Greg Garza Talks Mentoring and ATLUTD: Friday Free Kick on SDH AM 5/2/25

entire day. And it just depends. Sometimes you have kids who want to do a mentoring session right before school. Sometimes you have kids who are homeschooled and can do a mentoring session like right after this. You know, it's it's it's kind of sporadic throughout the day, and then usually I kind of have like a lunch break where I'll kind of wet. I'll meal prep or procrastinate in a positive way around the house and doing laundry and getting all the kids stuff cleaned and all that kind

of stuff. And then uh, if I have a little bit of time, then I might go back to the gym and do like a core circuit or whatever, dude. And then and then after that, uh, my kids usually have training every single day, so it's my day through Friday training, whether it's from six pm to seven thirty or finishing at eight, and Mom will do me a

favorite to pick them up from training. I'll take them too, and then my days really start at like seven thirty eight every single day and they go until about eleven thirty, So eleven thirty sometimes eleven forty five, just depending on where that kid is in the world. I mean, we have we have a new MINTI from that's in Singapore right now. Whoa twenty four? Was it? No twelve hour difference? So you know, sometimes like yesterday I mentored him at a thirty am, it's a thirty pm on his end.

So it's it's interesting, it's it's we were We're able to fill so many spaces within the states. I think I think I just did this a couple of weeks ago for our marketing team. I think we have about forty one states of kids that we mentor so you know, it's it's pretty cool man.

the I'm the people's the people's person. I'm I am definitely the salesman of our of our crew, and Parky is the one that that that is the idea behind everything?

the game. In the game, I completely transformed, right, you know. I had that kind of chip on my shoulder and kind of lunatic mentality and so many other things that that kind of defined me as a player. But but in the communities anyway, anyway, and where I can be, I'll always be that motivator and you know, goofball. I mean, I see miss Abs. I was at silver Backs doing and event for the Hispanic community for about one hundred and fifty kids. It was funny soccer in the streets.

Was right across from us, and I've done that event a couple of years ago as well, or visited as well, but that this one was by a group called Alianza. They do Hispanic tournaments all around the United States, and they invited me to be a part of it here in Atlanta, and I think it was a success. So now I might be wearing another hat and having the

opportunity to travel with them and go. I mean, like I think, after them meeting me and you know, seeing that I am a Mexican American player who played in both countries and had success in both countries, I think it's it's cool to kind of be that, you know, bridge for them as well, especially within the Hispanic communities.

There's so many, so many around the States and just providing them the opportunity, and so they do a really good job in getting partnerships and sponsorships from all different companies. That one was sponsored by Kings Hawaiian Kings Hawaiian Bread, and I had about one hundred and fifty kids from ages four to fourteen, So it was it was really

cool to be a part of that. And once again I'm the guy that's like when I got there, they were like, you know, we don't know what you can do if you just want to hop in and be with the kids. And then about three hours later they were like, wow, you're amazing with kids, and I'm like, well, that's what I do. That's what I do for a living man. So I gotta be got to I gotta

be something with what I'm good at. So but I'm like the type of person that I mean if I see a kid walking by and they have you know today in today's world, shoes never have laces or anything, and I'll walk by and I'll be like, dude, your shoes are in tight and no, They'll look down, and that's I'm always I'm always doing something that's you know, making one of their friends laugh or you know, whatever it is, tapping them on the shoulder and looking the

other way, you know, all those little little things.

was mister Mikey Ambrose. Mikey Ambrose was the punching bag for all of us and and and in the in the like most loving way, but just the banter was always through Mikey or Chris McCann, Harrison Heath when he was there as well. You know, you need those guys that are going to just lighten your day if you're having the crappiest day and you go into the locker room and you just have those guys. And I was definitely one of those guys that bridge of different languages

as well, where I got joking all sorts of different languages. Right. So I mean, if Elena and Ida wants to pay me right now and just be in locker room for for banter and try and turn things around, I would definitely say yes, I'm not going on the field. I don't think I would survive, but just to be in locker room and kind of be with those guys and get a get the morale up and and and change

the change the error a little bit. Uh. That's it's so it's so needed, especially in times like these, because you still you still need that that managing role of guys that are gonna be you know, there's gonna be guys that are ticked off and pissed off all day with what's going on right now, and you gotta you gotta find a way to kind of get them back into the mix of what they're doing. For me, it was almost like a message of you know, you get

to do what you love every single day. You know, like that happiness and that joy of stepping on the field, there is no there's no better escape. And so I think that that for me was something that I always lived by. But yes, the fine line for me was, hey, when when it was serious and it had to be serious, I was probably one of the most serious. So you know, I was willing to put willing to put my life on the line for whatever play.

sixty seven thousand dollars player, it doesn't matter. You're you're you're you're still a guy who needs to needs to understand the opportunity at hand and and just to be where you are. You know, I have I have a young boy, I have a young boy that we actually kind of created an exercise together about two months ago, and he has been he's been on Real Monarchs for

the past two years and he's played two games. And this is coming from a kid who was captain on was captain on every single Realitalt Lake age group from like you four teens all the way up. Was the captain on every team. And it's been a pro for two years and has played two games. That's it. And so you know, it's it's interesting to like even try

and find a way to motivate players like that. You know, it's you have to find a way to where they can be put in a good mindset and being patient and still going to practice and enjoying themselves and not being doubtful of why why am I doing this?

what might be next. And I think that that's a mentality that yes, there's there's that pressure there, but there's not that pressure of like there's no tomorrow right and and I think that's that sometimes is something that I think I would say hinder performance but just doesn't give that extra boost I think, or that extra sprint back or that extra I don't care if I'm hurting right

now or injured. I'm going to get through it. And I think playing in other places, you know, playing in those hostile like situations, even individually and collectively of fighting fighting for relegation or fighting to stay up in the first division, those I think that also has a huge, huge component to how the guys carry themselves each and every day, how they carry themselves in the games, their type of mentality in terms of getting through these tough moments.

My challenge for you if you were to walk into that locker room right now and someone tapped you on the shoulder and it's like, okay, I need you to talk to them before the match, before they go out there, before the fans, you know, you know they that Mercedes Been Stadium this weekend. If you had to go into that locker room and wanted to talk to the UH the new wave of Atlanta United, what would what would

you say? I'm not going to say it's a speech, but what would you what would your talking points be in trying to address that locker room to try and get them off of the schneid they're currently on.

turn the game upside down. And then you know, I think there's just a might be like a mental block of getting getting it back. So trying to trying to get them on the right, you know track. I honestly, I honestly don't know which way I would go in terms of applying more pressure and making them understand the the you know, the the level that they have to lift up to or that's where you have to be in a locker room and you have to get a

feel for how these guys are. Every every every coach that I played for was you know, the best coaches that I played for. I would always say, we're not we're not coaches. They were good, they were good managers, They understood the personalities they understood the emotions of everyone, they understood how to get the best out of everyone. And so I think when you are not when you're not in the locker room, you're not in that sacred you know, it's it's a sacred place. A locker room

is a sacred place. It's you don't you don't know what thems are, you don't know what the you know. I've talked about this with with with Jason as well, is you don't know what the competitive stress of these guys are going through right now. And there's there's so many different things that we don't see from the outside, and so you know, hopefully, hopefully that's something that you that you can hope and pray that the manager can can really transform and and and help them get out

of get out of whatever they're they're going through. Because like I said, there's from a from a fan standpoint, there aren't there aren't like you can't look at some of their games and yes, maybe one or two of them out of the season, but that's always going to

happen in a season. You can't look at most of their games and be like they're playing bad, you know, creed chances or they're not playing that flare and fire, because there are a lot of glimpses that they do have that spark, they do have something there, and then whether it be just sometimes the bad luck that they have and then just not being able to turn it around in those in those key moments, but you know, I think it's still still a minute of them figuring

themselves out and figuring their chemistry out. I don't I don't fans. I don't think how lucky we are to have had the chemistry that we had from the very beginning and our success in our tenor that we had with Atlanta United in those very first couple or few years. That is something like unheard of. You don't bring guys that are from all around the world, never played with each other, speak all those sorts of different languages, and

something just clicks. It happens one team out of how many teams, there's a whole brand new team this year. Look at San Diego, right, San Diego is another team that you can kind of look at and you're like, wow, like they played some really really good soccer at times, but they're still getting to know each other and and so I think, you know, you look back at our success that we had. We were even in chock as players on the field that we had such good chemistry.

So it's definitely you know, there's so many different angles that you can look at it well.

and having it applied to each individual person. It's like, well, you know, if someone knows what it's like to sit here and go like this and they get it, then you might not have to do as much much to an individual that might be a little older that has other things going on in their lives that you talk about. The competitive stress and the stuff off the field that compounds a lot to how sometimes you act on the field. So I would imagine it's almost a seat by seat basis in that locker room.

a Lani United and let's use Tata for example. Tata would pull me. We'd be doing a training session, you know, whether it be a transition training session or whatever, and tats I would pull me aside and say, I need you, I need you to keep doing exactly what you're doing. I need you to continue to be the person you are off the field on the field, just continue to be doing what you're doing. You are playing with an

immense amount of confidence. That right there, like stepping into the next game where it's like you know before I think it was like before San Jose, you know, like at Home a Body God, where we started losing and we got that like that amazing comeback where Joseph almost burned himself with the fire, but like that was probably one of my one of my favorite games I played in.

But that was that was stuck in my mind from a managing standpoint, that even when crap hit the fan in that game, I was still instilled with that confidence of Okay, this is a moment to where coach told me a few days ago he needs me, he needs me to do the exact same thing of what I'm doing, and and and that's that's that's the mindset. That's the

mindset that you can get out of players. Tata knew that he could tell me that whereas he might be telling Miggy you know something else, he might be telling Joseph understanding Joseph's personality and saying, hey, dude, this last

game that you play was an absolutely embarrassment. But he knows he might be able to get something out of that with with him because of who he is, So that individual, you know, understanding of For me, it comes down to the manager where where I've played in teams as well and Tijuana to where we had, you know, the highest paid coach at one time in Mexico and

probably in the probably close in the world. Right we had we had just brought over Venezuelan, you know, head coach that got them to like the semi finals of Copa America and and like, you know, this is you know, hopefully he doesn't get out there in the public, but he was probably one of the you know, worst coaches I had in my career, you know, but because of how psychological damaging he was to each and every individual.

He treated everyone exactly the same and just such a real mentality of just banging on everyone at all times. And not everyone is like that, you know. So I will always say it comes down to the manager and understanding your players and how to get the best out

of them. That's where that's where the leadership starts. That's where that those those pregame talks or those talks during the week of pulling players aside, having those individual meetings with them and and and inclusive and being inclusive of of everyone as well.

type of personality that they need. I will use different avenues and angles how to approach it with each and every one of them. But but you know that that messaging, ultimately, what I'm through to them is the same.

I was the first one in warm up every single time, first one. And I wasn't the guy that was gonna be like raw, raw, let's go, guys, let's do this. But I was the first one in warm up every single time, and our lines of two whatever it was, I was the first one. I was the first one to step out on the field and run everybody out. That was That was who I was. That was the

serious in me. But at the same time, during those ups, I might you know, spring a little joy or sprinkle a little you know, happiness or goof goofballs to kind of get everybody in the right mood and and and understand we're about to do what we love. So I I trans trans you know, transcended, I guess you could say into into that as a as a as a mentor as well.

behavior ambassadoring Atlanta. Uh, not just for the Club World Cup, because I don't really want to watch Chelsea play in the Club World Cup. I'm just hoping I can kind of plan my eggs, you know, or plant plan my seeds and all over with with uh with put my eggs in different baskets with FIFA, because I'm excited about something else, not just the Club World Cup. I want to I kind of want to plant that seed so

I can be ready for hey. Uh, instead of paying six thousand dollars for a nosebleed ticket in the World Cup.