Note that Bos is now with Houston.

A Conversation with Bobby Boswell

I was fortunate to be able to spend some time talking to Bobby Boswell (central defender for DC United and – I believe – future U.S. national team starter) earlier in the week. First I should say thanks to the DC United communications team for getting me into see part of the teams training session as well as organizing the sit down chat with Bobby.

I went into the interview intending to focus on a couple of issues, the first being Bobby’s impression of the Beckham effect and the second his feeling as to the potential impact of Super Liga. However, over the course of the interview I shifted gears a bit and became increasingly interested in Bobby’s own future, near term, and the ramifications his philosophy have on the way the league should plan to grow in the coming years.

First, by way of background for those of you not familiar with Bobby, he is a terrific central defender who has come very far in a short time. From a player passed over by the league after college, Bobby entered the league as a discovery player and in 2006 became the MLS player of the year for his work as DC United’s starting central defender. He has also played a few games for the national team.

It’s also worth pointing out that Bobby raised a few eyebrows after DC United played Beckham and the Galaxy at RFK for his impassioned critique of the way ESPN covered the game.  The terrific Dan Steinberg covered Bobby’s comments on his blog "DC Sports bog" and the comments moved around the blogosphere pretty quickly! The money quote from Bobby’s interview with Dan:

"You would think they would show the highlights of the game, but the highlights were when Beckham warmed up, when he went in, a free kick...and then they just show him kind of after the game…And my whole point is, the goal was an exciting shot, there's a red card, there's a dirty foul: that's cool. There's a lot of chances. How do you just show him and they say, 'Oh, they lost 1-0.' What did anyone get out of that, you know what I mean?"

Early on in my interview with Bobby he made clear that the fan excitement around Beckham was good and he liked to see casual fans getting so excited by this game that he, Bobby, so clearly loves.

My impression is that Bobby is a player who thinks deeply about the game and is a guy who cares passionately both about the game in general and his role in it specifically.

He became pretty animated when we spoke about Super Liga and while he was quick to point out that it could not be compared with the Champions League due to clubs being drawn only from the U.S.-Mexico (and in theory Canada), its potential to compound the intense international rivalry between the U.S. and Mexican national teams. He talked about how his side, DC United, just needed to keep getting themselves into positions where they could play the top sides in Mexico and that the U.S.-Mexico club level rivalry would grow and grow in the coming years.

We spoke about his ambitions in the game and it was clear that he desperately wants to play for the U.S. national side in the 2010 World Cup. It was also clear that he sees the best pathway to that as one that runs through European club futbol. I asked where in Europe he thinks his game would thrive and his answer, which I agree with, is that he has the game to adapt to different leagues on the other side of the Atlantic.

For me, this aspect of the interview was particularly interesting because it suggests that from a playing staff standpoint, MLS should not be shy about bringing in quality players like Beckham, Angel and Blanco in addition to U.S. veterans such as Reyna and hopefully Keller and McBride while letting younger stars leave for Europe – not for the money but for the good of their education in the game.

We also chatted a bit about the way in which the U.S. national side should play and to that Bobby described Clint Dempsey as a player who displayed the mentality and approach that best suited the U.S. side. Bobby talked about the attitude that a player like Clint has and how that type of approach needs to be encouraged.

Finally I’d be remiss if I did not mention that Bobby had some interesting things to say about training. I had seen the second half of the training session and was really impressed by the amount of ball work, shooting work and touch play on show. I suggested that this could be because of the blend of European and Latin style play on show in MLS. Bobby corrected my assumption by observing that the session I had witnessed had far more ball work than the norm and that in his experience the training approach in U.S. soccer is far more dependant on the specific coach than any broad philosophical approach to the game.

Summing it all up I’ll say that the take away from this conversation as far as Beckham and the growth of U.S. soccer is concerned is that there are complexities at a player level that area that are an important dimension for the authorities to consider.