#485: John O'Brien joins the pod

Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America

Adam Belz

Men's National Team, Youth National Teams, Yanks Abroad, Sports, U17 National Team, Us Soccer, Mls, Usmnt, American Soccer, U20 National Team, Soccer

4.7 • 922 Ratings

🗓️ 18 April 2024

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The former Ajax and USMNT midfielder, a key player in the 2002 World Cup quarterfinal run, joins Belz for a conversation that touches on, among other things, how the Dutch trained total football in the late 1990s, playing for Bruce Arena, the goal v Portugal, some of the innovative stuff John is working on in his psychology practice in Colorado, and the extent to which club academies have a responsibility to develop not just soccer players but whole people and functioning adults.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Scuff Podcast where we talk about US soccer. Our guest today is a former Iax and US Men's National Team midfielder,
0:21.0	a key part of the team that went the farthest in the World Cup in our
0:24.4	program's history. That 2002 team is now a psychologist who works with athletes and
0:30.1	other people in the Boulder, Colorado area.
0:33.2	John O'Brien, welcome to Scuffed.
0:35.4	Thank you, good to be here.
0:36.9	How you doing, Adam?
0:38.4	I'm doing pretty well.
0:39.6	I'm really excited about this.
0:40.8	Thanks for coming on. You. Do you still play soccer? I coach my
0:46.7	son's team and so I'll kick the ball occasionally a little demonstration here
0:51.0	or there but I don't play competitively my body just
0:55.5	stopped liking it.
0:56.7	So no Sunday League.
1:00.8	Yeah, no Sunday League for me.
1:04.0	I wish, you know, I still love, you know, the freedom and soccer and the movement and the skills
1:09.8	and all that, but it's something. It's just been smarter for me to let go.
1:15.0	Yeah, okay.
1:17.0	So let's go back a little bit.
1:21.0	You went to Iax when there was basically no pathway from the US to a major European club.
1:31.0	And I'm sure you've been asked about this a lot and you've talked about it a lot but like
1:35.0	What was the key aside from your ability as a player? What was the key to that all happening because it was it just didn't happen back then right?
	...

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