What’s it like to make it to the top? What’s it like to get to the big stage and have everything to play for with 30,000 fans in the stands and millions more watching on TV? It must be amazing and a dream come true, right?
“It’s more of the same, I think,” Sporting Kansas City defender Chance Myers, who started and won the 2013 MLS Cup final, told me.
Huh? Say what?
“The one thing that was on everyone’s mind was how cold it was.”
That’s it? You weren’t extra fired up?
“To keep yourself level headed and to not get too high or too low is a huge part of it.”
It wasn’t what I expected to hear. When I play in big games, having been in both promotion and relegation matches the last two years, I wake up early the day of the game and can’t fall back asleep. Right before the game starts, as we are putting on our jerseys, a rush of nerves hits me. My stomach gets heavy and my legs tense up. I usually spend the first three minutes running around as hard as I can just to get my feet under me again. Am I alone on this?
“The butterflies really set in when we were in the pregame talk. Like, man, this (stuff) is real,” former Houston Dynamo winger Danny Cruz, a finalist in 2011, said. “The nerves really start to kick in in the final few minutes, as you’re shaking the other team’s hand and the ref counts down 3-2-1.”
Carry on...
“Your physical ability gets enhanced, no doubt about it,” Cruz said. “You’re doing something you’ve never done before. You get tired a little bit less. You try to focus a little bit more.”
I knew I wasn’t crazy!
There’s a tendency to watch games -- and particularly big games -- and see the objects running around on our screen as machines, devoid of emotions and personality. We see them as athletes, not people. We forget that they have families, and friends, and, sometimes, even feelings.
This is MLS Cup. This is what they’ve been working for all season, their whole career, perhaps their whole life. This is the pinnacle. Every person -- super fit-angry-focused-warrior-testosterone filled-athlete or not -- can feel the pride and pressure of achievement.
I think some people are born for big moments. You can put some people in front of 100,000 people and it feels like dinner with the family. I didn’t want to talk to those guys. I sought out the regular dudes, the guys like you and me, who feel the same pressures and nerves and excitement and anxiety, to find out how the big occasion made them feel.
Myers, Cruz, George John, and Tommy Meyer -- each of them MLS Cup participants in the last five years -- are the guys you’d meet for coffee. How did this momentous, potentially life changing day impact them?
“No, dude, I was chill,” John said about his experience in the 2010 final with FC Dallas in Toronto. “We went to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. I don’t even remember.”
What? George, are you serious? You don’t remember the biggest game of your life?
“I’d say the only day I got nervous was the night before,” John said. “That whole playoffs you’re just focused on one game, win the game. You don’t look at the big picture. Then, that night I stepped back and looked at the big picture and thought, ‘Holy (stuff), we could make history.’ I looked at the big picture for a little bit and realized that’s not good for me.”
How could you not feel more nervous? You’d been preparing for 11 months for this one game.
“I think that’s because I had strong leadership,” John said. “I had my boy Ugo Ihemelu who’s been there before, I had Daniel Hernandez and Kevin Hartman, who were there before. So I just had to show up and play my game.”
It was a sentiment that all four players mentioned independently. If anything is different about the week, it’s the senior players’ job to take the responsibility. The extra interviews, the media responsibilities, the weight of the moment and legacies. It’s left to the guys that are used to it.
“We had a lot of veterans on our team, like Mike Magee and Landon [Donovan], who were pretty calm and had already been there.” Meyer, a defender for 2012 champion LA Galaxy, said. “You just see how those guys act and they just go about their business as they usually go about it.”
The organization -- the owner and the technical director and the coach -- needs to keep the experience as insignificant as possible.
It’s a bit sad, right? You give everything you have to get here, and then once you’re there, you need to act like it’s nothing.
It was interesting talking to Meyer, who as a rookie was asked to start in an MLS Cup next to superstars like Landon, David Beckham, and Robbie Keane. Can you even imagine? Yet Meyer was pretty calm about it.
“You walk out for warmup and the stadium is already full; that never happens during the regular season,” Meyer said.
But what did you feel? That couldn’t have been a normal moment.
“The feeling in your stomach when you’re walking out, and you’re legs feel a little weaker than they normally do.”
I know what you mean, man. So what did you do about it?
“You just have to get that stuff out,” Meyer said. “The more touches you get on the ball. The more little runs you make. It all starts to get out when you start to do the things you would do in a game.”
I wanted to know what the week leading up to the game was like. I asked if they had any sleepless nights or trouble eating. They all said no. Everyone went about the same routine -- except potentially leaving a few days earlier than normal if they had to travel -- and lived the same life.
“We ate at the same place for breakfast that we always eat,” Myers said, “just a few more people (family members).”
So you ate at the same place you’d eat for a July game against DC United as you did on the day of MLS Cup?
“Same everything.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was let down or inspired.
I asked if the preparations for the game were different. More nervy, more reporters, more cameras? Tommy, George, and Chance said no, but Danny said yes.
“I could tell there was something special about the week.” Cruz told me. “A lot more reporters. It felt like a big deal.”
Here’s the biggest thing I realized in doing the interviews: there’s no set script on how a person deals with the moment.
Perhaps it’s obvious to you, but it wasn’t to me. I get locked into my own world and think about how I would handle the situation, and expect everyone to do the same. Cruz, one of the most passionate humans I’ve ever met, reported being more excited about the entire process. Myers, the surfer from southern California, was the most chill. John, always insightful and sometimes too smart for his own good, had the most distinctive stories.
I wanted to write a piece about how players deal with the emotions of the big occasion. Instead, I realized one of the beautiful elements of the weekend is that everyone responds to it differently. Every player sees it it his own way, experiences it in his own way, responds to it in his own way.
I asked the guys if they could compare it to anything in life, like the nerves of making dinner for your girlfriend and hoping she likes it, or sitting down to negotiate a contract.
John yelled at me, “Are you kidding me?” He actually raised his voice and said, “Are you joking? You’re joking right now. Making dinner for my parents and playing in MLS Cup final? The nerves are not the same.”
But Cruz said something I’ll never forget and, quite frankly, made me go for a run and do some pushups.
“I’ve never had the feeling that I had walking out to the field in MLS Cup ever again in my life,” Cruz said. “I’ve never been able to experience it again. I can’t compare it to something. It’s incomparable.”
Bobby Warshaw is a former Major League Soccer player who played collegiately at Stanford University. Bobby now plays for Hønefoss BK in the Norwegian First Division. He can be reached on Twitter.
