NPR’s Michel Martin speaks with former U.S. men’s team goalkeeper Bill Hamid about the culture of youth soccer and how the this year’s U.S. men’s team will change the future of the sport.
Transcript
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As the dust settles on the U.S. men’s team’s loss in their home country, World Cup fans of all ages may be asking themselves, why wasn’t it enough? The money, the talent, the home-field advantage. Why couldn’t a country where soccer is the most popular youth sport field a team that could compete with Belgium, a nation a fraction of the size?
Bill Hamid is with us now to talk about this. He was D.C. United’s legendary goalkeeper. He made eight appearances for the U.S. men’s national team between 2012 and 2020, and he now coaches at the youth and professional levels. He’s been where these players are and where their coaches are, too, and he’s with us now. Bill Hamid, welcome. Thank you for joining us.
BILL HAMID: Well, thank you for having me.
MARTIN: I have to start with what happened at the match against Belgium. It was tough to watch. What do you think happened?
HAMID: For me, honestly, for a team to be top 16 in the world, I have to tip my hat to them. You know, to have gone that far, to have advanced out of your group, won your group, I would definitely say, as an insider, that progress was really made. I definitely would call them winners.
MARTIN: Obviously, the elephant in the room is President Trump’s intervention in the red card issue.
HAMID: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Some people argue that it just changed the – sort of the momentum a bit. The U.S. went from being underdogs with international sympathy to underdogs with much of the world against them because of President Trump’s intervention. And so the question becomes, does that background noise get to you on the pitch?
HAMID: Bingo. One hundred percent. There was a certain level of, like, flying under the radar. The eyes are on the Brazils. The eyes are on the Argentinas. The eyes are on the Portugals, with Cristiano Ronaldo being that it may be his last World Cup. And once our president got involved, it kind of shifted the focus to now have all the eyes in the world and to now be sort of demonized, in a way. I do feel for the guys.
MARTIN: And also, the other question I had is because Balogun wasn’t expected – he was the player who received the red card – the expectation was that he would not play. It wasn’t decided until the day before that he would be eligible to play. And I just wondered was – whether those couple of days not being expected to be in the lineup, would that have changed something for the team?
HAMID: Just in terms of a team perspective, we’ve grown up our whole lives playing this sport. Your red card happens, you know you’re not playing the next game. So you start to mentally prepare from that moment. OK, now we have to play without this player. You think, OK, Ricardo Pepi’s going to step in and he’s probably going to do a great job for the team. He’s a great striker. We may be able to change up our game plan in a way where we can do it without Balogun. But now we got Balogun. So it’s such a bad stink, in my opinion.
MARTIN: You could make the case that the momentum of the game against Belgium really shifted after a mistake by the goalkeeper Matt Freese. He came out of the box. He couldn’t get back into the goal fast enough to defend it. As a goalkeeper…
HAMID: Yeah.
MARTIN: …Is that something that kind of strikes you in your gut yourself…
HAMID: (Laughter) Yes.
MARTIN: …And…
HAMID: Yes. I felt for him in that instance. It’s a heartbreaker from a goalkeeper’s perspective, and psychologically, I hope that he’s going to do OK because the noise right now is quite loud, not in his favor. It’s a popular thing in soccer to say, just looking forward to the next game. And that next match is the catalyst that kind of gets you out of that funk.
MARTIN: Women’s World Cup is next year. It’s 2027 in Brazil.
HAMID: Yes.
MARTIN: The American women are so much more dominant internationally than the men have been. Why is that?
HAMID: I would say soccer is little girls’ main sport. You see parents more willing to put their young daughters in soccer at an early age, 4 years old, 3 years old. And I have youth girl goalkeepers. Their parents are the most invested in when it comes to, we want you to train our daughter, and it’s like that all over the country.
MARTIN: So before I let you go, what would it take for the U.S. men’s team to get to the next level, to get past the round of 16?
HAMID: It’s going to take time. We’re still youthful when it comes to the real focus and investments in soccer compared to the rest of the world. But the education is also happening from a coaching perspective. So instead of having so many coaches that don’t know the game but your kids are on the field, now we’re starting to invest in educating the coaches. So the coaches are now giving these players the right information and the right tools to be able to grow their skill set, and that will grow the national team program on both sides.
MARTIN: Bill Hamid, thank you so much for talking with us.
HAMID: I’m so happy that I got to talk to you and see you again.
MARTIN: That was Bill Hamid. He’s a former goalkeeper for the U.S. men’s national soccer team.
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