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Ives at the helm during last year’s World Cup opening match between Germany and Costa Rica

After lunch at a brew pub, which has become my soccer office of late in Times Square, New Jersey Herald Red Bulls beat reporter Ives Galarcep expressed his slight hesitation in participating in a profile about himself, in that he would incite criticism for his lack of being a soccer player, and as he put it, “I’m not nearly as interesting as Jack Bell or Grant Wahl.”

Not one to cast off Ives’ opinions, which I’ve come to greatly respect over the years, I considered it, and then cast it aside. Ives might be more interesting. As he remarked on his blog, he doesn’t have photos of himself with Pele or Ronaldinho, but what he has is the day-in day-out life of a fulltime soccer writer, something Jack and Grant can’t say. So, for that reason only, Ives has something to share that is rare. And we should all pay attention, because as Ives goes, so goes our soccer coverage. Will his paper continue to cover soccer? Will his newspaper… continue? None of those answers are crystal clear.

What is clear, however, is that Amado Guevara is no fan of Ives. Just one day after our meeting, in which one of the topics we addressed was the unique relationship between beat reporters and the players they cover, Guevara banned Ives from his media circle for some critical columns he wrote about the Honduran striker. Just another day on the beat. At least Clint Mathis and him are friends again (keep reading).

For one of the first times in print, the coveted life of an endangered species is exposed. OK, I didn’t spend three years waiting for images of a snow leapord in the Himalayas, but soccer beat reporters, they’re no less a fascinating breed.

Thanks for joining me Ives, let’s begin with the basics. How did you get to this point, covering soccer fulltime?

I became a soccer writer, because, well, I actually didn’t play soccer. I was a football player. I was in college playing Division 3 football at Ramapo College, and the school where I was dropped the program, so I transferred to another school to play. I went to Jersey City State and just went to football camp and decided, well, I’m not going to do this. So I went back to Ramapo. A year or so later I got into the school newspaper. And the biggest sport in the school was soccer, because there was now no football. I started covering soccer then.

I’m Peruvian. I was exposed to soccer to some degree, but not to the point where it was my favorite sport. I grew up in a single parent family, so I didn’t have that father figure giving me a soccer ball.

Does that surprise a lot of people? I would guess just with the stereotypes that most people would learn you are Peruvian and think you genetically had a love for soccer.

Yeah, they probably think I played soccer at some point, but I didn’t. I was exposed to soccer to some degree, watching it I can remember the 86 World Cup with Maradona, but it wasn’t really something I was exposed to regularly. I grew up in areas where baseball and football were the big things. I grew up in inner cities a lot. I was born here in the US; my mother was pregnant with me when she moved here from Peru, you know for the whole citizenship thing. I was born in Passaic, and then I moved around a lot, but mostly Plainfield and Passaic, New Jersey, both kind of urban environments.

Getting back to the college environment, I started covering soccer, and then the 1994 World Cup happened, and that’s when I really fell in love with it. Getting to know and becoming friends with the players at my school while writing for the college paper, I just got really fascinated with it. So I wrote about soccer for a few years. When I graduated and got my first writing gig at the Herald News, which is where I still am now, the beat opened up for the Metrostars. And it just so happened at that time that a friend of mine from college, on the team that I covered, was on the Metrostars.

So I told the editor, look, I know someone on the team, I speak Spanish; I’ve been covering it for a few years in college.

The pitch they couldn’t say no to?

Exactly. So that was 1999, which just so happens to be the worst season for the Metrostars, ever. And I just took it ran. I kept doing it, and gradually our paper realized that our coverage area is big on soccer. We have really heavy South American and Caribbean population. Lots of Mexicans, Peruvian, Columbians, Jamaicans. And there’s also Eastern Europeans: Turkish and Polish. So they figured we should cover soccer as thoroughly as we can, and I just happened to be there. They gave me the beat full time and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Why do you think the Herald realizes that soccer community whereas the New York Times doesn’t? Is it just a numbers game, in that the readers soccer brings to the Herald can make a bigger dent than that same number at the Times?

That’s exactly it. I guess they look at the teams and see they aren’t drawing much and the TV numbers, and they figure it’s just not worth it. That’s the big papers. For the little papers, it is still worth the resources. Because of the smaller size, they can see a real hit. The circulation people told us our numbers were going up. Tuesday was our big soccer section day, and the numbers were up then.

So once I knew this was what I wanted to do, I just immersed myself in it. Watch as much as I can. Read up as much as I can. There is so much in soccer to learn, from history to what’s going on today.

What is going on today? Let’s start with what we’re both probably most familiar with, the Red Bulls. Any thoughts beyond what I’ve read on your blog about attendance numbers and the place of the team in the community?

Off the field, its hard to say they have done well. There’s all these excuses about Grass Roots marketing, but its all double-speak. It’s hard to hide the fact that they are waiting for the stadium. Early on they saw very little return from marketing, but now it seems they’ve gone the other way and decided to spend no money. I don’t know why they thought they’d keep the status quo, but if anything, the numbers have dropped. It’s pretty embarrassing honestly. The team is better. They have better players. Someone is doing something wrong.

photo courtesy of the Red Patch Boys, a Toronto FC supporters group

And Toronto getting out of the gates quickly, at least off the field in terms of their crowd support?

Well, that’s a first year thing. When you get a new team and obviously Toronto is a great city with a diverse ethnic background. If they lost for 9 years in a row, you’d like to see what the attendance would be like.

So wait and see on them?

Yeah. I think they will do well. A stadium like that is worth going to even if your team loses, and that’s what the Red Bulls don’t have. They don’t have a memorable environment or even a place you want to go back to.

So will the new Red Bull Park make a big difference?

I think so. Just where it is. The accessibility of it. And then the coziness of it. I think it will be a hit. I’ve been saying that for seven years now. I wrote a column back in 2000 saying that Harrison was where the stadium needed to be built because of the location, accessibility and soccer-loving communities around there. I actually think the Harrison Mayor still has that column hanging in his office. Where they are planning to build it, it’s going to be great. But they have to build it, and I’m just tired of waiting.

What about the Red Bull ownership, being so tied to a brand. It’s a little different than the usual corporate sponsor model. Do you worry about that in terms of bringing in fans to identify with the club?

It’s all marketing. I don’t get too hung up on that. If they were great from day one, no one would care, and you will always have a small segment of people who just hate that stuff and won’t ever accept it. When they first bought the team I wrote a column for ESPN about how when Manchester United first started out, they were named after their sponsor. And no one had a problem with that. It’s about the team and the colors, and the players who you root for. I know it offends some people, but I think those people are a little too idealistic.

Gold Cup is upon us. What are the storylines your most interested in?

USA, Mexico, obviously. There’s Cuba. It’s been a long time since they have players here and you have to wonder if there will be protests or defections. They had defections last time around. You have Amada Guevara coming back to New York. Canada is looking really good. They could win the tournament if things break their way. I think when they announced the Gold Cup with no guest teams, people might have thought it was going to be a weak tournament, and not worth watching, but now that I’ve done all of this research on it and watched the first few games, I think its actually going to be a pretty good tournament. And it’s a chance for the US to beat Mexico with a trophy on the line, and anytime you have that chance, it makes for great drama.

You wrote recently about Landon Donovan and his speaking out against wanting to go to Copa America, though without saying he would refuse to go. Where do we stand right now in the journalism world with cameras and microphones everywhere expecting athletes to say the good things. So much of it is clichÈ or them walking the fence. Where did Landon fall on this, say compared to the Gary Sheffields out there?

For Landon, he just loves to speak his mind; he’s an intelligent guy who gives great commentary and quotes, but he has to know the perception of him, and you would think if he did, and he has to, that he would be a little more careful about the things he says, even if they can still be taken out of context. Maybe he is over scrutinized, but he seems like such a polarizing figure. I wrote that post and the Landon haters come out, and the Landon lovers come out in force. He’s our best player and so much is expected of him. It’s tough. He can’t win.

Pulling back, in general, is there times when, like me, you get sick of the athletes’ cliche answers or the way in which the players address the media? Maybe the way MLS markets the players to the media? or even the way the media spoon feeds the public, maybe?

I think MLS is definitely missing some personalities. One of the few things I’ve agreed with Alexi Lalas on is that the league needs more personalities that give good quotes and people can kind of connect with and don’t seem so robotic. Landon is actually one of those guys.

Jack Bell made that point as well. And chalked it up partially to the single entity MLS and their inability to market individuals.

It doesn’t seem like they spend enough money on marketing as they should. Obviously the league is involved with all these marketing arms, like SUM, and they have so much to work on, but that is a void that needs to be filled. Find the players they can promote. Like Juan Pablo Angel for instance. Here we have a bilingual, good-looking guy, a great goal scorer, good quote. They should have already splashed his image everywhere they could. No matter how big you think he is in the big scheme of things, here, he could be a star. And here we are, 6 games in, and there is nothing. That’s partly the Red Bulls obviously, but part of it is MLS. They should see the opportunity. Meanwhile, they’re promoting Beckham left and right as if he needs promotion. People already know about him. You need to tell them about Juan Pablo and Maykel Galindo at Chivas USA, who has that amazing story about defecting from the Cuban team and now he is a star in MLS. The average Joe has never heard that story.

Maykel Galindo during his days with the Seattle Sounders of the USL

A great example with Maykel. What part does the media have in promoting those players? We would need someone, after all, to go and write that story. The media on most levels is still suspect of soccer and unwilling to put in the resources as we’ve discussed a bit. Do you have the support of the Herald to go and follow a story like that?

For years we were actually the only paper that traveled with the Red Bulls/MetroStars consistently, like was the case with the Cosmos as Jack Bell experienced it. But there are cutbacks, and our paper is struggling quite a bit along with the rest of them. So there is not as much travel, and there’s not going to be as much travel, so stories like that are harder to come by as you often point out. It’s tough. You have to pick your spots – where you can get to.

You write for ESPN as well. Does that change anything in that regard, though I know the Soccernet budgets are tough?

If ESPN.com didn’t come along when they did, about 2 and half years ago, honestly, I don’t know where I would be. I might not even be writing soccer. Writing for them allows me financially to stay where I am and do what I do.

The Gold Cup preview was one of the best preview pieces I can remember, mainly just because I didn’t know much at all about a bunch of those teams. So it was great to have that team-by-team breakdown of what you are getting with say a Guadalupe.

Yeah, it’s funny. Even for me. I get paid to follow it, but I learned so much about these teams and who their up-and-coming players are. And it’s great to be able to have the space on the internet. Which is the future, I believe, of all this journalism writing. The newspapers are struggling while the internet grows, so who knows what will happen in the near future.

Where does your blog fall into that future. Can you speak to that? How it started, how it has grown?

It’s been great within the context of the paper. I did a world cup blog, and there was a lot of positive feedback from that. In November I started up the blog, and this month we fell just short of six figures for the month, which I think is bigger than all of our other 12 or so blogs combined. From that point, it’s been great. If anything, it has silenced any critics at our paper who might have been skeptical about whether people really care about soccer.

Bruce McGuire at du Nord called it the sport of the internet, emphasizing soccer over other sports, who get the mainstream print media coverage.

Exactly. And he is amazing. That’s how it all started for me. I write in New Jersey, but if you live in Oregon and search soccer you will eventually come to my stuff, and that’s how you develop a following. If it wasn’t for the internet, who knows what myself or soccer fans would do to get that information. I have gotten emails from readers from Europe to Asia and Africa, with one of the best memories being when I got an email from an American soldier in Iraq. I thought it was completely mind-blowing that here was this soldier whose dodging bullets every day taking the time out to read my stuff and shoot me an email. I still keep in tough with that soldier and even did a piece on him for ESPN.com.

(Ives cell phone rings. In the last few days prior to our meeting, Ives said there was a chance he might not be able to come to lunch because he was trying to set up an interview with Mexico’s coach, Huge Sanchez.)

Take that if you need to. Hugo?

Naw. That isn’t happening. I’ve spoken to him before, so it’s not a big deal.

I love how crazy that team appears. Maybe it’s my American perception, but for a story it would be great to get in there as an American journalist and spend time with the team. There are so many characters and the bad blood between the US MNT and them is just getting worse. That’s one of those stories I’d love to go do. Maybe we can get Grant Wahl on the case. And after that loss the other day. Tempers must be hot down there.

Yeah. I guess there was a fight. I had a picture I was going to put up on the blog where you see Blanco getting into something. I tell you what, they are such a unique group. I’ve been to every one of the games against the U.S. Korea, Columbus, Phoenix. And just talking to them – and I can speak Spanish, so it helps – you get the sense of their personality after these loses, and you don’t feel like they are this top 10, 20 team. It’s hard to explain, but the U.S. has their number and is in their heads. They deny it, but you can tell when you talk to them. Marquez is in complete denial, and it’s great to see that the U.S. has that psychological edge.

a great wall treatment from www.diariosdefutbol.com

What would one more win in this Gold Cup do for that? Walking papers for Hugo?

I don’t think they’d fire him. He would have to quit. I think he has too much standing in the country to fire him. But this would be the one where there are no more excuses. 8-0-1 here in the US against Mexico, how many excuses can you come up with.

What has your attention this summer besides the national team tournaments

Just the Red Bulls really. I’m trying to do a series on the Red Bulls Youth Academy. The fact that MLS and the clubs are building this structure which will allow teams to develop and then be able to sign these players is a big deal. I don’t know if people realize it. It will kick in when these players go through it and play. The Red Bulls, in that regard, have had a youth system in place, standing in front of the line, so they are in a good position to take advantage of it in maybe two years when you will begin to see players come straight to the team without going through the draft. And with the talent in this area, that’s scary.

It is. Or it should be. I’m glad you brought up the youth development. This is the huge unknown for me. Beyond the marketing, MLS and USSF needs to pay attention to this, and I guess they are beginning to. You just had the new Academy program announced by USSF, and MLS teams are jockeying for their programs, but as you noted, there is a lot of talent in this area, and I’m not confident these new programs fill all the cracks when it comes to pay-to-play issues with club teams and finding the undiscovered kids that beyond being potential soccer stars, could use their time in a youth program to get safety and maturity. I just see it as a chance to catch a lot of aspects of sports in one big net, but I’m worried the rich, already successful clubs will be able to maintain the stranglehold they have on our kids. Even if it’s just finding that amazing player on the sandlot.

It’s funny, because when you bring up that point to certain people at USSF, they get so offended at the notion that there are kids who are outside the system that could step right in and be superstars. Even Bruce Arena. But it’s not that these kids are ready to play, it’s just that there are these pieces of coal that put in the right system could turn out to be diamonds. They play the game at a young age, and not in the constricted system that American youth soccer puts their young kids in. Talking to Sunil Gulati, I really get a sense that he gets it. I actually believe that he knows that’s a problem and that there are these resources that aren’t being tapped into. Say what you want about his handling of the coaching situation, but I think he is going to do something good with that.

Paul Gardner is the guy who always comes to mind. How he has been pushing for this kind of thing for 20 years.

Yeah, Paul is a funny guy, he takes it to the extreme, though. As far as the hundreds of thousands of people, but there are a lot. I remember from covering high school soccer, there were players that I saw that were better than kids who went on to MLS. And it’s like, what happened to those kids? You hear nightmares about ODP and how flawed it is, and it’s true. In New Jersey for example, the kids have to find a way to some central location that poorer players may not be able to get to. Without question, there are players falling through the cracks.

And that may never change, but can’t they fill more of the cracks?

Yeah, well, with the new USSF development plan. I read that thing a bunch of times, and it’s still so vague. It seems like they are trying to duplicate the Bradenton model, but the thing with Bradenton is that all these kids live there. And it’s everyday all day. It’s like boot camp. People look at the players that have come out of there and say oh look how good a job they are doing, but I don’t think it’s just that. I think if you put any good players in that environment, they are going to get better.

In other parts of the world the club teams have that, and pay for it. and I think you are going to get to that point with the MLS youth set-up, but it’s still a problem where you have 12 teams in this country and there are huge gaps that aren’t covered by those teams. Hopefully that is something the USSF plan will do, fill in those cracks.

Talking about vague, what about the partnerships between MLS teams and youth clubs and European clubs? Do you see any worth in that beyond marketing?

I don’t know what that is. It seems like just a ploy. People forget the Man U – New York Yankees thing. Where did that go other than some old Man U clips on the YES network? I guess in Colorado, Kroenke is trying to buy Arsenal so there might be something there, but I don’t know how real any of that stuff is.

Stan Kroenke, scaring ‘Google Images’ searchers one algorithm at a time

It’s the big youth clubs in this country that have picked up the slack for a long time in developing players, but now that MLS and USSF is getting involved, what’s going to happen to them? For a lot of those people, that’s their bread and butter. I’ve already heard of clubs and leagues fighting back. It’s such a strange situation and it’s going to be interesting to see how it is dealt with. Places like Dallas and Chicago who have these super youth clubs. What are people going to do? Are they going to drop those teams and go play for FC Dallas or the Fire? That seems like it’s going to be a huge battle now that the initiatives have started.

Look at in California, the guy who runs the league out there, Gary Sparks, he had all of these outlandish statements about how they are going organize the parents to fend off the pro teams. It’s so ridiculous. It should be up to each parent and each kid to decide what they want to do.

It’s capitalism. Someone has to lose in the competition for talent and dollars.

Yeah. It’s weird. You have these guys saying they can coach as good as the pro coaches or national team coaches. Who knows? Maybe they can. Maybe they can’t. It’s a mess.

Given all of that, and I will preface this with my belief that until these programs and MLS can get together, maybe 10 years from now, it’s hard to fully judge the sport here. Where do you stand on that?

I see it growing. It’s not growing as well as it could be. I still think MLS tries hard and does their job, but they aren’t doing as good a job, even with such limited resources. But they are going into TV and marketing, and it seems they are paying more money for those things than they do with the actual league they are supposed to be running. I’m confident it will continue to grow, however, and with new stadiums and established fan bases it should even more so. What gets me about it, is like you said, its only what 11, 12 years old. Where was the NFL and the NBA at those ages? Certainly not where they are now. But they don’t realize that, so.

You mentioned earlier in the conversation that you don’t know where you will be in a year. How does the situation of growing American soccer affect your career? Energizing it or making it stressful in terms of how much space you get in the paper or opportunities to write elsewhere? Such as the blog or ESPN.

There is always going to be an audience for soccer. Just that there are these people out there and not many outlets to get information. So the demand is there. It’s just about finding the vehicle to do it. My paper is committed to that, but they have their own financial struggles, and who knows where papers in general will be five years from now. Part of the thing for me is to get more exposed on the internet. It’s just naturally the next move for everyone, the websites instead of newspapers kind of thing. So who knows in five years how many opportunities there will be. Maybe I’ll be able to just do my own website, which some writers have begun to do.

So, websites, newspapers, blogs, etc. The talk is often about convergence, but there seems to be this divergence of media to some degree and it brings questions of who is who and who is doing what. Where information is coming from. You having a foot in several camps, I’m curious to know how that, if at all, affects how you report, in terms of what insider tid-bits you print and what kind of commentary you give.

I don’t think it is that different. I don’t think it can be. But it is tough when you are a full time beat writer in any sport or really any subject. In the big sports you have a beat writer and a columnist, and they have very different jobs. You have the columnist who can sit on high and take shots at whoever they want to. The beat writers are down in the trenches getting information. Whereas for me, and I don’t know how many writers are in my position, but I do both. I write a column every Tuesday, so there is a balance. You can’t totally go after them, but too I think some of the readers I got were because I would go after things. You kind of have to, but I don’t do it just to do it. In certain situations it must be said. Even if it is someone you have a good relationship with.

I told you, ‘Google Images’ can be a scary place

Like with Clint Mathis. His first time around here, I had a really good relationship with him. very friendly. But when it came to the point where he was having problems and not playing well, then I had to criticize him, which wasn’t easy because here was someone I felt I knew on a personal level. An interesting example is in England. They can write the outlandish stuff because they never see these guys. The guys that cover Man U; they get no access to those players. So, if you don’t ever have to face these people, at the end of the day, you can say whatever you want.

I’ve been over there a few times and become friendly with some of the writers, and it’s just like the chicken and the egg. I don’t know which came first. The lack of access or the outlandish yellow journalism. Here, it’s different; you have to pick your battles, but sometimes you have to go with what you are feeling if it’s honest.

And when you do, do you find that they are respectful about it?

It’s funny. If you rip a coach, they want to talk to you. You rip a player, they don’t want to talk to you. It’s an interesting dynamic. I’ve had interesting conversations with coaches about the things I write and I think they respect your opinion as long as you’re willing to discuss it and defend your views. Players are very sensitive. I go back to Clint, only because he is my biggest one example. When he was here the first time around, I wrote more positive articles about him than anybody. After the ’02 World Cup when he just kind of stopped playing, I talked to him after the season and he came clean about the whole thing. He admitted to me that I didn’t give my all because a transfer to Europe didn’t go through, and people actually sympathized with him. It was actually good for him because I painted him in a sympathetic light. So I wrote a lot of positive things about him but as soon as he came back from Germany a few years later I wrote a column about how it was a bad idea for MLS, paying this guy half a million dollars when he didn’t look like he had it anymore.

The first time I talked to him after that it was like I was dead to him. He was like, “I don’t know if I should talk to you. I thought we were friends.” But if you look at it, it’s like what did I say that wasn’t honest? So, it’s a tough one. I guess I can’t blame players on some level, because it’s hard not to take that stuff personal, but at some point athletes have to look at it themselves and ask whether or not it is fair and true. I would like to point out that Clint and I get along fine now and seeing him play like his old self is one of the most refreshing aspects of this season.

I just recently wrote something about a player in the paper and then on the blog, and maybe not all of it was flattering, and I get an email from him, like, I want to talk to you. And I’m like, oh great. But I haven’t talked to him yet, so we’ll see. Players say they don’t read stuff, but they do. It’s hard not to, especially when there isn’t much out there. Coaches say they don’t read it, but I know for a fact that MLS coaches and team officials read my blog. What else are they going to do? They have all day and it’s only natural to be curious about what’s being said. I know Bruce reads stuff.

I’ve been critical of Bruce and his teams’ style of play, but I love Bruce for taking the stage and doing what he wants to do, answering the naysayers and being strong-willed about it.

He’s great, even if just because he speaks his mind. I’ve always respected him for that. It’s a unique deal now for me with him, because I’m around him all the time now. You know there has to be some players on the Red Bulls that I could rip, but that’s when you have to take a step back. Is it worth it? Is there a different way to put it? It’s what you deal with. It is what it is. Once you know the ground rules – keeping and maintaining relationships with the players – then you pick your battles. You don’t want to have the reputation of being the guy that just attacks people.

It’s an interesting arrangement the whole thing. I love the show Pardon the Interruption on ESPN, and Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon are basically best friends with a lot of the biggest stars, maybe even eclipsing some athletes in terms of their own fame. You can even see them on-air dealing with that predicament, or at least making it known they know these guys in the name of full disclosure.

I tell you what. that is such a tough situation. There is the hard and fast journalistic philosophy that it’s a conflict of interest to get to know these guys, or be friends with them, but it’s impossible. Especially in soccer. In the NBA, you have guys making 20 million dollars. You’re not really relating to them on many levels. In MLS, you’re making as much if not more than half the guys so there’s more of a chance of having things in common. And the guys in MLS are just regular guys, not egomaniacs, well most aren’t. And there are always people you are going to connect with and become friends with. There are players I consider friends, but it does create a unique situation, because they play a bad game, and then what? I’ll admit I’ve done that in the past. I would never say a player played well if they didn’t, but you soften the blow. You wind up doing that and that’s when you ask yourself, what are you doing?

40 years ago, friendships between writers and athletes happened all the time. In the big sports. Players didn’t make the crazy money then, and they all traveled together, just as Jack Bell did with the Cosmos. The Yankees were like that too. Even in the NBA. Dr. J. I think Pete Vecsey was Dr. J’s best man. So the relationships happen. It’s not like you’re going to say I can’t be your friend because at some point, I’m going to rip you. I’m not going to go that far. If you develop your reputation as someone who just tries to speak the truth, they will respect you at the end of the day. Some guys will be sensitive regardless, but I think in general, if you are honest, then they respect you. But it’s not easy. If everyone is smart, you realize it’s part of the game. They still have to play the game.

And again, if they are smart, they should know how to use the media to their advantage.

Exactly. I’ll tell you another one. Marc Grandpre, the Red Bulls managing director. I’ve written about the team’s financial losses and the marketing for a while, and when this media day came around, I was a little worried he wouldn’t be too friendly with me, but he was totally great about it. He even said that maybe if it wasn’t for what I wrote, there wouldn’t be as many people at media day. And it was a pretty good crowd that day. It created a buzz. I definitely respect him for the way he handled that situation.

That’s another thing I don’t think people get in MLS. There is no such thing as bad publicity. I hate to generalize, but as far as PR and front office people across the league go, I don’t know if most of them get it. And coaches, even coaches. I don’t know if they all get it: the need to market this league. You can’t limit access. You can’t view it as a hindrance on you that people want to cover you. You are not in a position anywhere in MLS to turn down any coverage. You should be trying to bring in coverage. I think you have some people who don’t get that. Whether they want to close practice or access to the locker rooms. They are in no position to do that. They need every opportunity they can get across the league to tell writers, come on in, get what you want. They are missing out and pushing people away. I don’t know if they realize that.

Bobby Boswell dot com is a good example of them getting it, to some degree. And it doesn’t cost any money. You give cheeky Boswell a handycam and let him go nuts. Edit out the boring parts, the R-rated parts, and you’re still left with some moments of funny anecdotal interaction between the players and coaches, visual scenes most of your average fans never see. And I think that stuff goes a long way to ingratiate fans as we talked about earlier, market personalities. I don’t know if you saw it there or on my site, but there is this video from Boswell’s site with Emilio singing that horrible song. That stuff is priceless and they should know that.

I haven’t seen it. What song is it?

Ummm, James Blunt, what’s it called. Uh, You’re Beautiful.

Oh God (laughing), I need to see that.

Yeah, it’s great. Given soccer’s small scale existence at this point, they have opportunities to do things like that, embrace the openness, the transparency. Other pro leagues don’t need their fans as much as MLS does. Other than after championships or pennants or whatever, you rarely if ever see the inside of a locker room, and if you do, it’s greatly overly controlled. They always say the NBA has an advantage over the NFL in marketing players because they are on the court half-naked, whereas in the NFL they are covered in pads and helmets. Well, soccer is more like the NBA in that regard, and moreover the games both have the ability to show more personality on the field. Anyway, it drives me nuts.

That’s right. They talk about grass roots as far as building fan bases, and that’s the way to do it. I don’t know if enough people know how to use the media as a tool, and obviously some of the other sports have figured that out. I don’t think MLS or the teams have grasped that yet.

I used to always ask this, mainly because of my URL, but I haven’t in a while. But I figured I’d dust it off. What is American soccer?

Oh man, I don’t even know where to start with that. It’s this huge chunk of clay, that still can be sculpted into a work of art, but it’s still (laughing) far away from that. But if they get the right people working on it. Right now, it could be like a bench, you know, it’s there, it’s useful, but it’s just a matter of good people getting in there and turning it into what it could be. A Roman sculpture or something.

the NASL heyday

Is it just money? To get those people? No, not alone. That’s what drives me nuts about NASL people. That is so annoying to me. I am dead tired hearing about the Cosmos and how they knew how to do things. You know what, at the end of the day, that failed. They say people filled the stadiums, but it didn’t last. If you want to build something that is going to last, I think you have to do it in a way similar to the way MLS is doing it. It’s not perfect the way they are doing it, but they have the right ideas. There is going to have to come a point when you will have to open the purse strings, whether to go battle for guys like Beckham, and I don’t mean star power, but someone who is 30, 31, like a Juan Pablo Angel, who can still play and could still be in the EPL. But they need to still work on the league itself and what’s here, the American players, getting the stadiums in place, the environments in place.

NASL people are like, oh, if you had the Cosmos, they would come. But I don’t think if you put 11 stiffs out there in Cosmos jerseys you are going to fill Giants Stadium. If you had Ronaldinho out there, who I guess is like the Pele of today, then yeah, you would do it. But how long will that work for? And even then, I mean, it worked here, but how many other NASL markets did great? It’s revisionist history. Oh the league was great, packed stadiums, everyone got rich. No, it didn’t happen that way.

The way MLS is going now is the way to go. It’s slow, and obviously people would love the MLS to be the EPL tomorrow. I think you were right when you said we need to give MLS another 10 years before fairly judging them or soccer in America. We’re just starting to get serious about it. In ten years, ideally, if you have 16 teams with soccer specific stadiums or ground sharing soccer stadiums, whatever, as long as each team has their own stadium, that’s when you can really start growing the fan base. And that’s what really matters first, that true fan base. Not the tickets given away to 2000 youth clubs, but the hard core fans that really care about these teams. Like the ESC, who come out to all the Red Bulls Metrostars games, they come out rain or shine. Those guys are amazing, but there’s not enough of them, at least not yet. But I think as you get ten years from now where you have thousands of guys like that instead of dozens or a couple hundred, that takes time. But it’s going to happen. I’ve looked at it enough times and if I didn’t think it was going to happen, I would have already dropped soccer. I can do baseball. I can do football. Like I said, I played football. I know football well, baseball being bilingual, I mean, it’s like gold to be on that beat. It’s not the most ideal job covering baseball, but it’s a living.

I’m just annoyed it’s taken this long to build a stadium. Seven years ago, the plan in my head was that once they build a stadium, they are going to fill it. And once they fill that stadium, the bigger media will have to pay attention. But I’ve stopped waiting, pinning my hopes on it. Because seven years ago I was thinking that at that point, the bigger newspapers, the New York Times, the Daily News, will have to hire full time soccer writers. But now, it’s like, who knows even what newspapers can do now? So now its like once those stadiums are filled what websites are going to want to cover it? But anyway, once the stadium is built here, I think you will begin to see a bigger fan base. People will go to games regularly and fall in love with the team. It becomes an event, you know, like it is going to games other places, like England.

In 2003, I went over there to visit Manchester United. Tim Howard was there so I went over to do a couple of stories. You had former MetroStars assistant Juan Carlos Osorio, the assistant coach at Man City who is now a head coach in Colombia. You had Claudio at Man City, and Spector and Cooper who were both at United at the time. I got to see two Manchester United games. A Champions League game and a Man U – Man City game. These people, its just what they live for. It’s something they grow up with, and I think once you get that here, once the kids grow up and they go to stadiums and it’s an environment that hooks them, that’s when you will see the growth. But it will never probably be just like England or other countries. I don’t think some people understand, when they question why soccer is so popular around the world, that in a lot of those countries, that is the only sport they really care about. Here, you have football, baseball, basketball, college football and basketball, hockey. The average person has 5 or 6 teams they care about, they love. Take all of those and combine them into one. That’s what I try to tell my soccer-hating friends, of which I have plenty. Even guys I work with that hate soccer. You know what, you have your Jets, Giants Mets. All these teams. Now imagine if you just had one team? Now imagine you just had one team and that team represented your country? That’s why they are so crazy about it, and honestly, I’m not sure America will ever have that kind of passion about it. It’s so diluted. But they can get to a point where the sport can thrive here.

Do you see a time when MLS would compete for players in their prime? I’m on record as feeling we need to temper expectations and accept a position as a mid-level league where players come and go similar to other top non-European leagues. Our goal should be to come out looking like the South American leagues in terms of talent. Some really good players stay, but the best will always be looking elsewhere.

As far as players in their prime, that’s still more than ten years away. The elements are there though. At the end of the day, you need rich people. We have tons of rich people here, but rich people want to make money. Once it gets to the point where they can make money here, you would think they would focus some attention on it, but right now, that attention is elsewhere, as evidenced by the Glazers and guys buying up EPL teams. When they see they can make money, they will begin to bid with the best of them for players. 10 to 15 years from now when the league is at a point when its not an insult to an elite level players to come here, or it’s skillful enough to where they don’t feel like they are dropping off too far, the money will be there. but it’s still far away. Probably the play has gotten better, but 1-11, it’s still not there. Some people think I am a MLS hater, because I say the skill in this league is still miles away, but on a day, could the best team in MLS play right with Barcelona or a Chelsea. Of course, on a day, but when you are talking about over the course of a full schedule, it’s just not going to happen. It’s going to take some time before you 4 or 5 of your 11 being skillful guys, to all 11 being really skillful.

Will that be more dependent on domestic or foreign talent? It’s both. Look at the defenders in this league. Overall, too many of them aren’t that skillful. As an example, Carlos Bocanegra, when he was in this league, was head and shoulders, clearly, the best defender in the league. In England, as a defender – he scores some goals, he had a good year this year – but as a defender, he is average. So it shows you the gap. Part of that was the whole youth soccer thing: worse players play defense and that whole thing about how most folks care about offense and pumping the ball to the big guy up front. But once you get more intelligent coaches in place that can train every player on the field to understand the game and play well, just by numbers, you are going to have more skillful guys playing at every position. And that will help the game grow.

Someone asked on the blog one day what leagues I thought were better than MLS, and I had like 12.

Bruce McGuire, when we chatted about this, came up with 11, which was a number we both were pretty happy with given where we are with hopes we could crack the top ten and maybe top five one day. Maybe be the best non-European club.

Yeah. 5-10 years from now, I think they could be 6, 7, 8. They could still move up.

So we come back here, 10-15 years, turn the recorder back on and see where we’re at.

France-Portugal semifinal. Pretty good seats huh?