Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #485: John O'Brien joins the pod

Episode Date: April 18, 2024

The former Ajax and USMNT midfielder, a key player in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal run, joins Belz for a conversation that touches on, among other things, how the Dutch trained total football in the late 1990s, playing for Bruce Arena, the goal v Portugal, some of the innovative stuff John is working on in his psychology practice in Colorado, and the extent to which club academies have a responsibility to develop not just soccer players but whole people and functioning adults.———Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon! Patrons get a private feed for the Monday Review, which is, among other things, a run-down of club action for national team players every week with Watke and Vince. We have recently added patron-only content that’s available every Friday. Patrons also 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/scuffedOTHER LINKSScuffed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAoundrEkZUgZ13IE5XIqrgWe’ve streamlined and revamped the merch we’re selling. Check it out: https://www.scuffedhq.com/storeScuffed on Discord: https://discord.gg/X6tfzkM8XU 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 former IACS and U.S. men's national team midfielder, a key part of the team that went the farthest in the World Cup in our program's history. That 2002 team is now a psychologist who works with athletes and other people in the Boulder, Colorado area. John O'Brien, welcome to scuffed. Thank you. Good to be here. How you doing, Adam? I'm doing pretty well. I'm really excited about it. this.

Thanks for coming on. Do you still play soccer? I coach my son's team, and so I'll kick the ball occasionally. A little demonstration here, there, but I don't play competitively. My body just stopped liking it. So no Sunday league. Yeah, no Sunday league for me. I wish, you know, I still love, you know, the freedom and soccer and the movement and the

skills and all that. but something just been smarter for me to let go. Yeah. Okay. So let's go back a little bit. You went to IACs when there was basically no pathway from the U.S. to a major European club. And I'm sure you've been asked about this a lot and you've talked about it a lot. But like, what was the key, aside from your ability as a player, what was the key to that all happening?

it was it just didn't happen back then right it did but it was connections you know someone had to know someone who knew someone who got it like a trial with like you said there wasn't as obvious of past through agents or people look in this direction um so i had some coaches who knew some people in holland one had played like third division in holland and made a connection there and so i got to go over and train and he worked that connection and like so yeah It was all kind of that kind of business back then. Yeah, and they got me. My coaches got me in a good place, and I think I did the rest with the tryouts and

stuff and earned it, but it was definitely through their work and their connections that I had that opportunity. Okay. Stigging with soccer a little bit, you know, having spent some time in the Netherlands, this is a question from a listener, Bob Morocco, a big part of the total football philosophy. seems to be having players, you know, fluidly interchange positions, sort of reminded of that with what you said about loving the movement in soccer. How did they, you know, how did they train that? And in the Netherlands back in the late 90s, early 2000s, and, well, yeah, let's start with that.

Yeah, I was really shocked, surprised when I got over there about how little fluidity there was in terms of your role. It was like, you had a job on the field. A lot of times. I was playing left midfield to start. I had a guy had to track. You know, there was receive the ball one place, kind of go to another place. There was no, you know, in California, I was kind of midfielder number 10 kind of doing whatever. Yeah. That was not the case there.

Everyone had a strict role. So I think like in that aspect, like, okay, now I'm playing left midfield. Okay, switch me to right fullback. Okay. I know what that role is. You know, so you're always kind of like thinking, okay, now I'm in the right four. forward position. How does the right forward play? So people think of total soccer as like fluid and free, but there's so much structure,

I think, that needs to kind of be there in order to allow that to happen. So there's interchange, but it's like pretty narrowly prescribed by the coach. Like you can do this kind of interchange, but just that. Is that, is that? Because I mean, the idea of the Croifian idea of total football, you have this idea that, you know, you could be a fullback one moment, but then you're the striker and, you know, clarify that for us, if you would. Yeah, but in everybody's mind, and I'll throw the training, you know what the roles of a striker are and what the roles of a fullback are.

So if you're going from fullback and all of a sudden you're in the striker position, you know how to move while you're in that striker position, what you do. Oh, okay. I think actually a lot of this came up when, like, was it World Cup 2010? Holland and Spain, because Spain had adopted, I feel like even more fluid total soccer with their midfield.

And with Holland, you could see that there's interchangeability, there's a lot of passing, but it's a little bit firmer in terms of, like, movement and what people are instructed to do. Yeah, so it's evolved, but, yeah, there's a lot of structure there. I was super surprised by that.

Interesting, yeah. So CF Jacks, another listener, asks, how do you see the difference between center midfielders today and from when you played in terms of what is demanded from them physically, athletically, creatively, creatively? Is there a difference? Yeah, I don't know that that position has changed too much. If you look at like full backs or centerbacks, they have to be so much better with the ball. but midfielders had to do that then so I don't think there's too much you know there's that kind of like inverted fullback that comes into midfields I would have loved to play that position that would have been like really nice for me yeah building out kind of in that last third but I feel like yeah you

look at rodry right man city doing so well and I don't think he's too much different and different people have their different interpretations, but playing 20 years ago, you could have been the same player and really useful for whatever team he was on. Okay. Was it a big shift, so Dave in Pittsburgh asks, was it a big shift for you

to go from playing for IACs, you know, like a sophisticated, historic club, and then going into international breaks with the U.S., like how you had to think about playing, going from one environment to the other. Yeah, definitely. What do you think, Adam? What do you think?

Let's make this more of a conversation. What do you think we're differences? What do you hear people talking about with those shifts? Let me see. I guess I guess I'm curious what it was like to play for Bruce Arena, you know, at that time. but what would be the differences I guess I would have just imagined that the U.S. was

a little more like, hey, we're going to go out there, we're going to play really hard, we're going to get into all the challenges and, you know, see if we can get a goal here or there. But, I mean, maybe that's not what it was like, but. Yeah, there was, again, like going back to the roles kind of different people had at IACs in the U.S. team And then the U.S. I went through the whole youth national setup and everything.

There was just less structure in terms of how you're supposed to play. It's more open to interpretation. So sometimes with the U.S., it felt kind of like survival. Like you had to, okay, he didn't really know where your team it was going to be when you got the ball, but you had to figure it out. So there was a little bit of survival aspect. There was a little more dribbling with the U.S. You know, take a few touches to get out of a situation or take. it over here in Holland like such a focused on one or two touch passing. So that was a shift.

And yeah, those are the main on-field things. There's obviously like off-field things, but those are the on-field differences that I remember. You said you coach your son. How old is he? He's eight. Okay. Do you focus on one touch, two-touch passing at that age level? their level a lot of these kids haven't played regularly so we're working on the basics of passing right now for them it's more about kind of trying to get him a little bit of positional awareness and competing um i'm hoping by the end of the season we can get some more passing going but um at that level right now that's yeah a harder thing for them yeah i coach a u-a my daughter's ua team

And we don't do much passing. I mean, I would like them too, but there's like these different schools of thought. You're not supposed to tell kids of that age that they should pass. Have you heard this? Sounds familiar. Well, the idea is if they learn to just get rid of the ball as soon as they have it at that age,

they're not a player who wants the ball and wants to take ownership of the ball. so you're supposed to sort of accept the ball hogs and not encourage passing too much because you want them to master the ball and be like comfortable solving problems with it. And I think it does kind of make sense, you know. Yeah. It doesn't come naturally to their mind to. No. Yeah.

Definitely not. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I do. I like them to spread out a little more so they have more space, even if it is to dribble. But like definitely incur getting a lot.

lot of touches and that kind of you know I didn't have like right I started with organizational soccer like a lot of people in the states do not learning it like with friends out on the field but I remember kind of in my you know when I was 11 12 13 I'd get together with kids from my club team and we'd set up games and those would be like I feel like I learned so much from that just like three goals you know everyone for themselves kind of trying to score That's kind of like improvisational things you need to learn. That was part of my kind of 10,000 hours. But yeah, definitely started with organized sport and organized soccer,

how to play the game. These little pickup games you did like after practice or just in your free time with your friends? Yeah, free time weekends. Yeah, that's cool. I wish there was more of that. It seems like pick up any kind of sport is there's less of it now than there was even 20 years ago. I do want to talk about that 2002 run a little bit. You scored that goal, that first goal against Portugal.

Can you tell me what you remember from that, from that moment, from that game in general? Yeah, I mean, first World Cup for me, starting center. I remember being really nervous, but felt focused. There's a little bit of, we were under pressure, a little bit to start, and then we kind of had some breaks forward. And I always, there was actually a time for me in the under 20 World Cup, first game against Ireland. And the ball fell to me inside the box, and I skied it over.

And it was just like, why did I? What happened there? So I remember like, I'm too. Ancestors, my Irish ancestors, maybe. That's a deeper interpretation than I made of it. For me, I made sense of it. I was, like, too excited, you know, started the game. I was just too excited.

And so I couldn't, like, kick the ball where I wanted to go. So I had kind of a practice before games of trying to get myself sharp and intense but calm. And we got a corner kick, right? It went up. I noticed my defender was looking towards the ball. So I decided to kind of sneak around his back and see if something happens, you never know. You never know what's going to happen at the back post over there. So, yeah, a ball popped up to me.

And I remember, like, it was, I couldn't rush it because it bounced up. I had to let it fall down a little bit. It would have been too high for me to kind of get it. Okay, let it, let it come, let it come, right? And then just stroke it in. So that's what I remember all before that after it. It was just a blur. A lot of the game was a blur after that, actually.

So fun, fun experience. Yeah, glad to help the team game too. Yeah. You know, it occurs to me whenever I watch games from that era, which we do occasionally for our podcast, just how much of a weapon Brian McBride was in the air. I mean, it was his, you know, header that got, like, drew a desperate save that fell to you in that situation.

And he was so good in the air. I guess you know that, but I'm always reminded of it every time I watch those games. Yeah, it's a great reminder. I think later he developed his shooting, like in England. I became really impressed with just his finishing his feet, because I do feel like earlier it was like,

okay, he's like the guy who wins a lot of air balls. He does that. but he became really well-rounded, just a testament to his kind of work ethic and personality. Yeah. Do you stay in touch with anybody from that team? Not regularly. Occasionally, some pass will cross.

Just talk to Steve Churundala. That was great. Yeah, reached out to Chris Armis. He obviously came here to Colorado to coach and hoping to connect with him sometime soon. He didn't make that team, but he was part of that group. He was very close, right?

Yeah, he had an ACL injury, I think, during that time. What were the crowds like for the U.S. in that World Cup? I mean, was it supporting the underdog, antagonistic, indifferent? You know, I remember it been a good atmosphere against Portugal. Maybe it was kind of like even support. Next game was against Korea. So Home Nation, very different, antagonistic.

Not in a mean way. They were just loud. Loudest game I've ever been at. And then we played Poland in a third game. And that was actually kind of, there was empty spots in the stands. There was Koreans who were there, but they were like following the Korea game on their phones. So you hear weird sounds from them of like Korea scored or something.

they were playing Portugal and trying to get out of the pool too. So that game didn't have a great atmosphere. U.S. Mexico, I don't know if that was even or if that was more Mexico favor. I don't remember. That was a really good atmosphere too. And U.S. Germany felt, we felt pretty supported. And I even had the sense then that we were kind of winning some supporters by that point, where some neutral people would come and kind of cheer us on.

I don't know. This is what I'm making up. But yeah, that was a really nice atmosphere too. It seems like you're going to probably hate this question, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Landon Donovan said in 2006 you were the best player in the USA. What did you make of that? I was going to ask, did you or do you agree?

But that seems a little too on the nose. What did you make of that when you heard that he said that? I think I was up there at my peak when I was playing my, When I was playing my best, right? I had a really good season leading up to that World Cup was at IACS and I was playing every game on a really good IACs team. So I was up there. I mean, with Landon, he was also a few years younger than me, right? So he was coming up and he joined our Olympic team.

And I think on that team I was also up there. Yeah, and I had good technical ability, right? So that was kind of, you could see that in practice. I'd do different things and control the ball different ways. So that's how I make sense of that comment. It's like, oh, I was a little older than him, and he kind of saw me in that time when I was, you know, kind of at my peak, working towards my peak. It feels nice to feel appreciated in that way. Obviously, you know, there's players who've been way more valuable for U.S. soccer and better, better players, frankly, since me and even before me.

But, yeah, it's nice to feel recognized, to be recognized for what I've. Yeah. Landon and DeMarcus Beasley were so young at that World Cup. Like, I think they were like 19, right? Were they, did they seem like little kids? I mean, I don't mean that in a bad way. Like, did they seem like boys at that tournament when they arrived? You know, they didn't. You know, they'd been at Brannington, as I'm not, I don't even know if I'm saying that name right,

but they've been in like serious soccer settings for a while. So I felt like they seemed very at home in the environment. They did have like I did too, a little bit of an attitude of like we could take on the world, right, like better than the world, which is good. You want that kind of youthful exuberance or maybe ignorance, right? You think you can kind of outplay, out possess a Spain team, right? Like, I don't know. it doesn't really happen but like that part seemed young but very useful to our team and uh yeah both

such great contributors on the field during that tournament yeah sure what do you make of the state of the game of soccer in america now it seems like you're following it where are things going well where are things not going as well as they could yeah i'm not like you know i'm not in these conversations regularly. Daily, I watch from afar. I've been involved with U.S. soccer through different things and done some coaching. But I don't know. Other people who are more connected of probably more interesting things to say about that.

When I stopped playing, I did some coaching for the LA Galaxy Youth Academy. And I was like, okay, just kind of starting. You could see it starting to take shit. shape, like what I experienced in Europe, is like, yeah, there's a system, there's training, like players, if they're better, they're able to move up ages. And like, so I remember then, was that 10 years ago, something being hopeful that some good things were in place. We talk about it a lot and it still feels like a really long time until the U.S. can, you know,

be one of the contenders to win a World Cup. Does it seem that way to you? I mean, we could, anybody can win, right? Right. But, yeah, to be up there as like consistent quarterfinals, semi-finalists, be in that conversation in terms of quality. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like there's still a gap, right?

You look at the national team now. Right. And you got your top five players. There was something, uh, U.S. soccer came out with like, you want our players to be in the top five teams and the top five leagues. and if you look at what the players are, like there's some that are there, but not that many.

Probably five, yeah, maybe four. Yeah. So you'd want that to be pretty through your whole starting lineup and bench, really, to be considered kind of in that conversation. Right. How do we, I mean, what's the difference between, is it just culture, like history with the game

that separates us, from those kind of teams. Because people, I think casual fans will say, well, hey, we have all the resources in the world. We have a large population. Why can't we beat Brazil in 15 or 20 years, you know? What's your theory, Adam? My theory is, I live in the sticks.

You know, I live out just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee. And soccer is, you know, a Chattanooga FC has a good little following. I guess they play an MLS Next Pro now. And there's a couple of decent academies for young players. But as far as it being like embedded in the culture soccer, you know, where working class people play it and I mean outside of the Latino population, it's just not there, you know.

It's not it's not embedded in the culture. And I imagine until it is on a much, larger scale across the country. Yeah. We're not going to be in that conversation. Yeah, I can speak from my experience. And I just realized, like, when I went to Holland, there would be neighborhood pickup games, and they would be kind of serious.

And like the speed of play would be pretty fast. And I don't know that I've been here and played in a pickup game where I've been like, this is like, feels like the whole game is high quality, right? Maybe people are a little slower or something, but there's like a tenseness because of the quality. That, yeah, that, I've never had that here. Maybe I haven't been going to the right spots for those kind of games. I haven't either. Yeah.

Even like semi-serious Sunday league games, you know, the, the, um, The tenseness is not necessarily there, you know? Yeah. I do know when I moved over to Holland, like after six months of training, so this is a 16-year-old. And I think we bridged this gap a lot, but like I was, you know, on the youth national team and doing well with that and went over to Holland. I felt like after six months, I jumped up like I was the best player at my age,

like just six months of training with IX. You know, that was we're doing six practices a week, really, structured with really competitive players. My first touch got so much better. I could hold the ball off really well. Right. Like passing my consistency was just way better. So again, I think we've bridged that gap some, but I don't know, that might still be there too. Training environments, competitive training environments are just a little bit better in Europe. So that was when you came back with the youth national team. You were, you made that, you felt like you made a jump.

Was that? Yeah, sorry, I didn't share that story well. Exactly. No, for six months, came back, came back with the youth national team. It was like, okay, I'm like, this, I'm good here. And I think that's when I started moving up and kind of playing with older national teams and like, yeah, getting noticed for that. Yeah. your generation of men's national team players are now

some of the younger coaches in American soccer like Chirondolo and Wolf and Mastroani I mean there's others Greg Vanney Ben Olson I mean Ben Olson seems like he's been a coach for like a hundred years now but from your playing days who did you assume would be a good coach and who surprised you that that was their next move.

Yeah. I thought Brian McBride would maybe go into coaching. Like a very, right, I haven't done a personality test with him, but like the Myers-Brigg, like there's something very practical and pragmatic about him. And I just feel like he keeps a good fit and like building the team. Ben Olson, I'm surprised he became a coach. He's just such a charismatic guy. Like I could see him going in there.

entertainment or like doing like a lot of different things. I'm surprised he took that turn. Other than that, I don't know. All of it fits. I think a lot of those people had kind of lengthy careers. Yeah. To run a Lelma Estrone, Olson, Vanie. I forgot to mention Burrhalter.

He's also. Yeah. Burralter for sure. He loved talking about the game. That was his favorite thing. analyzing it and breaking it down and stuff. So any added his opinions then like he does now. So I could definitely see him being a coach.

Did anybody think you were going to be a coach? I mean, you kind of like the cerebral midfielder in there. No, I did my coaching education and I got my B license. And there was a couple guys there who were like, man, you got to do this. You got to be a coach. I think there's just these little pearls of wisdom I learned along the way that I dropped in different times. I think they were just kind of like impressed by that. They're like, man, you got to do this.

No, it wasn't my thing. Okay. So how did you decide that a psychology practice was going to be your thing? Yeah, it started with doing some coaching. And then I was at UNC Asheville because I met my wife there. And so I was spending some time there and volunteered to come out with the soccer team. Coached a little bit, but then asked the coach if I could do some mental skill stuff. So I'd been getting into meditation and yoga.

I'd had some experiences with sports psychologists during my career that I really liked. So I was kind of just fascinated by that aspect. And he's like, yeah, go for it. So set out a little program that I went through with the kids and met with some of them individually and just loved it. It was just fascinating and felt like really helpful, really relieving seeing a kid who's just kind of struggling on the soccer team, get to know what he's good at, who he is a little bit more, and kind of put that to work on the fields. I just feel way more comfortable with himself after, you know, six months. being on the team. It just felt like really meaningful work. So that that experience kind of propelled me further and also made me realize I don't know how people work that well. And I wanted to

figure that out more. And I had the time in my life to try to get into a doctoral program. So signed up for a clinical psychology doctorate, right? Got kind of away from sport with that, but really trying to understand more like how how a therapy. relationship works and how to help people in that context. Yeah. What year was that when you started the clinical psychology doctorate? 2013? Okay.

10 years ago. So that was a few years after you stopped playing soccer. Yeah, I had a little exploratory time in there. Like, who am I? What's going on? What do I want to do? And in Holland, they had this great program. It was a bridging pension.

So while you're playing, you have to put money into a pension, 35% of your salary. And the moment you stop playing, you can sign up to get a bridging pension for 10 years to kind of bridge you to your next career. So I had a little bit of an income that supported me. Wow, it was pretty good. I like that system. Yeah. Do they still do that? Do you know if they still do that in the Netherlands?

I think they do. The program still exists. So I assume, yeah, still going. So there's a question from Scott from New Jersey, Summit, New Jersey. Have you seen the recent news about how Richarlassen opened up about his depression after the 2022 World Cup? That's the Brazilian striker. And do you work with any pro athletes helping them deal with these kinds of issues? I'm assuming you do, but.

Yeah. So I work with pro athletes. amateur, you know, like elite amateur athletes, adolescents. And I work with people who could be your neighbor, just someone down the street. And I kind of like that range. That's really interesting to me. So I did see that news. And it's great that people are able to kind of speak up and educate other people about it.

Who knows how that might help someone else who's feeling suicidal in some way, you know, reach out for help in some way, because Rick Carlson did. So yeah, I think we're at the beginning, beginning edge of this, but how it's kind of moved through sport is really, really impressive and makes me excited for kind of the growth in that area. He also said, I mean, I want to get into that more, but he also said, Scott also said, I'm not suggesting you chat with Sergenio so he doesn't punt the ball into the stands again.

Do you know what he's referring to there? Yeah. Okay. So I guess just as a case study, without, I mean, we don't have to, I don't, I'm a huge, I'm a huge desk fan. I love the way he plays and he, I've forgiven him, of course, if you even needs my forgiveness. But what's the sports psychologists, what's the psychologist approach to a situation like that? Like, what would you ask, what would you ask him if, if, if he came to you after something like that?

Well, that's like you mentioned, if he came to me, right? Like change always has to be initiated by the player, the person who wants to work on something in some way. There needs to be some sort of kind of skin in the game, some sort of desire on that point. I think how I work, right? Like if I'm working with him before that or after that, it's a lot of kind of getting to know how he works and helping him understand how he works. You know, and with that information, he can be more effective in his life, how he wants,

have more joy and freedom in different ways. So, yeah, I usually start with a lot of kind of background questions, just kind of relationship building. You want people to feel safe and comfortable that they could talk about things that feel a little bit out there to talk about. And then you can kind of explore together and see what makes sense. How long does that usually take? I've always wondered this.

If you're doing sort of relationship, relational questions at the beginning, you know, at what stage generally are you, like, getting into the nitty-gritty? Like six visits in, or I guess I suppose it varies by patient? Yeah. So I think, right, there's just to clarify. my path, like I said, I went kind of a clinical psychology route and still keep a foot in sport. So I have a little bit more of it like a psychodynamic frame from that reference point. There's people who are more performance psychologists and they have different training and they'll have their kind of way of working.

There's a lot of overlap there. But what I'm about to say, I feel like it's very kind of psychodynamic. But yeah, usually after four to six sessions, you're kind of able to frame, you know, what's going on here? Oh, you know, this thing was really bothering you and you notice your temper blowing up a few different times, you know. So I think that's what we're kind of working on. That's a very basic interpretation, right? But hopefully like that four to six sessions, you have some sort of sense of what the work could be. And then with psychodynamic therapy, I think of like, yeah, six months, you kind of take some time to kind of notice these patterns, work them, get more comfortable with me.

But you'll notice some change. You can notice change immediately. But then after kind of six months, people usually notice kind of longer change. And they can stick with it longer or decide to stop then. Okay. How prevalent was this sort of, was mental training, mental woe? welfare during your playing days as a concern

among athletes, among clubs. What types of things were clubs doing to support players back then, if anything? Yeah. So my experience was with the U.S. national team mostly and with IACs. And there wasn't any professional support.

Like with IACS, I remember there was times, Like when I was first over there, I was 16, I think I was homesick at some point. And they tried to have like a friendly coach just kind of hang out with me. I remember that. Did it help? It didn't help. No. It was a nice gesture, but it was just, yeah, didn't help.

And even later, they tried to kind of have someone who wasn't professional kind of take on the role of like, emotional support. So pretty amateuristic, I don't know. What would I describe it? Like very bare bones, right? There was definitely that attitude prevailed of like, it's good.

Things are tough, it's hard. You push through, you know, like vulnerability and weakness. No, that didn't have a place in that environment. Bruce Arena had a support psychologist with him that worked with our team. before 2002 and 2006, Tom Perrin was his name.

And that was really, that was my first introduction to it. And he did more like team stuff, team meetings. Right. Sorry, did you have a question? No, I was just vocalizing the message that I'm listening. That's all. Okay. Got it.

So Tom Perrin did mostly team stuff. Was that helpful? For me, that was really helpful. like just clarifying the work environment, what you're doing there, what people's roles are, jobs, what kind of things you can expect, what kind of things happen, right? Like just, you know, you're 20 and you're in a competitive, a tough work environment. Can you help me understand what's happening here? You know, like that kind of stuff and adjust to this kind of work environment.

So I found it really helpful. That was it. And then in America, I think it was further along. than in Holland. But there was more people you could kind of reach out to. At some point I started reaching out as I was ending my career, reaching out to support psychologists to get some support. Does that give a little bit of an overview?

Yeah, I think so. I guess here's a question from Andre and Utah. Was it something that always interested you, this psychology, or was there something about your playing career that sort of nudged you in that direction? or what maybe was it both you know yeah i think it was always there definitely always kind of interested in what might be going on a little bit behind the curtains like why people are acting the way they're acting what's happening like very interested in that kind of different you know

buddhist ideas or philosophical ideas really appealing um i think even now so i have this psychology practice that I do, but there's even more of an extension, and it kind of ties into my experience in sport. But I started this, starting this thing called world building therapy, where it's a nonverbal therapy, so it's an experience where, imagine Adam, you go into a room, there's figures all over the room. You just kind of sit with it, see what resonates with you, and then there's a sand box where you create a sand landscape based on these different figures, and you kind of pull to them, however you're kind of feeling. Yeah, and something about that really intrigues me, right?

There's something, there's a part of me that's pulled to grab this figure that's a little wolf and not that person up here, right? There's something going on there, part of my personality I'm not as familiar with. Yeah, and I get really excited about this and kind of developing this. I'm excited about trying to do this with athletes. It hasn't really been done before, but I feel like, There's a mindfulness component, which we know is very valuable in performance psychology. There's a creativity aspect. There's intuition. A lot of these things that athletes kind of need

in the moment when they're performing. So yeah, I want to setting up a room currently. I'm really excited to do that and trying to get about 10 athletes who are willing to come for six sessions, kind of take some notes on what they're doing and stuff, and do a little study on it. but I think this could be very valuable. I'm really excited about doing that, this work and I want to bring it to sport. So it's a room with a bunch of, like, what other kinds of figures? You mentioned a wolf, but like little figurines. Okay, got it.

Yeah, it's anything that's in the real world, really. So it could be a tree, a truck, a rock, a bridge, you know, like anything you can imagine the real world. If you can pull from that, the idea is you're kind of, from a different place, right? Not this verbal part of our brain, but from a different place. We're doing thinking through pictures. It's kind of more of a primitive part of our psyche,

evolutionarily seen. And it's there. And it's really part of our personality that we're often not that familiar with. Often it leads to feelings like images. There's a closer link of an image and feeling than with a word and a feeling, just the way our brains are.

are kind of structured. So it could be very powerful work in terms of kind of getting in touch with different feelings or expressing different feelings. Yeah, so it really excites me. So you're building the room, you're getting the room ready right now. Okay. And then what do you do? So you just watch somebody while they're in there, essentially?

Exactly. Yeah. Okay. Just kind of, you're with them. You hold the space. and in some forms you might like analyze or kind of get into what the person made. But I'm really intrigued with this form that has a history called Sand Play where you don't. You know, if the person wants to say, if Adam you want to say a few words about what you made, go ahead.

We're not going to kind of analyze it. We just kind of open that chapter up and we'll revisit it. and it can continue going. That part of the mind, the creative, intuitive, emotional part of your mind can continue kind of leading itself where it needs to go. It sounds very relaxing. It's relaxing even to hear about it, actually. Yeah, there's really like this calmness comes into the room, right?

It's quiet calmness that's, I think, really special part of our human experience and valuable. Do you, you know, you played at a really high level, you played in a World Cup, you scored a goal in a World Cup. Do you, are you tired of talking about soccer, you know? I like conversations about soccer, interviews about the 2002 World Cup, especially the last World Cup that came around because it was with the 20-year anniversary. There's a lot of them, and it's kind of draining. Yeah, I get more juice from conversing about a topic that's interesting than just sharing my experience. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

As the U.S., you know, we talked right at the beginning of the show about the pathway, the development pathways that are available to players now. It's much easier, I think, to get noticed and go to Europe. But as the U.S. transitions from the sort of high school college pathway to that professional academy pathway, it's already transitioned in a lot of parts of the country, what issues need to be counterbalanced for the 99% that don't make it, you know, who don't ever get a contract at a major club, who don't ever get to be a professional soccer player at all. This seems to be well documented in Europe. but how do you take care of those how do we as a society a soccer consuming public what's the way to take care of the players who don't end up rich or famous yeah I think the sport environments right the youth sport environments need to be developmental the developmental focus of we're developing people

we're developing well-rounded citizens and people who can function in life like you can't get away from that. That has to be kind of a core component that's always there. We want them to perform at a high level. And is this program, you know, helping them become a functional adult? I think that's the basis of kind of like what the programs need to do. There's been recent emphasis on like when people retire and how people support them there. I don't know. Let's talk about that. Yeah, we should for sure. It's a similar thing. I feel like there's maybe a little more financial obligation during retirement. That program I mentioned in Holland called the CFK. You could look it up, CFK.com.

Probably. Yeah, that's developing. I don't know. That whole area has been the past 10 years, really developing and more services for athletes to, again, continue like a functioning good. quality of life after they play. That's important. It's important for us to have a soccer environment that is that, that it takes care of its participants. Yeah, we want to build a rich, vibrant community and you can't throw people to the wayside while doing that. I mean, honestly, it's sours the fandom a little bit, you know, when you, for me at least, when I consider I'm watching these youth national teams and trying to figure out who's going to be the next important player

for the national team it sours it a little bit for me when I think well this kid has been his whole life has been devoted to soccer and he's not going to make it like what's he going to do? Do you think clubs do a decent job on the

on the academy side of preparing them to be functional adults? Is that improving or was it already pretty good? I don't know. Yeah, I'm not on the ground level. I don't have access to that. There's certain transferable skills that they're getting, right, in terms of the

soccer environment is a type of work environment for me. I think, right, I had my school when I was young and I had soccer. And I think soccer is where I kind of learned to work more so than school, right? you had immediate feedback on results. It was a challenging environment. Like there was a work self that developed early in soccer and like stuck with me. So I think, right, that's a component where you're learning how to kind of be a responsible person to be accountable, to develop certain skills that do transfer to kind of whatever work you do. In terms of social development, I don't know.

I wonder if that sometimes gets thrown by the wayside where people aren't encouraged to kind of explore other parts of themselves as much as would be beneficial. I'm this kind of myopic. I'm an athlete. That's just what I do. It's just what I do. You're not. You know? Right.

Your other things do. And people need to know that and know how to navigate, navigate with themselves in different environments. How do, what's the, what's the best way to help retiring players? Like, I guess they need to figure out, you need to figure out what they want to do. Not everybody has the CFK pension, not having played in Holland. So what are they, what's the, what's the advice to somebody who's retiring or what's the path forward? Yeah, well, there's different ways retirement happens, right? And it's very few people, like Landon, we talked about earlier, who get to decide their own retirement. It's usually forced upon you by being cut or being injured, so often unexpected, which is a different thing. There's the financial part. You call kind of like hard skills, you know, can we hook people up with different jobs and what kind of things are available there? Right. And you want people financially to have some, Some transition, some ideas of pathways.

Major League Soccer is doing a really good job with this nowadays. Then you have kind of what's called the soft skills, where it's more about identity development. Who am I? How do I kind of grieve this loss, which is a big loss, you know? Like you said, it could be a childhood dream. Something never came to fruition. How do I grieve that, understand who I am and where I want to be?

And that usually takes talking, right? Time and talking with people. talking with other athletes, trying things out, being supported. There's a nonprofit called Athlete Soul that's dedicated to this. A lot of these soft skills where they have kind of coaches. You know, it's not that you need to be in therapy. Maybe you want therapy, kind of a longer extended time to understand yourself. Sometimes you just need some coach, some direction,

some way of thinking about things, taking the next steps. And that organization does a really good job of supporting all kinds of athletes through the transition. Let's see. Is there anything else you wish I had asked? I just want to say again, like in terms of my world-building practice, and wanted to set that up.

I'd love if you're in Colorado and you're an athlete and you're at all interested in this technique, please email me, John O'BrienSportspsych.com. Yeah, again, I'd love to to get this going and try it out with a few athletes in here about your experience and how this could fit for that environment.

I think it could be really useful. So hit me up. I'm a pretty bad Sunday league player. Can I do it? You could do it as a normal person. That's an experience in terms of like a study. The study part I want to have just athletes who are kind of elite level because kind of trying to tie it in to see if they feel like it helps their performance.

But we'd love to have you join, come in the room and explore. So how are you going to, no, I'm curious, how are you going to do that? How are you going to figure out if it helps their performance? Like, what's the, how's that going to work? Yeah, right? Qualitative, quantitative data. You probably do a few surveys where the person's at, how they rate themselves in terms of their ability to focus, how much anxiety they have.

Yeah, and we could figure out a few different constructs or variables. They can rate themselves on before and after. And then since again, this is the beginning phase, you do a lot of qualitative stuff where you just interview them afterwards. What do you feel like helped? What didn't? And just get to know that and see how you can kind of move it forward. Let me ask.

I should ask this before we go. What was it like playing for Bruce Arena? Was he a inspiring leader? It was fun. I had a fun time. Wonder Bruce Arena, 2002, 2006. A lot of trust. I felt like there was a lot of trust there.

He's also relaxed as a leader. So that was nice. And then, you know, there was some drive to him too. which was exciting and fun, some push. He wasn't afraid to kind of step into conflict and address something. So, yeah, it was fun working with him, and I think it allowed me to kind of really enjoy my teammates more, too. I really enjoyed a lot of those people I played with,

they had kind of deep connections with, still think about. So, yeah, great experience. I heard a clip of, I think I heard a clip of him saying, Maybe it was before the Portugal game. He said you guys are something like you guys are part of the greatest nation on earth. Go out there and play like it, something like that. Do you remember that? You do.

Yeah. It's pretty memorable, isn't it? Yeah. It's, yeah, right? Like 9-11, right? We didn't bring that into the context, but that happened shortly before. a tournament. I think he had, you know, knew someone who passed away.

He was obviously in that area when this is all going on. And me being in Europe, I had a different experience. And words like, we're the best nation on earth. Just kind of let me a little bit wrong. It's like, well, are we? Like, how we measuring that? Like, what? That's a little bit of a little bit too far.

I mean, we definitely have the biggest Navy. Yeah, so, you know, like, okay, whatever. It didn't happen too often. So roll with it, but that part, like, kind of this big patriotism wasn't for me. Like, it didn't help me play. I love the idea of us as teammates, really kind of that underdog feeling of trying to prove something to the world. I felt very connected to kind of our U.S. soccer identity in that way.

way. Yeah. Like the generation before me was, you know, almost all college players who like had to scrap together to kind of like have a soccer career. It's like that's, we're on the, we're on their shoulders trying to do something. So that part I identified with, but just kind of like, we're the best country and like, oh, man, I hate that talk. I can imagine that feeling a little weird. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, um, really appreciate this. And, uh, you know, like, like, John said, if you're an athlete in the Colorado area, check out the world building concept that he's working on and help him out with it. John, thanks again for your time talking about this stuff with us. Yeah, thanks, Adam. It was a pleasure. All right. We'll see you.