Clay Talks with Alexi Lalas

Wins & Losses is back! This week, Clay Travis is joined by United States soccer legend Alexi Lalas. The two discuss his soccer career, the World Cup in 1994 that changed his life forever, his post-playing career in the media and much more. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome and Clay Travis wins and losses. For those of
you who have not listened before, We've done a lot
of these, I think over forty now, and the idea
is these are long form conversations, not a lot of
commercial breaks, but that will be just as good if
you listen to them today as if you listen to
them in five or ten years. And we're exploring the

(00:22):
idea of the wins and losses that exist over the
course of someone's career, can be in sports, business, media,
can even be a big story in general. Um, just
a really fun conversation allowing you to be a little
bit more in depth than you might be able to
on television or certainly in a quicker radio interview. And

(00:42):
our guest today is a guy that I have been
watching since I was a very young man. Alexei lawllis
one of the most famous American soccer players of all time,
recently returned from World Cup. I guess technically it was
the one world, right, It's twenty two, all the years
run together out in Qatar, which I believe is the

(01:04):
way you're supposed to pronounce it. Alexei, have you recovered
from being on the road for that long in Qatar
in the Middle East for the most recent World Cup. Well,
I can keep my years straight. What is going on
with you? Are you okay? My man? Holy I'm getting
to be an old man. Like I know, we just
moved into a new year. But they all run together. Well, look,
I know we live in interesting times and it's been

(01:25):
a hell of a we'll say, the last three years
or something like that. But yeah, soo in November December
we were in Qatar, and yes we decided to call
it Qatar and uh a wonderful success from a Fox
perspective and a broadcast perspective, but also from a soccer perspective,
one of the great World Cups, especially when it comes
to the final, and look you you followed sports finals

(01:46):
can often be real left downs, and this was anything
but as a matter of fact, there's a lot of
people that believe that that's final with France and Argentina
and ultimately Messy holding up that trophy was the greatest
final in World Cup history. So all in all, well,
but went along and off the field and I'm back
and I am safe and sound, and I can't I
couldn't be more happy to talk to you, I'm really excited. Yeah,

(02:06):
I think there's a strong argument to be made that
that is the greatest soccer game potentially of all time.
And I think certainly when you consider the number of
people who watched probably the most watched soccer game of
all time, which is a good combo as well. And
so you let's start for wins and loss as we
start early. So you you obviously came to prominence in

(02:28):
the nineties as soccer started to take off in the
United States. But I'm curious when you were a kid
growing up, were you a soccer exclusive player? Did you
play other sports? When did you start to realize, hey,
I'm pretty good at soccer and maybe focus on it.
I'm just curious how you came to become, uh, such
a lightning rod in many ways for American soccer. Yeah.

(02:51):
So I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit. I
grew up in this seventies and eighties and uh, you know,
MTV and bubble Um and Little Caesar's and all that
kind of stuff. And I grew up in Michigan. Uh.
And I know you're wiss from Michigan. It is the
law there. If she hasn't told you that you also
have to play hockey no matter what I am. I
am from a generation that played multiple sports. I you know,

(03:13):
I'm not gruffy old manning it because the world has changed,
because the sports have changed with specialization. But yeah, from
a young age, I was playing all different types of sports.
I actually played more hockey growing up than I did soccer,
but eventually I just gravitated to it. I loved the
international aspect of it. I loved the creativity and the
way that you were given autonomy in a way that

(03:36):
other sports don't have it where you know, let's be honest,
when you're watching a soccer game, once that whistle blows,
the coaches have very little to do with ultimately what happens.
And you can't say that for a lot of sports.
And so I loved that that responsibility, Like I said,
the autonomy, being able to do whatever I wanted once
that whistle blue? Did you get? Do you think you
could have been in an hl uh professional hockey player

(03:57):
if you had gone all in on hockey? Oh? Absolutely?
And I played at a very high level. I was
freaking awesome. I loved it, But you know, I grew up.
I grew up you know, skating on ponds, uh and
flooding the uh you know, the the driveway and doing
all that kind of stuff. So yeah, I was huge.
I'm a huge Red Wings fan, always have been. UM.
So hockey was a huge part of my life. And

(04:19):
you know, the the hockey culture in Michigan is something
to behold. And so it's obviously very very different than
what soccer was, and I loved many many parts of it.
But like I said, I also you know, my father's
from Greece. He he was a professor, and my mom
to a writer, and you know, this is what happens
when you get a kid who comes over from university
to the States, a Greek kid, and marries a girl

(04:41):
from Jersey, and so this is what you get. Um.
But you know, soccer was there, and you know I
grew up also going back and forth between Detroit and Athens, Greece,
and so I also got that that sandlot type of
existence that we associate so much with baseball and other sports.
But in Athens, where I was the kid, I was
the red ed kan kid. I would go down to
the corner to the sand lot and just kind of

(05:02):
sit on the side until Eventually a kid didn't show
up in goal and say let's throw the American goal.
And then I worked my way up, learned some swear
words in Greek, and then they let me play on
the field. And you know that that type of existence
and that type of a background and childhood within sports
really really helped, whether it was playing hockey or whether
laying soccer. And I definitely think that playing other sports,

(05:24):
and in particular playing hockey, really helped my soccer. Did
it toughen you up the fact that you play? I mean,
it's interesting. I didn't know the hockey background, but you
played a very physical style of soccer. Do you think
that that was partly connected to having grown up playing hockey,
which obviously is super physical. Sure, you know absolutely the

(05:45):
the movements in hockey, obviously, the ruggedness and the physicality
that's involved in hockey. I I definitely used that in
the soccer that I was playing, you know, with the
understanding that there are there are rules and things that
you can and cannot do. But I looked at my
my physical attributes as something that could help me in
different ways. And uh, you know, the hockey players, you know,

(06:08):
they are a very different breed in terms of the
way that they think about the sport, the way that
they think about themselves, I guess, even the way that
they think about the world. Also, there's plenty of hockey
players that you will see actually warming up playing soccer.
And obviously the international connections is probably the most closely
associated with soccer of the sports out there. With the

(06:28):
international aspect that that started a while ago, but really
is dominant right now when it comes to the NHL
and that sport. I mean, it is a very very
international league and it's a very very international game. Were
you a defender in UH in soccer and in hockey
or did you play all positions? Like, at what point
did you become a defender in UH in soccer it's

(06:51):
kind of specializing or was that something that UH that
was a late thing or was it something that fit
your personality? How did that end up happening? So I
played on the wing from a hockey perspective, out there
on the left wing, and I was right hand sells
on the off wing, so I could cut in and
do that kind of stuff. And even from a soccer
when I was playing soccer, I was a much more
of attacking player. And what happened is I went to

(07:13):
Rutgers University State University of New Jersey over their exit
nine off the turnpike because it was the only place
that I could get into. And the coach said, listen,
we're going through a rebuilding type of years here. Have
you ever played defense? And I completely lied to him
and said, oh yeah, I played lots of defense, but
I would do anything to actually get on the field.
And the rest is history, as they say, from a
defensive perspective in soccer, but it was. It was an

(07:35):
opportunity that I saw. And you know the reason why
I ended up at Rutgers University. Like I said, I
was getting rejected at all these places. I was coming
from Michigan. My dad was desperate and he called up
the coach and said, hey, listen, I got this kid
a six four. He's done some things in soccer. He's
an okay student. And the coach said, well, let me
see you. We drilled the sixteen hours out to New Jersey.

(07:56):
We met with him for a couple of hours. He said,
I can invite you to preseason. I can us the
agriculture school, and I was like, signed me up. Problem.
We drove sixteen hours back. I packed and then they
came back and my dad basically slowed the car down
enough to kick my ass out Exit nine over there
in New Brunswick in New Jersey. And uh, you know,
I I fell into a really really interesting and very

(08:17):
very different environment scholastically and athletically than I had ever
been exposed to. You're a smart guy. Could you not
get into Michigan or Michigan State or they didn't have
athletic programs that focused on soccer? How did you end
up at Rutgers? You said that was the place you
could get into. What was the story there? I just
got rejected in a lot of places, and Michigan didn't

(08:38):
have at that point, Michigan didn't have a varsity soccer
prog progetic you can believe it. This was the late eighties,
and um, so you know I was desperate and that
you know, you're my I have a seventeen year old
daughter right now who's going through the college process, and
it is completely You've got a few years before that play,
but it is it is completely different than back certainly

(08:59):
back in the eighties when when I was doing it,
And so I just needed somebody to say yes, it
didn't really matter where. And from a soccer perspective though,
you know, the New Jersey area, in the in the
New York metropolitan area the huge hotbed, and so what
ended up happening was I was surrounded by much better
quality and the strength of schedule that we played put
me on a national footing and platform. So from a

(09:21):
soccer perspective, it was everything that I hadn't had and
really kind of set me up to have success later on.
What was soccer like in Michigan? You you you grew
up outside of Detroit. For people who don't know the
geography there, that's where my wife is from Oakland County.
We actually got married in Birmingham at the community house.
For people who have been to Birmingham, Michigan, it's a
fantastic place. But were you primarily like now, soccer is

(09:45):
a very travel culture, right, there's a lot of travel teams.
It's very competitive to get on that team or that
team or this team. Was that the case in Michigan
at the time, or were you primarily playing high school?
Middle school? Like? What was the process by which soccer
evolution occurred then in the nineties in Michigan? So I
had been exposed to it, like I said, when we

(10:06):
were going back and forth to Greece. But then, you know,
I did everything from a very young age that a
lot of the kids still do today. I did mom
and dad coaching and orange peels and juice boxes at
half time. And then even back then, there were some
travel leagues, and yes, I played on a travel team
and we started to get at a at a higher level.
But I'd be lying to you if I if I

(10:27):
looked at or played soccer with an eye to the future.
It was just something that I did. My parents, like
I said, they did not have an athletic background, and
as long as it kept me out of trouble and
it was something that I was good at, they were
cool with it. And as long as I kept up
my studies to the extent that I that I could.
So yeah, it just it was something that just fit
from a young age. But it was wild West back

(10:48):
then compared to what the kids have now. And I
know I found old saying that, but it warms the
cockles in my red headed American heart too to see
what this generation has at its disposal. I I don't
begrudge them at I think it's wonderful. Makes me incredibly
proud that they don't have even close to, you know,
the problems. And like I said, that wild less type
of existence that was soccer back then, even from a

(11:09):
young age, in terms of youth soccer to high school
soccer to college soccer. I did play high school soccer,
which even that in and of itself is a talking
point when it comes to sports nowadays, as how many
kids are specializing and you know, playing club soccer and
playing a travel team and not even being allowed to
play high school soccer. But I've benefited immensely from playing

(11:30):
high school soccer. And I'm not just talking about as
a soccer player, but as a student and as a person.
I remember a story, and we're talking to Alexi Lallis,
this is wins and losses. I remember a story about
Barry Larkin, who was one of my favorite baseball players
growing up. He went to the University of Michigan undergrad
UH and I believe it's I believe it's been publicly

(11:50):
out there for a while, but both shim Beeckler, who
was then the coach of Michigan had a lot of success,
would show up at Barry Larkin's baseball games and call
him a woos because he wouldn't come play uh football.
Because Barry Larkin was an elite athlete. I think his
son later played n B A. I mean, they got
some good genes there. You said you played hockey and

(12:11):
then you made the switch over to a soccer You're
a big guy six three six four, so maybe it helped.
But did you get trash talked at all for being
more interested in soccer than uh than uh than than
playing hockey in Michigan at the time. And I want
to read this to you as part of that because
I said I was gonna do it earlier on the
Clay and Buck Show. I was reading the Babylon b

(12:33):
and I thought this was funny, and I bet you
even would laugh a little bit. Uh in a NHL
player says if he wanted to support the Gays, he'd
be playing soccer again. That was that was the NHL
getting They had that controversy over whether the guy would
wear the LGBT uh story proverrov or not. But did
you get picked on at all in the eighties for

(12:55):
being like, yeah, hockey's kind of this macho sport. I
love it. You say, you were good at it, could
have been a potentially an NHL player, and yet you
got drawn to soccer. Did you have any of that
Barry Larkins syndrome where guys would be like, why are
you being a woos and choosing soccer? Yeah? I mean, look,
I lived through the age where it was starting to
transition into a much more for lack of a better word,

(13:18):
acceptable type of sport for uh, you know, for for
young athletes. Because when we were kids, Alexei and you're
a little bit older than me, but not that much,
soccer was considered a woos sport for kids to play. Right,
I played high school soccer, and if in Tennessee, if
you compare that to say, playing high school football, like
I would have been considered a whoos for being a

(13:39):
soccer guy, and that was even more prominent. I would
imagine when you were playing uh and started to make
that transition into becoming a professional soccer player. Yeah, And
so what it made what what was good is that
when you got your ass kicked by a soccer player
like myself, it was really embarrassing if you were shooting
your mouth off. But you know I heard it all.

(13:59):
I heard like you said, it's through us. Is it's
for it's for girls, it's it's not for guys. It's communist,
a bunch of guys running around in tight shorts and
nobody ever scores, and there's no physical nature to it.
And it's not you know all it's you know, it's
all of those different things. I absolutely heard I I
laugh at them, I ignored them in you know, my

(14:20):
size certainly certainly helped out. And you know, as as
you know, as you can attest to sometimes from afar,
you can have a perception of what it is and
then when you actually see it played or play it yourself,
it can change that perception. But look when I when
I look at this generation now that grows up, they
look at soccer as anything else in terms of their

(14:41):
their palates that they have of sports, whether it's to
play or whether it's to watch. So the perception of
soccer has dramatically changed in the US. I think, you know,
I think for the better. But you know, it's still
it's still not King and in terms of history and
in terms of popularity, but it's it's a whole different
ball game, and it's a whole different sport than it

(15:03):
certainly was when I was growing up. Yeah, there's no doubt.
And I think that's interesting because for people out there,
depending on the age and as they listen to us. UM.
The analogy I would make is, when I was a kid,
and obviously I was a huge sports fan, the only
international athletes I knew were tennis players, right. I knew
Boris Becker, I knew Ivan Lindell, Stefan Edbergh. Like we

(15:25):
could run through all that era of great tennis players, um,
and you saw the Americans compete against them. Nowadays, I
would say tennis by and large is not anywhere near
as much talked about as it would have been in
America when I was a kid growing up. But when
I take my kids to elementary school and when I
go pick him up Alexei, I am stunned by the

(15:47):
amount of international soccer jerseys I see American second, third,
fourth grade kids in the Nashville area where I live.
They all, because of the fiefa video game, have favorite players.
They all have an opinion on Messy versus Ronaldo. Right
in the same way that Jordan lebron Is discussed. There's

(16:08):
a lot of debate about who the greatest soccer player
is of all time. It's amazing to me in a generation,
how that has changed so significantly. I bet even to
you if you go back to when you started playing soccer,
that's kind of staggering how much knowledge there is internationally
about the game now embedded in our society. Yeah, I

(16:29):
mean it's insane. You hit hit a bunch of a
bunch of things, including, like you said, the fief of
video game, and that was a game changer in terms
of the education of players, of teams, of leagues, of tactics,
and everybody was playing it, and therefore everybody, whether they
realized it or not, was gaining an appreciation and an
education for what it for what it is. The other

(16:51):
part is, I mean, when you when you when you
want to watch soccer in the United States, there are
people that I have friends, I have friends that are
over in Europe that are jealous of the amount of
soccer that we have at our disposal that they are
able to watch on a continual basis. And I can
pull up any game from anywhere in the world. And
so you have a generation now. When I was growing up,
we were literally trading VCR v VHS tapes from you

(17:16):
know that we're bootlegged from games and programs from over
in Europe in order to get it, or we were
going to the local soccer store to pick up what
was the bible for US American soccer people, which is
a magazine called Soccer America, and that's where we got
our information. And so it is completely changed. And like
you said, this generation right now doesn't see soccer any

(17:38):
differently than other sports out there, either in terms of
their fandom or in terms of playing it. Okay, you
mentioned being a redheaded kid in Greece, uh, sitting on
the sideline watching all those kids play, um, and I
want to kind of go back to that time and
and build on it a little bit. So your family,
your dad, I think you said was was Greek and

(18:00):
raises you here. What are the chances you play soccer
if your dad is not Greek? If you don't have
that that interaction and that experience in your life of
being over there in Europe, in Greece, sitting on the
sideline watching those kids play in the dirt, how much
do you think that impacted your decision to embrace soccer

(18:21):
as the sport that you would pursue at the highest level.
I definitely think it impacted me, but it was it
was a function of being a kid. Obviously, the culture
over there in Greece is rooted in soccer, and it
was a function of being lonely and trying to make friends,
and this was the avenue that you used over there.
And I still so, yes, yes, absolutely that happened. But

(18:44):
I'm also still from a time where the advent of
you soccer and a y s O and all these
different leagues and the realization from a lot of, let's
be honest, a lot of parents and a lot of
schools and a lot of communities that this was a
way to get people active that didn't cost as much
as other sports. You didn't have to be big to
play it. And so I think that really lent itself

(19:08):
to what you know, to what was going on in
a consistent basis and why I gravitated to it. But yeah,
I mean if my father wasn't Greek, I still think
that I would have been involved in soccer and been
exposed to soccer. But having that, you know, that organic
type of experience from a very young age, absolutely that
that impacted me. I'm curious what you would say about this.

(19:31):
I've argued this for a while, and you obviously would
be an expert on this. So I think a lot
of people will enjoy it basketball when it used to
be a huge insult to say to someone, Oh, he
plays like a Euro. If you're a basketball fan and
you listen to me, you'll remember it. It used to
be an insult. Oh he's a big man, but he

(19:51):
doesn't want to bang inside. He wants to step outside
and take threes. Then what ended up happening was the
European style of basketball conquered in America because America, we
were teaching basketball like, hey, it's football, right, Like you're
a defensive end, you do this, you're a quarterback, you
have this role. And what became the way that basketball

(20:14):
was taught was soccer like in that you played a
one to five right a point guard to a center,
but you had to be able to handle the ball,
and you had to be able to play every single position.
And it's a much more beautiful style of basketball and
much less regimented. And I think Americans have come to
embrace actually the way that Euros play basketball. But the

(20:36):
European style of basketball is just an outgrowth of the
way that Euros played soccer. Do you see that connection.
Would you buy into that thesis in terms of the
evolution of the sport? Yeah, I mean the way that
and even just in terms of my my lifetime. The
way the game is played I'm talking about soccer right

(20:57):
now is fundamentally different than anything that I grew up playing.
You know, to your point about um, you know basketball,
if you be the interesting thing there, the irony is
that it was almost a return to what basketball once
was if you ever watched Hoosiers or something like that,
you know, the emphasis on passing the ball, the emphasis

(21:18):
on being able to shoot the ball that we've kind
of went away with, and understandably so, because dunking and
show time and all that kind of stuff, that's what
people wanted to see. But the problem was that no
matter what, no matter what, it's successful, somebody will come
up with something that is able to take it down.
And I think, very very quickly from a basketball perspective,
they said, oh, fine, this guy can't dunk or this

(21:39):
guy doesn't do the showtime stuff, but it will step
back even though he's a big man and be able
to drain threes. And that is points on the board,
and that can change a game, and that can keep jobs,
and that can win championships, and so that becomes valuable
in the game today from a soccer perspective. Right now,
possession of the ball and the ability for individuals to
keep that ball is huge, and that comes down to

(22:01):
individual technique that has started at a very very young age. Certainly,
Europe has a long history of recognizing that it's all
fine and well to be, you know, a huge star
and to score a bunch of goals and stuff like that.
But the fundamentals, and that applies to any sport. The
fundamentals in life are essential and they will always be essential.
They are ever green, regardless of what style are you

(22:22):
going to play. If you don't have the fundamentals, you're
already lost. Because you have that, you know that base
that is not there. So this leads into the other part.
I was gonna get you to break down the number.
I'm sure you see it all the time. The number
one criticism that I see of soccer in the United
States every four years as it cycles up and everybody's

(22:45):
paying a lot of attention that sports fans make is
they say, oh, the reason the United States doesn't dominate
is because our best athletes don't play soccer. My argument
is you're missing the boat and curious how you would
analyze this. Our athletes who play now soccer for the
US are wildly talented, but if you just looked at

(23:09):
raw athleticism, it isn't what is the focus here in soccer.
Because what they do so well with all these academies
in Europe and everything else is they find kids who
are ten, eleven, twelve years old, they put them into
those academies and they have had hundreds of thousands of
touches and technique, experience and talent that most American players

(23:34):
do not get in our country. And what's fascinating about
it to me is we have this idea of Europe
as like socialist and not very capitalistic necessarily, which isn't
always true, right, But they are incredibly incredibly competitive and
you know, will get their best talent and develop it

(23:55):
in a way that doesn't necessarily happen in the United States.
So it's not raw at letticism that the United States
is missing, it's the amount of technique and talent and
repetitions that the Euros and other places have gotten their
best talent through. How would you assess that that. I'm
sure you hear that conversation all the time. Oh, if

(24:16):
we put Lebron and if we put you know whoever
the best athletes are in the world into our soccer
academies in the US, we would win championships. I don't
buy that necessarily. I think it's about the repetition. Yeah,
I mean so, first off, just from a pure numbers perspective,
I know how much you love Dad. If you were
to put you, if you put everybody that played a
sport and just had them playing soccer, the chances are

(24:40):
are you had your best that you would have more
better players out there, and certainly more competition because more
players will be playing against each other. That's that's undoubted.
When it comes to someone like Lebron James. For example,
how or how how talks Lebron James six eight? Okay,
so he's six eight. There are no six eight players
that are dominated eating soccer. So just know that when

(25:02):
we say our best athletes, you have to qualify that
with an understanding, in an agreement about what an athlete
actually is. If I if you didn't know who Leo
Messi was and you saw him walking down the streets
there in Nashville. You wouldn't have no idea that there
goes arguably the greatest soccer player ever to play the game,
because textually he just looks like a guy that's walking

(25:23):
down to his I don't know his insurance agency. Messi
is five eight, right, is he five ft eight? Basically
for people out there who may not know his size
and stature, you would never know that Messi was the
greatest soccer player in the world. Whereas if you see
Lebron James, he's six ft eight. He stands out right
shock ain't hiding anywhere. So soccer players like hockey players.
I always say, Alexie, I'm sure you'll appreciate this. Like

(25:45):
I used to see all the Nashville Predators out back
in the day, the hockey team. A lot of them
weren't very well known because hockey wasn't the biggest sport
in Nashville, and so they'd be having beers hanging out
at the bar, and every now and then I would
see a guy who didn't know who they were and
like bump into him, and you know, I would be like,
oh my god, this guy is about to get utterly wrecked.

(26:07):
Because he had no idea. He had just bumped into
a hockey player who fought sometimes for a living, because
they're relatively average sized dudes, right, and they don't look
like that much different than the regular guy would have
in the bar. Yep. And and also, you know, when
you're talking about the development of American soccer players, there

(26:28):
there is a stunt thing that happens, and it's and
it started to dissipate over the years because there are
developmental academies and obviously the professional game has increased and
there are many more pathways and opportunities out there. But
there comes a point where players say, either I don't
want to play anymore because I don't see any future.
And when we say future, usually it is tied to

(26:48):
you know, the next level, or going pro or making
a lot of money, or you know, dating somebody, whatever
it ends up being. But you know, that's still aspirational,
even though we recognize that even in all sports, it's
a very minute amount of people that are actually able
to do that. But not having that for so many
decades that was detrimental to the sport. And it started
to change now because they can see opportunities even if

(27:10):
it's just stars in their eyes that is an incredible
driving force. But I will say this, as we continue
to grow, I think there's a real kind of moral
question that we have to answer, and that is what
is our responsibility to these young athletes that we are specializing,
that we are at times having them by pass school
for what is our responsibility? Because we focus so much

(27:33):
on that ninety minutes the soccer game is ninety minutes,
sometimes we forget about the other twenty two and a
half hours. And I would submit to you that we're
not just creating better in this case, we're talking about soccer,
better soccer players, but we're hopefully we're creating better young
men and women that are going to lead what I
feel is the greatest country in the world. And advocating
that responsibility that would that would pain me, and that

(27:54):
would hurt me, and I think ultimately you would be
letting yourself down. You'll be letting your country down, You'll
be letting the play years down and these these people down,
and you'll be letting the sport down that leads in
Alexei Well, I think that's really well said because I
argue with my kids all the time and I think
this is true for anybody out there who's a dad, grandpa,
or if you're a kid out there listening to this

(28:14):
discussion right now, You've got to make sure you use
the ball, that the ball doesn't use you right. And
and that's a big part of anybody, no matter what
sport you're pursuing, no matter what your talent level might be.
And it brings me back to you going to Rutgers.
Was that a for you when you went there for college?
Was that a culture shock to you? I know you

(28:34):
traveled back and forth to Europe some, but you're going
from Michigan. Now you're suddenly at Rutgers basically kind of
in the outskirts of the New York City, you know environment,
that could be a culture shock. Was it for you?
Or did you immediately thrive when you got to college,
not only in athletics but in the classroom. So you know,
I grew up, like I said, in the suburbs of Detroit,

(28:56):
and I went to a small prep school there and
I suddenly I myself in the you know, the State
School of New Jersey thirties thousand uh kids, like you said,
right outside of New York, and I'm thrown into this,
you know, this this very very different environment. I will
tell you that what I did, and maybe this is
just a coping mechanism, is I didn't speak to anybody

(29:20):
for about the first month that I was on campus. Uh,
And I scared the crap out of a lot of
people off the field. But on the field that actually
worked out okay, because I was playing with a bunch
of kids from New York and New Jersey and basically
they looked at Michigan as it might have been for them,
as the other side of the moon. So I was
as alien and foreign as you could possibly be coming

(29:40):
from Michigan. And that I wasn't saying a word. It
just scared the crap out of them. And that actually
benefited me in terms of establishing a starting position. But
you know, it was just it was I mean, New
Jersey in and of itself is a trip and and
takes a little getting used to. But I consider myself
and adopted New Jersey and out and uh, you know,

(30:01):
I had a wonderful time. And like I said, it
changed everything for me in terms of the soccer and
you know, the the education and the different people that
I was meeting. Uh, it was. It was good. I'm
it was a little bit daunting and scary to begin with,
but you know, you adapt and kids adapt, and you
know it's either sink or swim, and like you know,
I'm not a great swimmer, but I figured it out eventually. Okay,

(30:23):
So the World Cup is in the United States, and
I was playing soccer in high school at the time
that it was here. It was a big story, but
I feel like it kind of snuck up on people
a little bit. Right When did you start to think
in your head, Hey, maybe I could be on this

(30:44):
US team? Was there a lot of conversation about ninety four?
We're talking right now about this in three I got
the year right this time. It's not very far until
twenty six, which there will be the World Cup basically
in the United States. I know it all so be
in Canada and in Mexico, but there's a tremendous amount
of talk about it and has been for many years.

(31:07):
Was that the case going into ninety four? Uh, I
don't recall. I was young. What kind of conversations were
there about soccer? Then? When did the US even have
the ninety four World Cup awarded? I don't know. The
backstory there. Yeah. So I mean, look, Clay, the reason
I'm talking to you today on this show is because

(31:28):
of the World Cup. And for those that don't remember
or weren't around, it was the first time that the
US ever hosted the World Cup. And it was significant
because the US, like we've been talking about, you know,
it was not and maybe you even argue today it's
not necessarily certainly not relative to other countries and cultures
a soccer country, and so this was taking it to

(31:48):
a different land and obviously taking it to a different
uh market, The soccer scene even back in was very,
very different, and uh, this was an opportun tunity that
I think everybody recognized to kind of plant a flag.
And I still to this day meet people that were
watching or at games in the World Cup that said that,

(32:11):
tell me, that's when everything changed for me. That's when
I fell in love with the game, or that's when
I knew that this game had a future if you
were already in love with the game. And I'll just
tell you the story to give you, you know, some perspective.
A couple of weeks before the World Cup in I
got on airplane with the rest of my world Cup team.
We were getting ready for the World Cup. I sat
in my middle seat as we did as we traveled

(32:32):
back then, back in Economy, I sat down next to
an older woman. We struck up a conversation. She said,
what do you do? I said, well, I play soccer
and she said, well, what's your job. I said, well,
I play soccer And she said what do you What
do you do for money? And I said, well, I
play soccer. And two weeks later I'm in front of
a billion people playing in the World Cup. And that's

(32:54):
just to give you an idea of, you know, the
mindset and the landscape back then. Now it is. It's
a saying goes, you come a long way, baby, and
we have on and off the field. But that was
a seminal moment, as was the Women's World Cup. We'll
remember Brandy Chastain and how that was important for the
women's game and for the game in general. And that's

(33:14):
why when the World Cup is coming back to the US, uh,
it's just huge because it's coming back to a country
and a culture that is a soccer country. We are
a soccer country. We don't need to apologize for anything.
As a matter of fact, we need to lean into it.
We're gonna do it in an American way, and that's
a good thing. That's not anything to be embarrassed about.

(33:35):
And I'm telling you right now, play it's gonna be
bigger than anything is ever that anybody has ever seen
on the field and off the field. It's gonna make
more money for FIFA and everybody that's involved than's ever
been made. And I think it's gonna be a real
moment and yet another seminal moment. And I'll be really
really proud when I'll be fifty six years old and
it's coming back to our shows. Okay, So I want

(33:56):
to ask a couple of questions about that, or you
would have made what in terms of rough income off
the field? On the field, what is a start? What
is a soccer player on the US men's team making
in nineteen four? Like, what would the range have been? Oh,

(34:16):
I was probably making a couple of thousand dollars a
month and they paid for uh an apartment and you know,
we trained actually two years leading up to the World
Cup to be ready for the World Cup. But what
it did do was give me a platform and I
went from there and then went over to Europe and
played in Italy, which at the time was the you know,
the biggest and most expensive league in the world. And

(34:39):
obviously my uh, you know, my salary was raised significantly then.
But that's the type. You know. I lived the power
of what a World Cup can do to an individual,
and it changed my life forever. I milked it for
all it was worth, both on and off the field.
I remember, I remember some of it. I burned it
both then for many many years. Because of that, you know,

(35:00):
I knew that this was the moment, that this was
our moment, this was my moment, and like I said,
you need to be able to recognize that opportunity and
grab it with both hands, don't let anybody take it
away from you, and use it and milk it for
all it's worth. So you would have been making prior
to the World Cup less than fifty k a year

(35:20):
to play soccer. That's probably fair, and almost everybody on
the US men's team would have similarly been making that
that kind of sense to kind of put it into
context for people out there, um, you know, compared to
Christian Pulistic who might be making twenty million dollars a
year now, I don't know what his exact salary is,
probably not far off from twenty million a year with

(35:41):
all his endorsements and everything else. Christian Pulistic is you know,
by himself making like scores of magnitude more, which is
an interesting marker in the growth of the game itself.
Then the entire US men's soccer team would have been
making For instance, in yeah, we weren't making a lot
of money. And there were some play airs that were
already playing in Europe that obviously we're playing that they

(36:03):
were getting getting more money. But for those of us,
you know, like myself and if you remember Kobe Jones
and Tony Nola and these types of these types of players.
Now keep in mind, the United States men's national team
had actually played in the nineteen ninety World Cup. I
was a fan. I was bumming around Europe with a
couple of my high school buddies, getting drunk and going
to the World Cup games, painting my face, never imagining

(36:25):
that four years later I would be representing my country
in the World Cup. That's how quickly things changed for
me on the field and obviously off the field with
what was going on. But the money didn't come later,
and the and the money only came because of the
World Cup. And to your point, you know, I had
to star in a World Cup to be given the
opportunity to go and play in Europe and go and

(36:46):
make a living at one of the great leagues in
the world. Over in Italy. There are players today that
are growing up that don't even play a single game
in Major League Soccer and already have people from Europe
scouting them, bringing them over, paying them a lot of money.
And again I don't say that. I say that as
a form of respect and progress and incredible pride that's

(37:07):
going on right now, but that all these pathways exist now,
that MLS exists, right now that MWSL for the women exist,
All of those things came out and started in What
was it like to make the team? How did you
make the team in and how would it compare, say
to today's tryouts and US men's team uh process, I

(37:29):
have no idea, but I imagine it's quite a bit different.
So I can tell you exactly where I was. So
we trained down in uh, well, you know a lot
about the coast out here, so a little further down
from the coast, I'm here in Los Angeles in Manhattan Beach.
But wait, you know, further down the coast there's a
place called Laguna Beach. You might have heard of it.
So we used to train down in Mission Viego, California.
That's where our training center was, and it was basically

(37:52):
this what but nowadays would be like a reality show
survivor type of thing where they just kept for two
years prior to the World Cup. They us kept bringing
people in and you would start out at the Holiday
Inn on off the of the five up a La
Paz Road there and they would give you a room,
a tryout for the week, and some meal vouchers and
if you made it, you continued on to the next

(38:13):
week and if you can do not enough weeks, they
might sign you and give you a month to month
type of contract. So at the end of this two
year trial and reality show, you were just hoping that
ultimately you were named to the to the list of
twenty two players. We were in the parking lot and
the final cuts were going to be made. Um I
vividly remember no news is good news, and so if

(38:35):
they don't want to talk to you, get in your car.
Because we were at the beach and we had just
gone for a beach run as a team, and you
had to get in your car and go home, and
if they didn't want to talk to you, that was good.
I remember seeing players in that parking lot get cut
and not realize their dream of going to a World Cup.
Now you know as well as I do. You've you've
dealt with professional players. We can be incredibly ruthless, and

(38:57):
we can compartmentalize. It doesn't mean we don't have up
the they or empathy, but the reality is all I
cared about in that moment was myself. My roommate was
one of the last cuts. How about going back to
that apartment and happened to having a deal with that.
But you know what all I cared about was being
on that team because that was where the opportunity. It
was how many guys got cut? Roughly in the parking lot?

(39:19):
Would it have been ten twenty? Like how many many?
Three or four? Because we have been going through the
years and so you could not even make it through
a week. They might say, listen, it's great, but you
are getting moved on. And so it was just you know,
next meerson up and people came through, some really really
good players came through and it's you know, it's like
a tryout or anything. It's it's it's down to you know,
a subjective type of assessment from a human being. And

(39:42):
the coach said, I like this guy. I don't like
this guy. And eventually either you were left standing at
the end of it all or you weren't. You're out
in Manhattan Beach. You just mentioned a great place if
you haven't been out to the l A area. Um.
Another friend of ours, Matt Winer, lives in Manhattan Beach, um,
and he's got to be a good friend. Mind. And
I'm fascinated by the fact that Liner came through being

(40:05):
a kids celebrity basically, right, nineteen or twenty year old
superstar kid who played for USC And he's a totally
normal dude now right, like you would enjoy hanging out
chatting with him. Everybody who's listening to us right now,
I think we'd like having a beer with him. I
think you're yeah, and I think you're the same way.
But I'm curious for you. You mentioned the World Cup.

(40:27):
You basically became super famous overnight, right. You had been
grinding away trying to make the team as you just said,
make it through the parking lot there. Uh, make the team.
What was it like? There's this great story, I'm sure
you've heard it where all of the friends cast go
out to dinner in Las Vegas and the producer or

(40:48):
creator of that series is like, this is the last
time that you will all be able to eat together
as normal humans for the rest of your life, because
that show comes on overnight. Instantaneously, all six of them
become massive superstars. Did you have a moment like that
in your life where you're like, nobody knows who I am,

(41:09):
and then the World Cup starts and suddenly it's like
everybody on the planet knows who you are. And if so,
what was that like? Oh? Wow? So if I ever
write a book, I probably you know, the preface will
be uh setting a scene of after the last game
that we played as a US in that ninety four
World Cup. We lost to Brazil, who eventually went on

(41:31):
to win the World Cup, and there was an after
party and I'll never forget in the middle of the night,
sitting at a bar and on one side of me, uh,
you know his large rule ric uh you know, uh
from from Metallica and just doing shots of tequila and
Yagelmeister with with the guys from from Metallica and looking

(41:52):
around going what the hell is going on? You know
this is back when they were drinking and this is
a long time ago and everything. But you know, again,
my life confundamentally changed overnight because of the power of
the World Cup. Now, I also looked a certain way,
and I cultivated an image. You know, nowadays the kids
call it brands, but you know, I was thinking about
my brand well before. You know, I grew up. You know,

(42:15):
I've done a lot of music, and I grew up,
you know, watching the MTV generation and everything like that,
so I knew that. You know, I've always considered myself
a performer, uh and an entertainer, and that's not a
pejorative actually, you know, you you you trained for what
for your sport, right, which is the same thing as rehearsing.
You go on a field, which is the same thing
as the stage. You're in front of an audience, which

(42:35):
is the same thing as a crowd. You wear a uniform,
which is the same thing as a costume. And I
have always believed that performing and performance is a huge
part of athletics, and I love that I gravitated to that,
and so the way that I looked, you know, it resonated,
and you know, people knew who I was, and I
had a lot of you know, huge red hair, a

(42:55):
big red goatee and all that kind of stuff, and
it was very comfortable for me. But it was you know,
it was by design, and it was something that you know,
like cultivated over over that time and continued and used
to my advantage both on and off the field. But yeah,
it was. It was nuts and it was wonderful, and
I you know, they were wonderful times. I've since you know,

(43:16):
grown and gone into different things, and obviously I wish
I could still grow that hair, but that's you know,
that's not gonna happen anytime soon. But man, oh man Clay,
it was. It was a wonderful time to to be
alive and then go through that craziness. It's hard to
you know, equate it with anything, but you know, I,
like I said, I didn't find it problematic in anywhere way,

(43:38):
safe or form. And the thing that I find the
thing that I find so interesting about it is most
people become famous over time, right, so you can adjust
to the way that your life might change. There are
relatively few people who become instantly very very famous. And
to your point, your six ft four, you've got to

(44:00):
big red goatee. Uh, you're very flamboyant and noticeable, uh
you know, on the field. But also you're big enough.
You were talking about Messi earlier. When you're five ft eight,
you don't really get noticed. Six ft four guys in
general kind of get noticed, right, And so what would
you tell yourself? Because we talked wins and losses, I'm
sure there's some things you did and you're like, that

(44:20):
was the dumbest thing I could have ever done. You
had to learn it. What do you wish you could
have told yourself, if anything, right before that World Cup
that you were gonna learn over that ensuing seven six
eight years as you became more and more of a
prominent public figure. I mean, I think that I had
a pretty good head on my shoulders. I mean I

(44:42):
made mistakes on and off the field, just like everybody else,
and I have regrets, not not a lot of them,
but I certainly do. I mean, look, Clay, let's be
on if the worst thing in your life. If somebody
wants to take a picture with you or tell you
how great you played, or uh, you know, to get
an autograph, then you live a charmed life. And if
you're an asshole, all right, that can't deal with that,

(45:04):
then I can't relate to you, okay. And I'm not
saying that that we don't have bad days, or or
that I probably at some point wasn't, you know, as
accommodating as a as I should have been. But I've
always tried to remind myself even even when that happened.
And in that moment, I'm not the smartest guy, but
at least in that moment, I was smart enough to
know that if if this is if this is your

(45:26):
life changing, okay, and this is ten fifteen thirty seconds
that this person is going to spend with you, and
it might not be fair, but that's what they're gonna
judge you on for the rest of your life. I
want to make it good. I want to make it positive,
you know. And it's not that I have to go
around chasing people to make sure that they loved me.
But again, it's just a small little picture and moment

(45:50):
in their life, and I want to make sure that
that happens. And so I would just reiterate and remind
myself from a young age never ever lose that. And
I like to say that that I haven't. But I
went on and you know, I did things on and
off the field that you know didn't work out or
you know that I failed, or that I would consider
you know, a loss, and made mistakes going forward, I

(46:10):
try to limit them. I tell my kids all the time.
I you know, I don't I don't mind that you
make mistakes. I just don't want you to make the
same mistakes over and over and over again. And so far,
so good. Was there anybody you met during that time
you mentioned doing shots with Metallica, but which is pretty awesome.
Was there anybody you met and you were like, I
can't believe that you know who I am? Um, let's see. Uh.

(46:33):
I remember sitting outside of UM about to do Letterman
and Bill Murray came up and sat down and say, hey,
you know, he started to tooth the ship about it,
and I was like, this is gonna be filmed. This
has gotta be you know, they don't have candid camera anymore.
But yeah, that was that was a little weird, even
you know, when I was talking about you know, the
shots of Metallica, there was there were celebrities all over
the place. Robin Williams came in um, but it always weird, uh,

(46:57):
you know, for for those that don't know, the ninety
four World Cup was there was sult of a lot
of lobbying and uh, you know, just a lot of
effort on a lot of people's parts, including Henry Kissinger.
And so before we played our first game, which by
the way, was in the Silver Dome Rest in Peace
in Pontiac, Michigan, ten minutes away from where I grew up,
indoors in that dome there, Henry Kissinger came around and

(47:20):
shook our hand in the locker room before we went
out there, and I just was like, wow, this is
this is amazing, you know, and I'm you know, I'm
a love a lover of American history and history and this,
you know, this was this iconic person who meant so
much to the world and obviously to our country, but
and also from a soccer perspective what he meant, so
that was, you know, that was mind blowing type of stuff.

(47:41):
And it and never and it just never stopped. You
I never see this to amaze me, how many people
that you wouldn't sink are into the game, are into
it and the knowledge that they have and they come
up and you know, I'm just this star struck as anyone.
So we're talking to Alexi Lawless. This is wins and losses.
I am Clay Travis. Appreciate everybody out there listening. Um, Alexei,
when you look you step off the field in you

(48:05):
guys have just lost to Brazil, who goes on, as
you said, to win the World Cup that year. If
I could have immediately transported you now all the way
up to three, has soccer evolved and grown in a
way that you would have thought that it would have
over you know, that's almost thirty years now, as we

(48:27):
get ready for six, what do you think would have
surprised you about where we are sitting here right now
in three? What do you think might have disappointed you?
How would you analyze that path in terms of the
impact of soccer in the United States and what you
guys playing in ninety four did to help seed the
area and the ground basically that we're standing on today. Yeah,

(48:51):
I don't think that I would recognize my country relative
to soccer. Uh. And that's a that's a in a
good way. I think I would be blown away. Uh.
And I can tell you while we had ambition and
aspirations for things to change and for revolution and growth
and explosion, I don't think any of us at that

(49:14):
point envisioned what we look like in three right now.
And look, I know we kick ourselves for what we
aren't both on and off the soccer field. Uh, But
the reality is we also have to take a step
back and pat ourselves on the back for how far
we have come. It is night and day, Clay, what
the what the game looks like now? And we're America.

(49:34):
So we want it all and we want to win everything,
and we want to be the best. And I get
that that's what makes us great, and that's ultimately what
has made us gained so much in such a relatively
short period time. If you look at, for example, you know,
Major League Soccer, Okay, and what they have done over
the last thirty years, it's unprecedented. If you look at

(49:55):
soccer in the United States just in terms of the growth,
unprecedented when you put up against other leagues, other sports,
other countries. Now, there's still plenty to do, and so
you know, you look at the infrastructure, the soccer stadiums
that have come online, the billionaires that are invested in
the game, the men's and the women's game, the players
that we that we are producing, the broadcast that we

(50:17):
that we do, all of those different things. It makes
me feel incredibly proud and excredibly excited for the future
because if you extrapolate it out and say, all right,
this is what we've done in the last thirty years,
who knows where we could be in the next thirty years,
Which leads to a question you kind of hinted at it.
The women have won World Cups, a lot of people
look around and say, the next step, obviously is to

(50:38):
advance to the you know, the semifinals, right where the
US has not been in the modern era. Do you
think that the United States in your lifetime or in
the lifetime of people who are listening to this interview
right now, will win a World Cup? Well, if you're
if they're really old listening to it, it could be
some problems. But I do think it, and you're a

(51:00):
lifetime let's presume you've got forty years left. Yes, absolutely,
and thank you for giving me forty years. I love it.
I will take it right now sign on the dotted line. Yeah,
um yeah, I think I absolutely believe. Okay, so everything
is impossible and so until somebody actually doesn't. And I
know when we do, when we do World Cups, people

(51:21):
ask me this question all the time. Can we win it?
Can we win it? Yeah? Absolutely can win it. It's
it's seven games. You don't even have to win all
seven all seven games. That doesn't matter what your whether
your Brazili, United States. You need a little bit of luck.
You need the soccer gods smiling on on you to
a certain extent at different times, and things can happen.
Is huge. Obviously hosting it, I think that that will
have an incredible draw and power for this. What should

(51:43):
the goal Sorry to cut you off, but what should
the goal in Oh, to win the World Cup? That's
the goal. Absolutely, yeah. And you think the US would
be good enough to be able to win the World
Cup because you everything's probability, right, and you're you're you're
talking about that in the larger context, everybody out there

(52:05):
who's a sports fan understands that. You know, it's hard
to win the Super Bowl, it's hard to win the
n C Double a tournament. There's lots of people trying
to do it. We know will be there in uh.
And and so the goal is to win the World Cup.
If I told you the US will advance to the
round of eight, will get obviously out of the group,
will win one match, would you sign on to the

(52:27):
round of eight right now? Uh? Listen. We went to
the quarterfinals in two thousand and two when we were
handball away from going to the semifinals. So getting to
the upper echelance of a World Cup can happen. I
know some people when I say that the that the
goal should be to win the World Cup in six
or when I said it in you know two, you know,
they say, oh, that's being you know, disingenuous or you're

(52:49):
being delusional. No, that's not that's not the case at all.
I just I believe and not and and again this
isn't blind faith. This is a belief that any thing
can happen, even impossible things can happen. And am i
am I taking all of my money right now and
going to Vegas and putting it all on the US
in terms of smart money. No, but things can happen.

(53:13):
And it's not completely out of the realm of possibility. Hell,
we're America. We've seen our hockey team do something that
said that people said this is impossible to do. So
any absolutely anything can happen. And I don't think that
it's ridiculous to think that the men's team in given
what they are now, what they will be in six

(53:33):
can't find a way to do things that we haven't
done before. And yes, to challenge for a World Cup?
Would you take the round of eight? If I gave
it to you right now? You said you'd take forty years,
uh lifespan sign on for right now? Would you sign
on to the round of eight? Yeah, but I'm greedy,
So yeah, I take it. But you know I want
I want quarterfinals at the very least. All right, So um,

(53:58):
Christian Pulistic let me. So. There's a lot of scandals
now around the US soccer team, and on some level
I kind of take that as a sign of how
much more people care, because I bet if you went
back in time, I bet there were twenty scandals that
never went public that you're like, boy, I'm glad there wasn't,

(54:19):
you know, social media. I'm glad that we didn't have
everybody on Twitter. You know, I'm glad. And that's the case,
by the way, for anybody that was on any team
on basically any level for much of the nineties, the
eighties into the early two thousands. I always think it's
funny you talk to athletes, they're like, man, you'all spend
a lot of time talking about this scandal, but you

(54:40):
didn't even hear about the four bigger scandals that never
went public. Right. Anybody who's on a pro athletic team
right now, uh is nodding along because a small measure
of the actual controversy ever goes public. When you see
the controversies that are out there, like the geo controversy
that is out there, does it make you think, Okay,
this is a sign of the growth of America as

(55:02):
a soccer country and we just have to get used
to these interpersonal, dynamic conflicts. Or does it make you think, hey,
maybe the US soccer culture in some way is more
toxic than other countries. How would you assess it? As
someone who has been all over the world playing soccer. Alright,
so we're not more toxic than other soccer countries. Uh,

(55:24):
And we don't have you know, more nepotism or old
boy network or people working in the industry, you know
type situation in any other countries. Everybody's got that, okay, um,
you know for for those that are that you know,
maybe maybe don't know. Over the last couple of weeks,
we've had this, you know, this huge controversy and uh
uh you know, and this uh, this crisis, if you will,

(55:44):
with uh with Geoana, one of our our young players,
and his father and mother comes find out we're you know,
basically calling up and inappropriately calling up members and ultimately
friends that are in charge, whether it's Greig Berhalter are
head coach or Ernie Stewart who's the head of the federation,
relative to their son not playing, and really when you

(56:06):
when you look at it and read it, you know,
basically blackmailing him with the story from thirty one years
ago where he kicked his wife when they were both
in college, and ultimately, you know, there was there was
you know, seven months apart, and they went to therapy
and all this kind of stuff and then they worked
it out and they were married now for twenty five
years and they have four kids, and this story came out.

(56:29):
It was an unnecessary self inflicted wound. That's what the
way that I look at it, and from a soccer perspective,
can we withstand it? Yeah, but it's not what you
know why. So initially I was incredibly sad for everybody
involved because people didn't deserve this. Uh, Greg burt Halter's wife,
Rosaland didn't deserve this and Greg Burhulter didn't deserve this.

(56:49):
Then I got Then I got angry because again, look,
you can make a bunch of different arguments as to
whether to continue on with Greg Burr Halter as the coach.
And for those that don't know, paper Halter was a
coach this past World Cup. He might have done well
if you if you think so, he might not have
done well. But you can make an argument that he
shouldn't continue on. But in no way, shape or form

(57:12):
should part of that argument be this story that was
put out there in order to hurt him, and you
can't put it back. That genie is out, you're not
putting it back. And so that's where the anger in
me came about. We'll get through this, you know, this
too shall pass. But in the American soccer, as is
the case probably in a lot of sports and a
lot of industries, out there. You know, we eat our

(57:33):
own and it's disappointing, it's sad, it's angering. But again,
this is kind of stuff that you have to go through.
And to your point, you know a lot of sports
deal with this on a consistent basis. How do you
balance critique in the world of soccer where you know
everybody and sometimes you've known people for generations, you might

(57:53):
know their parents, uh. With also simultaneously those personal relationships,
and then have a job that requires you to comment
on their performance in a public way. And the reason
I bring it up, I'll give you a good example.
We had Charles Barkley on and he's no longer friends
with Michael Jordan's they used to be best friends. But
he has to comment on Michael Jordan's role as a

(58:16):
GM or as an owner, and Jordan's got super upset
about that. Uh And Barkley said, ultimately that's painful to him,
but the job requires that he be honest. I'm sure
that's happened sometimes in your life where somebody has said
You've got a great private relationship with them, but they
have a public job. How do you balance that in

(58:38):
terms of what you do? Yeah, I mean, well that
to me that that says that Michael Jordan's stought. Okay,
I never thought i'd say that, But I mean, that's
that's soft because he is Charles Barkley is doing his job.
I'm sure you know the same. You know, you've probably
had experienced this too. I have had um girlfriends, boyfriend uh, wives, husband's, mother's, father's, grandparents, friends, acquaintances, coaches,

(59:08):
every single you know, one of these people at certain
point has come up to me, either to my face, uh,
through text, over a telephone or behind my back, doesn't matter.
But at some point I have had those conversations. The
best ones actually are where it's face to face in
the humb in the human because you need you just
need to let them get it out, and oftentimes that's
all they want to do. I've had one. I remember

(59:29):
once I said something about a player and his father
cornered me in the bar after the game and started screaming,
yelling and going off. By the end of the night
we were having drinks at the bar. Okay. So, and
that's wonderful. But I, like Charles, I have to do
my job and I have to say things that at
times can be critical. I like to think that I

(59:50):
do it in a fair way, and I like to
think that I do it in a balanced way in
terms of also making sure that it's not all negative.
But if I see something that I agree with or
deserves criticism, I'm not doing my job. I'm not earning
my money, or I might not get another job if
I don't do it. And that's what I want to
watch out of, you know, an analyst when it comes

(01:00:11):
to sports. That's what it does, the job and the
role demands. And I got no problem. And you know,
there's people now, even in my life that I you know,
grew up playing with that I was, that I was
friends with that you know, they might act differently around,
but the best ones are the ones that recognize, Hey,
he is doing his job. And while it may be
painful in that moment to have to to have to

(01:00:32):
hear that, I would rather he do that than pull punches,
because then he's not doing his job. Not everybody's like that,
and some people take offense, and maybe some relationships their damaged,
and a may even some relationships are completely severed. But
I'm okay with that because i'd rather, I'd rather do
this job the way the job needs to be done.
What's it like to be on the road for the

(01:00:53):
length of time in foreign countries. You'll get to be
back in the United States and twenty six. What is
covering the World Cup like? And how does it compare
to playing in a World Cup? So it's very different
than playing, But there is that level of competition. There's
the internal competition with yourself, there is a competition with
the other talent that is involved, and there's a competition

(01:01:15):
relative to being at the highest stage. This is the
World Cup. Is the greatest groundhog Day from a soccer perspective,
for for a former soccer player that you can have.
But it is a ritual. It is a routine and
I've done so many of these now and you know,
some younger folks will come and ask me, and I
tell them, stick to ritual, stick to routine, because that's

(01:01:35):
what what's gonna get you through. I mean, we're having
at times four games a day and you're just cranking
through this. You've got to take care of your body,
You've got to take care of your mind. Um, and
you have to you have to love it. I mean,
I know you've seen this phenomenon in our in our
in our industry, right, there are so many people that
use television, use broadcasting, use media as a way station

(01:01:57):
until something better comes along. And I get it, I
understand that, but I think ultimately, uh, that will manifest
itself in your performance and you will be cheating yourself
and you will be cheating the viewer. And I don't
want to cheat anybody. I'm a junkie for what I do,
and I want to be surrounded by like minded people.
I want to be surrounded by junkies that love the game,

(01:02:20):
that love the broadcast aspect of the game, that love
debating and talking about it, and that bring it day
in and day out. And look, we've both been surrounded
by some grapes in the industry. And when you see
them work and you see that what goes on behind
the scenes, it is incredible because it's not what you
ultimately see on the screen. It's that Iceberg type of

(01:02:40):
theory where this this incredible base and all of this
work that goes on, but that's what makes that tip
of the iceberg that you do see on screen, that's
what makes it good. And if you don't do the
work and you don't have that base, then your tip
of your iceberg is not gonna look as good. It's
a well said and I tell everybody out there. And
one of the reasons I love doing these conversations is
because there's lots of younger people out there who see

(01:03:02):
the success, but they don't have any idea all of
the work that goes into it. In fact, I think
that's really incredibly common in the United States and particularly
around the world today. Um, but I always say before
I do my radio show, I got three hours of
radio every day. I'm spending so much time feeding my
brain with information every day so that I have a

(01:03:24):
depth of knowledge to whatever topic I'm discussing. Because if
I haven't done all that research, then whatever I'm saying
on the air, ultimately you can tell that there's no
foundation supporting it. And so uh A part of that,
massive part of that is the passion you have. Passion still. Uh.
There are viral videos of you out there crying when

(01:03:46):
the U S wins soccer matches that uh that that
that we end up winning. I imagine sometimes you want
to cry when the US loses in a match that
you feel like they could have won. Um, how do
you how do you corral that passion, right, Because I
think about this all the time there, especially when it's
one thing when you're playing you have to learn how
to manage it. It's another thing when you're commenting on it,

(01:04:09):
reacting to it. Uh, what is that experience like in
your mind? Because that's the way that many fans feel.
How do you harness it? What does that do for
you as a as an analyst? Yeah, I mean you
you do, I think have to understand and like you said,
harness it. But I also think that you know, it

(01:04:30):
was a There's always been a debate as to especially
when you're talking about you know, oftentimes I'm talking about
the United States men's national team or the U S team,
the women's team, men's team, whatever, and do you use
we right because I'm an American and this is my team. Um,
and you know, listen debate as to whether you do
or not. And we really came down ultimately, and this

(01:04:50):
has happened over years where absolutely I want to I
want to recognize that there is a connection. I want
to recognize in the people that I'm watching that I'm here,
that there is an emotion, that there is a history
that there that they are moved. I want to be
moved by the people that I'm watching. And so it's
not that you know, you should come on and blubber
every single time you're on air. But if you feel that,

(01:05:13):
don't be afraid to show it. And yes, there's times
where you need to be stoic, and yes there's times
where you need to regulate what what is going on
in terms of your emotion. And if it impacts the
effect for you to be able to articulate things or
to be clear or to give information that you need,
then that is problematic. But seeing human beings until they

(01:05:34):
replace us all clay with that with robots, um, I
want to see the humanity. I want to see that
that person, male or female out there has a connection
and it is feeling something visceral and it's able to
transmit that back to me and you can see it
and you can hear it, and when it is there,
it's just it's a it's a it's a beautiful thing.
And I'll tell you what there there there is a

(01:05:56):
whole generation that is coming up that wants my job,
you know, and they can pry it from my cold, dead,
red headed hands. I'm gonna hold onto it as long
as I possibly can. I love what I do. I
can certainly get better at what at what I'm doing,
but it is incredibly I'm incredibly lucky and fortunate to
be able to do this. It is not lost on me.

(01:06:18):
I know, in this day and age, you've gotta you know,
admit your privilege or whatever and stuff like that. But
so I am incredibly privileged to be able to do
what I can do, and hopefully I can do it
for many, many more years. So you're gonna be calling
and analyzing games for decades into the future. I think.
I think you're really good at what you do. Christian
Pulistic A big part of whether we have a chance

(01:06:40):
to ever win a World Cup in the next decade
or so, I think will be directly tied to his
development many other players as well. Do you think Pulistic
is going to be the greatest American soccer player ever?
Is that too early of a question to even ask?
And how much of his growth is a player is
directly tied in in your mind to the overall potential

(01:07:01):
success rate for the US going forward. I think his
resume maybe the greatest that we have ever had. Um
his impact on the game, you know that that remains
to be seen. I mean, look, he had a he
had a good World Cup, not a great World Cup,
and we expect big things from him, and I think

(01:07:22):
rightfully so one of the most talented players that we've
ever seen. But he's also you know, he's very shy
and he doesn't necessarily like the spotlight. Um he's not,
you know, a gregarious social type of bigger than life
type of personality. I think he's going to get better.
He's kind of grown out of I know he's injured
right now, but there was a time where he was

(01:07:43):
getting injured a whole lot. I hope that he continues
to h to grow out of that. And I'm you
you know, Clay uh. Staying healthy is a skill in sports,
and some players have it and some players don't. Christian
has yet to shown that he is can consistently stay healthy.
But when he is on the field, he and do
some magic stuff. But I don't think he's ever going
to be the focal point, the Lebronish type of player,

(01:08:06):
the messy type of player for the US in that
he's gonna be surrounded by players that might take more
of the spot late, but he will have his moments
when all of sudden done, you said earlier, hockey soccer
for you, growing up, hockey and soccer fans are somewhat familiar,
mirror images almost sometimes of each other, because, as somebody
who did a national sports talk show runs out Kick,

(01:08:29):
we talk a lot about football, we talk a lot
about basketball, certainly in baseball, and whenever we mentioned hockey
or soccer, people are always like, hey, talk about us more,
talk about us more. And then as soon as you
start talking about him, they say, oh, you don't know
what you're talking about. One of the interesting things I
think about growing the game of soccer and it's fandom

(01:08:50):
is in the United States uniquely, soccer fans are elitist.
They're probably over educated, they probably have uh, you know,
higher income, and the rest of the world, soccer is
the sport of the common man. In the United States,
soccer is the sport of the elitist fan. I would say,
and I understand there's some criticism out there whenever you

(01:09:12):
make this, but this is what I see. You know,
the Joe six pack is in the crowd at a
football game, at a basketball game, at a football game.
I don't necessarily know that he is at soccer. How
does soccer interestingly become more of a common man sport
and less of an elitist sport in America when it's
the exact opposite basically everywhere else. Yeah, so I'm so

(01:09:34):
glad you mentioned this because it drives me nuts as
soccer people, and I'm probably you know to your point,
the hockey people are the kind of the same in
that I want as many people into the tent as possible,
and I don't want to do anything that is going
to create a barrier to entry. I want I want
people to love this game as much as I do,
and until they actually see it and bring it bring

(01:09:56):
into the tent, it's not going to happen. And so
I want to be there welcoming people in. And yes,
to your point, we as soccer people can be incredibly elitist,
incredibly snobby, and it can be a deterrent to people
uh coming coming into the game going forward. We can
also be incredibly insecure, and I think that just comes
from not being king and having to fight and crawl

(01:10:17):
and scrape for absolutely every little inch of you know,
whether it's UH media coverage or attention or ultimately what
it comes down to is credibility. But whether it's on
out kick or anything else, you're a business. You are
going to give the people what they want until the
data tells you that they want something different. And it
doesn't mean that you don't try different things. It doesn't

(01:10:40):
mean that you don't recognize that your viewership and your
readers have a palette out there that has expanded. But ultimately,
you want to make sure you get clicks. You want
to make sure that you have people that are subscribing.
You want to make sure that you're giving them what
they want, and so were we cannot be a charity.
We have to show that this is a sport on
the field that is worthy of your time and off

(01:11:01):
the field is worthy of your business. And to the
extent that we, you know, put our put our noses
in the air, or do things in the way that
we act, or the things that we say that drive
people away, that is the worst possible thing that we
can do. I don't want to be um exclusionary. I
want to be as inviting as possible as a sport

(01:11:22):
for everybody in America. And I sure as hell don't
want people to feel intimidated or scared about but the
vernacular that we use, or the you know, the the
supporters groups, and the culture that we have and the
way that we talk about the game or dress or
or book it ourselves, that that cannot be a hindrance
and too often to your point, it is um you

(01:11:46):
have traveled all over the world. I want to give
you an opportunity to give some give some stories and
or tell people where you think they should go based
on your experience. But also have you ever felt endangered
at all while you've been covering the World Cup all
over the world? Like I'm sure you found yourself in
some interesting alleys at different points, have you ever felt

(01:12:08):
physically in danger? So a lot of times I have
security with me. But you know, over the years, you
know as a player, you know, especially going into Central America,
and keep in mind that there's you know, there's this
whole you know, social type of aspect to it and
cultural and political type of aspect to be. To be
honest with you, because even though soccer isn't king in

(01:12:31):
the US, we still represent, you know, for many countries,
you know, the big bag US and all of the
baggage that you know that we bring. And so when
we go down and play some of these countries. It
may be their only movements when they get to beat
up on America, when they get to say that they
are better than America at something, and don't underestimate the

(01:12:51):
power of that. And so we go down into these
cauldron's to play. And so in the stadium there's security everywhere,
and there's moats, and there's fences, and there's guard dogs
and their machine guns and all this kind of stuff
to protect us as Americans from the moment that we
land to the moment that we that we leave. Now,
I've been in situations, whether it's as a player as

(01:13:12):
a broadcaster at different times in different countries where stuff
has happened and you know, people have you know, threatened
me and do all that. But you know, some of
that comes with the territory. And yeah, at the moment,
it's it's not great. But like I said, I I
don't want to I don't want to deny myself the
opportunity to have these great experiences, to see different places,

(01:13:32):
to to understand and to meet different people and to
experience different cultures simply because you know, there's the possibility
of something happening. But yeah, I mean, didn't you get
a gun pulled on you in Russia? That's what I
was trying to keep keep. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so, I
mean it was you know, that's scary, that's not fun, um.
But you know, I mean, obviously they didn't like the

(01:13:54):
way I talked about the game or something. I don't
know what the hell they were angry about. But you
know it's Russia too. So we were in my mouth
the World Cup and uh yeah, you've never seen our
security go into action faster? When then when when that happened?
And luckily nothing ultimately did happen of it happen and
become of it, And I'm I'm still here to tell
the tale. Um. If you could go anywhere in the world,

(01:14:17):
you've gotten to travel all over the place to play soccer.
Where is your favorite place that you have been both
potentially to play soccer in terms of a stadium that
you've gotten to play in, but also just a city
or a country where you thought, Man, I would love
to be able to spend more time here. This place
is exquisite. Yeah, I mean, so, I I know you
recently visited Italy and so I played there many years ago,

(01:14:41):
and you know the culture just in general is incredible,
the food and the travel and these you know, the
incredible history and I know you're a big history buff, uh,
that's wonderful. But then you add this this incredible culture
and history when it comes to the game. You know,
these stadiums that they have, whether it's Sin Siro Stadium
in uh in Milan, you know, these types of legendary

(01:15:01):
cathedrals that we have. You know, I played in the
old Wembley Stadium and you know that's the stadium that
where England played and where uh you know, Freddie Mercury
played in all these different places and all these different
you know, incredible moments through history and so to being
able to use soccer to see some of these some
of these places. But seeing a country and culture through

(01:15:21):
the eyes of soccer, I think can be incredibly illuminating
because soccer is so important in many of these countries
that it informs everything, and it forms you know, politics
and social uh you know, uh, pleasantries and obviously you know,
it's incredibly tribal from wherever you are, and it's it
infiltrates and like I said, informs almost everything that happens

(01:15:44):
on a day to day basis, and it's really amazing
to see a country because and I'm not saying it's
better or worse. I'm just saying it's very different in
the way that we look at our sports. And a
lot of people will try to say, well that means
it's more passionate and we have more you know, we
don't have as passionate uh sports fans here in the
U S. That's a bunch of bs. Okay, I think
that we are. Actually, I think we understand much more

(01:16:07):
about what sports is and what it isn't. And certainly
there are times where people go, you know, over the
line and I think, you know, you are a huge
you know, college football fan, that type of passion. I'll
put that up against the soccer fans around the world.
And I love, though, being able to see a country, culture,
a city, an area relative to their sports. And sometimes

(01:16:30):
you can find out a lot about a place and
find out a lot about a people relative to their sports.
All right, last question for you, and we appreciate all
the time has been wins and losses. Alexei Lallis, I'm
Clay Travis. A lot of people out there who listen
to these interviews are young right, Uh, and or their
dads or granddads give it to young people and say, hey,
here's how you can learn and continue to evolve. If

(01:16:52):
you were talking to a young soccer player today, uh,
fourteen year old Alexei Lawless playing somewhere in the country today,
and he not only wants to play for his national team,
but he also is interested potentially in a career in
media sports media in general. What would you tell that
young person could be a boy or girl out there
that they should be working on at fourteen fifteen years old,

(01:17:15):
as they age and as they grow, and hey, maybe
there's twenty two year old college version of you out
there who's listening right now too. What do you wish
you had known in terms of your career path? Okay,
so when it comes to broadcasting, and I get a
lot of young uh, you know, men and women that
come up and want to talk about it. So first off,
and you know this phenomenon son a phenomenon. It's just

(01:17:37):
the reality of the opportunities that we get as ex players. Okay.
The door will open to you more so than others
because you played, all right, It will not stay open forever,
and you you better be ready when it does open.
And so, first off, if you are already playing, if
you're a you know, a professional, and you're thinking about
a career in broadcast, if you can recognize a more

(01:18:00):
went to jump off. You know, I was thirty two
years old when I stopped playing, which is still relatively young.
But I got given an opportunity, and so a jumping
off point came, and I was smart enough in that
moment to recognize that while I could have continued playing,
this was an opportunity to go and do something that
possibly could last obviously well beyond my career, but could
become a career. And you've got to have the wherewithal

(01:18:22):
to recognize, because your career I guarantee you will never
end in the way that you want. When it comes
to specifics on broadcasting, I think you and I both
know that your ability to edit, either beforehand or in
real time is crucial, especially when you work in television
and you've got somebody in your ear telling you you've
got thirteen seconds and we gotta get off air, and
you've got to be able to say something that is interesting,

(01:18:44):
that is informative to make it make sure that you
say it in an entertaining way so that people aren't
changing the channel. And that comes with reps, that comes
with the ability to do something. Some of it's innate.
I mean, you know as well as I do. There's
plenty of people that we say, oh, that person will
be great on Tell of Vision. And it's different when
you're answering questions to a reporter after a game or
something like that, or obviously if you're sitting on your couch.

(01:19:07):
So that all sorry to cut you off, But the
green room. There are dudes that I have set in
the green room with literally a hundred yards at most
from the actual studio, and I've been like, this guy
is going to kill it on television, and a hundred
yard walk into the studio. They get deer in headlights.

(01:19:29):
They are at or twenty as engaging as they were
in the green room. There's a big difference. When those
lights come on. It's brutal. It is brutal, but that
red light, I I live for it. I can't wait.
People ask me, do you get nervous? Hell? Yeah, And
if I'm not nervous, I'm not ready. I love that feeling.
And now I have learned to harness that nervous energy
and direct it into you know, down the barrel. If

(01:19:52):
I'm talking down the barrel, if I'm looking over at
rob Stone, I love that it jacks me up. I
will never be able to replicate playing. I've come to
that realization over the years, and you better figure that
out quickly. But I've found something that jacks me up
as much, and in many ways it rewards me and
fulfills me even more so than anything I did on
the field. The U S wins the World Cup in

(01:20:15):
you get to do talk about it on television. You
finish television, first thing you want to do when you
leave the television set to celebrate is what, Oh my goodness, well,
I will be in tears. I will be in an
older gentleman who will be thinking about all of the
history and everything that has come before. I think, you know, honestly,

(01:20:37):
I will be wanting to celebrate it with people that
have been around. And this is you know, this is
a labor of love. It's still a labor. It's gotten
easier over the years, but it's still pushing that boulder
up and there are so many men and women on
and off the field that have worked so long to
be able to get to that point, and so I
would I would look around and give big hugs to

(01:20:57):
the people that will never ever get the at it.
You will never know their name, that have worked to
enable us to be in that moment. Now, it's not
it doesn't change everything overnight, but it's a hell of
an injection to have. He is Alexei Lawless. How can
people find you? What would people would you tell? People
who enjoyed this conversation who want more listen. You can
come yell at me on Twitter at Alexei Lawless or

(01:21:20):
Instagram or anything out there. I have my State of
the Union podcast on Fox. And then if look, if
somebody's kicking a ball out there, men's women's co ed naked,
I am. They're talking about it on Fox. That is outstanding.
I am Clay Travis. He is Alexei Lawless. This has
been wins and losses.