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California Psychics. We're pleased to welcome back Jesse Bradley, who is not only a former pro soccer goalie himself. He's been with us as an analyst for the last World Cup. And now we head into the Olympics. Also, Seattle Sounders chaplain and a pastor in Seattle himself. Jesse, I can't sugarcoat my panic.
I'm a little bit nervous about things. Why is it that after bringing back Greg Berhalter, he doesn't last, the Americans lose in Copa America, and now a change is required again? We just had a terrible showing at the tournament, Copa America. We did not make it past the group stage. And to put that in context, since 1975, this is the only host or home nation not to advance. We basically, we won our first match, but then we lost to Panama. One of our players got a red card, and to lose to Panama was pretty devastating. Then we also lost to Uruguay. And in 19 previous tournaments at home, we've never lost at this point.
But here's the bigger picture, Amy. Greg Berhalter is no longer the coach. It was a decent run in some regards. We had a lot of success against Mexico, which is the primary rival for the U.S. But when we played against top 15 teams in the world, we were 0-5-5, not including the Mexican games. And then we also against top 25 teams, we were 2-6-7. So like you mentioned, the timing is terrible because there's less than two years until the World Cup, which is going to be here in the U.S., 12 cities.
Seattle's one of them. And two years might sound like a long time, but it's not when you're trying to build momentum as a national team, because we have no more major tournaments. It'll be a lot of friendlies. We automatically qualify for the World Cup because we're a host nation, so we don't play all those competitive games. And a national team isn't practicing together all the time. The players are playing for their clubs.
They're scattered. So to try to build that continuity, to buy into the new coach, the new system. And this is a rare opportunity to host the World Cup. The World Cup, the largest sporting event in the world, 5 billion people watching. For U.S. soccer, it could be a major step forward. But right now, we've been plateauing and then declining, going the wrong direction.
Now we don't have a coach. I think back to the year 2002, we made it to the quarterfinals, the final 8 teams in the World Cup. One of our best ever showings. And actually, one of my high school teammates played in that team, and we lost to Germany in the quarterfinals.
So that was like a high point. We were thinking U.S. soccer is going to take off. And since then, we've been sputtering different coaches.
There has just not been the level of development. And the talk right now is who should be the next coach. Some people think it should be someone in the MLS. We have Turandolo, Nancy. A couple of coaches are doing well. LAFC, Columbus. But keep your eye on Vieira. And he was an incredible player in France.
He's coached in the U.S., England and France. He's someone I think they might go with. I'm not convinced they're going to stick domestically. I think they're going to look outside the box.
Which, why not take a risk? Why not go for someone, in my opinion, that has a lot of experience in Europe, has played at the highest levels. I think we need kind of a breath of fresh air.
So that's my lean on the selection. But we tried for Klopp, who just finished as a Liverpool coach. And he would have been unbelievable. That would have been phenomenal for U.S. soccer. But not everyone wants to take this position, realizing it's a tight spot with the World Cup coming. And we really need the next two years to be strong for our men's soccer, which I think would thrust us forward for the next decade.
So this is a crucial time in the history of men's soccer in the U.S. Patrick Vieira reportedly in talks with the U.S. men's national team to become its next head coach. Jesse, I can tell you what I think looks wrong about U.S. soccer, but since you played and were a professional goalie, what is wrong? What is holding Team USA back?
Everyone has their own theories. And for a long time, we weren't developing the high-quality young talent. But you look at our younger players now, and they're strong. Then we had a lot of times the excuse or the reasoning. We would rationalize it by saying our players were not playing overseas in the top clubs. But now you look, and we are representing in the very best leagues in the world, and the players are doing well. So what is it?
What's the missing piece? And I really think for me, coaching – now, Berhalter was not as bad as a lot of people say. Brought some unity. I think he got some results. I think he worked hard.
But I'll say this. I believe from youth soccer, if you have kids that play, your most important decision is who's the coach. Because that coach will set the culture. That coach will provide the insights. That coach knows how to motivate. That coach knows how to select. That coach can really bring out the best in everyone that's on the team. And I think it's true at every level, including the national team. So in my opinion, the better selection we make here, it's going to be directly linked to our success.
And that, to me, is the missing piece. But what do you think? Well, I think as much as we have incredible conditioning and athleticism and speed, and we have the ability to control and possess the ball, it seems like we always get bogged down. Too safe.
Too conservative. Too much in the middle of the field. I want them to play with wild abandon.
I want them to play like their hair is on fire. And it doesn't seem like we get to that point, even though we do have a young group that is incredibly athletic. It never seems like we are the ones who are the aggressor. We're the ones who are forcing the issue. It just seems like we get so clogged and so bogged down in the middle of the field.
That's an interesting perspective. And what I would say to that is we had our early success. What I mentioned 20 years ago, how did we do that well? We just focused on defense. We didn't even think we could compete against the top teams. And so we weren't aggressive. We didn't take all those risks. And you can do reasonably well if you're able to stop the opposition and you have a really tight, secure defense.
But then what happened? We started to gain more skill. We got professional soccer in the U.S. MLS started to improve. And as we gained more skill, we started to move forward more.
And I would say it's a little betwixt and between. We know we're not the level of Spain and Germany. And so we played just like you described against the Netherlands. And then we lost because we got exposed on the counter attacks. And so we're not yet dominant enough to attack that beautiful sport, you know, the beautiful attacking game. We're not quite that fluid yet are not what we used to be. And we were not going to go in the defensive shell. So I think we're kind of in between the right coach, I think could get us to play the way you described.
But we're going to need some big steps forward to get there. And I also the one I didn't mention is in America, the top athletes are trying to choose between six different sports. A lot of the best ones don't play soccer in every other country. Soccer is a clear number one.
There's no close second. And so they really do get the best athletes and they're committed to soccer from an early age. Whereas a lot of times our athletes are playing multiple sports for a long time.
So I think that's another factor. But U.S. overall is trending in the right direction. The better coaching, better youth soccer, younger players are getting better. We're playing in higher leagues.
There's a lot of things that are trending up, but there's a couple areas we still need to turn that corner. Is it too late for the United States with this upcoming World Cup? Is two years enough? It can happen. I think the talent's still there. And with the right coaching, we can get there. The U.S., in my opinion, really needs to advance past the group stage.
That's like the minimum bar. You've got to move on. You can't host the World Cup and then lose right away. And I think we can do that.
I don't have any reason to think we couldn't. But the clock's ticking. A great coach accelerates progress. And I don't think it's going to be as much about the two years as it'll be who comes in. And you say, you know, am I putting too much on the coach?
I don't think so, because there's a lot of other pieces that are there. The other thing you could look at is overall who's running and the leadership even beyond the coach, because you have someone like Jesse Marsh, who for a while was a candidate to coach our national team. Well, what happened now? He's there in Canada. And look what happened. Canada just made it far beyond anyone's expectations.
So I think that's case in point again. You get the right coach and they can develop the players and achieve incredibly high levels of success. We're really excited to welcome back Jesse Bradley from Seattle. And he is a pastor, he's an author, he's a chaplain actually for the Sounders. And we'll talk about that coming up. Former pro soccer goalie himself.
It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. I got to ask, since you played overseas, have you ever seen a situation like what we got in Miami for the Copa Final, where the crowd was swarming over the top of gates and barriers. They actually had to take the players off the field, put them back in the locker rooms. They had to delay more than an hour because the crowd just took over and it turned into a near stampede. It was a terrible scene.
It was scary. And if you talk about things that are not good related to soccer, on the field, my first flaw with the sport would be all the flopping and rolling around. And that's been documented for a long time. But what you're talking about here is much more serious and it's off the field. And I think in many nations, the level of passion for soccer, there's nothing that comes close. Like, I mean, I'm someone of faith and I kind of think, you know, faith should be an area where people are passionate. Well, soccer exceeds that in a lot of nations. And we all know when you're passionate about something, there's great potential. I mean, the country can be united.
There can be singing, dancing, celebrations. Like, there's a lot of great things with passion. But the flip side of that strength is that sometimes it gets violent, it gets out of control.
And we underestimate some of the dangers. We could see in the Copa America tournament, there was fighting between Uruguay and the Colombian fans. And as you watch that, even some of the players went up into the stands and were fighting with some of the spectators.
And that was a disaster. Well, in my opinion, you can't have the two opposing fans from different nations next to each other. And if you go overseas and go to a soccer match, when you enter the stadium, you have to let them know which team are you supporting. And then you go in that gate.
Even at the Sounders games here, the opposing team, their fans will often be, especially its arrival, up high in the corner of the stadium altogether, far away and overseas. It's so intense that you can't even wear the wrong colors. It's almost like neighborhoods and gangs. And it's that volatile. It's that competitive. People take it too seriously and it can spill over. It's laden with dangers, threats, and you really have to have top notch security. Now, that also ties into entering the stadium.
We have the World Cup here in two years. It's going to be much more intense than that. So there needs to be a thorough review of what happened. I mean, people were literally climbing in the stadium through the ventilation system. There was the crushing that you saw in the crowds, people climbing over fences, pushing gates down and trashing some of the equipment, the escalators. I mean, this is the stadium where the Miami Dolphins play delays in the game for an hour and a half. Many people thought the game should have been canceled.
It was flat out, out of control. And they need to have a definite review of that and then just be aware of the dynamics related to soccer. It's going to be more hyped up and more volatile than other sports.
And again, soccer has more singing and dancing and you have a lot of phenomenal things that happen with that passion. But on the flip side, you've got to be alert that things can quickly spill out of control. And what we saw there was a disaster and it could have been much worse. People were treated, but fortunately no one was killed. That kind of stampede is just terrible.
And there's nothing the police can do at some point because how do you catch everyone? Yeah, our security, we need to move that up and organize things differently. When the Colombian manager or coach indicated that his players were dealing with the anxiety in the locker room, it actually gave me a completely different perspective when he said they've got friends out there. They've got family members.
They're worried about them. And so then I was thinking about our conversation and thinking about that anxiety and the pressure and wondering how much of the role of chaplain can impact and can help to assuage some of those emotions. So what is your role with the Seattle Sounders as chaplain? Well, a chaplain plays a unique role because for professional athletes, people are always asking for more, more attention, more comments, more tickets to the games. And it's hard for professional athletes sometimes to know who can I trust, who's in my corner. In a chaplain, it's a role where you're there to support the players in what they need. And clubs know that there's more than just on the field performance and how you care for players off the field is sometimes linked to on the field performance.
And when you think about players today, all the pressure that they have, they are constantly facing adversity. And where is a safe place where they can just share how they're feeling? They can, you know, pray. You see this after games with the NFL and a place where they can process the bigger picture of life. And that's what a chaplain does coming alongside the players. And for so many players, faith is the rock of their life.
Think about security for a minute. Players don't know if they get injured. It could be the end of their career. They don't know if they're going to get traded. They don't know how much starting time or playing time they're going to have in a game. They don't know what the coach is thinking. There's just so many things fans criticize on social media. They make a bad play. It's endless.
Like, where are you going to find your security? And faith is the bedrock for so many of the players. And some of them are more outspoken. Some you wouldn't know that. For me personally, I think back when I was at Dartmouth College and I came in to college and I didn't believe in God.
Nothing to do with faith. And I put a lot of pressure on myself as a soccer goalkeeper. I didn't want to make any mistakes that could mean a loss. And I was carrying so much stress. And then when I realized, like, I'm secure, who I am is not what I do.
I'm loved by God. I started a relationship with Jesus and now I can pray for the games. And that took the pressure off. I put soccer in perspective. Now I can enjoy it because it's a sport.
It's fun again. And also, I realized my whole identity is not linked to how well I play on the field. And there's so many things when you start to pray, it's like pray for the health, pray for family relationships, pray for peace of mind, pray that they could use their talents. And the number of requests that come in, you can tell athletes have to present like they have it all together. They have to present strong. You can't let your opponent see your weakness. You know, you're again, you're fighting for playing time. And where can athlete go and just kind of take their guard down and be real, be human.
And then that's a safe place. And so chaplains come alongside and really help athletes establish their identity, mental health, and then overcome some of those obstacles because for athletes, so much of the game comes down to mindset. And it comes down to perseverance and it comes down to attitude and tenacity and all of those things they tie into. Yes, practice is important. Yes, skills are important.
Yes, tactical is important. But we know there's so many intangibles in sports and that's character. Sports reveals character and character is linked to the deepest part of your core. And the more you develop that, it's just going to bear fruit on the field. So I'm thankful that, again, so many teams have chaplains and there's a care for the players because for professional athletes, it's only going to last so long.
And then who's thinking about helping them so that when their career ends, you know what they gain in terms of the care that's going to serve them well for all their years. And so that's kind of a glimpse with chaplaincy. Before the games, we have a chapel and players show up. We have different topics, take prayer requests and then whatever the players want to talk about. And we'll have the group and then individuals will come over and say, hey, I got a question or what do you think I should do here? And then, you know, the texting and the friendships.
And it's just it's a really just a great way to connect with players and support them. We all belong outside. We're drawn to nature, whether it's the recorded sounds of the ocean we doze off to or the succulents that adorn our homes. Nature makes all of our lives, well, better. Despite all this, we often go about our busy lives removed from it. But the outdoors is closer than we realize. With all trails, you can discover trails nearby and explore confidently with offline maps and on trail navigation.
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And also someone who's seen on the network news, speaker, author, 28 Days of Hope is one of his initiatives and one of his callings. And Jesse, you're so diverse, which is why we love having you on the show. All right, so just a couple more minutes, but I can't not ask about the Olympics because we know how big the World Cup is on the international stage and for other nations. How big are the Olympic games around the world? And Amy, people are listening who don't know much about soccer. There's so much happening this summer. It's a great time to check out the sport. I know there's not as much scoring as other sports, but you're going to pick up some of the nuances and the Olympics are coming up.
Check out soccer. So for our team, for the U.S., for the men, they are all under 23 players. There are three that can be older. We've chosen defenseman.
So Miles Robinson, Walker Zimmerman. That tells you something. We are not a favorite and we are packing the defense.
We are bringing in the veterans to try to strengthen the defense. But we have not qualified for the Olympics for the men since 2008. The last two champs for the men, it was Brazil, but they're not back this year. They didn't qualify. So the favorites are going to be France, you know, Argentina, Spain. The same for the national teams, for the men, the Olympics.
And that tells you something. You develop the young players and what's going to happen? Your national team's going to be amazing. And we're seeing young players develop.
You know, think of Spain right now. We just had the European Championships and there was a 16-year-old. Lamin Yamal from Spain in the semi-final. So this is the youngest player to ever score in the Euro Championships. He's the youngest in so many categories.
He just turned 17, so we can't say he's 16 anymore. The youngest to score for Spain, to score in the Spanish league, and then also score in the Champions League. And the goal he scored, it was a phenomenal goal. It was a banger. That's what my kids say. It was a banger.
And it was against France in the semi-finals. But that tells you something. And, you know, even with chaplaincy, you know, I'll be talking to someone who's a teenager.
And imagine that spotlight. 16 years old. Like, I barely passed my driving test when I was 16. I was happy just to get a 70 and get my license.
My parents didn't think I was ready. I mean, I can't imagine having the entire world with a spotlight on every move. Now with social media and, you know, everything.
Lamin Yamal, Lamin Yamal. And he's only 16. So what's happening, again, that development of the younger players. And that's how your national team improves. And when you have a strong Olympic team, that bodes well for how the national team is going to play out. So, yeah, watch the Olympic Games and look at the future talent that we have in our country. And I'd love to see us knock off some teams.
Oh, yeah. Well, I'm hoping that we can get some of that fervor and fever and excitement back. Because it really does feel like it hit the skids with the loss in Copa and just the wah wah wah. Here we go again. So maybe if the red, white and blue represents in Paris, then there'll be some excitement again.
That's right. And we're going up against France right away. We're going up against Australia. So there'll be some battles. And again, I play goalkeeper.
I know this. We saw a lot of games when I was a goalkeeper just because our defense, we could shut out the other team. And if you get a goalkeeper who's on top of their game, that can carry you a long way. And with the additions we have on defense, you know, ties in that first round, that's OK. Just steal one win so you can get through the initial rounds and then anything can happen.
But we are definitely the underdog in the Olympics. Jesse Bradley, always good to hear your voice and to hear your insight. You can find him on Twix at Jesse J. Bradley. And not only is he a former pro soccer goalie himself who's got the world perspective, but we love to hear him talk about soccer today. He's a pastor. He's an author. He's a speaker. He's working through 28 Days of Hope.
So you want to check it all out on his either his Web site or on Twix. Jesse, it's good to catch up with you again. Thank you so much. You too, Amy. And a shout out to Seattle Sounders and won a lot of games in a row or climb in the standings. So, of course, I got to give that shout out. But yeah, 28 Days of Hope. Thanks for mentioning that. Just choose hope that Oregon. Anyone that needs some encouragement this summer.
That's a great place to go. Amy, thanks for all you do. Of course, including soccer. But you cover all the sports so well.
Always with passion. You're on top of your game and you're worth staying up for and listening to the show. And I'd love to hear you during the daytime as well. But I'm grateful that we can catch through podcast. You're on over 300 stations around the world. And that's because people are tuned in. They value what you're saying and you're able to speak into life.
And I always say sports just teaches us about life. And I appreciate how you bring it. Your heart, your insights.
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