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We may laugh, we might be your game's missing peace.

Hey guys, welcome to the soccer old pod. In this episode we're talking to Manchester

United and U.S. women's national team goalkeeper Fallon Tell us Joyce. At 28, Fallon has had an incredible journey through the game so far. She started her career at the University of Miami before playing in France and then joining Seattle's O.L. Rain. Since 2023, Fallon has been at Manchester United where she earned the starting spot last season, and she did so well that she shared the league's Golden Glove Award for Best Go goalkeeper. Fallon also had a breakout year on the international side, getting her first start with the US Remem as national team. We talked to Fallon about how she handles the ups and downs of elite goalkeeping, why it's important to have passions outside of the game, and how she was in a rainforest filled with vicious caterpillars. You're going to have to listen to find that one out. Fallon has all the awesome qualities of a pro. She has the desire to grow. She's always adapting. And she knows how to stay grounded by going outside and having passions outside of soccer. I can't wait for you guys to hear this conversation. Val, thank you so much for coming back on. It's great to see you. So you're in Manchester right now. Nice. Yeah, it's definitely a nice, the Moody, Moody Night and Manchester. I feel like it's moody there a lot, right? All the time. You know, it's been such an interesting two years that I've had. I've had the first year of just building myself, just really just grinding out that entire first year, and then just having my first experience in the WSL and understanding what it actually means to be a Manchester United goalkeeper, just hit the ground running in that first season. It just everything just kept getting harder and harder. But, you know, that's honestly, you know, very lucky to have that happen. I was going to say, did you have that, like, freshman feeling when you first started being a newbie? Yes, absolutely. I was just like, oh my gosh. New tactics, new teammates. You know, you got to make sure you have that great connection with your centerbacks and everyone involved also. Yeah, so, yeah, everything was fresh. I'm so curious. What drew you to being a goalkeeper? Like, did that position, did you find the position?

Did the position find you?

I was probably like a midfielder or forward, like, since I started soccer when I was four years old.

And then when I was 12 was when I made the change into being, like, you know, back in my day,

like, who just played half and half as goalkeepers is very common.

You know, just like the girl that played basketball is the one that put the gloves on um and so i was trying out for a long island united team they're just gathering all the best players in long island and i was actually trying out as a as a field player and the goalkeeper at the time didn't want to be a full-time goalkeeper so then i was just always in the games we played before practice it would start. I was the one that was just in net the whole time. So the coach was like, oh, let's put you in. And it never came out. And then a love of goalkeeping came once I started training specifically, like one-on-one private trainings for goalkeepers for being a goalkeeper absolutely loved it like

i was watching videos of manual noir killer novice flying over poles firing over garbage cans flying over

the kid that had to train with me like it was just like a lot of fun just being crazy so i just loved

it did ever feel isolating for you or did you like the one-on-one or like the solo kind of part of being a goalkeeper?

I think there's quite a big part of me that likes the tagline of like the individual

sport within a team sport because you just get the best of both worlds.

You get the personal challenge of just being in such a unique position. And then at the same time,

you can go to your center back and be like, oh, gosh, gosh, that was rough. Like, you're not,

it's not always on you. But then when it comes to your big moment, it is all on you. So, yeah,

it's a nice little, little balance there. How do you deal with that? Because I feel like so often, I mean, especially at the probably the younger levels, like college and younger, I think people only notice, like, the mistakes of goalies. Maybe a great safe here or there, but then one goal in and they're blaming the goalie. Like, how do you deal with those feelings? Or do you not feel like that's something that you have to deal with anymore? No, no, that's ever-present. That's constantly, we just had a scrimmage against Liverpool and I'm still thinking about the goals that we conceded. As you get older, the narrative in your head starts to change. Like, it's always there where you almost err on the side of wanting to fix things so quickly and so fast and you, like, think everything's like, you know, everyone's seeing that mistake that you've made.

And it can become quite an insecurity.

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