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- From 2017
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- Egypt
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- Canada
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- From 2013
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- The Women’s Game
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- The Indoor Game
The State of Simon Allen.
Hello, Simon here!
Currently I am under doctor’s supervision which is why there aren’t too many new shows this month.
I have been in and out of hospital and quite honestly I’ve never watched more football being stuck in a hospital bed. As of right now I am on the mend but not feeling great.
Hopefully in a few weeks I will be back to the full swing of things but a few more trips to the docs is what it will take.
With that said there are plenty of shows in the vault for you to enjoy.
Since 2005, I’ve done countless interviews…some of them are here on this site but way too many have been lost in time. Tech changes, computers crashing, bad habits in audio storage (I’ll never learn) have sent these interviews into the world wide spiderweb to be lost forever.
Some thankfully so.
I’ve selected six interviews (at least the posters survived) that have been lost and write something about them. After all I’ve been a proper journalist in the past so why not?
I had seen Sigi Schmid around town for years. I remember chatting with him at the Rosebowl and he seemed like a nice enough fellow. This was back in the day and I remember seeing him carrying golf clubs. I had bigger plans in 1999 than talking to a Head Coach in a football league that was barely 4 years old but looking back it was really a special time when the fanbase was small and you knew everyone in the stadium. I’ve talked about how The Galaxy matches at the Rosebowl were where we would meet up with our friends and then head out to Colorado Blvd and spend the rest of Saturday night there.
Sigi’s interview was 18 years after I met him. He did not want to be interviewed as I literally hijacked him at the Coaches Convention and started bombarding him with questions.
I asked Coach Schmid about Nepotism and Cronyism in MLS and what he thought about that. His response “Isn’t it like that in every business?” Full Stop.
The good ol’ boys club standard answer.
I was surprisingly shocked to hear that- Here was a bloke currently looking for a job who had come up the old fashioned way….shrugging his shoulders at the notion that if you shoot some pool and drink a few beers with a GM that you can get to be a Head Coach in MLS regardless of qualifications. Flash forward 7 years and it’s gotten worse…way too many ex players’ kids miraculously on the roster of MLS teams and STILL way too managers who I wouldn’t hire to sell kettle corn in the stadium let alone manage a team.
Sigi Schmid passed away in 2018 and he’s considered the “Godfather” of American Soccer Coaching.
Mohamed “Gedo” Nagy was an Egyptian International who had played for Hull City in the Premier League. Gedo was in Los Angeles and I had found out through a friend that he had a fondness for LA and American Soccer. He respected Bob Bradley a lot and would have liked to end his career in MLS.
I was recommended to Gedo through a friend of his who was a listener of the show and we conducted the interview while he was walking on the beach in Santa Monica.
A Fun interview and afterwards Gedo commented on my laid back professionalism when conducting the interview. I just like talking to people it’s as simple as that to be honest.
On the flip side, I am so happy that my interview with Canadian International Julian De Guzman is lost forever.
I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get this interview and I had been a fan on De Guzman since his days in the Bundesliga. It felt like he was forced to do the interview and didn’t want to be there. His heart wasn’t into it and no matter how hard I tried to make it an insightful interview…I couldn’t do it. I was one of the only interviews where I thought “Sod it…I’m not publishing this!” but even back then, content is content and I wasn’t going to play critic to my own interview…I’d let the listeners decide. It was so cookie cutter , the kind of stuff that would get you raves now if you worked for a League but it had no soul in my opinion and certainly not what I am about.
Hopefully, I can get to talk to De Guzman again and this time make it more interesting. I’ll let the universe handle that part.
Keith Costigan from 2103. I wish I had this interview in the archives but alas it is lost. I don’t think this was the first interview.
Keith Costigan is CLASS!
Admiration and Respect all around when I talk about Costigan. A friend of the show since day one and a proper TV personality.
CLASS!
Dido Tshimanga is one of those names that I wish more people knew. Another lost interview but it was specifically about the art of coaching. I had sat and watched football with Coach Dido and picked his brain about the art and everyday nuts and bolts of coaching women. When I tell you he’s the real deal then take it as gospel.
I love talking to coaches about coaching and Coach Dido was a fountain of information. Was it good audio? It was 30 minutes of me getting an education. I remember very clearly asking him about the last match he coached and how the team lost. I asked what happened and he described in detail how one player wasn’t doing the one thing that was asked of her and that dominoed into more players not following the plot. As a coach myself, it was easy to understand the thought process and at the same time very educational. I doubt if a lot of the listeners appreciated the interview as much as I did but it was also me showing my dedication to the women’s game. Frankly speaking…The World Wide Soccer Show was covering the women’s game when there was no coverage of the sport. Women’s soccer (at every level) was important to me back then (as it is now) so I felt it was my duty to cover it even when my listeners weren’t too keen on it.
My foray into the Indoor world was this interview with Gordy right after a match.
Purely business for me as Indoor Soccer needs way more coverage now as it did back then and I can’t remember off the top of my head when I conducted this interview. I told the big wigs back then to send me the players and I would create the content (who does that?) I honestly can’t remember the interview but it was highly received.
I invite you to check the archives and listen to past show while I get back.
Yes…I have a feeling I will back next week…Even though my hospital visits are pretty serious…I should be back on my feet in no time. T
his ain’t the final whistle…it’s just half time
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