Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #593: John Polis, USSF press officer in 1989, joins the pod

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Polis was at the scene for Paul Caligiuri's shot heard round the world, he was also (for Umbro) the English language press liaison for the Brazilian national team (Romario, Bebeto, Dunga) in 1994. Polis joined Belz for a 75 minute conversation. He was prepared and he has a good memory and he brings a lot to the table, including a more relaxed perspective about the USMNT heading toward next summer than Belz has. Good medicine. 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 going to be a real treat. He was press officer for U.S. soccer from 1989 to 1993, and so was in attendance at the qualifier in Trinidad, where Paul Caliguri scored from distance to send us to the World Cup. He was press officer for the U.S. at the first ever Women's World Cup, and he was press liaison for the Brazilian national team at the 1994 World Cup in his capacity as an employee of Umbro.

I think we'll have a lot to discuss John Polis. Welcome to scuffed. Adam, great to see you. Thanks for asking. Let's start back in 1989. The U.S. team arrived at the airport in Trinidad and Tobago to 3,000 hostile fans. So two questions. First of all, how hostile were they?

It was more friendly ribbing, you know, like we, We exited the plane outside of the plane and then walked down and stairwell. And there was people at the various levels at this right by the tarmac. And the chant was a very clear, no way USA. No way, USA. And, you know, we had this young team of guys. They were ready to strap it up right there and play them, you know. we got on the bus and they're banging on the sides of the bus and you know uh i can remember

tony meola getting up saying let's let's take these guys on right now you know so uh yeah that was the start um there there was a lot that happened before we got there i don't know if you want to go there a little bit now or uh i i do want to go there yeah but um Well, I just wanted to ask, so that energy, that scene, you know, 3,000 people saying, No Way USA and Tony Miola saying, let's do this right now. Yeah. What happened to that energy in Conca Calf? Because I feel like in the last World Cup cycle when we had to go through qualifying, there were some intense environments.

El Salvador comes to mind. But I don't know that there was ever a crowd of people at the airport greeting our team with a channel. one was winner take all. I think that was the difference. One team needed but a tie to go through, and that was Trinidad. We needed a win. Both teams were trying to get to the World Cup for the first time. And so whatever the normal rivalry is in Concaf was probably magnified, although we didn't know it at the time, but magnified two or three times at least. This was, was a source of pride for their country. And these were, you know, they knew we were pretty much a soccer minnow, but we were the United

States, you know, and they wanted to take us out. So, and then there was a buildup, you know, Trinidad had beaten us just five months prior. Excuse me, it was a tie. It was a draw. It was a one-one draw. Yeah. At, uh, in Torrance. and on a terrific goal, one of the best they've ever scored. But it was right at the end. We get a draw. We were dejected. So our guys wanted to make that right.

They wanted to get to a World Cup. But everything was stacked against this U.S. team. How so? Well, how about we hadn't won a road qualifier for 21 years? That's crazy That's the way it was We weren't good travelers You know

And we hadn't scored a goal In the last two games Coming into the November 19th game down there We were like on the cusp We played tough But we couldn't get the goal and couldn't get the win So the press corps that went with us and there was a few people that went down there.

AP was with us. Yeah, who else? Chicago trip. Phil Hirsch was with us. I believe it was Voice of America. Some New York riders were there. They all didn't think we were going to win.

There was an AP writer there. Ron Blom was really negative against us. Really? He was there that day? He was there that day? He was there. Ron was with us. And it was more like teasing everybody.

I know there was a bunch of guys out for drinks the night before. And the thought was, how could we possibly win this game, the way we've been playing? And the guys were playing hard. This was a young, talented, but super young group that was trying to do what we felt was almost impossible to get back to the big dance, you know, that first time in 40, 4-0 years that the team had been back. Ron Blum is still around, you know. He's still in the, he's still in the press conferences with the coach. And he usually asks, he's such an old, he's like an old school journalist, you know. He usually asks among the best questions in the press corps. He was that way back when,

he asked the tough ones, you know, what do you think you're going to, you know, you think you have a chance. He'd ask questions like that, you know, Bob Gansler, you know. What did Gansler think of that? Bob was a pretty quiet guy, you know. Probably the best example of that was when we got to the World Cup. I'll just quickly use this as an example. The U.S., you know, we lost our first game 5-1, Czechoslovakia. Yeah. And so we went one day on with a press conference at practice and then one day off. I finally convinced coach

that we could do that and we could manage it and it wouldn't. He had such a young team. He wanted to protect him. He didn't want them in front of the press very much. So these German writers came in one day. It says, Mr. Gansler, what would be

an acceptable margin of loss? If we're playing Italy, we're going down to Italy to play Rome. Yeah. Would it be four goals, five goals, and Gensler, when he was just steaming ready to blow, he'd laugh, he'd go, ha, ha, ha, like that. And then he would answer with the right answer, you know. But I could tell he was burned, you know. And, you know, what were we doing there playing the world's game? What was America doing there? A bit of that around that. Did you ever take any heat for, over those

pompous Germans or from Gansler or was it was it um yeah he he didn't he didn't mention it afterwards he was actually great at the world cup we we managed all of our yeah we were open enough so that the press had access but we were closed enough so that these young guys who were on the huge stage and most of them were you know i think the oldest stolemire was 27 the rest of them were like 24 on down. Yeah. And similar an age to the team that went to Qatar, I would say, right? Yeah, maybe even younger.

And no pros, you know, no real experienced professionals. They were the best that we had, and the coach, you know, prior to that had made a decision to go with younger players. You know, there were some people playing indoors at the times that could have been drafted in. But the plan was, as I found out later, they decided we were going to host in 94. This was going to be a chance to get our team ready for 94. So we take a young group. They get experience and, you know. I mean, it kind of worked, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it did. it was a painful qualifying process, Adam. You know, it was up and down. And back then, you know, we played our games at St. Louis Soccer Park in Fenton, Missouri. All of them? Most of them, most of them. Except out in L.A., we were at El Camino College, which is a junior college.

football team. We were playing football field. I remember there was one particular game, probably about our third or fourth game in St. Louis, where we sold it out. Sold it out. 6,000 tickets. I'm walking around high-fiving with all my staff

people that work with us. We were just like, yeah, it was a big deal. We sold out the stadium, you know? Yeah. But that's the way it was back then, you know? I mean, I almost feel like the team now should play in smaller stadiums and try to sell them out because he's playing in big stadiums is it's depressing. It's depressing to see all the empty seats.

That's true. So what else sort of led up to that? I mean, I want to get into the, obviously, the goal and everything. Sure. Well, one thing to remember, Mexico was banned from qualifying. Mexico wasn't even in that cycle. Because they'd used overage players to try to get into the 89 U-20 tournament in Saudi Arabia. And by the way, that's the tournament that Bob Gantler's team finished fourth in,

which was a big milestone at that time. Wasn't the fact of Mexico being banned, didn't that give the press corps some, I mean, Waki, my colleague Waki, did some research, and he always does research for these kind of interviews, and he said there was some sense in the press court that because Mexico was banned, it was, qualification was going to be manageable for the U.S.? I don't think anybody thought that. Really? You know, there may have been a few, but this team was untested, untried, and they were basically

college kids. And, you know, that's the first batch of college. Conco-Cath games I'd ever been to, we were to find out how difficult it is to qualify. You know, you get down there and the practice fields aren't ready or something, you know. Things just happen, you know. When we were in Trinidad prior to the game, we were in our training, cars driving around the hotel, honking all night, trying to keep the guys awake. You know, that's just the games that people play in these situations. Did it work?

Did it keep everybody up? No, they did all right. You know, these guys kind of rose to the level. The game that we lost in Torrance was about five months prior to the November 19th game. The draw, it was a draw, right? Excuse me, it was a draw. Yeah. It was very nearly a one-zero win for the U.S.

and the goal was scored like in the 90th minute, very, very late. And I remember David Vanoli was in goal then. They hadn't moved Miola into the starting spot yet. The late David Manoli, rest in peace. I have some questions about him. We'll get into him later. Yeah. But he was so upset by the goal that he pounced back up through his hands over his face.

he was really upset. Excuse me, I got a visitor here that's helping me out. Hey, cat. Yeah. And so, you know, and then the U.S. had tied El Salvador two weeks earlier in St. Louis, zero to zero, a game that we were all over them, the whole game, but could not score. And so that was some of the things that were in. Trinidad, Tobago was a good team.

They were a good team. And a couple of the key players were the great Dwight York, who was a young kid then and was eventually headed towards Aston Villa and Manchester United. And Russell Latapie, who started out at Porto and Boa Vista and eventually wound up in Scotland. And he had three years at Hibbs, three years at Rangers, and six at Falkirk, where he's kind of a folk hero there, Russell Lattopi. Now interesting, fast forward. Three months ago, those two guys were named the coaches for Trinidad and Tobago with Dwight

York, the head coach, and Russell's the assistant now. So people are pretty positive down there right now about Trinidad's future. These guys are both well thought of. They are some of the greatest players that ever came out of Trinidad and Tobago to play in Europe. I mean, York is arguably the greatest player to come out of Conca Calf, right? I mean, he's up there. Yeah, he was a great one. Like I say, we hadn't won a qualifier in a very, very long time on the road, on the road.

And so we were invited for breakfast up to the ambassador's house about 10 in the morning. This was myself. And if Walter Bar was our head of death. delegation then and a few other people. We went up and there were a nice, beautiful breakfast out in the backyard. And we could see the stadium below. And at 10 in the morning, it was a sea of red. People were in there already. Wow. Never mind the fact that it held 22,000 and they'd sold 40,000 tickets. Wow. Which was something that went to court later on and was a big problem. Did it really? Oh, man. But so we saw it down there and we knew.

it was going to be a big deal. And they had a big carnival-like celebration, and they had floats and all kinds of pageantry going around the track. And that went on all day. And I think our kickoff was somewhere around three, somewhere like that. So right in the heat of the afternoon. Yeah, yeah. And that was the start of the day. And then, you know, you know, game time. It was terribly crowded in front of the stadium. He had all these people crammed in. A lot of them with

fake tickets that had been printed. And so they, you know, everybody crammed in there. There was 10,000 people outside the stadium during the game. So... What a scene. But a lovely group of fans. Polite.

There was not a hint of anti-feeling towards us at all, even after we won. You know, great folks. And, you know, I was a couple days before the game, I was invited on a radio interview. Must have been the national station there. I can't remember exactly.

And there was this guy with long dreadlocks who was the DJ. And he said, So you went into the studio. I went into the studio. Ladies and gentlemen, in just a moment, we're going to speak to Mr. Polis, who's going to tell us how he likes treating that. Because they were trying to overwhelm us, you know. So he asked me a few questions, and I'm like, I got my PR hat on. I'm talking about how lovely it is to be there, to be a part of this great event.

It's a great event for your country. The football, it's a historic football game for the Trinidad and Tobago national team. We're honored to be a part of it, really. People are treated us well. We're looking forward to the game and all this. And, you know, I tried to think of every positive thing I could say about them. And then at the very end, I said, you know what? There's just one thing that bothers me.

And he goes, what? He said, I said, you know, we hate to spoil such. a great party and that he's roared with laughter i looked out in the lobby the staff was listening to this every word i said and they were breaking up laughing that i had said this you know uh and i did it on the spur of the moment you know like in jest and it was taken well yeah and uh the uh i remember when the game was over this same guy found his way down to the locker room he's chasing me around You predicted, Mr. Polis, you predicted, how did you do that? That's funny.

Yeah, it was really cool. Makes me want to go to Trinidad for a qualifier, you know, next time we have to go down there. We had a great time. Yeah. So it was a big event for both countries, obviously a huge deal in Trinidad. What was the sense of it in the U.S.? Was anybody paying attention? I mean, you had the eternal Ron Blum there and a few other reporters,

but what was the general feeling in the country at that time? Probably nobody knew what was happening, right? A lot of people didn't. The game was carried live in the United States. But, you know, our qualifiers, like I say, we drew small crowds to all of our qualifiers. That just wasn't the awareness of the national team back then. The enormity of us qualifying, of course, was known by anybody who had any kind of soccer knowledge.

But we could have gone down there and lost that game, and it would have been but a ripple with the press. Not unlike when the women went in 91 to China, and I was with them. It was the same thing, you know. the sport was just in its infancy with respect to the magnitude of the national team. Right. All right. So Caligari scores 31st minute from about 30 yards out. I don't know if I'd call it a banger, but it is a – we have a lot of discussion about this on our podcast.

What's a banger? One person in the podcast thinks it has to be still rising when it hits the net for it to be a banger. So anyway, that's neither here or there. It was a lovely goal. we hold on and win. But it's been since called the shot heard around the world. You have a pretty good view on this. Did it, was it a shot heard around the world?

Really? I think that's an American depiction of it. The fact that the United States, the biggest, most powerful nation in the country, finally qualified for the World Cup. If it wasn't, it probably wasn't a shot heard around the world, it was at least a cackle in the headset that everybody heard about. The U.S. is qualified to go to that game. The shot itself was kind of a volley with his left foot.

And goalkeeper Michael Maurice later said that he did not see it leave his foot. That's why he didn't get it. It wasn't that it was in the sun. he was just blindsided and all of a sudden he realized there was a shot on the way he said if he had seen it he kind of probably take a couple of steps

to the left and blocked it the U.S. didn't score many bangers back in those days you know and probably had you been there then you would have called it a banger because you know all of a sudden

we were ahead in the 31st minute. And remember, we went, we were zero-zero in that game earlier, and then we were one-one, and now we're up one-zero in the game that we had to win. Who's the hero of the rest of the game for you, the one who really stood out for his, because we had to, like you said, Trinidad was pretty good. If you go back and watch the highlights on YouTube, they got some chances. It wasn't like we dominated completely or anything. anything, who stood up, who stood tall? I think in the back you had Trit Shoe alongside of Michael Windishman, the team captain.

And you had John Doyle is really a centerback playing on the left side, but he was big, you know. In fact, Doyle took a guy down early in the game that could have been a penalty. And but as he said later on, and he's been interviewed, he said back in those days, you had to really get mugged for them to call a penalty back in these days. Yeah. And John was pretty physical, you know. So, and then Paul Crumpy was playing one of the outside backs. And the only sub of the game was John Stolmire, who went on late for Crumpy. Crumpy was playing with a screw in his foot. And so he went 61 minutes. Stolmire goes in, had been team captain in the past. tough, gritty guy from Indiana.

And I think they were going in to slam the door on them. And it was pretty wild at the end, you know. The game started, the U.S. played a high defensive line to start. And they were attacking down the right side, mainly with Crumpy, dribbling into the corner and sending balls in to try to find Murray or Vermis. and Trinidad was playing more of a possession style, you know, take it easy. They were going to get something out of it, you know. In the 80th minute, the crowd starts picking it up and that big chant, we want a goal, you know.

They had this, one of the reggae bands had recorded a song called, the only thing I'll remember was D&D, we want a goal. They would play that all the time. Since then there's been two or three songs that have come out of that day that are still out there. But the crowd was picking up the chant. U.S. takes a corner with only two Americans waiting in the box for the cross. They were talking about the U.S. trying to shave time off by delaying the game and all that. 87th minute Trichu made a saving tackle

as a Trinidad connected Pass to get inside the 18 The U.S. just continued to clear the ball downfield towards the end. No Americans in the attacking zone at all. So they were pretty well bunkered in.

It was in the end it was a real gutsy performance by the U.S. By a real young team that had to muster all of its collective confidence, if you will, and band together to go out against what they felt were at all odds.

And anybody who followed that team felt it was going to be a really tough, tough road to hoe to win that game. But they were able to do it. When Calgary scored, who'd you celebrate with? I was up on a press box and I was kind of in a room by myself

the broadcasters you know, you had J.P. Delacamber in one booth with TV and I think he was working on his own back then. He was with Seamus Shemus Mellon and so I kind of bunkered in and I had it was almost like I was watching the game on TV

you know where you're on to concentrate. You don't want anybody around you. Yeah, I know that feeling well. Yeah. And, you know, I had my Federation Blazer on. Games over. I got to walk down through the crowd to get out. And I'm going, what's that going to be like? But I'm walking down and everybody's shaking hands. Good luck in Italy. Good luck in Italy. Wow. You know, the journalists went outside to try to catch a cab back to the hotel after they had done their work. Impossible. It was just a sea of humanity. And they were wondering, gee, what's it going to be like walking four miles back to the hotel? Well, they did it.

But it was nothing but congratulations all the way back. And they were the only white faces around them at the time, you know, because, yeah. And so they, you know, they said it was wonderful. And people couldn't have been nicer, you know. It's really impressive because I don't think, yeah, I don't know if that would always be the case everywhere. Definitely not, you know. Well, go ahead. Go ahead.

I was going to say, let's see, I think I had another note here. Trinidad would make the World Cup in 2006 for the first time. And they had to beat Bahrain in a two-game playoff to get in. Right, right, right. And they got in. And so they're trying to find their way back again. 1990 In 1990

in the fall there was a coup, a five-day coup in Trinidad where some Muslim terrorists actually took over the government for five days and they were able to stop that. But you know, they're trying now to get back to where they've got

a football team that challenges and is competitive year in and year out now. And with the two new managers there, they think they got something good. Yeah. Okay. Hey, let me ask you this. So you said you were up in the press box. I noticed that Michael Cameron, who is, I don't know if he's not your successor, but he's in that job now.

Yeah. He always sits field side. Talk to me about the tradeoffs between the two. I mean, I get the idea of you want to be, you want to pay attention to the game and not be bothered. What do you gain? What do you lose by being the press officer on the sideline? He might be working with television pretty close.

That could be an arrangement that they've got. Back in my day, we were always managing the press box. So if it was a home game, you know, We had a game at Stanford Stadium in the run-up to the World Cup where we played Russia, and I had 300 credentialed riders in the press box that we had to manage, you know, for that game. So mine was mainly making sure that the writers had what they had.

Now, Michael's maybe he's got more folks to do that. I don't believe the coach would have wanted to be hanging around by the team bench down there. And I tried to stay out of their way. After the game, if I had to grab a player, anything down, I was down there. I'll tell you another funny story. It happened at the World Cup. It's post-game.

We played Italy to a 1-0 loss in what was pretty much felt as a victory to us. They had, you know, we could have easily tied that game. I go to the locker room and I noticed that there's a gentleman outside trying to get into the USA locker room. He looked very athletic and I'm thinking, who is this guy? He looks very familiar to me and I will stop. And I even delayed going into the locker room because I was eavesdropping on what this guy was saying. And suddenly it dawned on me. It's boxer Marvin Hagler.

Marvelous Marvin Hagler, former middleweight champion who was in Italy doing movies at the time, found his way down to the locker room and wanted to go in and congratulate the guys. Oh, man. And I just took a chance and I went, hey, Marvin. He goes, yeah, man. I said, you need some help? He goes, I'd like to go in and see the players. And he said, I said, so I asked the security guy, can he go in with me?

So he went in with me. But the funniest things happened post-game, you know. And he just died. Hagler just died in 2021, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, he just showed up at the game. Yeah. You know.

So, and that game was, you know, we were headed from Florence down to Rome for that game. People would come. They see our bus. they would come out of their houses and they'd go like this. We figured it out. They were going to beat us by 10. Oh, I see. Because we had lost 5 to 1.

Yeah. So we get down there and it's, you know, Italy scores early. It's 1-0. Then they get a penalty that they miss. And so we go in halftime down 1-0. We come out. At one point in the second half, we strong 18, 20 passes together. Things were just starting to click.

little bit. And we had one particular great golden opportunity with a free kick. Bruce Murray could strike him from the left side with his right foot. It was at the left side of the penalty area. He ripped one and it was parried by Zanga, the goalkeeper, down. And Peter Vermeis, who had a pretty good left foot of his own, was there for a rebound shot that hit Zenga right in the posterior and went out of bounds. We score that goal and we bunker it in. It could have been one-to-one. So we get back in the bus. We're headed back up to Florence for our third game with Austria.

People are coming out of their houses. They see the bus. They go on, bravo, bravo. So again, it gained some respect. For sure, yeah. So the team was staying in Florence. That was where home base was. We were actually in Terrenia, which was a little, it was west,

more towards Pisa. We were sequestered in an Olympic training, athletic training facility in kind of dorm-like situations there. And then we would bus in for the games. Okay. Yeah. So you mentioned David Vinoli earlier, the goalkeeper who was replaced by Tony Miola.

But he was kind of, there's some fun, fun pictures of him wearing a little American flag that has slipped into his baseball cap. And I guess he wore it from the bench during the Czechoslovakia game, the first game. But afterward, Bob Gansler told him to stop because it didn't look professional. And he didn't wear it after that. The reason. So we wanted to know, were you part of telling David Vannelly no more tiny American flag in your hat, buddy? No, no, but I was witness to something similar to that.

We're on our way home from a qualifier. Maybe it was the Trinidad game. And Finoli was a huge personality and a jokester and everybody loved him, you know. And he had that little head on that big body. Everybody called him Dino, like the Flintstones, you know, from the Flintstones. And so his nickname was Dino. So he's talking to Gansel and he says, hey, coach, do we have to wear our blazers? now that we're qualified, he says, can we like wear polo shirts on the road next time?

And Gansler looked at him, he said, David, you can wear whatever you want, but you won't be traveling with his team. That's the way it was with Gansler, you know. So, but he was, David was a character. I actually was around at an event that he was at when he was at UCLA, a postseason event where I got to know him and a lot of the players from that great, UCLA team back then. So, yeah, no, he was, what a big loss when we lost him. So what about, what was Gansler's attitude towards Eric Winaldah after the red card against Czechoslovakia?

Well, Gantzler was keenly aware that this team had no experience. And he was worried about what might happen in a game, you know. and in that game Eric was pretty well set up on that and that some thought that he was goaded into it

you know or they are the guys will tell you that walking out for that game that the Czechoslovakia players looked huge these guys were men

29, 30, 31 and our guys were young there's a big difference you know and how they looked and the players thought that those guys these guys are big

and at that one point of the game, someone got a little physical with Winalda. Eric could get a little excited at times. No. Yeah, and he gets, you know, he got a little, he did it. And as soon as that foul occurred, the Czechoslovakia player went down. The whole bench stood up right there, right there.

It was a total sales job if you could do that from the sidelines. And so he was sent off. And that was... Yeah, I have... So we did a recap of this game back in the run-up to the 2020 World Cup. We all went back and watched it. Ah. And I have it...

I have another question about that, but I have it that he got just absolutely brutally studded on the top of his foot by Chauvanich, somewhere in like around the 35th minute. And that's what got him. Yep. Upset, yeah. Like that would have been a red today in the VAR era, the foul that he suffered, I mean. In the VAR area, yeah, unless you're playing a Conca Calf qualifier down in Panama where they step on ankles in the first five minutes knowing that the referee won't call anything.

Right. But you know what I mean, right? It does seem like soccer was more brutal back then, for sure. What do you think? Yeah, a little more contact allowed. Slide tackling players would, you know, hit the ground harder. These days, it seems like there's any kind of contact. There's a big reaction with the fans.

You know, if you go back to the 70s and 80s in the UK and watch games, there's a lot of physical contact going on there. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. The other thing about the World Cup, and I noticed this during qualifying and when we got to Italy, that the U.S. team was thought of as this group of young, these guys, what are they doing here anyway? You know, I got all kinds of questions at that World Cup. You guys are hosting the World Cup in 1994. What if nobody comes? What will you guys do if nobody comes? actually were questions like that you know we had to finesse it

you know we'll do you all right you know and of course the tournament was great it did it did great but the the US team again what are you doing here

and let me the head of FIFA's PR PR guy. When you're at a tournament like that, you have a flash interview that comes right after the game, and they'll want the star of the game. Yeah.

And so we had decided, after our first game, that we were going to send Mike Wisendishman, our team captain, regardless. We'd have this all planned out in advance. Coach, whatever happened that first game, he wanted to get him back, get him refocused, and going again. So after the game, Guido Tonioni comes up to me and says, we want Caliguri post-game

because he had scored the goal against Czechoslovak. It was a nice goal too, by the way. Yeah, it was. And I said, we're going to send our team captain. He goes, why? He says, what is it with Gansler anyway? And I said, look, we've got a young team. We just got beat 5'1. He wants to get back. He doesn't want to you know, little as possible. Our team captain is ready to come. Do you want him?

And so, yeah, Windishman went, did the interview. Who was this Guido fellow? Guido Tonioni. Guido Tonioni was the FIFA PR guy at the time. Okay. And I slammed a couple days later. And I was actually at some event. And he came up and, what is it with Gansler?

Why does he do this? and I went through the same thing again. And there was a little bit of tension there, you know. It was probably the first time I really noticed of really feeling like I was being subjected to anti-American sentiment was at that tournament. And it was just at this one time. And I said, and after I explained again, Wendishman, Tonyoni looked at me and he goes, fine. And then he says, you beat Italy again this week, and he turned around and walked off, you know. And so we didn't beat him, but we gave him a run for their money.

Yeah. Yeah. And the Austria game was a pretty, was a respectable scoreline as well. It was. It was. It's funny how soccer is like, you know, America has changed the way the world does just about everything, you know. eat, consume information, travel. You know, I mean, American influences just everywhere and everything.

Soccer's the one thing that kind of, it goes the opposite way, you know? Like America's slowly coming around to soccer. I don't know if it's coming around to the men's national team, but soccer's made more headway in America than American sports have in Europe, for instance, over the last 25 years. I just think I just I wonder if you what you think of all that like having seen that 1990 World Cup where everybody was kind of like what are you doing here and then you know how the game has evolved in America since then what we've done well Adam I think you know we'd all like it a little faster but the concept of having three four dozen players in Europe on decent teams is something that you know, we had nobody over there. Right. One of the first players to go over was Caliguri,

but we had no one. And, you know, about 12 years ago, I boldly predicted that 26 would be our year, you know. I felt that it would be there. I don't know if we're there. But it's all about getting the right group of players together at the time. We're all talking about

13 months in advance. Listen, I went all the way through a World Cup with the Brazilians. And those guys leave their egos at the door. They check in. They do what they have to do to win the tournament. And you imagine picking

a team in Brazil. How do they pick players? You know, they'll leave this guy out because this guy's better for the group. It's a puzzle. And I don't think. I think Pochitino has had nearly much time to really see who he's got on this team. It's going to be very difficult for us to put a team together to do well, but it could happen.

If he gets the right group of players together and can get them to totally commit, we haven't seen that commitment in recent games, and I think that's what got everybody upset. It's all about the group. Can you mold that group together, you know? I mean, Bob Gansler left Hugo Perez at home during the World Cup, partly because of injury. But partly because of what else? Well, I think there was, it was mainly some things that were going on with his agent at the time. heading into World Cup qualifying, whether Hugo would be available or not. He was clearly one of the classiest players that we had at the time.

But he had sustained an injury in France prior to that World Cup. So he didn't play against Trinidad and Tobago. But I don't want to overemphasize that, but I just want to say that, picking a World Cup roster is critical. You know, you can't have things, you can't have things happen that what happened at the last World Cup with one player going off the rails.

You know, Raina, the situation with Raina. Yeah. And, you know, those kinds of things that, if that happens in a World Cup camp, difficult. You know, we don't know what happened inside that. But we saw Roy Keane, you know, when he was with the Irish team over in Asia that year and left the squad, you know. Little things can happen.

These guys are cooped up together for sometimes three or four weeks. And if everything isn't right, it can be bad. If everything is right, it can elevate a team to do way more than they're capable of. of if you get the right mix. What did you learn? So I have several questions about your time with the Brazilian national team. But what did you learn about that selection process, like the puzzle, the putting together of the puzzle? Like how, I know you're kind of explaining it right now, but what else?

You know, Brazil was an attacking, known as an attacking team. But Carlos Alberto Pereira, the coach had him playing a little bit. defense. And there was one particular press conference when somebody asked him about, why are they why aren't they attacking more? And he'd say, look, all we want to do is play a little bit of defense. That's all he said, a little bit of defense, you know. He gave a clinic leading up to the World Cup in front of the U.S. soccer coaches talked about defending and how the players will use the sidelines as an extra defender and they close down. And he closed down. him people in.

And so Pereira picked some good defensive players. And in fact, took, took a midfielder, Leonardo, and played him at left back, you know. And then they had the great Georginio,

the attacking right back, who became my favorite, just watching him, though how professionally carried himself, you know. What a big timer that guy was. And then he went over to Japan. Then you had, you have Bebeto and Romario up front.

And those two guys supposedly didn't like each other because one guy was a home body with a family. And Romario was a street cat he'd like to get out, you know. And so there was all kinds of stories about that. So I went up to the coach right before the final. I said, what do you think about doing a press conference with Romario and Babetto? And Francisco Marcos was with me. Francisco was the head of delegation for Brazil. So we traveled together.

And he said, I mean, I stuck my neck out asking this because they had their own press officer. But I was the English language guy. And so he said, you know, go ask the players. They want to do it. Fine. I ask them, great. So we stayed at this press conference at one of the hotels. And we had tons of people.

there. Heavy German press, everything. And it was all like, they got up and talked about each other, you know, that's where I got the term. Which is good. This is good content. Oh, yeah, I know it was great because everybody was wondering about these guys, you know, how are they, how are they doing? And Romaniol got up and said that he's a family guy. He's got kids and all this. That was when the rocking the baby thing, when they scored the goal, you know, Babetto had a new baby in the family. And then you had a tough team captain, Dunga, Carlos Dunga, who was a no nonsense. Huh? Yeah.

Went on to become the coach. Went on to become the coach. Yeah. Yeah. And you had a player called Marcio Santos, who was a central defender that was kind of the rock of the defense back then, central defender. Didn't he score like a screamer of a free kid? in the World Cup?

No, that was, you're thinking of Bronco. Bronco, that's right. Left-footed guy, it was in Dallas against Holland, and the thing didn't not, it wasn't any more than six inches off the ground all the way. That one was a banger, for sure. That was a banger. That didn't go into the upper corner,

but it didn't have to, you know. It was great. Maybe explain the dynamics of that a little bit more. You were the English language press officer because you worked, because they were sponsored by Umbro? Well, yeah. The Brazilian nationally? How did that work?

Umbrough was where, they were wearing umbrose gear. And earlier that, earlier than the year at the National Soccer Coaches Convention, which Umbrough was a big sponsor of them at the time, we had both Pellé and Carlos Alberto Pereira there as guests of the convention. And there was an event where we put the program together. We edited a bunch of Palais World Cup exploit films together, and we had him up behind the podium talking to the coaches, about 200 coaches, about what happened.

Oh, yeah, I remember that, you know. And there would be a picture of an attractive woman in the crowd. And he goes, oh, yeah, I remember her. Everybody got a big laugh out of that. But afterwards, we had a panel discussion. And my boss, Warren Mercero, asked me to moderate it. And I found myself sitting at a table with Pele on one side and Carlos Alberto Pereira on the other, fielding questions from the audience about anything they wanted. And this guy, this guy from Washington State who in his younger days didn't know whether the ball was stuffed or pumped is now moderating this great conversation.

conversation. Anyway, I did well enough. Coach was happy afterwards. And then we, I think my boss brought it up. Would you like to have John at the World Cup? Maybe he could help out. And the press was crazy around this team. Most of the time, they blew up press conferences. People would walk out. So they felt that they're a regular, I could use help if nothing else, fending off the English language press. And so I became kind of known as the English language press. Press, liaison, but it was a total addition. But I was on the official delegation. Yeah. Yeah. So who when, I mean, so different to be sitting between Pele and Carlos Alberto Pereira compared to Mike Windishman and Bob Gansler, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I can't, sometimes I got to pinch myself and

how did I get there, you know? There was a lot of things that had happened to me personally leading up to that, you know, and I remember that I was pretty much really down because of some things that had happened in my life. And I decided, you know what? I'm going to the World Cup in 1990. This is like around 1986. And about 1988, I get a call from Sineal Galati out of the blue. You know, he saw me work a soccer event once. And he said, you know, John, you don't know me, but I know you.

He says, you think you could help us out. And so they were having a tournament, actually a series of games on the West Coast, where they were playing seven or eight games in a span about 20 days, bringing different player pools in each time to get to see what they had. And so I went down and worked out of that event, and he goes, look, I don't have a job for you, but if we get the World Cup and the announcement is this summer, 88 for 94, maybe, you know, we probably use you. July came around.

They announced the World Cup. I went to the Federation. They were based in Colorado Springs at the time. That's when I joined up. And I spent six years there. Okay. So I got my dates wrong in the intro a little bit. 87 to 93, basically?

88 to 98 to 93, right in there. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. And then I went to Umbro for about six years after that. Right. It moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Greenville, South Carolina.

Umbrough was a company that made physical training uniforms for the British Army back in 1924. And that's how they started. The Humphreys Brothers, Humphreys, H-U-M-P-H-R-E-Y-S, was pronounced Humphreys Brothers. And that's where Umbro comes from. Okay. So it really is bro. It's so Umbro always always. always been a British company and bought out by some Americans in the early 90s, the stone

manufacturing company in Greenville, South Carolina. And they advanced the lifestyle. Remember the Umbro Shorts craze and all that stuff that was going on back then? They brought, Umbro into the footwear business back then about that time. And we had just a wonderful group of people that I had the pleasure of working with about that time. We had Pellander contract. We had Brazil. And that was pre-Nike. Yeah.

So, yeah. The big dogs. Nike was, you'll get a kick out of this. Nike was guerrilla marketing all during the World Cup in 94. So we'd be at practice. There would always be two to three thousand fans, through the fence at Brazil's practice. And they all had just do it, Nike caps on that were handed out, you know, despite we were the sponsor.

And so, you know, they made it known. They were coming after Nike. They were coming after the Brazil. Interesting. And they got them eventually. Well, they did. And I think we were paying, we were paying Brazil maybe two, three. million dollars a year.

Forgive me umbrae guys if I'm off on that. But, you know, and we renegotiated the contract after the 94 World Cup, uh, for them to stay with us. But then, um, Nike made their move and I think came in and offered us 10 million to buy out to get out of the Nike contract, out of the umbra contract. I see. And then I think they signed, they signed, they signed Brazil. to about a $23 million deal, you know.

The big dogs came in. I guess it's not that complicated, is it? No, no, it wasn't. It wasn't, you know. So I got a question about Nike, but first, in the English language press corps, like the global English language press corps for soccer that might be interested in the Brazilian national team. Back then, who was the big dog? Like, who was, like, if they called, you scrambled to return their call?

Yop de Groot from the telegraph in Holland was a big rider. Because Romario was playing at PSV Einhoven at the time, right? He was, he was, well, right up until the 93, I guess. Yeah. You might have been at Barcelona when the World Cup happened. Yeah. There were some journalists that were mildly interested in the United States. First of all, let's see if they qualify, you know.

And then they got, you know, pretty interested in us. In fact, I got, I had an eye opener when, you know, we never saw, we never saw European journalists at our games. You know, they just, it wasn't, it just wasn't part of the, part of the mix. And I did a press conference down in, I was doing an event. I think this might have been the time that we were down for the Marlborough Cup in Miami. And there was a reporter there, you have to grow it from their telegraph in Amsterdam, who was a big football writer. He's still writing books. Really?

And I said hello to him like I always do. And I was rushing to set up for this press conference. And somebody told me afterwards, he says, you know, there's a guy here. from Holland, and he thinks you blew him off. And I said, really? I said, yeah, I was a little bit quick. So I went back and, you know, hat in hand, you know, made up. We've been, we were friends ever since that, you know.

But sometimes you just didn't know who was there, you know. Sure. It was a whole different, you know, and everybody you met was new. But when it came to coverage, like coverage of the Brazil team, like who did you, who did, who was who are the big figures that you had to deal with in 94? Didn't have to deal with them very much because it's all done, you know. In Portuguese or Spanish? Well, yeah, but it's also mixed zones.

It's all wide open, you know. And if there would be a press conference, the Brazilian press officer would make a decision on who was going to go to that. I never had to do that. I was kind of around like somebody would say, hey, John, can you help me get this guy over there? And I would go over and grab them for them because mixed zones are a big deal, you know. They just have a cordoned off area and all the reporters jam in there and grab them as they go by. So, you know, there's some people that come. They don't all come to the press conference.

There's maybe one or two guys. But if they want to get them, it's mixed zone. Okay. And so sometimes it would be so chaotic around the bridge. Brazilian press that just having another body there to help manage traffic, you know. We had Michael Janofsky from the New York Times was one of our guys that covered quite a bit. We had trying to think of Randy Harvey from the LA Times was with us, Phil Hirsch from the Chicago Tribune. I'm trying to think of the guy from Boston Globe, Boston Herald, Philadelphia, Inquirer.

The names escape me. But they all got on the bandwagon once we were on there. And then not all of them would cover Brazil closely, you know. So most of Brazil's, the demand on Brazil's press time from international journalism. journalists. And there weren't many people sending their reporters on the road to cover the World Cup back then. You know, maybe the big, big ones is about it. Yeah. Okay. Well, just a few more questions, maybe sort of thinking ahead towards the World Cup here next summer. How much buzz was there around the men's national team in the lead-up to the 94 World Cup? We're

people, was there a palpable sense of excitement? There was. You know, we had qualified. They sequestered the team in Mission Viejo, California. They had their own spot down there.

The team was living full time down there. We had full-time staff. That was about the time that I left the Federation to go to Umbro. But they took it serious, you know. They brought in Bora.

In fact, I was there when Bora first came in. And I was at the very first meeting he had with the team prior to training. But they felt that they wanted an experienced coach, and Bora had done well with Mexico in 86. So they brought him in. And that was their demonstration that they wanted to do the best of what they could to get this team ready for 94, you know? Yeah. So.

Well, you pointed out earlier that we've done well. We have three or four dozen players at good clubs in Europe as compared to 1989, 90 when we didn't have any. And of course you're right. But it feels like there is very little enthusiasm for the team. now, you know, in the country. And I wonder what you think has gone wrong? Like what, why is that? I think it's hard to measure the enthusiasm for the national team at any one time. You know, you can, you can look at attendance at games as one way. You can look at how the commentators are reacting at the games, you know. There's a lot of criticism right now. But,

You know, just the fact that there's a lot of criticism of the team shows that there's a lot of interest in this team. You know, they're expected. They have, there are some expectations, and I think placed on this team that because we have a few starters in Europe that we're suddenly supposed to put a great World Cup team together. And I don't care if we had 20 starters. starting in Europe. It would still, you'd still have to put the unit together, pick the right players to play the right position. Almost like there's some alchemy to it.

Like, it's not just the strict, this guy's good on paper. It's about the, like you were saying earlier, it's about the group and the dynamics between the players. It is about the group and what kind of dynamics that the coach can build with this group of players. can you imagine not seeing these guys and seeing them what once every few months and you get them and you know

what are you going to do you know now any national team coach faces that you know I remember in the Japan Korea World Cup back when Goose Heink from Holland

was the coach of the Korean team they were great you know he was able to lift them up and play. The question will be in this group, who's going to stand up and be the leader and who's going to be the guy that gets people up off their butt when they need to be told, you know? With Brazil, it was Dunga. He would grab people by the scruff of the neck and tell people what they've got to know. I don't think we've seen anybody emerge as a team captain that can do that. So somebody's going to have to do that. Who are the candidates, do you think?

you know, I don't know, because I just don't know if the guys that are been with our team for a long time, like Tim Ream, is he going to be around with this group? You know, he's experienced guy that could do it. Maybe getting a little too experienced. Yeah, sometimes you need an experience, a guy that's really experienced that's been a leader. And a lot of the players that we have on our team aren't leaders with their respective pro clubs, you know. they fit in well I mean I don't know if I see

you know it could fall on Policic but you know traditionally you you you want some kind of a grizzled veteran in there and you know that's tough

I think the coach is going to have to identify someone that he picks and it's going to be his call and he's going to choose the lineup and I just don't think anyone knows how he thinks yet. I don't even think anybody covering the team knows how he thinks.

I haven't seen one good interview done with this coach where they've used a translator, where you can hear everything that he says, you know, sit down for an hour and do a Q&A with him and ask him about all the things and have a translator there because, you know, he's difficult to understand sometimes. And I think that for a journalist to go along and try to figure out how he's thinking and how he picks his players

and what's important, relying on the one-off question that suddenly someone asks, you know, that's what I'd like to see, a long interview with him. What does he want out of players, you know? And he talks about passion, you know, and commitment.

and playing hard. But, you know, we all see that we've not seen that team play hard. They're not committed. They don't appear to be committed to die on that field, you know. Now, that's going to pick up in the next year for sure. And to compare these League's Cup games with the World Cup is, you know. Yeah. We try to read into how they do here.

I mean, if they'd won the league's cup, are you still going to be excited about them for the World Cup? Maybe. You might feel a little bit better, but we're still going to be wondering who's going to make up the lineup. Yeah. Who's going to be playing with that group? Yeah.

And who's going to be hot, you know? You know. Yeah, I think that's right. The World Cup is its own thing. There's nothing else like it. maybe the cope of America a little bit. I think it's a waste of time to wring your hands about the national team 14 months before the World Cup.

I know it's around the corner, but I know it's around the corner, but whatever this team becomes, it's going to become what it is based on what happens closer to the World Cup than now. Interesting, yeah. I love that perspective. I forgot to ask you about Portland. talk about that real quick. So you got your start in soccer when you were a reporter at the Oregonian, I believe, right? And you were covering the Portland Timbers. So in 1975, the team went

farther in NASL than apparently the front office thought they would because they had a bunch of players over on loan, on loan from England, right? Yeah, that's right. And there was this big question whether those players would have to leave to go back to their home clubs before the season was over, right? Before the playoffs. Before the playoffs. Yeah. Right.

So what was the, you were covering this story as it was unfolding, right? So what do you remember about all that? I mean, well, it was, it was my first foray into soccer. But I found myself covering the biggest Oregon sports story. in years. You know, the Blazers didn't win their championship until 77. So this soccer team, which by the way, was announced January-ish of 1975, the players started arriving about mid-February to March, and the first game was in April. They hired Vic Crow as the coach, who had taken Aston Villa to a league cup

final in 71. And Vic went around getting loan players. You know, the most famous loan player on that team that became a big star was Peter with. And, you know, Peter won a European Cup with Aston Villa and went on and had a great career, played for England. But there was three or four X Villa.

players, three or four from wolves at the time. Most of them, guys ready to break through. The oldest player on the team was Ray Martin. I believe Ray was 27, 28, who'd played 300 games at right back for Birmingham City. Tough as nails. If he wanted to, he could put you up in the stands with one tackle, you know, kind of an enforcer guy. Vic had a great mix of players in.

And our first game was a game, it was a game against Seattle. Pouring rain. Just artificial turf, a mess. They slowly started coming together. Pretty soon they were knocking everybody off. I think they went 18 and 6 for the season. And they had every week, the crowd was 4,000. Then it would go to 6, then it would go to 8.

Then it would go to 12. Then it would go to 16, 18, 20. And by the time we played Seattle in the playoffs, they sold 27,000 tickets in three hours. And the game was played on a Saturday night, I believe. I always remember I went to practice. Vic was really big about playing it up with the fans, you know. Mother's Day game, the players were out at the entrance is handing roses out to every woman that walked through the gate.

Players did that before the game, you know. They all brought soccer balls out for the starting lineups, and they had held these balls during the National Anthem, and they would kick them into the stands. It was a big deal back then. but that particular day that Seattle game the players were in the stadium training and the lines for tickets was all the way around the stadium

people back up to grab the last remaining tickets so Vic decides let's take the boys on the run around the stadium and yeah the crowd went bananas you know they were patting the players on the back and all that kind of so

you know they beat Seattle 2-1 Tony Betts, last minute sub goes in, takes a ball from Willie Anderson. Willie Anderson, a former Ashton Villa, went to Cardiff, had a great career in England, came over in his prime at age 28. And so Tony hit this header,

and the place went crazy, stormed the field, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So four or five minutes. This was all in the Tim, the timber's first season. Yeah, in the same stadium before it had been remodeled. There was a baseball. There was baseball cutouts on the field, you know.

I love that story about the team going on a jog past the line of people waiting to buy ticket. They did that all kinds of stuff like that. After every game, there was a post-game party at the Benson Hotel. The players were required to go. Were they required to drink? Well, they didn't have to be required to do that Because players were drinking back then Yeah, you know.

I mean, the weight players trained now Compared to where they were back then, it was different, you know. Yeah. As long as you did your job in the field, you can have a few after, you know. But so then a few days later, maybe a week later, We played St. Louis and we got the home advantage. And they brought in every bit of portable bleachers they could find.

And there was 33,000 in for that game. Man. And they went to the final, played Tampa Bay, another expansion team, two expansion teams playing each other. And the Rowdies won, right. The Rowdies won. The second goal scored by first or second. By Clyde Best, the great ex-Westtown player,

who eventually became a timber a few years later. Did the timbers have the chainsaw guy back then? Yeah, it was Timber Jim Serrell, Jim Serrell. Jim's still around. He goes to all the games. It's Timber Joy now, but, you know, they had old telephone poles in that stadium. And there was a couple of times when the timbers were on a gold route, Timber Jim would climb the telephone pole in his cork boots,

and he would set up at the top of the telephone pole until they scored. Awesome. He had to use all of his skills sometimes because there was a, there was a, drought or two between goals. Yeah. All right, man, what a pleasure. This is awesome. Thank you for your time. John, thank you for your service to the game in our country. And thanks everybody for listening.

Thank you. I feel honored to have been a part of the things that I was able to do when I was in the game. You know, sometimes you just get lucky. But I do think that there are times in one's life where you can think yourself into jobs. And the more interested I got into soccer, the more I put myself into a place where, you know, I might have that opportunity. And, you know, it's been a great career. I still hang around the game a bit, but not like I used to. So your podcast, by the way, fantastic. I just became aware of it recently.

So you've got another fan here. Awesome. Thank you. We'll keep watching. Good luck with everything. Yeah, thank you. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.