How are you, my friend?
Good morning, Good morning.
You're indoors this time?
Where are I'm indoor? I was outdoors and it was it was too high.
So so was the sun directly shining upon the greg. Yes, and so discretion being the better part of valor. You decided to come in and hang out with us this morning, and.
We get a little bit air conditioning for sure.
As always we we appreciate that kind of stuff when you can take time out of your hyper busy schedule to come and hang out with us, whether it's doing stuff with Major League Soccer and and making sure that everyone's on the same page off the field when it comes to their teammates and everything. I want to do a couple of things because I kept you, I kept your notes from last time, and I want I want to get into this, but I want to kind of I want to hold my breath for a second on that.
Uh.
Since you spent some time with the national team, I want to go there. I want to talk about Eminent Land United. So h new coach the national team in Mercia, Pochettino. Uh. It appears that two hedge fund dudes helped out to make sure that they could pay what Pochettino was looking for. What do you think about Pochettino now being a part of things with the US Soccer?
I like it. It's another I mean it's the biggest higher since Klinsman, right, so.
A lot look at it be bigger than that.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, Uh, you know, you're looking at a coach who has maybe not had as much success, but somebody who is who is you know, very what's what's the right word for it, somebody who has I guess you could say a lot of potential on the rise, somebody who has a say, somebody who I feel like is really going to put their foot down on a
lot of different things. And so I think that in changing the mindset, and what all these players keep saying is we need somebody to come in and change the mindset. Need somebody to come in and change the mindset. Need somebody to come in and change the mindset. This is what better person could you get? An Argentinian? Right? All the success I had with in my careers was always with Argentinian coaches. And they don't play no games. So we'll see, uh, we'll see, uh, we'll see how that goes.
They don't play no games. That's the direct quote.
Yep.
I mean yeah, they're gonna, they're gonna let you know what they think. They're gonna let you know what their expectations are. They're going to sit there and it's like, all right, you went. You might have been with me or someone you know who is of Argentinian descent. Uh in a in a team situation, this is a national team situation. Capital in Capital T. We ain't messing around here. That's the vibe that I'm getting from you.
Uh yeah, don't argue with an Argentina. I'll just say that my coach, one of my my coach in t one I always put it. He said, look, in Argentina we had Diego Maridona. Uh huh, you know see, thank god, that's those those are the three Argentinians that you need to Then you need to pay attention to it.
And not in that order I imagine though, right.
Oh no, no, not that wonder Yeah. Yeah, probably in the order that I just gave it.
Yes, yeah, I mean that's that. That is not a surprise. And the reason that I asked you first about men's national team goes to our notes from last time and and like I said, I wrote it down from two weeks ago, and it has to do with a couple of things that you said, quote quoting Greg and the US.
We are too nice.
We are too nice nationally as as Americans, and possibly representing ourselves out on the field as a US national team or a US representative. So having an Argentinian as a coach, I would posit the idea that it might whist that being too nice too not necessarily needing to be too nice. At least I would think that that would be the path that we're going down here.
Yeah, I think he'll for sure change the mindset of a lot of these guys. You know, it's you have the good old saying in Spanish you gotta play with the with the knife between the teeth. That's what they say. That's that's definitely a saying that they kind of live by. And I'm sure that's something that he will implement.
Can you translate that effectively without getting us into trouble?
Yeah? Knife, knife between the teeth? Yeah, yeah, I just I'm not gonna translate it. Uh. I Remember I just had a couple of coaches whenever I played in Mexico that you would just look over at the bench and they would just be like this, and you just kind of shake your head and be like, Okay, I know what to do.
Yeah, how to be I gotta dial it up all of a sudden. Yeah uh.
And that and that got into note number two and three from last time that you were here.
Actually, since I'm left handed, I guess I should do that.
The world of the ethical dilemma and being malicious without malice.
Wow, that's one.
Yeah. You uh, like, hey, you you wrote it that, you said you talked about it, and it was toward the end of a segment, and I'm like, oh, I better write this down for next time.
So yeah, uh.
The idea of being malicious without malice and the idea of the ethical dilemma when it comes to the the ethical dilemma and having these kinds of discussions with your mentees, I guess at the surface level, to start things off, do they understand the idea of having an ethical dilemma and trying to get pasted it out on the field.
I'll give a great example this This is this is using my own son, right. Great example there was I remember there was a play probably about two years ago, maybe two years ago and he shot the ball went out for they were we were winning one zero, his
team was winning one zero. And it is I think, like the final final couple of minutes of the game, right, and he shot the ball hit the posts and went out of bounce and he and he could have gone and got it, and I think he was about to go and get it, and he was about to give it to the goalie, and I screamed, I said, leave it. Go back to your position and leave it. Let the goalie get it. Right, it's the last couple of minutes of the game. Let the goalie get it. It's their ball,
don't get it. And I remember I had a parent from the other team scream, way to teach your kids sportsmanship, And that to me is just that's that's the that's the maliciousness without malice. Because if you go to anywhere else in the world and watch soccer, these kids at five, six, seven, eight years old, if that ball goes out of balance and they're winning one zero, they're gonna fake stretch like they're doing a quad stretch, and they're gonna let that
ball roll right by. And that to me is just like, that is the thing that I think we need to teach Americans that you'll do anything to win, right that that to me is not evil. Right, that's not evil. That has nothing to do with sportsmanship in my opinion. That is finding the littlest smallest of details to try and win a game. And that's that's something that I think if we play, if you watch Cope America, right, yeah, you watch Cope America, that those guys are doing anything
and everything they can to win. Now, are they cheating? No? Was that moment right there a teaching lesson to tell my son, Hey, that's cheating. No, because it's not cheating. It's their ball. Right, you don't have to be the kid that's going to take the ball. You're not losing. You don't have to get the ball and take it back and put it on the on the on the six yard box right to to you know, now, make play go by quicker. You're winning. Let the time go
by slower or earlier. Let your head you just take your time. It's like when a corner kick goes us as us as parents or us as coaches sometimes or as kids. You're winning the ball and the ball goes out for a corner kick and a kid an American kid, every American kid that I watch, they will sprint over to get the ball and they'll put it on the corner and you're winning one zero and you have three
minutes left. Well, I remember the second I moved to Brazil and that happened, I probably would have gotten taken out been the next sub because the coach would have said, hey, the next time the ball goes out for a corner kick and you're winning one to zero, I want you to walk as slow as you can, right. And that that is that to me, is not malicious. That is that to me is right maliciousness without without malice, right. And I think those little nuances that I think that
I think other cultures can teach us to understand. And I think that's that's probably a huge asset of Whattino will probably give these guys, right, even from even from a professional level. I think it trickles, It trickles down right, and I think that, you know, I think that's a huge piece of it to to really you know, in
my personal opinion, it is doing it. I heard I heard the saying the other day and it says there is a winning mentality that most kids and most people have a winning mentality, and then beyond the winning mentality is the domination mentality. And it was talking about professional athletes having a domination mentality. You don't want to just win, you want to absolutely dominate. And that that is that is even if you're playing against right, or you're competing
with your teammates. Right, if I'm competing with my teammates or my old teammates and we're doing whatever the silliest of soccer tennis games, right and playing soccer tennis, I want to dominate my friend in soccer tennis, right. And I think that's just the that's the mentality that I think we need to bring within the national team to to just find a way to do anything anything possible within their hands without cheating, without being evil, but by winning.
And I think that's that that's a huge that's a huge step that I think I personally think, but Youatina will bring will bring to the.
Team because I would pause it that there is a difference between sportsmanship and gamesmanship and be and and being at the front of soccer etiquette and you know, being prim and proper and you know like this, you know we have to we have to do things this way because they've done it this way for five centuries and you know we have Yeah, but there's there's there's a difference between sportsmanship, gamesmanship, and being and being a dominant
individual out there. And I think that you can you can integrate two or three of those at the same two of three of those at the same time. You can be dominant, and you can have gamesmanship. You can be dominant and have sportsmanship. You can be uh, you can have gamesmanship and still have sportsmanship. So I think you can take two of those three at any given time and still be as highly successful as you feel like you need to be.
And and I think there are moments, even when I watch youth soccer that I just give another example of even that of watching kids there that you might be winning two to one and there's a counter attack for the other team, and in your mind you have these parents or you have your coach telling you don't foul, right, Well, mine is it's okay to foul. There's a kind of
professional foul pool. Yeah, jersey, pull a jersey from behind right, stop the counter attack, and and you know you if you need to receive a yellow, you receive a yellow. It's okay, it's a warning. A yellow card is a warning, right, just don't do it again. Right, But you've taken a foul for You've taken something for the team, and that's that. That's you're not being evil in that moment. You're not coming from behind and absolutely swiping some kid from his
feet and just kicking him as hard as you can. Know. You're creating a professional foul to try and give an advantage for your team to hopefully. That's why I say you're doing anything and everything you can to win, and that that that is something that I think if I were to go to Spain or Brazil or any other place in the in the sorry in the world, in the United States pretty much pretty pretty much. But uh,
you don't. You don't. You see it quite often there, right, You see these kids already having because I think they watch so much they watched their their there. It's so it's so they're so used to seeing those things within the within the game that they watch, and we don't. We don't have that, right, we don't, we don't have that within us. For them. It's it's you know, it embodies their culture of doing anything and everything to win. It even from a very young age.
You're reading my notes because the word I was going to use was cultural, and it seems like it is a cultural thing in the you know, in the United States, that regardless of what we're talking about here, we we have to be the ones that play by the rule book.
We have to be the ones that stand the straightest and sit there and point at the rule book and go, well, these are the rules of engagement that you know, and these are the rules that are written therefore, these are the rules that are that they are.
And and like I said, I think we could be.
Talking sports, We're could be talking yeah, you know, business or whatever, but these are the rules, and these are the rules that we have to abide by, as you know, the guy in the white hat. But culturally, I think that and it's easy to see from what you mentioned with all of the all of the countries that all of that have all the different leagues that are out there now that we can watch that we have access to, that it's not one of those situations where you have
to wear the white hat all the time. There's nothing wrong with the good guy who's got that little streak of wearing the dark stripe every once in a while. There's nothing wrong with that if you are chasing after an achievement and other folks are doing it. But you've got to you know, we have to be too nice. We've got to be the white hat all the time. It seems like it's a cultural thing.
I spoke to him in tea yesterday, girl, and I told her, look, this weekend, I want you to play a chip on your shoulder with chip with a chip on your shoulder, but also be compassionate. Right, you can be both. You can still play with a chip on your shoulder and you can know that you are right the bomb, but you can still be compassionate, and you can still be compassionate towards your teammates and be a great leader. But you know, give me the ball, I'll
resolve it, right, give me the ball. I'll take care
of this. And I think that's that's that's the mentality that I think a lot I want a lot of these kids to to take to They can take on that responsibility and sometimes put that pressure on their shoulders because it holds them accountable to a certain extent, but it helps them mature and it helps them grow in a certain way, and so I like, I like putting that pressure on kids sometimes because I feel like in their minds and we always talk about this sometimes with kids,
and just I use the younger generations because I think from a soccer perspective, we are still so far away from this is my first opinion from winning a World Cup. We're so far away. But because I think those are little, those are still like the little nuances and the little things that I think we need to it needs to start from a very young age to start to start teaching these things. That that is. And I guess you
know the word. The word will always come back to hunger, right, And I think that's that that that to me is I think something that you you see in other cultures. You see in other places there is a hunger. There is a hunger from the very gig go. And I just don't see that with soccer yet. I see it with other sports within the States, but not with soccer yet. And I think once we develop that hunger, I think that that things will change.
Well I would, and I would sit there and say that probably because those sports were here first and they've been here longer, that you have that mental those mentalities attached to those sports, and the longer that soccer is here, the more it becomes ingrained, the more that it becomes a part of the fabric of what we see on a daily basis, then that idea will continue to rise and be a part of things in soccer. I would I would venture to guess that that would be the case.
I would assume. So I think that's you know, if you speak to kids who travel the world or go play soccer in other places, although they might not be playing at a higher level in the other places, but when every time they come back, I'll always ask them, you know, all these kids that go to you know, Europe or South America during the summer, and I'll always ask them, what's what's the biggest difference that we loved it? It was so great, man, Those kids they want it
more than anything. And my question is, well, why don't Why don't you want him more than anything? You have to want any more. You can do this. You can have the same mentality just in a different environment, in a different location, and and it's okay to have that mentality. And so, you know, I think that's that's a that's a massive lesson for all of us, and just going back to our national team head coach, I think that
is that is the mindset that he will try. I don't know if he will be successful, but that he will try and strive to implement within within the team that we have right now.
How hard is it to pull the want two gene out of a mend.
The want two gene of just like wanting it more than anything?
Yeah?
Yeah, Basically it's a it's a there's a Southern expression. It's about the want to and it's uh, you know, it's like, well, you know, you see someone who is allegedly not performing to what adults have as a standard for a you know, for a teenager that the want to isn't there. You know, So how did to pull the want two out of a mantee?
You know? I always always try and like pick their brains a bit and and and get them to understand. You know, obviously the game is very mental, right it is. I always tell kids, I think it's one hundred percent mental, But it can only be one hundred percent mental if.
You if you also have heart, yeah right.
And if your heart's not in it, then that grit and like you said, that one that desire, that will, that love, that passion, then the brain is most likely not going to be in it. So before before your mental game can play a massive piece, there has to be heart. And so I think that's a that's a huge component. That's a huge that's a huge way that I try and explain to kids the best way possible for them to understand that. But I I can't. I can't teach that.
Yeah, right.
I can teach them things to use as self talk. I can teach them things to in ways to be a great leader. I can teach them ways and and and understanding that life is not fair. I can't teach heart. That's something I can't teach. That's something I can talk about. But like I always tell them, and we've talked before about the bamboo tree, right, I can only plant to see you know, the rest. The rest is up to
them to water each and every day. That's that's that grit, that's that heart that you have behind it.
When you see as a mentor, the the bamboo tree grow. When you get to see as a mentor, you get to see that want to come out, You get to see the heart, You get to see the God come out. From a men tea that you've been trying to sit there and and you know, just have a conversation where it's like, hey, you know if it's there, I know it's there. When you get to see all of that come out of a mentee, what does that mean to you? And Parky when you get to see something like that happen.
It's it's it's great because you in my in my personal opinion, it is knowing that right, ninety nine percent of that kid's future is not going to be in professional soccer and so well nine point nine right, But it's it's it's it's coming to an understanding that whatever that kid.
Does, he or she uh will have that mentality to tackle their tasks ahead of them, right to want to accomplish those tasks that they haven't ahead of them.
And that's that's the biggest message. That's the biggest message, and wanting them to understand that if they have college ahead, if they have entrepreneurship ahead, if they have a managing position ahead, if they have an industrial worker ahead, it doesn't matter whatever they become, that they will have tasks
ahead of them each and every day. And I know in that moment, whatever this kid, does he or she is going to going to be able to accomplish those those tasks, those given tasks, And that's that's the most gratifying thing for us, I think, and seeing that and noticing that, and also just helping them understand, you know, the challenges that will come along with it, and I think that's that's an interesting piece of it as well.
Hanging out with twitterlest Greg Gars here on the Friday free kick here on the SDH network on the morning show before you came on, I was talking about it Landey United too, and last night they lose in a penalty shootout. The way the score, the way the points are allotted in MLS next pro is three points for a win, one point for a draw, and if you win in penalties after the fact, you get an extra point.
Okay, every every game, Every game goes into penalties.
Every game.
If it's if no, if it's drawn, If it's drawn after ninety minutes, then it goes into pks. If it's if it's decided in ninety minutes, it's three points to the winner. If it's a draw after ninety minutes, every if each team gets a point, but then you go to penalties and the winner in penalties gets an extra point for wins. They call it a shootout win.
Okay.
Uh. Atlanta United to three matches to go in the regular season. Last night, they go to Charlotte to take on Charlotte f c's MLS next Pro team. They don't win in regulation and they end up losing in penalties, and so they needed to win their last three and get some tie breakers to get into the postseason. So regular season is it for Atlante United too?
But what I wanted to.
Discuss with you before we go is okay, So there are still two matches left in their regular season, and there are still things that those players, whomever Steve Cook chooses to be a part of the game day eighteens and then the elevens on Tuesday and then on the
twenty ninth. The season isn't over, even though in wins and losses and a postseason, it's over when you still have things to show with only a handful of games left, when there is no postseason for you to se right, So then how difficult is that to keep the light switch on so you can continue to show Hey, I'm improving, Hey I deserve to hang around here or I'm you know, I'm basically I'm playing for my job in these last two matches, and that's that's the.
Big thing here.
How do you impress upon mentees and other individuals and peers around you, Hey, just because something they a task down the line, is not attainable, doesn't mean that you should just stop doing what you're doing.
The message I would give every single one of those kids is that your season is over, right, but don't let your career be over, because maybe these last two games are the determining factor of your soccer career because that's how quickly it can change, That's how quickly it can go and snap of a finger in two games, your career can be over in two games. So that would be the message that I that would give. It's
totally up to them, Yeah, is their season over? Yeah, but you know it's up to you personally if you want your career to be over. And so if you're switched on and you can continue to show within two games and kind of be those your trial moments, how are you're going to prepare yourself for those trials? How are you going to try and perform within those trials to continue to have a livelihood to have a job.
I think that's extremely important. Now. I know a lot of those kids, I believe are with two's and I think there a lot of them might already be committed to colleges, right.
So they're a handful, yeah, a handful of kids.
So I mean for them, for those kids, I think it's more so just getting minutes under their belt and maybe that experience to prepare them for what's next. But if there are a few players on that team that uh that you know, have have the opportunity to continue to whether it be play for LA and I two or go somewhere else within MLS, next pro then or even USL or another MLS team, then these these are your These are your footage moments and clip moments to
start compiling. And you have two games to do it. So you're creating the opportunity for yourself.
All right, as you fight the lawnmowers and the handyman that are doing all the work outside with the leaf blowers today and it sounds like you're fighting grass Alley.
Oh geez, with everything.
I've been buying with allergies since since the fall man, it's killing me. I feel like I'm talking out of my nose.
Well it is.
It is a very nice base nasally. Greg Garza hanging out with us this morning. I know that you're probably gonna want to go hang upside down for about four hours after you're done talking to what's going on with you and Parky and Beyond Goals. I know that the high school's kind of getting ready. Colleges or ride that are off and running what's going on.
Same mode, still plugging away and creating new ideas to continue to grow the game, and like I always said, give back to the game.
The game so much to us, loving it at b G, mentoring beyond Goals, mentoring on the World Wide Web and on the interwebs, and all that kind of stuff. Go hang upside down, fight those allergies. We'll catch up with you soon, my friend. I'm glad I saved our notes about sportsmanship, gamesmanship, love it and all that kind of stuff.
We'll catch up with you soon, my friend. Take care all right. That's Greg Garza and his nose