Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #409: Dave Sarachan joins the pod

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Dave Sarachan joins the pod to speak with Greg and Belz about the job of an interim manager, why he called up all those young players in 2017 and 2018, his first meeting with Weston McKennie, what went wrong in Couva, how national team camps work, the approach to dual nationals and younger players under Arena in the 2018 cycle, the indoor soccer league, how things went right at the 2002 World Cup, and lots of other stuff.Half the interview is available here in the public feed, the second half is already in the patron feed. Please join the Patreon. Link down below.----Scuffed is an ad-free podcast. Support that and get exclusive episodes once a week, plus access to the Discord and live call-in shows, by signing up for our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scuffed Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the SCuff podcast where we talk about U.S. soccer. Our guest today is a man who has won the MLS Supporters Shield and U.S. Open Cup as a manager. He won MLS coach of the year in 2003, served as an assistant coach to Bruce Arena at the 2002 World Cup and in the 2018 cycle, and won't several MLS titles as an assistant coach. His resume is extensive, so I won't get to all of it. But for our purposes, perhaps the most relevant thing is that he was the interim U.S. men's national team coach in 2017 and 2018 when scuffed was just getting started and he gave a huge share of the current national team their first senior cap welcome to scuffed dave sarikin thanks for being here appreciate it happy to be with you guys we're all watching an interim coach do his job right now

in bj callahan and the coach before him was an interim coach of course anthony hudson how is the job of an interim national team coach unique do you think and how is it different from that of a permanent coach. I'm using air quotes there. Yeah. Well, it's good to be on with you guys. Yeah, the interim tag is interesting. Maybe it's a little different for each person that's occupied that chair.

For me personally, obviously, the history is well noted that it followed a very difficult day in Coova against T&T. So the circumstances were quite different for me when I took over than maybe with Anthony and then with BJ. But on a general level, I'd say that for me personally, I can only speak to this, is that I jumped in head first. I didn't look at it as a stepping stone in any way. I didn't look at it like, boy, if I do well, I could be the head coach. you just get sort of immersed and started in the moment of where you're taking over. In my case, we had no qualifiers.

So all the games that I was planning for were quote unquote, I'll use air quotes too. We're friendlies. but in my case, it was starting a new cycle and introducing what I felt was new blood to the program, projecting out in four years what that might look like for these younger guys. So the interim tag for Anthony and for BJ, obviously you'd ask them that question, but for me, I didn't. I didn't dwell on that as much as the task at hand of what do I have in front of me now? What's it going to look like in a few months and maybe in a year with this program versus my job?

Well, was there, you know, I was going to save some of these questions for later, but it seems logical to ask them now. Was there a directive from somebody at U.S. soccer that said, hey, you got to bring in a lot of new blood? Or was it your initiative? or was it just the obvious thing to do? How did that all sort of come about? No, it's a good question.

Well, again, if you roll back the tape, now we suffer the defeat in Coova. We're on the charter back home. And Tom King says to Bruce, by the way, in a month, or maybe it was less, it was less in a month. We have a friendly against Portugal. And we got to start thinking about that. And Bruce turned to time and goes, are you crazy? I'm not going to be coaching. You know, in typical

Bruce fashion. Yeah. So then, so then, you know, I was asked to take the team against Portugal. Who asked you? Who asked you? That was sort of through Dan Flynn at the time. And

then Tom was sort of the he was, he, forget his exact title, Tom's been there for so long, but, but it sort of had to get approved at the next level with Dan, but it, it became very logical because we only had a couple weeks, you know, if Bruce isn't going to be on board, let's, you know, let's appoint have Dave and any of the assistants that will still do that. So it was basically our staff without Bruce that prepared for the Portugal game. Um, but to answer your question, So now, you know, we put together a roster for that. No one above me, there was no one really above us that was going to say, you know,

here's the direction we want to tank. And it was so devastating that we didn't advance that there were, I won't say everyone scattered, but it was like, you know, the Federation was in a tough place, you know. Yeah. Everybody was pissed. Everybody was disappointed. And there was still uncertainty was Seeniel, you know, because the presidency was coming up, the election. And there was just so much going on that the last thing anyone wanted to deal with was the senior men's national team. So I used my best judgment, along with my staff, to put together a roster that included some veterans and a lot of some of the, I wouldn't, I don't know when I say a lot, a good proportion of younger guys that I think would now be that next, part of that next cycle. Once Portugal was finished, then we had the January camp coming up. And now we looked at the fixtures that were set up for 2018.

And they asked me to take the January camp. And again, once it was established that I was going to do the January camp and then the friendly, was against, if I recall, Bosnia that year. That's right. It was all on me. You know, there wasn't anybody. There was no sporting director. There was no one above me saying, here's the direction we should take. Everybody was sort of often in their own world. So I took the ball in my own hands and had my staff and we just said, here's what makes sense. And here's the start of the next cycle. Here's some of the prospects we think down the line would be a part of it. And that was the genesis of it.

And as things progressed, you know, we got through January and then we had the friendlies that we knew were coming up each and every time. It was really just, I'm not going to take full credit, but it wasn't on anyone other than myself and our staff to use our experience and build, begin building for the next cycle. Coach, you called up so many players with very little experience during that year. So a little professional experience. I kind of am curious, how had you been able to scout these players or what was your sort of process to choose which are these players with very little sort of tape were going to be the ones who you're going to call in? That's a good question. And well, even if things went differently in Trinidad and we did qualify, we knew we were going to make some changes to the senior roster going into the World Cup eight months later. We knew that. We had our eyes on some guys, certainly the obvious ones beyond Christian, who was part of our roster then. But, you know, Tyler Adams and Weston. we're near the top of the list of guys that we felt could certainly be a part of things.

And we knew, you know, when you're in U.S. soccer, you're pretty aware of what's going on underneath the senior team. Is that right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say Bruce was on top of it because at the time, he's the senior men's coach. and he's dealing with the senior team solely. But with myself and guys like Richie Williams who coached a lot with the U-17s at the time. And I had John Hackworth, you know, we had a number of guys that had coached a number of these younger guys at the youth stages, whether it was you, the 16s or the 20s. So there was a pool of guys that I was familiar with on a certain level, along with guys on my staff that knew them intimately.

And then it was more of a full court press of trying to really now dig in and see where they're at, what their current form is, what's it going to project out positionally. So as an example, everyone wants a number nine, everyone wants to center forward. and now you got a guy like Josh Sargent who's proved himself at every single level. And why not invest and bring a kid like that in? Why not? I mean, and it sounds a little flippant for me to say I'm playing with house money, but my goal wasn't, I didn't have to win. Right.

I wanted to win. And by the way, I'm not downplaying winning because the state of U.S. soccer and the state of the fan base and we needed to start to think about getting some results down the line to bring ourselves back in people's minds. So, but getting back to the, so a kid like Josh Sargent, oh yeah, why not bring a kid like that in? Timi Wea certainly was starting to make himself known a little bit and he had certain qualities that I thought in, he wasn't ready right now but down the line. So it went on that way. So we did our research. We looked around in the pool of guys that we knew about. We followed them at their clubs and then had the opportunity

to start to include them in these rosters. When you say you were following them at their clubs, does it just mean sort of tracking them or are you in conversations with training staff at I think Tim Way I was at PSG at the time. Right. Are you in conversations with some of his staff, the staff over there to be like, hey, how's he looking? How's his fitness? Do you think he'd be ready? Yeah, there were some of that.

I can't say it was constant phone calls with clubs because not that it was tedious because that's your job. But it was more of having a sense of what their role was, what kind of form they're in, and certainly fitness for sure. I mean, if guys had issues, physical issues, we would absolutely make those calls with stabs to make sure that they, if we did call them in, they were prepared physically. There were occasions where I would speak to managers about the player himself. but, you know, it's different at club level, as you guys know. Club level, there are different situations for particular players where maybe they're not getting the playing time. A, because there's a guy ahead of them or B, maybe, you know, the coach doesn't have the confidence in them. And yet, when you bring them out of that environment into a national team, they can flourish,

a little bit. So you got to balance those conversations and use a lot of your own instincts, too. So it was a combination of all of that. But making sure that they were in good enough fitness and physical fitness and to bring them in was important. Coach, you mentioned that you would already been talking and in discussions before Coova about changes leading up to the World Cup sort of to the pool. I assume you're referring to like bringing new players in who had necessarily been a big part

or any part of the qualifying process. Was there ever any discussion into bringing those players in towards the end of qualifying? Or would that have just been a non-starter based on their experience level and sort of the cauldron of Congra-Caf qualifying? Yeah, no.

Well, let me clarify the beginning of your question. Sure. We didn't spend, our job was to qualify for the World Cup. We as a staff, Bruce starts with Bruce and then myself and our staff. We didn't spend hardly any time on talking about a Timi Wea or Josh Sargent. We had established already our group of players. We were way down the line in terms of the year and the qualifiers and what was on the table. So no, there wasn't a discussion of, geez, maybe we can bring in Tyler or Weston for these last two games to give them experience.

We had to qualify for a World Cup. But, yes, we would speak a little bit about if we get through the qualifiers. What kind of changes would we maybe look for? Yeah. Maybe not the most pleasant subject of conversation for you, but I am curious, like, what did you think needed to, what needed to be added to the player pool after, had you qualified after the qualification process? Like, what was the, what was the problem that needed a solution? Well, it wasn't so much a problem. I guess where I'll start with that, with that answer is if you go back several cycles,

And, you know, I was part of the 2002 World Cup, and then there was 06 and 10 and 14. So you got some cycles. And all those cycles, by the end of those cycles, there were players that were aging out, and then there were players that were now in their prime, and then there were players young and upcoming. That's kind of how, like, the template looks in my mind of a program. You got the aged out guys, okay, they're done. The next guys sort of move up into that category and so on. And I think we as a national team did a pretty good job of transitioning that all throughout most of the cycles.

When we got into 2016, let me make sure I get my times right, 2010 and 2014, there was a little bit of a break in that transitioning. process, if you follow what I'm saying. I don't think we brought along enough guys that could now transition into being more of a veteran guy and now the younger guys moving in. And so the group we ended up with in the 2017 cycle, toward the end, there were a number that were aging out. And there was, in my mind, there was a big gap between those guys and the Christians. And we didn't have enough in the middle part of that bell curve. And so I think that was a, that, that, when you asked me about that group going, if we had qualified, there would have been several guys that just had sort of aged out. And we would have had to introduce some of these

younger guys. And I think we would have had some time over the, the months leading up to the 2018 World Cup to bring in a Tyler, bring in a Weston, maybe have a look at, uh, maybe have a look at, I mean, I could name a few guys. I don't know if Timmy would have been ready, but there were a number of those kind of guys that we think probably would have been good. Because back in 2002, the template was we had Demarcus, we had Landon, we had a few guys on the young end that really contributed. And we had a good middle base and we had good veteran base.

And we kind of thought about that for the 2018. So that's a long-winded answer. But that's kind of the thought process. It's a great answer. Let me just list off some of the players that you gave the first cap to, just for anybody who's not, you know, tracking this that closely. Weston, Tyler, Tim, Tim Wea. Anthony Robinson got his first cap from you. Cameron Carter Vickers got his first cap from you. Sergeant, of course. Luca Deletore got his first cap under Dave Serrican. Shaq Moore. Those were all players on the 2022 World Cup roster. and then some others who didn't make the roster but were at least exciting at the time. Reggie Cannon,

Zach Stephan, Kenny Saif, that's one of Greg's favorite players of all time. I love watching him, smooth left foot. Johnny Aman, who has had some real struggles with injury, but boy,

he was really good in that game against Peru, I thought. And then Andrea Novakovich, too. I'm sure I'm missing some, but it's quite a list. It's pretty good list. Yeah, it's a pretty good list. Coach, did you ever encounter any resistance as their interim process was going on to the number of youth players that you were calling up?

Were they ever just like, hey, somebody sees Matthew L. Sunday's name on the list and says, maybe we're going too far here. Do we need to get more experience back on these rosters? As I said earlier, up until the hiring of Ernie, Stewart, we were handed the keys and there was. was no interference, which honestly was kind of cool. It was great for me. It's always nice to have someone either equal or above you going, hey, wait a minute. Let's think about this or that. And I kind of had a good staff that we would, you know, be each other's foil and talk through things. But no, there wasn't ever a call that said, there are too many young guys. We need to a 28 or 9-year-old. But I always, I always believed in all the teams I've ever had and the

successful teams that I've had, we've had this sort of blend of great veteran leadership, good, solid guys, and some young guys that need mentoring and guidance. And I always believed down the road that still Timmy Ream and Michael Bradley would be guys that I would, I would, I would want to bring in not because I thought that they would be key players in the next cycle, but guys that could take some of these young guys by the by the scruff of the neck and talk through, what's it really mean to represent your country, to wear U.S. jersey, to play at this level. I don't think we have enough of those kind of mentors. veteran leadership is massive.

And so it was a tricky time because, like I said, I had to project out what's this roster going to look like in Qatar. Let's give these guys as many minutes in games as possible. It wouldn't have done us any good to bring in and take a look at Michael or Josie or, you know, these guys because we knew them as players. And whoever the next coach would be, if it was me or anybody else, okay. and now you start to think about including some veteran guys. But during my cycle, no, not real. I was going to ask you a bunch of questions about, you know, what you would say to BJ or Anthony,

what advice you would have for them. It does sound like the situation was kind of different. I still do want to ask, like, if you were to ask you, what advice would you have for BJ? It's interesting question. It's a good question, Adam, because I don't think I'm discreet. anything that shouldn't be known. But when Anthony Hudson was named interim coach, I got a call from Michael Cameron, who's the press secretary for a press officer for U.S. soccer, said,

would you mind if I give Anthony your number he wanted to have a conversation with you? I said, no, go for it. And I didn't really know Anthony. And he called me, kind of like the next day, Anthony, to introduce himself and we talked. And he just kind of wanted to get a sense of my experience in that role. And he's a good guy and he asks good questions. And so to answer that question about what advice I would give, he, you know, he was a little nervous. And it's a big job. It's a big responsibility.

And my first reaction was, um, Don't overthink it. And, you know, it sounds cliche, and you can read it in every psychological book. But you got to be yourself. You got to have kind of your own voice. And don't try to project out. Just, you know, enjoy the moment. Be yourself.

communicate with the players, each and every player. That communication is key. And so you can, you know, you can get in front of the group, but use the time to take a guy aside, have a quick conversation because you have to build trust in some ways. They knew Anthony, and BJ the same way. A lot of these players had, he was on staff. But you kind of, BJ shouldn't be Greg Burr. Halter and Anthony, you know, shouldn't be Greg and I shouldn't be Bruce. You've got to be

yourself. And it's still under the sort of umbrella of here's our mission, here's what it means to wear the jersey, but just find your own voice. But make sure the communication is clear and you get to everybody because that's how you begin to build relationships and trust. So with BJ currently, look, he's doing great. You know, he's. He seems to be his own guy. He seems to be handling the media fine, and they're getting results. And so I don't think he needs any advice from me. That's for sure.

So we have a reserve team at the Gold Cup right now. They face Canada on Sunday night. This has become fairly common practice for the national team, leaving the first choice squad out of the Gold Cup. What do you think of that? Should we be sending, you know, it's a confederation trophy? Should we be sending our first choice squad to every gold cup? And why and why not?

Yeah, no, I think, again, when you're playing for a trophy, you want to win. A winning is important for a million reasons. And if you have an opportunity to play your best players, of course, that's everybody's choice to want to do that. I think given the climate and the environment that all these players are in now in 2020, what are you, 20, 23 versus 10 years ago or whatever, they're playing a lot. There's just so much on the table in terms of scheduling and games and matches, that there aren't that many opportunities given where you can utilize maybe not your primary roster, but the secondary guys and begin to look at sort of similar to my experience in the year I had

the team where you got some interesting young guys that have to be battle tested. You have to get in an environment where games matter. And I think given that backdrop, I don't have a problem with the philosophy of utilizing these kinds of players for a competition like the Gold Cup. I think it's asking a lot for Christian and all the guys I could name, who are what we would all call first team guys, to have another month before their next precinct. It never ends. And so the combination of that and now the ability to still use guys that can compete and win,

I don't have a problem with it. Coach, you were on the national team staff through other cycles, O2, with Coach Arena. Were there similar compromises? I'm going to call them compromises. You'd have to make with players and their clubs and leave them out of competitions, even like important ones, World Cup qualifying? or was it for certain ones, was it like, no matter what, they'll be here. For other ones, there can be some give and take.

Yeah, I, you know, my head isn't in that space now. I'd have to really think back. But as a general answer, I would say, you know, there was always, you know, part of it, part of it being a national team coach and staff is beyond your own group of players, you have to establish a real good line of communication with the players that are based out of the country, but also their clubs and their staffs and have an honest back and forth. So there were many times, many times throughout my experiences where it wasn't a FIFA date and we really wanted the player and the club said, you know, he's just getting back. in form and he's part of our, we have big games coming up. We really would prefer him to stick around. And as a manager, as a coach for the national team, you have to sort of choose your fights

and choose your battles wisely and go, you know, I respect that. Because if you, if you respect that decision by, let's say, no, I don't remember this happening, but I'll say John Brooks at the time. John was an important player in Germany for the club he was with, and we wanted him for a certain game. And, you know, we got that kind of reaction. And we said, you know what, keep John. That's fine, you know, because we know the next time we really would need him, that club would likely go, yeah, you know, you did us one. We're going to do you one. So there were many of those kinds of conversations.

I think for obviously World Cup qualifying, that's a no-brainer, unless a player was really coming off. injury and the club was adamant about that, we pretty much got what we needed. But there was a give and take all the time. And that happens all the time. Will you share an overview of pre-tournament camp for a national team? What are the key events? And could you maybe describe what a training session is like in that setting and how it compares to a training session at the club level? So just so I'm clear, you're talking about a training camp leading up to what? Like a friendly or a quality? Yeah, maybe a couple of like a couple.

Well, Greg, correct me if I'm wrong, but maybe a couple of friendlies, like a two friendly window, just a typical two friendly window. Let's go right into World Cup qualifying window. Let's say you've got a window you're going to play some World Cup qualifiers in 06 or in 2017. Like what does that window look like? How meticulously planned is it? Like all that sort of level of detail for what the coaching staff would be doing? Yeah. Well, generally speaking, outside of a January camp where you have, you know, four weeks in Manhattan Beach with a group of 26 guys.

You know, generally. We'll come back to that. Yeah, we'll come back to that. That one I could talk for hours on. you don't have much time at all. You really don't. You don't have much time because, as you guys know and your listeners know, players, you know, are with their clubs. And now you've got, going back to your question, a two-match, we'll say friendly to start.

Or you only have, I forget what FIFA allows, but generally the, if you have a Tuesday, if you have a Tuesday, Saturday game, you might get the players in on the previous Thursday or Wednesday night. You'll have Thursday. You'll have like three or four days of training and then you've got your match. And then you've got a few days of recovery training and then the next match. And so you asked about planning. You plan accordingly for the amount of days you have. We call match day minus. So let's say we have four days. Match day minus four would be a players would get off the plane on a Wednesday.

They'd go to have a meal and get to bed on Wednesday night. Thursday would be a light session because they've got to get the travel out of them. Like we have an afternoon, you know, maybe maybe a morning, easy session afternoon. We would maybe do something. But basically never two days on the field. I know Bruce hated it. I don't like it. It's too much. But we would certainly meet. And then the next day would be ramped up physically because now they got their legs. And now you're matched A minus two. And then match day minus one is very light. So yes, there's a very common sort of approach to mapping out each day with ideas. And then nowadays with data and analytics and performance coaches, you have a real, real feel for what kind of form the players in, how much you could push each guy, how much maybe in a session you can ramp it up. I'm an older coach and I'm a little old school, but I'm totally on board with believing in what data tells you.

and what my eye tells me. But not, I don't want to shift gears. Everything is planned out to a degree. But it's the Mike Tyson that's planned until you get punch in the face. You know, I'll plan for 18 players and I'll get up, have breakfast and my trainer will come in and go, two of the players are sick today. So now you've got to, you know, provide for a 16 field player session. But that's what coaches get paid for.

That's not a problem. So everything's mapped out. you have an idea what your lineup will look like on Tuesday and you'll have an idea on Saturday the changes you might want to make to see different guys. Now, these are friendlies, of course, we're talking. And I don't think much changes in World Cup qualifying except the attention to detail, knowing your opponent. There's a lot that goes into that. So it's a lot of work. And, you know, I'll never complain because it's what I love to do. But, you know, it's, it's, you know, there's 15-hour days.

I mean, you're in it. People on the outside, they just see the product on the field. Hopefully it reflects the work that you do behind the scenes. But there's a lot that goes into it. You know, you talk about having an idea of what the lineup's going to be. And I assume even as you're building the roster, you're thinking, okay, we're probably going to come out like this in the first game. I mean, I guess, I assume, do you have that sense of like this will probably be the

lineup that we're working to put on the field for the first match? you mean when we have a plan match and yeah and preparing for it yeah as you're as you're building the roster because there's always sort of this i don't want to call it a romantic idea but this idea that everyone's going to get into camp and compete and i'm sure that that happens is there some level though where the coaching staff is like well this is this is what we're doing and then we're going to we're going to prepare as hard as we can but we already know roughly what the 11's going to look like and who's going to be the focus group in each session yeah yeah i think i think that's built time. You know, all these five, six-day windows are, they're accumulated over time so that,

you know, even in my tenure, the year I had the team in 18, from my first game in January through, you know, those stretch of games in June when we were in Europe, you know, every camp prior to that, you have sort of that nucleus of guys and then you have maybe an introduction of some new guys. And sure, as a staff in my mind, I kind of had a sense of, all right, when we play Bolivia in March, here are the players, here's what my projected 11 would look like. Because it's not like you have them for two weeks where they can compete and train and battle and, you know, at the club level, my greatest memories of all the clubs I've been at it has been the training.

You know, at DC United, there was a fight every week, fist bite every week. and we never lost. I mean, we were so good. And with the Galaxy, there were, I mean, it was real competing. With the national team, you can't quite do that given what, you know, the time allotted. So, yeah, as a manager, you have a sense of what your first 11 would look like and a sense of, if we get through the game on Tuesday, here's who I think wouldn't be able to do 90 in the next game. Here are the guys I think could.

And yeah, so I'd be lying if I said, no, we didn't have a sense of that. I think most managers do. To kind of build off that. So if you have the sense of who your focus group is how I'm going to refer to it is, as you're kind of building the remaining roster out, are there some times when soccer ability might be superseded a little bit by personality dynamics for the camp itself to know that you're going to bring all these players in? And you need certain players to mesh well with other players?

100%. 100%. I think you touched on something that is maybe overlooked a little bit by the public or not understood by people that aren't experienced with teams, being a part of a group, being part of a team, in leadership of a team and putting together teams as a manager, again, I refer to that bell curve. You need guys at the top end who can be game changers, no question about it. So that's a no-brainer. That's pretty within the pool that you're fishing from and you know that that's the easy one. And then you need the guys that you can trust that are solid, that you know of the pool are pretty much the best in those positions.

But then you got to round out your roster. And I'll speak for myself. You know, you have to factor in what would this guy be like in the locker room every day? What's this guy going to be like if he's not playing? What's he going to be like when things aren't going so good? What's he going to add to the group if he's not in the 11? Because you learn quickly as a manager. When you put your starting lineup out there, you got 11 guys that love you,

and you got 20 that want you fired, right? But that's a reality of group and team dynamics. So when we put our rosters together, I can speak specifically for 2002, which is arguably, you know, the most successful World Cup team we've had. Not arguably. I mean, you're right. Data would align with that. That is true.

I shouldn't downplay that. It was the best. You're right, Adam. but that roster was rounded out with guys. Look, Frankie Haydick is a great example. Frankie Haydick, for those that remember Frankie was a good soccer player, good soccer player. Played in Europe, played in the league. Was he the best right back in our pool?

Or was he? Yeah, I mean, right. That's a different topic. Right backs and left backs in the national team you could debate. But there was no question Frankie was going to. going to be a part of that roster because he brought so much to this group on the field a lot but off the field. And so that's just one example of so many that I think have to factor in when you're building a team. And so that's a big part of roster building, no question about it. And you don't

throw them a bone just because they're good guys. You throw them a bone because they're capable, but they know, they'll know their role. And that's a, that's really important for a leader and manager to make clear when you're adding guys to the rosters, look, you know, your role is going to be this. And we're going to look for you to do that. And it might mean you're not participating in a 90-minute match for Tuesday, but you've got to be ready. And so you've got to build trust with that, but be honest.

And that's a big part of building teams, no question. This is not a question I was planning on asking. And you may not want to answer it, but I'm going to ask anyway. what you just said made me think of Burrhalter's message to Gio Raina at the beginning of the World Cup, which was we still haven't heard. Nobody but God knows the exact truth of what was said there. But what was reported is that Raina was told that he would have a limited role at the World Cup. And I'm sure you've heard that story.

Do you think that's, is that the right way to handle it if you think a player's not going to have a significant role or does the question make sense? Yeah, no, the question makes sense. You know, each and every situation is different. Each and every head coach has a certain way they communicate and how their words are taken. So I won't speak specifically to the geo. Greg, because you're right. I don't know what exactly was said and so forth, but what I would say generally, as I alluded to in the previous question, you know, I've made a lot of mistakes as a coach in my career.

And I've made some good choices too, and you accumulate those experiences. One thing I will come away with is communication, the ability to look someone in the eye and have a real. honest conversation is not a science, it's an art. There's a way, first of all, it's clear, it's very important that that happens, that the coach and player are aligned with the expectations. And not every head coach is good at that. They're really not. And that's where you need a good staff. You need people that, you know, can make up a little bit of the gap with communication. But for me, that is so essential, that the player has an expectation from the manager of what his role and job is, will be, and what it might look like in competition. And so that, So that's clear.

And, you know, players don't like to hear the truth, but they want the truth. They don't want the business. They really don't. I've learned that. You know, when I first was the head coach in Chicago, after my stint with the national team in the 02, I took the fire job. And that was my first head coaching job in Major League Soccer. I had, you know, there was a learning curve for me.

And one of the things I took away from that was players want a manager. First of all, they trust that they can learn from, but that's clear and direct and honest and truthful. And they don't want BS. And I learned a lot because I wanted guys to like me right away. No, that's not your job. And so I think going back to your question, if the manager is honest and direct, if the delivery of that is in a way where the player respects it, they got to live with that. And look, I will say this, too, in my experiences through all the teams I've coached,

I've left players off the roster that were pretty good players because I didn't think they would be a good fit with the group. And, you know, that's a hard conversation, but that's how you got to be. got to manage. Okay. Does that answer? That does. That's a very good answer.

Let's take a little break and come back in a minute for patrons. We're going to talk about how national team camps work in some detail, hopefully, a lot about the 2002 World Cup, including Rainette Wingback and Bruce's utter confidence that we would beat Portugal and advance from the group. What went wrong in 2017 and at Kuva and Weston McKinney's personality, among other things? If you would like to join the Patreon and listen to the rest of this episode and the Monday reviews, join us at the link in the show notes. If this is it for you, thanks for listening.

We'll see you.