBride's lack of technical ability relative to the rest of that team before walking it back slightly and giving McBride his due (partially at the urging of the other amused but uncomfortable podcast participants).

Most relevant takeaways for the national team for me is first that Edu believes very strongly in Adams as a future captain and leader of this group. And second, Feilhaber and Edu seemed to really value a large veteran presence on the national team, and worry about whether a group of youngsters can pick up the slack, no matter how talented they may be. (Slightly ironic given that Olympic segment, but whatever.)

 

Edu: This group of players it's a unique situation...I know when I first stepped into the national team it was different. There was legitimately and realistically nine to 10 spots already inked in and there were seven or six guys coming into camp and you're hoping to maybe take that last starting spot or you’re hoping to just come off the bench.

Whereas now you've graduated how many young players straight to the first team and the expectation is you're going to have to come in and be impactful straight from the get-go and to assume leadership roles straight from the beginning. Which is a daunting challenge because these are kids, they're all young players.

And I'd say the contrast is that I came into the national team, and there were guys like...Bocanegra, Gooch, Beas, Landon, Clint, Tim Howard. We came into the national team in small bundles, like guys graduated from the Olympic team in small bundles, one-two-three-four guys at a time, and you learned straight from the get-go this is what the national team means, this is what it means to train every single day, you were held accountable. They showed us the ropes. They basically trained us and groomed us to be national team players. It didn’t just happen overnight. It took a few camps before they really got you in line. Straight from game one you felt like "wow this is the national team, this is an honor, this is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly or taken for granted.”

I don't want to say these guys...take it for granted, or that they don't appreciate the call-ups, because I'm sure they do. But I just think it's a unique situation because if you would have taken our Olympic team and put them all to the full team, I think it would have been a lot different for sure. Because within our Olympic team we all had our own little pecking order, we knew where we stood, there was no one to check us. We checked ourselves, but there's no veteran players now saying "Hey, cool you were the Olympic team, but this is the new standard." So we would have all just graduated at one time like..."we know who we are, we know what our identity is."

. . .

Feilhaber: That's well said. I can vouch for that same feeling you talked about going into the national team of having guys above you that in a certain sense you owe them respect and they don't owe you anything yet. And you gotta earn that. And the other thing I'll add to that is when you have those older guys that have played there for numerous games, when you're thrown in there, so let's say I'm thrown in there for my first game, but I'm surrounded by ten other guys that have been there before, it's easier for me to perform. Whereas if you put me, you, Michael, Sacha, and everybody else in the same age group into a game, and nobody's played at that level before, it's a completely different experience. I'm not going to play as well as with ten other guys who have done that before. Same with you and same with most every other guy....For as much talent as we have in the Pulisics, and the McKennies, and the Tyler Adams, and I could go on and on, those guys haven't played with the older guys. They've had to be the leaders from the get-go. So it is a completely different ball game.

 

It was striking how they gushed about Adams. All had played against him and they see him as captain material.

The other guys are more diplomatic and gave McBride the credit they agreed that Jozy should have been starting and that Nowak wasn't a great coach.

 

Since I have a lot of free time indoors these days, I'm going back through the archives and listening to some older episodes from last year.

The Stu Holden interview has some good discussion about distinguishing features of European soccer that I thought I'd jot down.

Feilhaber says he's never been anywhere where players cared less about their own teammates in practice while trying to win a spot in the starting XI than when he was in Germany playing for Hamburg. There was no mutual respect in training, it was all about trying to get on the field. Zizzo later adds that he believes that's one of the reasons he never succeeded over there, as he was too nice and gave everyone too much respect.

Holden says that he felt some of that in England as well. And that one of the biggest differences between his time at Houston and Bolton was the nastiness and cut-throat intensity in training, where everyone was fighting for their job on the daily, and there was the constant feeling that somebody would be willing to jump you to take your spot in the lineup. He agrees that Americans need more of that attitude.

Not coincidentally, Holden mentions that there are 4 or 5 guys from Houston that are still some of his best friends in his life, whereas he only speaks to a couple players in England still, and they're more acquaintances than friends. Holden (and Benny) also thinks that's a much bigger distinguishing feature between Europe and America than the amount of attention or criticism players receive from the outside, which really isn't a big deal. He also thinks that the one thing that will change that level of intensity here, and which already is starting to change, is the amount of money in the league, as that should raise the stakes for everyone.

Although Holden's more diplomatic about this, neither Feilhaber nor Holden seem to have a high opinion of the tactics or training they received at the Premier League clubs they played at. Holden says when he was at Bolton, the coaching instruction he received was more motivational "rah rah" stuff, with very little tactics discussed outside of set-pieces. And that when he would go from that to national team practices, he felt he learned so much more in 10 days as a player from Bob Bradley than anything he was getting at Bolton.

Feilhaber is much harsher later on in the interview about his time at Derby County. He starts off by saying that the captain of the team, Robbie Savage, was the worst player he's ever trained with in his life, and that he really wishes somebody had filmed their trainings for everyone to witness because it would have been hilarious. "That team...The things we trained that year....Unbelievable. I remember me and Emmanuel Villa...we were trying to figure out what sport we were playing in practice. Because we didn't know what it was."

 

I guess he never got the memos about the dangers of heat exhaustion. Further, what a dick.

 

I love straight talkers like Benny. Sounds like a lot of people didnt like the way that he told it how it was, but he told it how it was nonetheless.

Alan Gordon: I should have never played for the national team, my knees were super shot. Literally wasted off his butt when he got called.

LOL. Oh man, my appreciation for Alan Gordon has just skyrocketted. He just explained the sheer lunacy of the Klinsmann regime with brilliance. And he was one of Klinsy's boys!

 

Ive listened a few of these now, it really peels back the curtain on "misfits" like benny, ike, sal, mike grella was freakin hilarious, so was Gordon, but even Donovan's. It was all interesting insight.

 

Also maybe a currently relevant USMNT tidbit from the Gordon interview:

Gordon is asked to name his worst, or most annoying, teammate ever. His response: Gregg Berhalter. Gordon found it baffling that Berhalter was playing so dirty in training, constantly taking cheap shots off the ball when marking him, and just taking everything so seriously. (He adds that he would later come to like him, but he hated him their first season together.)

Benny's not surprised since Gregg had spent so long in Germany, and everyone in Germany is like that in training. Benny then repeats his belief that, in training, Bundesliga players care more about winning a spot in the XI than they do about helping their team or winning. Nigel de Jong (who has come up in nearly every episode I've listened to) was the ultimate example of this when Benny was at Hamburg.

Gordon thinks that makes sense, and he must not have realized that at the time because Berhalter may have been the first long-time German player he ever trained with.

 

yup, hes been the most real out of all of them, him and Grella really told it how it was. Especially the challenges going overseas for young American players. Fair or not, you are not only on the back peg, you are on the bottom of the pile, regardless.

Also, re-enforcing, Gordon freely joking, while he was piss drunk, about his call up and how he had no business on the national team. He thought that he was getting called up was just as funny as the rest of us, and I hilariously respect that. And Donovan, apparently, did not measure up to that mental toughness or attitude? Really? Just re-enforces the entire Klinsmann era made absolutely no sense. Benny verbally dancing around in glee that whole episode was just as funny.

They gotta get Clint Dempsey on here next. HAVE to.

 

and finally, the third observation of interest to me that I think is extremely underrated from an MLS standpoint, how ALL these guys not only hate, but entirely LOATHE playing in Houston and Dallas because of that heat and humidity combination. I think we cannot underestimate that as a significant reason for the woeful attendance numbers of both cities........and naturally act with concern when looking at Austin being another Texas market with that horrible combination of heat and humidity. I mean, ive been to multiple longhorn games, at the upper deck, and frankly, thats the best spot to be. There are at least breezes up there. It is a sweltering furnace in that lower bowl, absolutely miserable. But, if they come out for football, maybe they can get that passion fo rsoccer.

 

Yep, enjoyed this too.

My whole career in England was like I'd go into training, and obviously I could play, and I was talented, and they'd love me. And everyone had the balls to play in training. And then as soon as the game started, they would just play the ball down the channel, and it would be everyone kicking each other, everyone was scared to play. So then I was useless, because I didn't even know where to run, people were just smashing each other, and I was playing on mud fields, and I didn't know what to do. So they'd bench me, and I'd tell the coach "Nah, I think you did a good job, I don't belong with you."

Grella also mentions that everyone in England could hit an accurate long ball and trap the ball, etc., but they were entirely clueless about how to create attacking opportunities outside of the most basic route one approach. Feilhaber, however, isn't even willing to grant that the players at Derby could pass or trap the ball at a basic level.

 

Surely Miami, Orlando and a few others are just as bad. I actually think it hurts Dallas in the post season as they have to be built to get points in the extreme heat but are built for when it cools down and the playoffs are there. I'll guess that if MLS had a Euro type season the MLS Cup winners would be very different.

 

I can’t imagine Orlando being too incredibly enjoyable for a soccer player going 90.

 

He had an interesting comment about Arena too, saying that he had his favorites who could do no wrong, and guys he disliked who could do no right.