Welcome to the Scuffed Podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez and

Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Our guest today is Chris Gloucester, the left back at Hanover 96 in Germany and the US U20

international. He was a standout performer for the U-20s in World Cup qualifying in

November. A steady presence at left back who got forward regularly. He's

almost certainly going to be playing at the U-20 World Cup in Poland and let me

check 36 days. Chris, welcome to the podcast.

Hi, I'm glad to be here. Thank you for having me. Yes, my pleasure. Let's start by talking

about your background. You grew up in New Jersey? Is that right? Yes, yes, New Jersey, that's where I grew up.

So that's just for the people who don't have a good sense of the geography, How far is that from Manhattan?

If you take a car, it's maybe about 30 minutes to 45 minutes of a drive and then with the train maybe an hour depending on

traffic and stuff so it's not too far. Okay cool so how did you get into soccer?

Oh, wow. So, I first started soccer when I was about four years old and to be honest not all of my family I don't really

come from an athletic background I mean my uncle played football and basketball in high school and my father played basketball in high school in high school and in college.

So but everyone else really didn't really play sports and, you know,

when I was younger, my mom told me that I would just kind of sit in front of the TV

and watch it.

And I think from that, when I started watching it,

that's when I knew, like, all right,

like I want to try this and, you know, it became,

now it's a huge part of my life it is my life so yeah yeah you've made a lot of

sacrifices for the sport do you um do you mind telling me like what did your parents do

for a living when you were growing up? What do they do now?

...