June 24, 2023 • 21 mins
Ron welcomes former pro soccer goalie Tony Meola to the show.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Ron Barr, and this is today's edition of
Ron Barr's Sports Byline USA podcast on the eight Side Network.
Tony Meola joins us on Sports Byline, the former soccer
goalkeeper who played for the United States national team at
the nineteen ninety and ninety four World Cups and of
course also in the MLS. He inducted into the National
(00:20):
Soccer Hall of Fame. Tony, you grew up in New
Jersey and you learned your love for the game from
your dad, Viscenzo, who played for the Italian second division.
And I'm just wondering what was it that he passed
on to you about soccer.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I think, you know, the one thing was just
a passion for the game. He obviously never got to
play at a high level. He moved to the United States,
where at that particular moment in time and history, you know,
everyone was moving here because it was it was the
next best place to live in the world and where
(00:54):
you can make a living. And so he passed up
his dreams of you know, doing the sport. But when
I got here, I kind of was was able to,
you know, sort of rekindle his love for the game,
and he could live the sport that he loved through
me in a lot of ways. And he wasn't a
(01:15):
guy that you know, he's he's a working middle class man.
Wasn't a guy that that got in the way of things.
He wasn't a guy that needed to be in the spotlight.
He just loved just in the same way I do
right now with my kids. Love going to the games
and kind of sitting on the sideline with a with
a smile on your face seeing the kids compete. And
(01:37):
that's the way he was. But it was just I
think just am his inherent love for the sport. You know,
was back then it was really really difficult to watch
on TV, unlike it is now. But whenever there was
a game on, it was Hanwright sat in front of
that television and you know, you know, soaking in every
(01:59):
minute of the game.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
You know, as well as I do that following apparent's footsteps,
like a father who played the sport, that that can
be a two edged sword.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To some degree.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It can be supportive, but it also can put a
lot of pressure on a youngster to live up to
the parents fulfillment.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Did you ever feel that in any way?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, I didn't but because he didn't put that pressure
on me. And you know, I mentioned my kids, and
my son just committed to play baseball at the University
of Virginia, the same university that I went to, and
he in an interview he gave because I really feel
(02:37):
that he could be a successful Division one soccer player.
He mentioned the fact that he didn't want to have
to be compared. He wanted to sort of write his
own legacy, and he's happy that his parents, you know,
will allow him to do that and don't really force him.
And that's the way I felt with my dad. You know,
he didn't really force me. I played baseball as well,
(03:00):
played football, basketball. He didn't know any of those sports
when he came to the United States, and he was
just happy, like a lot of us are that you know,
you're you're out of the house, but you're doing something
constructive with your friends and not getting in trouble and
doing something good for your body and all those good
things to come along with youth sports. And that's kind
of the way I feel with my son and my
(03:22):
other two kids as well, is that I'll go in
any direction they want to go. I don't. I don't
think for one minute that they should have to live
up to anything, you know that I did, or I,
you know, I didn't have to live up to what
my dad did.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You were a multi sport athlete, as you just alluded to,
and you were drafted out of high school by the
New York Yankees, and that had to be something that
was a little bit mind blowing because growing up in
New Jersey, of course the Yankees right across the river,
you played in their farm system. How seriously did you
consider maybe taking on baseball as your main sport.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, I didn't get drafted. I never had the opportunity
to play because I went on to the universe Regina
as less I when I found out, I was in
Chile for the nineteen eighty nine Under twenty Youth World Cup.
So we were playing in the Youth World Cup, and
I found out I loved the game of baseball. I
(04:17):
loved it then. I love it now. The Yankees, as
you mentioned, were my team. They continue to be the
team I support more than any team in any sport.
And it's I'm lucky now that just think my father
you mentioned earlier, My father got to live out, you know,
you know, based soccer at a high level through me.
(04:37):
I'm getting to live it out through my shoulder right now,
and it just keeps me involved in the game. And
it's obviously something at what I think back on and everyone.
You know, some of my friends still to this day
when we meet up for Christmas party, they tell me
how crazy I was. But looking back on it and
seeing the way things turned out in soccer, I don't know,
(05:00):
even knowing the information, I know now that I would
have made a different choice because I'm I'm so happy
that things are so lucky and blessed that things turned
out the way the way that they did in soccer.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
How did you end up at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I know you were on a soccer baseball scholarship, but
why Virginia?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Were they a powerhouse in soccer at that time?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, well they were. They were. They held the record
at one point being number one in the country at
least one week in the polls I think for twelve
years in a row. And I was probably in the
middle of that, you know, around six seven, eight years
when I went in there. But it's a funny story.
I went to school with John Harps, as you know,
was captain of the US national team for a while,
(05:40):
played in a couple of World Cups. We went to
the same high school together and for he was years
older than me, and you know, for years we were
talking about where we were going to go to school,
and you know, it was Duke, Duke, Duke, That's where
we were going to school, because you know, I had
always said I was going to go where John went.
You know, Duke Duke came knocking on John Stilbert and
(06:01):
that's where I was gonna go. And then one day
John came back from a visit and we said, I'm
going to University Virginia. And as a sophomore, I told
my parents that I want to go to University Virginia.
They were like, what happened to Duke? For the last
you know, three or four years, you guys been talking
about Duke, Duke Duke. And I said, well, it's changed
my mind, you know, so I went. Unfortunately, never had
the opportunity to play with John in college because I
(06:24):
read shirted to play in a youth World Cup my
freshman year. Played baseball was the first sport I played
at at UVA, and then by the time I was
ready to play soccer. John had had moved overseas and
started playing in England, so we never got to play there.
But that's that's the story behind why Virginia. It turns
(06:45):
out that the place Charlottesville is just an incredible place.
It's it's was an incredibly huge soccer house, bed that
they continued to be a soccer powerhouse and you know,
followed the program pretty closely throughout the year.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It was a great choice for me, and at Virginia
you had a chance to play under coach Bruce Arena,
who became a national head coach as well. And I'm
just wondering during those formative years usually in the college
period of time for an athlete, that's when they really
start to blossom, and that influence by a coach is
so important Tony, as you know, how influential was he
and what did he do to elevate your game?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well that's said time and time again. It's funny because
my career really started with Bruce Arena at the University
of Virginia. I was put on the national team while
I was in college, and it ended with Bruce Arena
as he released me in New York in my last
outdoor playing season and we went full circle. But going
(07:46):
back to those days, the one thing he taught me
more than you know anyone else has how to compete
on the soccer field. How to you know, the willingness
to do dirty work during the week, the willingness to
take chances during games and compete. And you know, when
I got there, Bruce had won a national championship. Although
(08:09):
he'd been the number one team in the country for
quite a while, they were bowing out of the NCAA
tournament early quite a bit. You know, if we needed
to change that, We got to an NCAA final, won
a championship in nineteen eighty nine, and you know, his
his career really took off from there. But I can
tell you that, you know, it's hard while you're there
(08:30):
to project forward, but looking back on it and seeing
his success, you know, it comes as no surprise to me,
to be completely fair to him, that the signs were
there early. You know, his his man management skills, his
his way of dealing with with different types of players,
all of those things make him what I think is
(08:53):
the best coach we've ever had in this country.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
We have a little over a minute before we have
to break here. But you know, when you talk about
a national team, whether it be a basketball team, a
volleyball team, or even a soccer team, there's a lot
of nuances that are associated with that, Tony, a lot
of pressures. And when you're a young person like you were,
playing on the US national team, did it scare you
to any degree?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, it scares me more now, to be completely honest.
I was just too dumb back then to be scared.
You know. I was a young kid from New Jersey
and have thought you could conquer the world and didn't
think much of you know, the fact that the US
hadn't been in the World Cup for forty years, and
you know, those things, we'd heard them. They were kind
(09:35):
of all words. They were just words. We were going
to get done what we planned to do, and that
was to get to the World Cup, and that was
to eventually win some games in the World Cup, which
happened in nineteen ninety four, now continues to happen. But
I didn't think about it then. When I sit back
and think about it now, I think to myself, boyd,
of those were some scary times because had we not
(09:58):
qualified in nineteen ninety inspect of not having a ninety
four World Cup here in the US was lingering, So
we did some pretty extraordinary things for a pretty young
group of guys.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
We're talking soccer with Tony Meola, inducted into the National
Soccer Hall of Fame, former soccer goalkeeper who played for
the United States national team at the nineteen to ninety
four World Cups and also in the MLS. We'll talk
about his experience in Europe, over in England and also
more about his national team experiences as well, and we
do that as we continue across the country and around
(10:33):
the world. We've got you on America's sports talk show
Sports Byline. You're listening to Ron Bar's Sports Byline USA podcast.
Tony Meola joins us on Sports Byline. We've been talking
about his career and of course a member of the
US national team. You made your debut on the US
national team on June tenth, nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That was against Ecuador.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Tell me a little bit about your thoughts going into
that game and.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Also the game.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, it was a It was certainly an exciting time
from any time I would imagine for every player that
had their first international cap with the national team. I
was excited. I didn't have cell phones and all you know,
social media that we had now to try and get
get to my parents. We were in Lee, were in
Phoenix at that point. For that game. It was a
(11:26):
fourteen tournament that the US would play in every couple
of months in order to prepare for World Cup qualifiers.
I got the call that it was going to be me.
I was excited, couldn't wait to play second half of
the game. I take a guy now for a penalty kick.
We lose one, nothing on that penalty kick. And I
(11:46):
get on the plane the next day and I could
pretty much remember the headline, uh uh, you know Meola
foul blows it for us. You know so well. I
suppose it can't get any worse than this, you know,
for me. But it was certainly exciting. It was the
start of what ended up being one hundred caps in
my international career, and you know, which spanned over just
(12:12):
just about twenty years with the full national team from
start to finish in my career, and really some exciting times,
not only personally, but you know, I think the most
gratifying thing is having been involved in so many games
that were so important to us soccer and the history
(12:32):
of our games.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You know, one of the things that I don't think
a lot of people have an appreciation for Tony is
is that, in essence, you're the last line of defense
in a soccer match, and it's a pretty lonely position.
I mean, it's vulnerable. People can see if a mistake
has made, the ball goes into the goal. What type
of mental attitude does it take to be a goalie?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Well, you know, we spoke about Bruce Arena earlier and
the one thing he taught me in college was you
have to have no conscience and you know, if you
make a mistake that can't turn into a second and
a third mistake. That mistake's got to be done. And uh,
you know he always used to tell players, but me
in general, because Bruce was also a goalkeeper. And then
(13:13):
I learned this from all the other goalkeepers goalkeeping coaches
that I had along the way. Is that you know,
you're not necessarily internally in an organization, You're not necessarily
judged on the mistake that you make. Whereas fans might
to judge on one bad play, what your judge on
is how you recover from that. You know, can you
(13:34):
make a difference. Okay, you made a mistake in the
fifth minute of the game, but you got eighty five
minutes now to make a difference. Can you make a
difference and a positive difference? You know, if you continue
to go in in sort of a negative direction, that's
that in our position, is what you don't want. So
when I look at uh, when I look at sports,
(13:55):
I look at, you know, a quarterback in football, and
if he throws an interception, how does he come back
from that? Right? Does he gun shy from there? Is
he not? I look at a pitcher when he gives
up a home run and doesn't hit a spot in
the baseball game and makes a bad pitch and he
pitched the next three innings and get guys out with
the same pitch he was trying to throw. You know.
So I look at those things from a confederative standpoint.
(14:18):
I have these discussions now with my with my oldest son,
and we talked about all those things. But you have
to have the mentality where you you know what just happened,
you know you can't do anything about it anymore. But
you can't do something about what's.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Going to a Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley is
a friend of mine. He and I were talking about it,
and I think you'll agree with this, Tony. He said,
the greatest assset that a closer can have is a
short memory, yep, or none at all.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's exactly the theory. And you know,
Dennis Eckersley is a guy that I watched growing up,
and you know, and now I watch Marianna or Era obviously,
and the guy who's made very few mistakes along the way.
But it seemed like, especially now that he's coming to
(15:09):
the end of his career, it seemed like it seems
like the last couple of years, every time you give
up a base winning hit at the bottom of the
ninth or top of the ninth, you know, everyone wanted
to talk about, you know, is this the end of
Marianna revel And now you know, you look three months
down the road. Now he put together twenty says in
(15:31):
a row, and they're like, well, that's the old Mariano again,
you know. So it's how you recover, and that's how
you know, that's why, guys that the good ones are
separated from the great ones.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Let me also ask you about World Cup play.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I have my friends who play professional golf that tell
me that you can go out and play a PGA
event week after week after week, but there is something
totally different about playing in one of the majors, and
I think that applies probably to a World World Cup
match as well. Give me some insight as to the
dynamics of a World Cup soccer match as compared to
(16:06):
just another soccer match.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, that's probably a pretty good analogy. Obviously I've never
played at that level of golf, but I can imagine
what they're going through. So when you play an Mlsbian,
obviously the intensity is there. When you play league games
in Europe, the intensity is there. But when that particular
day and a World Cup is do or die, you
don't get that all the time. Seeing a league you've
(16:31):
got a stand of you know, thirty or forty games.
When you make a mistake in week ten, you've still
got an awful long time to recover and make up
for that mistake and make up for those points you
may have lost along the way. And the intensity level,
I'd like to tell you that it's doubled, but I
mean it's exponential on how much the intensity level is,
(16:55):
you know, goes up during a World Cup qualifier. I
still read the comments from players today, and you know,
they just went through a series of two friendlies and
three will Cup qualifiers, and all they talked about as
well that the friendly has got us ready physically and mentally,
you know, and as a group, brought us together and
gave us some ideas of how we can compete, but
(17:17):
nothing like when we step on the field for a qualifier.
And then when you get to a World Cup, it's
magnified even more because now the entire world is watching.
I remember the Brazil game and I saw a staggering
report that one out of every three people in the
world watched our game in nineteen ninety four when we
(17:38):
played Brazil on July fourth, And when you think about it,
in those numbers, I mean, that doesn't happen very often,
so you can imagine the intensity and knowing that that's
a knockout game and all that stuff is, you know,
just adds to the excitement of the game.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Having seen the great teams, the teams that won World
Cup play, what is it that they consistently all do.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I think what they continue to do is put their
young players in the greatest leagues in the world and
in the greatest position in the world. I think we're
at an element here in the United States because our
league is growing so fast. We're we're able to develop
young players. We lose some, we we you know, to
(18:22):
European leagues. We uh, we keep some. And I think
that the struggle for these young guys should I stay
or should I go overseas? Should I stay here? We
we sought for years they were starting to go overseas.
Now we're seeing that guys are deciding to stay here
because they're seeing the level of competition the foreigners that
are coming into the league. You know. So we're kind
(18:45):
of at a little bit of a crossroads, which is
a good which is a good decision for these young
guys to have to make. So we we we have
this sort of give and take with with do we
let the young stars go and flourished, do we do
we pay them more money to stay here? You know,
I think it's all positive stuff. You know, when players
(19:07):
have decisions like that, it excites me because it shows
the growth of the sport. But I think that's what
they do for the most part. They've been doing it
year after year after year, and we're starting to see
that now in the US.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Is there a particular memory that you have of any
one moment and during the course of your career that
has kind of ingrained, Because I mean, you had lots
of moments, but I have always found that athletes go
back to one particular one that has kind of etched
in their minds.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I think that it would have to be us qualifying
for the first World Cup and that game in Trinidad
December third, nineteen eighty nine, going to Trinidad, Trinidad only
needed a tie in the game. We had to win
the game. We hadn't been in the World Cup for
forty years. We had a bunch of guys predominantly in
college and guys working, you know, working odd jobs in
(20:02):
order to continue to train. There's very few guys that
were playing professionally. And somehow we went down to Trinidad
and at Sea Reed and Paul kel Jerry got that
historic goal for US and we were able to qualify
for our first World Cup. And I think that was
really the springboard to show young kids around the country
that yeah, we can compete at this level and we
(20:24):
can get to a World Cup. So you can now
start dreaming about getting to a World Cup in.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
About forty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Was it hard because of the passion that you had
for the game, the passion that your dad passed on
to you for the game, to walk off the field
and move on to the next stage in your life.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, the hardest part is the locker room. Missing the
locker room. But you know, now that I covered the
game on the radio, I get to travel around. I'm
still in contact, and quite honestly, I'm getting just as
much a thrill now that I'm able to coach my
kids and you know, coach them through sports and teach
them to pass of the game. You know, I don't
(21:02):
think of it in those terms like I'm missing out
on anything. I love that the game's growing. I love
that it's getting to the point that it is, and
I hope it continues to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Tony, I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I always enjoyed watching you in goal because I played
this sport.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I have a love for it as you do as well.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Never played it at the level that you did, but
I really loved watching you, and thank you for talking
about your career and your life as well. You represented
the United States very very well in World Cup play
and in the MLS.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Thank you Tony, thank you Ron.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's all pretty nice. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Tony Miola with us again, a member of the National
Soccer Hall of Fame and also was the goalkeeper for
the United States in the ninety and ninety four World Cups.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We continue on Sports Byline.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You have been listening to Ron Bars Sports Byline USA
podcast on the eight Side Network.
Hi, I'm Ron Barr, and this is today's edition of
Ron Barr's Sports Byline USA podcast on the eight Side Network.
Tony Meola joins us on Sports Byline, the former soccer
goalkeeper who played for the United States national team at
the nineteen ninety and ninety four World Cups and of
course also in the MLS. He inducted into the National
(00:20):
Soccer Hall of Fame. Tony, you grew up in New
Jersey and you learned your love for the game from
your dad, Viscenzo, who played for the Italian second division.
And I'm just wondering what was it that he passed
on to you about soccer.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Well, I think, you know, the one thing was just
a passion for the game. He obviously never got to
play at a high level. He moved to the United States,
where at that particular moment in time and history, you know,
everyone was moving here because it was it was the
next best place to live in the world and where
(00:54):
you can make a living. And so he passed up
his dreams of you know, doing the sport. But when
I got here, I kind of was was able to,
you know, sort of rekindle his love for the game,
and he could live the sport that he loved through
me in a lot of ways. And he wasn't a
(01:15):
guy that you know, he's he's a working middle class man.
Wasn't a guy that that got in the way of things.
He wasn't a guy that needed to be in the spotlight.
He just loved just in the same way I do
right now with my kids. Love going to the games
and kind of sitting on the sideline with a with
a smile on your face seeing the kids compete. And
(01:37):
that's the way he was. But it was just I
think just am his inherent love for the sport. You know,
was back then it was really really difficult to watch
on TV, unlike it is now. But whenever there was
a game on, it was Hanwright sat in front of
that television and you know, you know, soaking in every
(01:59):
minute of the game.
Speaker 1 (02:00):
You know, as well as I do that following apparent's footsteps,
like a father who played the sport, that that can
be a two edged sword.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
To some degree.
Speaker 1 (02:08):
It can be supportive, but it also can put a
lot of pressure on a youngster to live up to
the parents fulfillment.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Did you ever feel that in any way?
Speaker 2 (02:16):
No, I didn't but because he didn't put that pressure
on me. And you know, I mentioned my kids, and
my son just committed to play baseball at the University
of Virginia, the same university that I went to, and
he in an interview he gave because I really feel
(02:37):
that he could be a successful Division one soccer player.
He mentioned the fact that he didn't want to have
to be compared. He wanted to sort of write his
own legacy, and he's happy that his parents, you know,
will allow him to do that and don't really force him.
And that's the way I felt with my dad. You know,
he didn't really force me. I played baseball as well,
(03:00):
played football, basketball. He didn't know any of those sports
when he came to the United States, and he was
just happy, like a lot of us are that you know,
you're you're out of the house, but you're doing something
constructive with your friends and not getting in trouble and
doing something good for your body and all those good
things to come along with youth sports. And that's kind
of the way I feel with my son and my
(03:22):
other two kids as well, is that I'll go in
any direction they want to go. I don't. I don't
think for one minute that they should have to live
up to anything, you know that I did, or I,
you know, I didn't have to live up to what
my dad did.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
You were a multi sport athlete, as you just alluded to,
and you were drafted out of high school by the
New York Yankees, and that had to be something that
was a little bit mind blowing because growing up in
New Jersey, of course the Yankees right across the river,
you played in their farm system. How seriously did you
consider maybe taking on baseball as your main sport.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Well, I didn't get drafted. I never had the opportunity
to play because I went on to the universe Regina
as less I when I found out, I was in
Chile for the nineteen eighty nine Under twenty Youth World Cup.
So we were playing in the Youth World Cup, and
I found out I loved the game of baseball. I
(04:17):
loved it then. I love it now. The Yankees, as
you mentioned, were my team. They continue to be the
team I support more than any team in any sport.
And it's I'm lucky now that just think my father
you mentioned earlier, My father got to live out, you know,
you know, based soccer at a high level through me.
(04:37):
I'm getting to live it out through my shoulder right now,
and it just keeps me involved in the game. And
it's obviously something at what I think back on and everyone.
You know, some of my friends still to this day
when we meet up for Christmas party, they tell me
how crazy I was. But looking back on it and
seeing the way things turned out in soccer, I don't know,
(05:00):
even knowing the information, I know now that I would
have made a different choice because I'm I'm so happy
that things are so lucky and blessed that things turned
out the way the way that they did in soccer.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
How did you end up at the University of Virginia.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
I know you were on a soccer baseball scholarship, but
why Virginia?
Speaker 3 (05:16):
Were they a powerhouse in soccer at that time?
Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, well they were. They were. They held the record
at one point being number one in the country at
least one week in the polls I think for twelve
years in a row. And I was probably in the
middle of that, you know, around six seven, eight years
when I went in there. But it's a funny story.
I went to school with John Harps, as you know,
was captain of the US national team for a while,
(05:40):
played in a couple of World Cups. We went to
the same high school together and for he was years
older than me, and you know, for years we were
talking about where we were going to go to school,
and you know, it was Duke, Duke, Duke, That's where
we were going to school, because you know, I had
always said I was going to go where John went.
You know, Duke Duke came knocking on John Stilbert and
(06:01):
that's where I was gonna go. And then one day
John came back from a visit and we said, I'm
going to University Virginia. And as a sophomore, I told
my parents that I want to go to University Virginia.
They were like, what happened to Duke? For the last
you know, three or four years, you guys been talking
about Duke, Duke Duke. And I said, well, it's changed
my mind, you know, so I went. Unfortunately, never had
the opportunity to play with John in college because I
(06:24):
read shirted to play in a youth World Cup my
freshman year. Played baseball was the first sport I played
at at UVA, and then by the time I was
ready to play soccer. John had had moved overseas and
started playing in England, so we never got to play there.
But that's that's the story behind why Virginia. It turns
(06:45):
out that the place Charlottesville is just an incredible place.
It's it's was an incredibly huge soccer house, bed that
they continued to be a soccer powerhouse and you know,
followed the program pretty closely throughout the year.
Speaker 1 (07:02):
It was a great choice for me, and at Virginia
you had a chance to play under coach Bruce Arena,
who became a national head coach as well. And I'm
just wondering during those formative years usually in the college
period of time for an athlete, that's when they really
start to blossom, and that influence by a coach is
so important Tony, as you know, how influential was he
and what did he do to elevate your game?
Speaker 2 (07:25):
Well that's said time and time again. It's funny because
my career really started with Bruce Arena at the University
of Virginia. I was put on the national team while
I was in college, and it ended with Bruce Arena
as he released me in New York in my last
outdoor playing season and we went full circle. But going
(07:46):
back to those days, the one thing he taught me
more than you know anyone else has how to compete
on the soccer field. How to you know, the willingness
to do dirty work during the week, the willingness to
take chances during games and compete. And you know, when
I got there, Bruce had won a national championship. Although
(08:09):
he'd been the number one team in the country for
quite a while, they were bowing out of the NCAA
tournament early quite a bit. You know, if we needed
to change that, We got to an NCAA final, won
a championship in nineteen eighty nine, and you know, his
his career really took off from there. But I can
tell you that, you know, it's hard while you're there
(08:30):
to project forward, but looking back on it and seeing
his success, you know, it comes as no surprise to me,
to be completely fair to him, that the signs were
there early. You know, his his man management skills, his
his way of dealing with with different types of players,
all of those things make him what I think is
(08:53):
the best coach we've ever had in this country.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
We have a little over a minute before we have
to break here. But you know, when you talk about
a national team, whether it be a basketball team, a
volleyball team, or even a soccer team, there's a lot
of nuances that are associated with that, Tony, a lot
of pressures. And when you're a young person like you were,
playing on the US national team, did it scare you
to any degree?
Speaker 2 (09:14):
You know, it scares me more now, to be completely honest.
I was just too dumb back then to be scared.
You know. I was a young kid from New Jersey
and have thought you could conquer the world and didn't
think much of you know, the fact that the US
hadn't been in the World Cup for forty years, and
you know, those things, we'd heard them. They were kind
(09:35):
of all words. They were just words. We were going
to get done what we planned to do, and that
was to get to the World Cup, and that was
to eventually win some games in the World Cup, which
happened in nineteen ninety four, now continues to happen. But
I didn't think about it then. When I sit back
and think about it now, I think to myself, boyd,
of those were some scary times because had we not
(09:58):
qualified in nineteen ninety inspect of not having a ninety
four World Cup here in the US was lingering, So
we did some pretty extraordinary things for a pretty young
group of guys.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
We're talking soccer with Tony Meola, inducted into the National
Soccer Hall of Fame, former soccer goalkeeper who played for
the United States national team at the nineteen to ninety
four World Cups and also in the MLS. We'll talk
about his experience in Europe, over in England and also
more about his national team experiences as well, and we
do that as we continue across the country and around
(10:33):
the world. We've got you on America's sports talk show
Sports Byline. You're listening to Ron Bar's Sports Byline USA podcast.
Tony Meola joins us on Sports Byline. We've been talking
about his career and of course a member of the
US national team. You made your debut on the US
national team on June tenth, nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 3 (10:54):
That was against Ecuador.
Speaker 1 (10:55):
Tell me a little bit about your thoughts going into
that game and.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Also the game.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Well, it was a It was certainly an exciting time
from any time I would imagine for every player that
had their first international cap with the national team. I
was excited. I didn't have cell phones and all you know,
social media that we had now to try and get
get to my parents. We were in Lee, were in
Phoenix at that point. For that game. It was a
(11:26):
fourteen tournament that the US would play in every couple
of months in order to prepare for World Cup qualifiers.
I got the call that it was going to be me.
I was excited, couldn't wait to play second half of
the game. I take a guy now for a penalty kick.
We lose one, nothing on that penalty kick. And I
(11:46):
get on the plane the next day and I could
pretty much remember the headline, uh uh, you know Meola
foul blows it for us. You know so well. I
suppose it can't get any worse than this, you know,
for me. But it was certainly exciting. It was the
start of what ended up being one hundred caps in
my international career, and you know, which spanned over just
(12:12):
just about twenty years with the full national team from
start to finish in my career, and really some exciting times,
not only personally, but you know, I think the most
gratifying thing is having been involved in so many games
that were so important to us soccer and the history
(12:32):
of our games.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
You know, one of the things that I don't think
a lot of people have an appreciation for Tony is
is that, in essence, you're the last line of defense
in a soccer match, and it's a pretty lonely position.
I mean, it's vulnerable. People can see if a mistake
has made, the ball goes into the goal. What type
of mental attitude does it take to be a goalie?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Well, you know, we spoke about Bruce Arena earlier and
the one thing he taught me in college was you
have to have no conscience and you know, if you
make a mistake that can't turn into a second and
a third mistake. That mistake's got to be done. And uh,
you know he always used to tell players, but me
in general, because Bruce was also a goalkeeper. And then
(13:13):
I learned this from all the other goalkeepers goalkeeping coaches
that I had along the way. Is that you know,
you're not necessarily internally in an organization, You're not necessarily
judged on the mistake that you make. Whereas fans might
to judge on one bad play, what your judge on
is how you recover from that. You know, can you
(13:34):
make a difference. Okay, you made a mistake in the
fifth minute of the game, but you got eighty five
minutes now to make a difference. Can you make a
difference and a positive difference? You know, if you continue
to go in in sort of a negative direction, that's
that in our position, is what you don't want. So
when I look at uh, when I look at sports,
(13:55):
I look at, you know, a quarterback in football, and
if he throws an interception, how does he come back
from that? Right? Does he gun shy from there? Is
he not? I look at a pitcher when he gives
up a home run and doesn't hit a spot in
the baseball game and makes a bad pitch and he
pitched the next three innings and get guys out with
the same pitch he was trying to throw. You know.
So I look at those things from a confederative standpoint.
(14:18):
I have these discussions now with my with my oldest son,
and we talked about all those things. But you have
to have the mentality where you you know what just happened,
you know you can't do anything about it anymore. But
you can't do something about what's.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
Going to a Hall of Fame closer Dennis Eckersley is
a friend of mine. He and I were talking about it,
and I think you'll agree with this, Tony. He said,
the greatest assset that a closer can have is a
short memory, yep, or none at all.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's exactly the theory. And you know,
Dennis Eckersley is a guy that I watched growing up,
and you know, and now I watch Marianna or Era obviously,
and the guy who's made very few mistakes along the way.
But it seemed like, especially now that he's coming to
(15:09):
the end of his career, it seemed like it seems
like the last couple of years, every time you give
up a base winning hit at the bottom of the
ninth or top of the ninth, you know, everyone wanted
to talk about, you know, is this the end of
Marianna revel And now you know, you look three months
down the road. Now he put together twenty says in
(15:31):
a row, and they're like, well, that's the old Mariano again,
you know. So it's how you recover, and that's how
you know, that's why, guys that the good ones are
separated from the great ones.
Speaker 3 (15:42):
Let me also ask you about World Cup play.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
I have my friends who play professional golf that tell
me that you can go out and play a PGA
event week after week after week, but there is something
totally different about playing in one of the majors, and
I think that applies probably to a World World Cup
match as well. Give me some insight as to the
dynamics of a World Cup soccer match as compared to
(16:06):
just another soccer match.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, that's probably a pretty good analogy. Obviously I've never
played at that level of golf, but I can imagine
what they're going through. So when you play an Mlsbian,
obviously the intensity is there. When you play league games
in Europe, the intensity is there. But when that particular
day and a World Cup is do or die, you
don't get that all the time. Seeing a league you've
(16:31):
got a stand of you know, thirty or forty games.
When you make a mistake in week ten, you've still
got an awful long time to recover and make up
for that mistake and make up for those points you
may have lost along the way. And the intensity level,
I'd like to tell you that it's doubled, but I
mean it's exponential on how much the intensity level is,
(16:55):
you know, goes up during a World Cup qualifier. I
still read the comments from players today, and you know,
they just went through a series of two friendlies and
three will Cup qualifiers, and all they talked about as
well that the friendly has got us ready physically and mentally,
you know, and as a group, brought us together and
gave us some ideas of how we can compete, but
(17:17):
nothing like when we step on the field for a qualifier.
And then when you get to a World Cup, it's
magnified even more because now the entire world is watching.
I remember the Brazil game and I saw a staggering
report that one out of every three people in the
world watched our game in nineteen ninety four when we
(17:38):
played Brazil on July fourth, And when you think about it,
in those numbers, I mean, that doesn't happen very often,
so you can imagine the intensity and knowing that that's
a knockout game and all that stuff is, you know,
just adds to the excitement of the game.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
Having seen the great teams, the teams that won World
Cup play, what is it that they consistently all do.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
I think what they continue to do is put their
young players in the greatest leagues in the world and
in the greatest position in the world. I think we're
at an element here in the United States because our
league is growing so fast. We're we're able to develop
young players. We lose some, we we you know, to
(18:22):
European leagues. We uh, we keep some. And I think
that the struggle for these young guys should I stay
or should I go overseas? Should I stay here? We
we sought for years they were starting to go overseas.
Now we're seeing that guys are deciding to stay here
because they're seeing the level of competition the foreigners that
are coming into the league. You know. So we're kind
(18:45):
of at a little bit of a crossroads, which is
a good which is a good decision for these young
guys to have to make. So we we we have
this sort of give and take with with do we
let the young stars go and flourished, do we do
we pay them more money to stay here? You know,
I think it's all positive stuff. You know, when players
(19:07):
have decisions like that, it excites me because it shows
the growth of the sport. But I think that's what
they do for the most part. They've been doing it
year after year after year, and we're starting to see
that now in the US.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Is there a particular memory that you have of any
one moment and during the course of your career that
has kind of ingrained, Because I mean, you had lots
of moments, but I have always found that athletes go
back to one particular one that has kind of etched
in their minds.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I think that it would have to be us qualifying
for the first World Cup and that game in Trinidad
December third, nineteen eighty nine, going to Trinidad, Trinidad only
needed a tie in the game. We had to win
the game. We hadn't been in the World Cup for
forty years. We had a bunch of guys predominantly in
college and guys working, you know, working odd jobs in
(20:02):
order to continue to train. There's very few guys that
were playing professionally. And somehow we went down to Trinidad
and at Sea Reed and Paul kel Jerry got that
historic goal for US and we were able to qualify
for our first World Cup. And I think that was
really the springboard to show young kids around the country
that yeah, we can compete at this level and we
(20:24):
can get to a World Cup. So you can now
start dreaming about getting to a World Cup in.
Speaker 3 (20:29):
About forty five seconds.
Speaker 1 (20:30):
Was it hard because of the passion that you had
for the game, the passion that your dad passed on
to you for the game, to walk off the field
and move on to the next stage in your life.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
Yeah, the hardest part is the locker room. Missing the
locker room. But you know, now that I covered the
game on the radio, I get to travel around. I'm
still in contact, and quite honestly, I'm getting just as
much a thrill now that I'm able to coach my
kids and you know, coach them through sports and teach
them to pass of the game. You know, I don't
(21:02):
think of it in those terms like I'm missing out
on anything. I love that the game's growing. I love
that it's getting to the point that it is, and
I hope it continues to grow.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Tony, I want to thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (21:11):
I always enjoyed watching you in goal because I played
this sport.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I have a love for it as you do as well.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Never played it at the level that you did, but
I really loved watching you, and thank you for talking
about your career and your life as well. You represented
the United States very very well in World Cup play
and in the MLS.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
Thank you Tony, thank you Ron.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's all pretty nice. I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (21:32):
Tony Miola with us again, a member of the National
Soccer Hall of Fame and also was the goalkeeper for
the United States in the ninety and ninety four World Cups.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
We continue on Sports Byline.
Speaker 1 (21:44):
You have been listening to Ron Bars Sports Byline USA
podcast on the eight Side Network.
Host
Ron Barr
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