Legends Talk USWNT - Special Guest Paul Riley

Go out and strike the ball a bit because in practice a lot of times you don't have that benefit. And I learned to strike the ball against the wall and you know, with one other person, my brother, I didn't learn to strike the ball in practice, I have to be honest with you. So I feel like it's the work on their own. Now I look at all these players that we've been involved with and I don't compare players. I always tell the players, compare yourself to yourself. What have you improved and what have you done? You know, what is your role? Define your role, but don't let it limit your role. Foreign.

You're listening to the Vision of a Champion Podcast with Anson Dorrance, eight time coach of the year, 22 time national champion, coach of the 1991 Women's World Cup Team, hall of Famer, leader and mentor to so many in the soccer community. On this podcast, Anson brings on players and coaches to discuss what it means to be a champion. The drive, the passion, the desire and and yes, the stories.

Here's your host, Voice of the NCFC Courage, Dean Linke.

Hello everyone and welcome to Division of a Champion Podcast. I'm your host, Dean Linke, longtime soccer broadcaster and longtime voice of the North Carolina Courage Women's professional soccer team. On this podcast we will focus on chapter two of Anson's book and the growth of US Women's soccer on the international and professional level. I'm pretty excited about the guest today because if you have followed me long enough, I never introduced the great ants Endurance without calling the 22 time national champion and World cup champion coach the greatest college sports coach, male or female, any sport, you name it. Anson's championship record is unparalleled, full stop and period. And well, I offer a similar introduction to our featured guest, Paul Riley, the uber successful coach of the NWSL's perennial power North Carolina courage. Paul unfortunately rolls his eyes at me and sometimes tells me I am crazy. But I always introduce him proudly and confidently as the greatest women's professional soccer coach in the world. I believe it. His record proves it. His players believe it and they back it up. That's what you call a coach who has won three consecutive NWSL shields and three of the last four NWSL championships. At its core, this blanket statement will stand on its own. There is no college coach ever that has sent more players to the full national team than Anson Dorrance. And there is no youth or pro coach ever that has sent more players to the full national team than Paul Riley. Paul, I simply have been blessed the past three seasons to have the best seat in the house, midfield, in the perch at Wakeman Soccer park, to watch your brilliance and what I think the greatest women's professional soccer team in the world. Your drive, your messages, your dedication to your craft at this level, and let's face it, you are responsible for developing so many, so many great players at an early age that have gone on to play for the full national team is beyond remarkable.

Thank you.

Thank you for letting me have a bird's eye view of your brilliance. Welcome, Sir. Paul Reilly.

Thanks, Dean. What an introduction from you two. I can't imagine. That was amazing. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. I'm excited to be with you guys today and looking forward to the chat for sure.

We're going to have a great time. So before we start with questions, Anson, I think it's worth repeating your mission and vision that you shared on our initial podcast. We're wanting to bring your brilliant book, co authored by with Gloria Averbush, the Vision of a Champion, to life with this podcast series. Why did you want to do this, Anson?

Well, honestly, I have never been on as many podcasts. I mean, obviously with the coronavirus completely changing the landscape of player development, I've been invited on so many different podcasts and interestingly enough, one of the reasons is because the way we had to train and develop our team to try to compete in that 1991 World Championship, because back then, as you know, certainly there was no money in the coffers of U.S. soccer. So we didn't have training camps on a regular basis. We got together basically like once a year. So what did we have to do? We had to figure out how to get these kids to train on their own. So we had this self coaching philosophy and we had to pick players that were intrinsically motivated, that could train on their own, that could come into events fit, because obviously we didn't have the platform to get them fit. And so our philosophy was, yeah, get fit in your own, obviously, develop your own bulk, confidence in your own, and then play 1v1 as much as possible. That platform, the 1v1 platform, and our fitness and our mentality is what won that first world championship for the United States.

Well, we're so glad you're doing it. This is going to be a whole lot of fun. So Anson and Paul, as we dive in to chapter two, titled USA Women World Cup Olympics and the WUSA is worth mentioning that the WUSA lasted three years and the then Named Carolina Courage played their first year at Fetcher Field in Chapel Hill. Now upon his fully named Dorrance Field. And Anson, you and I, along with Wendy Gabour, Palladino and or Bill Palladino, called the local games. You also called the national games with Beth Mowins.

Yes, because I was involved in fundraising for the league. And the power behind the initial fundraising for the WSA was actually John Hendricks of the Discovery Channel. And because he and I were connected and I was a part of encouraging him to invest in us, the only way he could reward me that wouldn't interfere with my NCAA coaching at North Carolina was to allow me to be a colored commentator. And I absolutely loved it because he teamed Beth Mullins and I up. And just like with you, holy cow, was she riding a wild horse with me as the colored commentator back in the day. And just like with you, you weren't fired during my tenure with you. Although there were some close calls, Beth managed to survive the three years as well.

All right. Indeed.

What a great setup. And since the WSA came and went, the WPS also came and went in three years. Paul Riley was involved there with Philadelphia. But the NWSL appears stronger than ever now, entering its eighth year in business, coming off record attendances with the momentum of back to back USA Women's World cup titles. So with that as the setup, Anson and Paul, when you think about the system working for women's soccer players in college, in a professional league, and now on the world stage, what kind of pride do both of you have in the women's games?

I'll let Paul jump in because I've been so proud of obviously having the chance to watch this team play regularly. And as you and I know, Dean, holy cow. It was almost like if you made the Courage roster, you weren't going to get your tryout for the US Full team. So Paul, jump on in. Because I genuinely feel your environment and what you did with those players was extraordinary.

I think the main thing is to install standards of excellence, and I think that's what U.S. national team have done and that's what we're trying to do at the Courage. And I think when you install standards of excellence, you get good results from it. We don't base anything that we do on opponents. We base it on ourselves and what we're doing and, and how much we able to push ourselves. And I think ultimately they have to have an environment and a culture where they want to come every day, where they want to train every day, where they can exceed their limits. And push the envelope. And it's not always the case in every place. And I want it to be a place when they get up in the morning, this is where they can exceed their limits and get out the comfort zone and push the envelope a little bit. And I think that's what we've done. Probably better than, you know, at least I know my coaching 10 years ago, I've come a long way and my thing is I always feel like team directed, team teams are a lot better than coach directed teams. So I rely on that a lot. The empowerment of the players a lot. And I think it's been a big help, certainly coming to North Carolina. And it does help when you've got a lot of good schools down the road from you and we get great preseason games and all that good stuff. But yeah, I mean, it's about trying to make the national team. The end of the day, every player, the carrot is dangled and they want to be on the national team. And it's up to us to use that carrot to be able to improve their game. And I saw Dal Camper and Sam Ewis and Jaylene Henkel and Jess McDonald and Lynn Williams when they were younger 22 year olds and you know, they're not the players they are today. And they've really developed the game every part of their game 24 7. It's a driveway to driveway type culture and they've been able to do that and embrace it and so happy and just keep plugging along and the group is an amazing group and it's a pleasure to coach them and to see them now, you know, doing it on the world stage for me is just such a kicker. It really is such a kicker. I think the players today have a lot more at their disposal than maybe the players did backhands in when you won the World Cup. And I think it's, you know, it's a credit to the US and what we've been able to put into the whole system, money and everything else and what we've done for women's soccer and particularly what people like you have done for women's soccer to give us this opportunity. And it's stable. The league. I feel good about the league. I feel like expansion will come in. I'll give more players the opportunity. I think that's probably the only thing missing is more opportunity for more players. There's plenty of great players out there that we could get. I'm looking forward to expansion next year too. I think it's important for the league.

Anson, how do you feed off of those comments?

Well, obviously watching Paul work has been extraordinary for me because I go to practices when I can. And he's absolutely right. I think what distinguishes his culture is the standards that are set every time I'm even watching a warm up exercise. And it's almost interesting. You can almost judge the quality of a team based on how seriously they even take their preparation before the practice. And watching his teams go through the drills and then going after each other is just extraordinary. And one of the privileges we have being so close to Paul's environment is the NCAA allows us to send five kids over whenever Paul wants them. And the kids that he has taken under his wing, invited into his training environments, come back much better players. And so this for us is a huge advantage. And he's absolutely right. I think what's critical is it has to be a player driven environment. And if, obviously if it's always the coach, you know, bearing down on them to get to their potential, you're never going to achieve anything because eventually you'll run out of energy. Eventually the players will just turn you off. And then all of a sudden the culture collapses. And what's clear whenever I watch the courage train and certainly when they play is how hard the players work for each other and how hard they go after it and every single second of every practice. Now, because Paul is trying to extend too much credit in the other direction, that's all done with his hand gently at the tiller of his great ship, guiding it in the right direction. But I tell you this, that's a remarkable culture for us to be next to and trust me, we benefit tremendously.

This book, Vision of a Champion does a great job breaking down your journey. Ants endurance. I want to get to Paul Riley's journey as well. But before we do that, one follow up for you, Anson, because chapter two talks about how you built your 1991 US team with mostly college players. How have you seen the progression of women's soccer on the college level even today?

Well, the game obviously continues to improve. Back in the old days, certainly in the early 80s when I started coaching, there are only four or five or six teams that could give you a good game every year because of title nine. The game was built and we started out basically with all three divisions competing in a national championship in women's soccer. And then because of the numbers, we grew from, you know, 30, 40, 50 teams across all three divisions to over a thousand teams today competing in Division 1, 2 and 3 at a collegiate level. And that's had a huge change in our landscape because one of the things that's sort of interesting, and I know US Soccer obviously looks to Europe when they start to think of their player development platforms and they certainly look to the European club system. And a lot of their decisions in guiding U.S. soccer in the development academy comes from that. I think one thing that has been overlooked, honestly is the value of the collegiate game. And obviously the collegiate game right now is in a desperate position on the men's side. They're looking at this 21st century model where they're going to try to train year round, which is obviously a great idea. But before we throw the entire collegiate game under the bus, I think the American collegiate game has been fantastic. I think a lot of those kids go on to certainly have successful professional careers. And I also think they are the platform that have put the United States in this position. And I think a part of it certainly are the number of kids that are playing at the highest levels of Division one across the United States. But that also feeds into these coaches like Paul and his culture that end up being a platform for the United States full team. Because back in the day they went right from college right into the national team if they were lucky enough to find a good pickup game somewhere or a league somewhere to play. And it was a very low level league. And this is going back to the mid-80s to late 80s and early 90s. But now of course we can hand off our elite players to the nwsl. And honestly, with the exception of three or four players a year, very few elite college players can step on the field. And the nwsl, which is a credit to Paul Riley and his colleagues and the level of the league we have right now.

Anson mentioned culture. Paul Riley it takes a journey to finally find the culture that you really want. As I said, Anson's journey is detailed in this book. How about your journey? And don't leave out your love for Liverpool because that will segue into another topic about pressing, which we're looking forward to talk to. And then also breaking down your intriguing four two two two but you've got the floor. Paul Riley, tell everybody how you got to the States and how you ended up having so much success here at the highest level in women's professional soccer.

Yeah, I mean I came in 1982. I've coached on the men's side and the women's side professionally, men's side, collegiately as well and obviously in the youth for a long time in Long Island, New York, played professionally Until I broke my leg. Chris almost played me a wall pass back and left it short and that was that. So that was the end of that one. But I think obviously I took up coaching. I've been coaching. I was a head college coach at 23, so I started young on the college circuit and on the men's team and most of the players were older than me. So I learned the hard way. You could say I had a lot of English guys with 28, 30 back in, you know, back in those late 80s and early 90s, they were much older than they are today and I had 29, 30 year old guys and I'm coaching them at 23. Yeah, it wasn't that great, I got to be honest with you. But I learned the hard way from it and I think now it's, you know, it's made me a better coach and I think the better preparation for the players that I have today and I tell Sam Lewis and these type of players that, you know, the pressure of today is good. You know, back in those days, I think we talked about pressure, but we didn't need pressure, didn't want pressure. But I feel like without that pressure, they can't become top players in college. The great thing about college is the teams have got better. There's a lot more teams than just UNC. Now in the old days was just UNC. Now there's 25 teams that could win a national championship. And that competitiveness, I think in college has been a big plus for the players coming out. And I look forward to the draft every year and seeing the new players and working with the new players because, you know, I always say it's privilege to have pressure. You have to have pressure if you're going to get better. And the last three or four years, you know, with the courage, we played in a lot of big games, not just the ICC against, you know, Manchester City and Lyon, but they've given us that little outlook at tactical stuff from foreign countries. And I think that's all helped people like Abby and Sam and these guys develop. You need every piece to develop. It can't just be one little piece if you're going to develop. And the other thing I would like to just say to me, if your work ethic is really good, your mentality is really good and your willpower is really good, you get a seat at the table. And I think one thing I've got better as an older coach is I give people a seat at the table. I think in my younger days it was my Way of the highway. No seat at the table for anybody. And I wish I could go back and maybe rephrase that stuff, but I can't. And so now, to me, if you work hard, you get a seat at the table. And that collaboration is so important with your players and so important to build teams and culture. You need a belonging. You need to feel a belonging. I think that's what we've done pretty well at the courage. I think, from a staff perspective and a player perspective, you have to feel like you have a seat at the table and a voice at the table as well.

Well, I know Paul will support this fully. If you want to truly become elite, you can't just come to practice and work hard. There's got to be an environment outside of practice that takes you to your potential. And obviously, in the old days, they talked about the pickup culture, and certainly in Brazil, they talk about the kids in the slums playing, you know, for nine hours all day. So their skill set was extraordinary and this sort of thing. But all of us know that it's not the training environment alone that's going to take you to the promised land. It's what you do outside it. And so almost every elite player I've coached, it's the stuff she's done outside of practice, in addition to, obviously, the challenges in the training environment that have given her ball mastery. Like a Tobin Heath. I mean, Tobin Heath used to literally juggle the ball to class and, you know, combine her around, you know, players that were going to class as well by bouncing a ball off a wall, getting it on the other side. Then, of course, she would nutmeg everything she could on the way to class, including campus, stray dogs. So and so this is the way you develop ball mastery. It's not just what happens in practice. And trust me, she still has the record for nutmegs at the University of North Carolina on the head coach. And no one's going to catch her. I mean, I would say I would feel good if on that particular day, she only nutmegged me three times. I would be thinking, oh, my gosh, she's slipping. So this is what ball mastery is. It's the ball at your feet all the time. It's love of the ball, it's love of the game. And for me, like the quote, the Mia Hamm quote, it's what you do on your own outside of practice that the truly great ones separate themselves with.

Hey, everyone, we're going to take a quick break here to tell you about our sponsor, soccer.com. anson has been coaching for 44 years, and it seems like soccer.com has been around nearly that long as well. It's pretty close as the soccer.com business has been family run and based in Hillsborough, North Carolina since 1984. If you're a player or a coach who need soccer shoes, equipment, gear, whatever it may be, do what the pros do. Head on over to soccer.com.

Now.

Let's get back to the show.

All right, so then we see it on the field, Paul and Anson, and we see both of you with this high pressure attack system. Paul, you with this unique four two, two, two. With consistent pressure. Break down the four two, two two. And I'm okay with you and Anson talking about the intricacies of the four 2, 2, 2.

Yeah, I mean, obviously it's a lot different the box today than it was three, four years ago. I think it's evolved and I think that's due to the players playing in the box. When Crystal Dunn arrived and we put her at the top of the box in the 10 position, I think she changed that for us. And one thing I'd like to back up with, don't mistake commitment to showing up six days a week. You can show up six days a week, but it's how you train in the six days a week that you show up that really counts. And we've been able to press teams because we train. We call it chronic training. We trade a high intensity level all the time, and that intensity level is crucial for game day. And I think Crystal said it best after the final last year. The games are normally the easier part of the whole week, you know, so. And we want it to be that way. And I think when you're pressing and you can win a ball higher up the field, the Benia becomes, you know, a better player. Crystal becomes a better player. The lower they get on the field, the lower they have to come on the field, the harder it is for the team to maneuver. So I think, you know, we, we believe in Lynn Williams and Jess McDonald and Kristen Hamilton this forward, that's where we start our press. But it's more of a guide up front. It's more guiding into zones where we can pick up players. And, you know, we try to make teams as predictable as we can, and that's worked for us. And you know, our fullbacks obviously have the whole wide areas to themselves and we want players in, you know, wide areas, off spaces, central spaces. But getting the ball back is critical for us, and it's awful one and One for all. We lose the ball. You know, when Dabina first came to, Bena would lose the ball and she'd roll her eyes, go. And I felt like to be, I don't care, I don't care. You lose it. The question is, can you get it back and how fast can you get it back? And the immediate reaction of everything we do in practice is to get the ball back quickly because it helps the better, more creative players. The longer the balls with the opponent, the more running they're doing, the more running, they're not as effective when we get the ball. So our whole press is built on putting them in zones that can be predictable. Getting it back quick as we possibly can and then attacking from them. We still have to work on building out the back and all the rest of it. But that box with two sixes and two tens is very unique. But they all have complete to do whatever they want. They can move wherever they want. They can create wherever they want. And so it's up to them to make it work. And the box has definitely changed because of who's in the box. And it does change when we change the box, when Cary Vaccaro comes in the lineup, when McCall Saboni comes into the lineup, that box changes because it's a different type of player. But I never want the player to change change. I want them to play in the box like they play, and we'll figure out the rest of it and that. And I think it gives fluidity to the team. And the two forwards never see each other. I mean, really, they're on opposite sides of the field a lot. They're away from each other a lot. They're really joining in with the fullbacks, with their tens, with their sixes on their side of the field. So I love playing the formation. It's difficult to coach, I got to be honest with you. It's difficult to learn. But now we've got it, I feel like we can push on. And, you know, I'm looking forward to actually doing another formation this year and coach another formation. I think it's time for this group. They've been playing the box for a few years to learn something different. And I think that's an important part of the growth of any player.

Well, Anson, you've been so famous for the 3, 4, 3 with the high press and then multiple players and then changing things up. But as you hear Paul break down the 4, 2, 2, 2. What are your thoughts?

Well, I love watching any team that presses my favorite Champions League, I think was Borussia Dortmund, Bayern Munich. Two teams that went after each other like there was no tomorrow. And I absolutely love it. And also like Paul, I'm a huge fan of Liverpool and their press and less we forget when we were all imitating Barcelona, I think too many coaches looked on one side of Barcelona and obviously every side of Barcelona was extraordinary. But I think everyone underestimated the value of their 6 second press because they would also win the ball up very high. And then of course they are famous for what they did with it. Their ability to keep possession was just out of this world and I think all of us wanted to emulate that. But I think a piece that everyone ignored to their own peril was the fact that Barcelona was an extraordinarily effective pressing team. And the thing that's not lost on any of us right now watching Liverpool is how effective their press is. Because oh my gosh, if you can give Salah the ball, you know, 35 yards out, facing an opponent, they're finished. And so watching Liverpool press I think is fantastic. We have pressed forever and I'm always stunned, especially at a collegiate level or a youth level where there is unlimited substitution. Why these teams don't press, I just, it's just unfathomable to me. So when I'm watching Paul with his limited substitution still press effectively, I'm just incredibly impressed and I know it's not easy. I remember years ago when Cindy Parlo was playing for the Atlanta beat back in the old WSA days, her coach was screaming at her and she was one of the double tensions. Her coach was screaming at her to get across the field to press when they effectively changed the point of the attack. And finally, in frustration because of how exhausting it is to play the tens in the 4, 2, 2, 2. She basically threw her hands up in the air and her coach was Tommy Stone. And she said, well Tommy, if you think this is easy, come out here and show me how easy it is. So basically Tommy, as typical a male ego goes, of course he was going to show her how this was done. And so Cindy says she's standing on the sideline, she's got her arms folded now she's watching Tommy play her position in the double 10. And all of a sudden within about six minutes, Tommy's about to have a heart attack from the amount of work he had to do. So apparently he crawled off the field and told Cindy how much he appreciated her for whatever she planned to do in the double 10 position. So I know how hard it is but gosh, I love coaches that press. I love teams that press. But also, let me share this. I'm just going to throw this out there. I am convinced one of the reasons we have sent so many kids off onto the full team and the reason Paul Riley throws so many kids in the direction of the full team is because here's what every coach knows that coaches at the next level, if you pick a player from North Carolina, guess what? She's going to defend like there's no tomorrow. And if you pick a kid off the Courage, she's going to be the exact same aggressive defensive personality. So I genuinely feel like this has to be a part of our player development culture. Why would any youth coach not press? I mean, just because you're imitating, you know, some bunker encounter team that Jose Mourinho is coaching, as if, you know, our players off the counter can string three brilliant two touch passes together and the balls in the back of the net in 1.3 seconds. No, none of us can do that. So why do we sit back and bunker? I think all of us should be pressing. I think it's better for player development and I think Paul is a wonderful example at the highest level of someone that does it well and his mentor with the Liverpool team.

Oh yes, let's talk about Liverpool. Should we just. Incredible. I mean, to be honest with you, a lot of our players watch Liverpool and when you look, you see our system, they play a 4, 3, 3. But when you look, you see the two wingers come inside, you see Mo Salah come inside a lot, you see Mane come inside a lot. They almost look like tens when they come in. They come into these pockets of space and then they'll stretch out, the 10 will stretch out and go into the 9. It almost looks like they leave those wide areas for the fullbacks, just like we do at the Courage. And they have the most assist in the league. And I looked at a stat last year at the NWSL and Jayleen Hinkle had 144 crosses for the NWSL last year. And I think every fullback added up was not as many as that. So it just shows how far she gets down the field. And that's due to the space that's been given to her. And it's due really to the players in front of her, how they manipulate the space to be able to give her that space and drag players in and drag their fullbacks in and drag their wide players inside all the time, because it's very difficult to mark two tens. But yeah, Liverpool's. All our players love watching Liverpool. And McCall Zamboni is the only Man United fan on the team. A little bit of Sullivan and I just kill them. It's a great time to be a Liverpool fan. A terrible time to be a Man United fan. So. So. But I do agree with Anson about, you know, the quality of being able to press, and a lot of teams should press. And I think to be able to do that, you've got to love the grind and you've got to love that part of the game. And I think all top players love the grind. The problem is nobody asks them to grind. And when they do actually grind, they love that. I know when Topina now, she loves to do that. Whereas two, three years ago, she'd have looked at me with like, what? Press? What? You know, she couldn't press her shit. Never mind.

Challenges makes life meaningful for me. And the more challenges, the better. And I know the players look at it like that.

It's the vision of a champion podcast with two champions. Legendary Anson Dorns, top man for the UNC women's soccer team. Paul Riley, top man for the North Carolina Courage of the nwsl. Knowing our audience will be some young players that have a dream, a dream to play professionally, a dream to play for the usa. For both of you, please, what is some advice you can give players that are interested in playing in the NWSL and eventually wearing the red, white and blue?

I guess we're excited about. When we look at a kid that we're chasing to play at a collegiate level that we think also has full team potential, we look at all the things that Paul was talking about, and I love the way he described that, you know, kids that basically embrace the grind because as you know, to get on the field for us, you have to defend. I don't care how good you are, if you don't defend, you don't play at North Carolina. So they have to embrace that right.

Out of the gate.

And we've been so fortunate, even this past year, about the number of our kids that the full team will look at, because after last season where we were beaten in penalty kicks by Stanford in the final, we were still invited. Vladko invited two of our kids in. Pinto was one and Macy Bell was the other. And so we love the fact that all of a sudden from the collegiate environment, the full team coach is still looking at our kids because we had Fox go in the year before. And I am absolutely convinced if she hadn't injured herself in the quarterfinal this year, she'd also still be a part of the US Full team pool. So what we try to do with our kids is we want them to be great duelers. We want them to have the ability to beat people off the dribble, but also defend people off the dribble, which is where that defensive thing comes in for us. So a lot of our Training environments are 1v1. We have five different 1v1 environments that we record and we post. And obviously, Paul's got some of our kids that are very good 1v1. And basically with Paul, it was a trading system. He sent me Crystal Dunn. She worked with us a little bit. We sent Crystal Dunn back to him. And I'll tell you this, you know, less people forget, I know she was the starting left back for the United States that just won the world championship, but holy cow, do you know what Crystal Dunn's best quality is? It's beating people off the dribble. She's completely unstoppable. Her agility and her strength, her balance, her acceleration, her speed, her determination to get in Behind a player 1v1 is just unbelievable. And so that's why it was interesting when she was up for the draft. I think she was the first player drafted, and I think the Washington Spirit drafted her. And I remember the coach from the Spirit called me up and said. He answered, what should I do with her? I said, well, please don't do what everyone thinks you should do with Crystal Dunn. What's that? I said, well, please don't play her outside back. It's an incredible waste of this unbelievable talent. But, you know, there's a pro coach, you know, who the heck is this college coach? What the hell is he telling me? So what did he do? He played it outside back. So basically, and he'll be the first to tell you his team sucked that year. And he apologized to me after the season, answered, I'm going to put her in the 10 or the 9. And all of a sudden, this team went from, you know, one of the worst teams in the league to one of the best. And why? Because you can't stop Crystal Dunn 1v1. Now, can she play multiple positions?

Yes.

But we want to build our game on our ability to beat people off the dribble and stop them. So we want to develop great duelers, and we want to put them in environments where they can succeed. And so for us, that's the sort of first step.

Paul, before you answer that question, for advice, I want to make sure people realize what you've done. At the youth level, you had Crystal Dunn, Ali Long. They made it all the way to the national team. Of course, you're coaching Crystal Dunn now at the pro level. The players that you have propped up to the usa, the list is impressive. And I know Anson wanted me to mention this as well. Here are some names, and I'm sure we're missing some. Abby Dahlkemper, Jess McDonald, Samantha Mewes, Taylor Smith, Merritt Mathias, Emily Menges, Kristen Hamilton, Amy Rodriguez, Lynn Williams, Jaylene Hinkle, McCall Zerboney, Laura Lindsay, Sinead Farley, Ashley Hatch. Whatever advice you're given, whatever you're doing, it's working, Paul. So please share.

The more you invest, the more it means. So I tell my players all the time, and the more you invest into what you're doing, the more it's going to mean for you, the more you put into it and you'll get where you want to get. And, you know, I think Taylor Smith and Ashley Hatch, particularly that year, they came in as rookies and had fantastic seasons for us. And obviously we ended up trading them for Crystal Don, funnily enough, to Washington. And they've gone on to, you know, Taylor's been injured, but Ashley's gone on to do really well there. And Crystal Donne that year was the MVP of the league, scored the most goals in the league, didn't go to the World cup, should have gone to the World cup and never went. And I think she's a great illustration of the struggle. And you have to have struggle in your career to be able to overcome it and improve. But I would say that one of the things that I look for in a player is somebody wants to do more on their own time and do a little bit more after practice. And you know, Dabinha used to spend all his time out of practice afterwards taking free kicks, and I'd be like, oh, my God. He was like, what a waste of time. You know that she spends another 15, 20 minutes after every practice. And you know what she's missed every week, every week, every week. And it would drive me nuts. You know, you practice this every, every day for 20 minutes. Surely you gotta hit one, get it in the semifinal, in overtime. And she looked at me as if to say, 4C. And that's the type of work, I guess, in the dark that people don't see. They only see when it's working, the bright lights. But for American perspective, Abby Dalcamp is one in a million Americans. And I say that because she's a true passer of the ball. And I asked Abby last week, how come that you can strike a ball like this? Because I feel like in the youth game there's not many players that can strike a ball like Abby Del Camper. I looked around everywhere, including my club in New York, and I feel like, how do we get players to be able to strike the ball? So I would say to all the players, is that go out and strike the ball. Because in practice, a lot of times you don't have that benefit. And I learned to strike a ball against the wall and, you know, with one other person, my brother, I didn't learn to strike the ball in practice, I have to be honest with you. So I feel like it's the work on their own. Obviously, there's also going to be a lot of coaches involved in their youth development. I look at all these players that we've been involved with and man, yeah, I don't compare players. I always tell the players, compare yourself to yourself. What have you improved and what have you done? You know, what is your role? Define your role, but don't let it limit your role. And I say when Mary Speck has to be Megan Rapinoe in practice, she has to be the best Megan Rapinoe in practice of all time. Because that'll only make Mary Matthias better come game day. And I'm big on that. You know, defining a role, but don't limit the role. And you know, when you look back at the end of the season, that 24th play is really important because Sam Lewis and the starting players cannot be as good if they've lost the bottom 12 on the roster already. Their fitness levels are down, their mental state is down. So I spend a lot of time making sure that we keep everyone going, all 24, all 26. Everybody needs to have a seat at the table. Everyone needs to learn and be able to learn. And so I think it's out there for every coach in the country too. Make sure that you don't forget the back players because eventually that end of the roster will hurt you because your best players will not get better at some point in the season if those players aren't fit.

The vision of a champion podcast. No surprise with these two greats. Time is flying along. But let's keep going just a little bit because there's two things that have come out of this pandemic for sure. Anson and Paul. That is a lot of individual one on one training, a lot of zooms as well, a lot of podcasts. But it's also been a great time for Reflection on television, you're seeing old games. In chapter two, there's reflection on the 99T Manson and then also detailed notes on the 91 World Cup. So let's go ahead and reflect before we end our vision of a champion, I want both of you to reflect on great moments. I'm going to start with you, Anson, though, and I kind of want you to really break down that 91 team. And if you want to also talk a little bit about the 99 team as well, that's fine. But what you did with that 91 team was simply remarkable.

Well, first of all, you're very kind and I loved coaching those kids. And keep in mind one of the reasons I think I'm a popular podcaster these days. On the first podcast, I talked about how the way that 91 team trained is exactly the environment we're in now. Again, getting back to what I said earlier, we didn't have any money to get together regularly. And it was not like these kids are jumping off a Carolina Courage to come into my training camps. No, they were at home basically playing against their boyfriends or their training partner or their dog, or in Christine Lilly's case, her older brother. I mean, it was really interesting the environments they came from. So first of all, I love what Paul was just talking about when he was talking about working on a wall. So the environments my kids came from were environments of playing one on one because Karen Jennings basically was dating Jim Gabara. Jim was the captain of the U.S. futsal National Team. So this was an elite American male player. And what did they do all the time? They played 1v1. And of course Karen couldn't beat Jim to save her life. But all of a sudden in the 91 World cup, no one could stop caring Crazy Legs Jennings because she was used to playing against an elite male player. But almost every one of our women was training on their own, getting fit on their own, working on a wall on their own to be able to strike balls over distance, etc. And they got better and better and better. And so in that 91 lineup, in our basically 1, 3, 43 and back in those days, we didn't play a semi flat back three. We played a deep sweeper back with Carla Overbeck, two marking backs with Joy B. Field and Linda Hamilton. And listen to our front seven. Yeah, the triple edged sword. Holy cow, could they carve you to ribbons. I mean, Karen Jennings on the left, who was the gold ball winner, Michelle Akers in the middle, who was the gold boot winner. And then April Heinrichs at right wing, that was a devastating line. Left midfield was Christine Lilly, another brilliant one on one artist. Right midfield was Mia Hamm, obviously another extraordinary one on one artist. We had Julie Foudy galloping down the middle. Back in the day, she could beat people off the dribble with her change of pace and acceleration. We had only one girl in the front seven that would rather pass the ball than dribble by someone. And so, holy cow, we're playing against these European teams that are in their stayed four, four twos, where they're playing the ball around in the back, which is the way, you know, the German coaching manual was telling you how to play. And we're thinking, are you frigging kidding me? You're going to play the ball around in the back with these sharks with blood in the water? We couldn't wait for them to see if they could string three passes together because we were all over them, winning the ball in the attacking third and then just going right to goal. We beat the Germans 5 to 2. It humiliated Giro Benzons, who was the director of German coaching, not of women's coaching, but the director of the frigging Bundesliga and their basically elite coach. And so the humiliation he faced when we beat him like a drum, 5 to 2 with high pressing is in the press conference following our victory. He claimed we cheated. And I was thinking, how the heck did we cheat? Okay, how, how did we cheat? Well, we defended, we pressed, and no one in the world was pressing. So obviously I'm very proud of that collection. And I don't pretend we played the game at the highest level. We never got together to train. But let me tell you about our mentality. We were unbelievably aggressive and what could we do? We could beat people 1v1. Why? Because that was their training environment.

Paul Riley, you think about this 91 team and now you think about the modern day team that's won two back to back Women's World Cups. From where you sit, Paul, what kind of matchup would that be? That 91 team was loaded. Unfortunately no one really knew about it. And this current team is loaded with talent. I think that would be amazing to see. Can you break that down? Paul Riley.

I'd love to get them into practice for a couple of weeks together and have a game, you know. Yeah, listen, let's be fair. When you hear Anson talking about the teams and stuff and the players and what they went through to be the best they could possibly be, that's what sacrifice is. And you have to pay the price to be great. And they certainly all paid the price to be great. And they work what they did off the field. And, yeah, I mean, that would be unbelievable for me to bring all those people together. I tell people all the time, you have to love the game unconditionally. You can accept criticism or you can get a pat on the back, but no matter what, if you love it unconditionally, it doesn't matter which either one of those things are. And I think those type of players will always be victorious. You talk about mentality, and Anson talked about a lot with that 91 group. This world cup was mentality, too. I've got to be honest with that group. I think the group of 91 is more talented. Me, personally, the group here had a great mentality. I mean, I think Julie Johnson, she epitomizes that for me and that willingness to do whatever it takes to get through. And I think it drives the team on and through. What I mean, our players, too, they love that. They love. You know, sometimes those national team environments can be toxic, but they also can be a mentality of the US Players are so different from everybody else. And I'm actually proud to say I'm involved in women's soccer in America because when I speak to my English compatriots, they go, oh, yeah, but the US Win because they just run. And I said, no, no, no, we don't just run. We chase that ball, but we're going to get it back. The difference is maybe you guys don't chase like that in Europe. Maybe you should learn to chase it like we learned to chase it and get after the ball and make things happen. But, yeah, can I have those two. Can I have all those players in one place at one time? I'm in. I'm in. Can I be the. I'll be the assistant. I'll be the water boy. I don't care. I just want an opportunity to be around them. But I've talked to a lot of those players. Julie Farry obviously does the TV and stuff, so I speak to her quite often. And Jimmy's wife, I know pretty well, too, from the college game. And I mean to think what they did and what they achieved, and I mean, Anson to get the group to be able to do that. I hear him talking a lot about dribbling and everything. You know, all you hear about coaches these days, you talk about pass, pass, pass, pass. So it's great to see somebody else talking about something completely different. And I like to pass, too. I Got to be honest with you. But I love the Beanias, the Crystals, those players, they just, they're so exciting to watch. They're worth the price of admission. And at the end of the day, that's what brings the fans in the stadium and that's what brings, you know, there's so much support for the US national team these days. It's incredible when they play a game that packed out everywhere and it's exciting for our players. It's a carrot will always dangle for them. And I hope they always keep comparing, keep trying to get on those teams because the more they keep doing that, the better it will be for us, for sure.

Yeah, I would be first in line to call that game as well, Anson, if they would let me.

For sure.

That 91 team against the current team. All right, as we wrap it up, closing comments for both of you as we're breaking down chapter two vision of a champion USA Women World Cup Olympics and the wusa. Today, it's about the nwsl. Closing comments from the great Anson Dorrance.

Well, first of all, I want to take this public forum to thank Sunil Gulati, who created a league that's sustained and obviously the first two failed. They both lasted three years. And gosh, I was always catatonically depressed after another league failed. And so I have to have a shout out to Sunil to let him know how much I appreciated his leadership in structuring this league. Because now I think we're off to the races. I think we'll keep getting better. I think that's put the United States in a unique position. And so I certainly want to let Sunil know how much I appreciate and respect his leadership. But I also want to publicly share how much I appreciate what you're doing. Paul. I love having a coach of your caliber training our best players. I love watching us be a dynasty in the women's game for all the reasons that you're proud of as well. And it's obviously people like you doing the hard work and preparing these kids to compete in the World Arena. And I want to thank you for being on this podcast with us. So, Paul, for all you do for the game, also all the players you train. Thank you.

Thanks, Ensign. And I would like to just say something that one of the highlights when I was a younger coach, I was at Disney. I don't know if you remember this, Anson, but I had a great team at Disney one time. Not a great first half. And all of a sudden Anson starts walking over and my players Goes, oh, my God, Anson Doran's walking over like this. And so I turned, I go, hey, Hanson. Like this. And they go, you know Anson Dorrance. And I'm like, it was a moment where these players were like, wow. You know what I'm saying? And like that second half, you didn't need GPS on them. They ran like a win. They thought Anton Dorrance was watching them. And I'll never forget it. It was just one of those moments in your life that you never forget. But you've taught me a lot. Answer. And I would say, yeah, hard to be relentless, but it's harder to beat relentless. And I think both our clubs are relentless. And let's continue it and let's get soccer where keep pushing on. This women's game is really getting good and I love being part of it. I love the courage, I love the team that I have, and I love being in the area we are and I hope to see. I saw quite a few UNC games this year and I look forward to keeping this going, getting your players to our practices. They really help us, too. So God bless everybody and stay safe and healthy. Yeah.

Hear, hear. Stay safe and healthy. It's indeed been an honor being with the two great ones. Anson Dorrance, the greatest college coach, any sport of all time. Paul Riley, the greatest women's professional soccer coach in the world. And if you like this show, one way you can support our work is to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review as well. This show was edited and produced by Cruise Creative Allies. If you're looking for information on full service podcast production, head on over to creative allies.com I'm Dean Linke and we'll see you next time on the vision of a champion podcast.

Hey, everyone.

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