12-Pack Interview Series: Eric Wynalda on Working at Fox Soccer, National Team Duty, and his Favorite Beer

The dust has settled somewhat from part one of our interview with former U.S. Men's National Team forward and current Fox Soccer analyst Eric Wynalda.

Part two includes our conversation about working for Fox Soccer, what it's like to put on the red, white, and blue and play for your country, owning a soccer team, and his favorite beer.

Read on....

Photo Credit: Wynalda's Twitter

Free Beer Movement: You’re now on Fox Soccer. How’s the gig? How do you see FS shaping soccer in the United States?

Eric Wynalda: It’s been fun. I’ve worked with ESPN. I was there for almost seven years. And there are differences between the two about how they do the business of soccer.

We’re very event driven. When there’s a big game we figure out, one, how to get in on our channel and two, how we’re going to cover it. In the past it was money driven because Fox didn’t put a whole lots of money into the sport, but obviously with the purchasing of the World Cup rights in ‘18 and ’22 we have a vested interested in the game.

My job is kind of to sit and wait until there’s an event to cover. I do cover the Champions League. Which I do love. I would argue that Champions League is the best soccer on the planet. it’s the most money. It’s the most interesting.

That’s never work. You get up and your job is to basically commentate for some of the best games imaginable. So I consider myself very fortunate to still be involved in the game. 

Photo Credit: John Mottern/Getty Images 

FBM: You had a pretty storied career for the MNT. What is it like to wear the colors of and play for your country?

EW: It’s a very complex thing.  If you sit there and put your hand on your heart and you listen to the anthem and you stare down the flag and that moment hits you that you realize how many people you’re representing it’s pretty intense. It’s incredible. Because it’s a lot of people and there are a lot of impressions that you’re about to be making.

The responsibility that goes into it is immense. There’s only eleven guys in the country that are chosen to represent the country. Probably two at your position. That means you’re the best player in the country at your position. Which is an incredible achievement.

I’ve watched guys, and I won’t say their names, that are in very prominent positions now in U.S. Soccer and MLS, who wet themselves during the National Anthem because they couldn’t handle the pressure But they’re good coaches now and their good leaders now. They couldn’t handle that moment.

There’s that part of you that has to be incredible prepared and incredibly confident in your own abilities and be ready to handle the big moment because if you think about it too much you’ll scare the crap out of yourself.

FBM: You are with Warren Barton (and Clent Alexander) are a part-owner in the San Diego (Flash) team. Is this your little corner of the soccer universe where you can or where you want to show everybody how a team is run and how to build soccer in America?

EW: Well, eventually, yeah. I think the relationships Warren and I have will always provide a better platform for players if they’re good enough. Warren coaches the team and trains them. He does a fantastic job. He has a great soccer mind.

But it’s an endeavor I’m excited about. I haven’t really been hands on yet. I haven’t had time, but I think our plans for the future are to make the best out of the situation that we can. We need to talk about youth development, the progression of players, providing the right platform to learn the game the right way, to discover who they are, not to be taught to be something they’re not. I think that happens way too much.

I think our goals are to share the knowledge we have as players and hopefully that translates into some new successes.

FBM: Do you see San Diego as a MLS market? Do you see your team as a future part of the league? To exact even more change?

EW: From our perspective it makes sense to get involved. We want to do a lot of things. But San Diego is a tough market. It’s a hard sell unless it’s done perfectly. The demographic are good. There are so many reasons to believe it would work; the weather is fantastic. But it really is the matter of putting together a club and building a tradition of success before we integrate ourselves into the way things are done.

There are the way things are going to be and there are the ways things should be. If we do things the way they should be that probably means we’ll be excluded from the process. We’ve gotta try and find a way to get in.

Warren and I, as businessmen, simply want to do the best we can. When it comes to a scenario where we’ll be in five years, ten years there’s a lot of things that need to change before it’ll work.

It’s not that we want to stick our noses up to the world and say, “We’re doing things right and you’re doing things wrong” it’s we recognize that the powers that be prevent you from doing what you want to do.

If you going to do the things you want to do you’re going to have to go off on your own. Our partners will probably be from Brazil and Italy and England and Germany. They won’t be in Kansas and Texas and New York.

FBM: Do you have a particular drink of choice when you're watching soccer games?

EW: It usually hefeweizen. I picked that up playing in Germany. Franziskaner is usually the one. I’m a big fan of it. If I can’t get that I’ll go with "Shock Top" or Blue Moon. I love “Shock Top” that’s probably my beer of choice.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve tried to limit the beer intake so I don’t get the belly.

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Making The Case - We Call It Soccer

Preview: For those reading this (and that'd be you right now), this post is about more than semantics in calling our sport "soccer" instead of "football". It is about defining our own history with the sport and our own identity within the global game.


In the last few weeks we've been reading David Wangerin's (author of "Soccer in a Football World") "Distant Corners" which chronicles the emergence of soccer in the United States. Even though we consider ourselves passionate American soccer fans we've found ourseves woefully ignorant on the depth and complexity of the beginnings of the sport here.

Inspiration.

For many younger soccer fans in America it's easy to assume that our sporting history does not extend much before the 1994 World Cup or the foundation of Major League Soccer in 1996. For those more seasoned veteran fans of the game they can recall the heyday of the North American Soccer League, the New York Cosmos, and a gaggle of foreign stars on our shores. You may even have heard or read a blurb about Joe Gaetjens and the "Miracle on Grass" in 1950 or that the United States somehow managed to field a side in the inaugural 1930 World Cup.

The truth is that since the end of the Civil War this sport has slowly, ever slowly, grown. From a game played by a sparse few and fertilized by "hyphenated" Americans to one embraced by all-American squads from New York to Pennsylvania to St. Louis and beyond. From the likes of the "Father of American Soccer" Tom Cahill to the birth of the American Challenge Cup in 1913 (that would later become the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup), American soccer has history.

With that being the groundwork for everything written henceforth, the Free Beer Movement declares that we must erase the term "football" from our collective vocabularies and instead replace it with soccer when referring to the game as it's played in America.

Before anyone swells up into righteous anger, please hear us out.

At the most basical level this is to reduce confusion. Our American nation already has one football and, at this time, is the most popular sport in the country. Continually referring to soccer as football is confusing and ultimately unnecessary. For any of us that have friends, family, and co-workers that tolerate our soccer talk, blending "football" and "football" is at the least confounding and at the most, annoying. We've been prone to referring to "football" as "throwball" and that is most certainly insulting to fans of that game (whether you care about hurting their feelings or not... many of them are potential FBM converts).


As cited by an English gentleman, Daryl Grove, on the "Total Soccer Show" countries that have dueling "footballs" often defer to the term "soccer" to avoid confusion. And well, if that's good enough for Australia I don't know why it isn't good enough for us.

Semantics aside, though, soccer means something. Despite the fact that "soccer" itself is a Oxford-"er" abbreviation of "association football" that originally evolved in the 1880s, the word "soccer" has taken on a uniquely American identity.

Despite the best efforts of many ex-pats in the United States to establish "football" as the prevailing title for the round ball sport emerging in the early 1900s, "football" of the gridiron-persuasion took hold, and as we know in today's Bud Light/NFL world, has not relented since.

To use the word "soccer" instead of "football" is to make a greater distinction than just separating ourselves from the pointy-ball version. It is to declare our independence from the "football" of its birth nation, much like we did from its political system over 200 years ago.

The bright lights of Old Trafford, Stamford Bridge, and Anfield are alluring, like the Sirens from Greek mythology, crashing our expectations for what this sport should be on their rocky shores. Their sport is football and there's no crime in calling it so, but when referring to the Chicago Fire, it should be as their full name implies, a "Soccer" Club.

Fall River Marksmen from the
1921 American Soccer League season.

The first "significant, viable professional league" in the United States even adopted "soccer", the American Soccer League, which lasted from 1921 to 1933, before they fell victim to the Great Depression and political infighting. 
Despite their failure it was understood that their name be distinctive from both the "American Football" played professionally and on college campuses and "European Football" played overseas. 


The national federation has, as Wangerin, explains, gone through "a confusing number of name changes, first founding itself as the United States Football Association (until 1945) then the United States Soccer Football Association, and then correcting themselves as the United States Soccer Federation in 1974. A proper name for a proper soccer nation.


For better or worse our history has earned us "soccer". From innovative ideas like substitutions (first used in ASL games in 1926) to the less-so, like the 35-yard running shootout of the NASL and early MLS days or running our season contrary to the FIFA calendar and shying away from promotion/relegation, American soccer is unique and deserves a name that attests to that. We're "soccer" in that we embrace the franchise system and playoffs as the rest of our sports do. Our supporters culture is uniquely "soccer" in that, much like our nation's history, the stands are a melting pot (or the more properly and preferably, but less recognized "salad bowl") of diversity.


By virtue of years of watching, waiting, and dreaming in the shadows of our other major sports and the global versions of this game we should embrace the word "soccer" as a badge of honor; to indicate the hard fought battles of sporting integration to legitimize a game birthed far away from here. 


Give credit where credit it due. Football, invented an ocean away, has inspired generations and millions of Americans (and immigrant Americans throughout) today. We can be fans both of the continental game (and other leagues of the world) and our domestic game, but it's time to call a duck a duck and soccer, soccer.

We eat cookies, not biscuits. We have fries on the side, not chips. We wear pants, not trousers. We go to the bathroom, not the loo. We've declared our independence from so many other English words. Why not football?

For a nation so enamored with "exceptionalism", "leading from the front", and "making the world safe for democracy" we're awfully content to take our cues from our more experienced brethren. We think by now we've gotten what we need from them and it's time to continue our evolution and develop our own, American soccer identity. It's not to say we don't still aspire to the level our continental counterparts, but we must make sure what we produce is as unique as the country our domestic game grows within. Using the word "soccer" is a good start.

But really using "soccer" is just a way of sending a signal to the rest of the world (and many fans of the game here) that we're through subscribing to the way things were or the way things are. There is only the way things will be.

We call it soccer.

Post-Script: The title of this post is both to make a point (obviously) and a tribute to a now defunct blog titled, "We Call It Soccer". The author of said blog first came up with the idea of the Free Beer Movement, which we now curate.


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Columbus Crew Honor Brian McBride With Circle of Honor, Legos

The Columbus Crew inducted U.S. National Team forward Brian McBride into their "Circle of Honor" at a halftime ceremony during last Saturday's match against the San Jose Earthquakes.

McBride was the first pick in the inaugural Major League Soccer draft and played eight seasons, and scoring 62 goals, for the yellow and black before moving to the English Premier League and playing for Fulham in 2004.

When McBride return to MLS he signed with the Chicago Fire, retiring from the national team in 2006 (although featuring for the 2008 Olympic team) and professional soccer in 2010. McBride is a legend who's bloodied face from a 2006 World Cup has become an iconic image of American stick-to-itiv-ness (yup, that's a new word).

From the Columbus Crew:

"Induction represents the highest club honor and is reserved for only its most iconic figures, whose contributions and accomplishments will be recognized with a permanent presence on the west facade within the stadium. McBride will be joined on the field by his wife and daughters, and several of his former teammates."

McBride's permanent place at Crew Stadium must certainly rival the honor that his English club gave him, renaming Craven Cottage's in-stadium sports bar "McBride's". But nothing could compare the the other tribute the Crew paid to McBride outside the MLS's first soccer specific park; being enshrined in Legos. A honor just a little bit cooler than the tribute song, "You'll Always Want McBride On Your Side" that we wrote last year.


"Leggo!"

You could say McBride was a building block of the Crew...

An honor that even Lionel Messi would be crazy jealous of.
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One of These Days They'll Have a Team, Until Then.... They've Got Cobi Jones

The big news out of the American soccer Inter-Net-Blogo-Sphere yesterday was the former USMNT and Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder, more recently of LA's coaching staff, was named the Associate Directior for Soccer for the New York Cosmos.

This is, of course, a bit of a surprise, given that the Cosmos do not have a soccer team. In recent months, though, this has not stopped the "team" from launching a fancy new website, two academies, jersey, and appointing more members of a burgeoning bureaucracy than Soviet Russia (maybe the New York Cosmonauts!)

We suppose that being able to drag Jones away from the Galaxy, the club that he's been apart of since the launch of Major League Soccer in 1996, is quite the coup for the Cosmos. With all the rumors of the Cosmos potentially become the 20th MLS franchise in the next couple of years Jones must have been let in on the secret.

If the Cosmos end up as a reality then Cobi is on top of a great new gig. The all-time leader in caps for the Men's National Team will most certainly do the club loads of good if they ever take the field.

And until then? Guess we'll just pony up some cash and snag this hat.

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VIDEO - Lilly the Legend

Kirstine Lilly. 352 caps for the United States Women's Nation Team. 130 goals. Two World Cups. An absolutely legend. Yesterday, Lilly announced her retirement from professional soccer after over twenty years playing for the national team. She was both the youngest (16) and oldest (38) to soccer for the Lady Nats, as well.

She was the last link the National Team had to the famous 99ers, the team that captivated a nation on their dramatic run to the Women's World Cup Final in 1999. Gone were Hamm, Chastain, Foudy, and Akers. Only Lilly remained.

Now the USWNT will be out from behind that great shadow as they prepare for the 2011 Women's World Cup, but the leadership and inspiration that Lilly provided will have to come from somewhere else.

While most of the American soccer world spends its time and energy on the men's team, the Women's National Team has and will always have a special place in my heart. It was that fateful run in 1999 that solidified by love for American soccer (and, frankly, saved me from my disappointment from the 1998 disaster by the men) and inspired generations of American girls (and boys) to play this sport. Lilly will always have an important place in helping build soccer in this nation.

USSoccer.com put together a tribute video from Lilly:

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Remembering the Mohawk: A Tribute to Clint Mathis

American Legend

As the ball settled after slamming into the back of the net he reared off to the corner flag with his jubilent teammates in tow. His goal brought crazed celebrations from US fans across the nation and set his side on course for the next round of the World Cup.

But this wasn't Landon Donovan. And this most certainly wasn't 2010 or South Africa.

It was Clint Mathis, the year was 2002, and the place Korea/Japan. Mathis' goal grabbed a crucial point against South Korea putting the US National Team in position to carry on to the knockout stages for the first time in the team's modern era. As most Nats fans know the US rolled up on Mexico in the Round of 16, 2-0, and were just a Torsten Fringes-handball away from a place in the World Cup semi-finals.

Mathis with his bad boy mohawk, making his and its World Cup debut, was a sensation.

On Saturday, August 7th Clint Mathis will play in his last professional game for the Los Angeles Galaxy, an international friendly against Spanish La Liga side Real Madrid. His retirement marks the end of a often brilliant and similarly often turbulent career.

Pre-Mohawk

Mathis began his Major League Soccer career with the Galaxy in 1998 so it's fitting that he finish it with his starter club. In between he's featured on four different MLS sides (Galaxy three times, MetroStars/Red Bulls two times, Real Salt Lake twice, and the Rapids) plus two stints in Europe (Germany's Hannover 96 and Greek side Ergotelis F.C.).

Mathis saw his early success with LA lead to a transfer to the MetroStars where he was on fire bagging an MLS-record five goals against the Dallas Burn in 2000 and finished second in scoring in the league. In 2001 he scored seven goals in his first six games, including the eventualy MLS "Goal of the Year". Despite tearing his ACL during that season he was named to the 2002 World Cup squad by manager Bruce Arena (his current manager at the Galaxy).

Bringin' the paper cuts.

The World Cup in Korea/Japan put Mathis and the U.S. National Team on the map. Young stars Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley garnered a fair share of the limelight, but it was the mohawked Mathis gave a edgy, exciting face to US Soccer in 2002. He was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated (the first soccer player in eight years) in the Cup preview issue and launched the U.S. into the second round of the tournament with his game-tying goal against South Korea (despite a loss to Poland in the next match).

Still rockin' what works.

Mathis moved to Germany to play for Hannover 96 after MLS blocked a move to power house, Bayern Munich. Despite his high-profile contributions in the Korea/Japan Mathis, like many American players abroad, found playing time scarce. Mathis scored a game-wining goal as a late substitute for Hannover and famously ran over to the coach tapping his watch. He started the following game, but never appeared for the German side again.

Mathis bounced around MLS for a few years and a short time in Greece before landing in Salt Lake where he contributed to their run to the MLS Cup in 2009.

Despite his roller coast club career, Mathis' contributions to the American game cannot be question. He became one of the first poster boys of U.S. Soccer paving the way for major media coverage of future stars Donovan et al. Just when soccer in America was getting it's first taste of the fame they had a unique character to capture and hold the nation's attention.

If we're here to promote the American version of the game, the history cannot be written without Mathis getting a fair shake. He made the mohawk the must-have hair cut of summer 2002 (eat your heart out, Beckham).

Pour a cold one for Clint, but preferably not a Germany beer. Those 2002 hand-balling bastards!

Photo Credits: SI.com (2), 96Soccer.de, LA Galaxy,

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