Bob Gansler wants his money
2009-06-29 12:03:00
So the USMNT experience in the Confederations Cup reminded me of an old story Bob Gansler told me one time. This was all way way back, you know, it was around 1989 when he was coaching the men's national team and he'd come by UCLA to take a look at Chris Henderson. So I'm coaching, we're going through practice, I'm doing a drill, and he stops me. He says, Sigi, what was that? And I said, look it's this drill I do for the wing players, we run through it all the time.Gansler looks at me, and he says, I've only seen that drill run once before, in just one other place.
Where? I say.
Hungary, he says.
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
So Bob goes into the story. "It was the late seventies, just before I did the U-19s here. I had a lot of issues in those days, you know, I had only recently gotten into the American coaching system. And it was getting to the peak of the NASL, but you know and I know how bleak those days were talent wise here for the Americans. So I went back to Hungary, I went back to where I was born to see if I could sort myself out.
"The town I came from was this tiny little town, and of course it's still there. It's been there for hundreds of years, these people talk about how they lived through the Turks, they'll never give the land to the Serbians, Romanians, anyone else. They die for this land. And you know it was all communist, so you had to watch yourself but these people would talk like that among family.
"It was one evening, I'm on the edge of town, and I see there's a game going on. So I go up, and it's just a youth side practicing, with kids from around the countryside. But I stay and watch, and they're really good, better than anything I'd seen at that age since I'd gotten to Hungary. And they're doing this drill here that you're doing. Even then I thought it was kind of interesting. So after it's over, I go up to the coach, and he's old and grizzled, looks like he's really been through it. And we get to talking, and after a while I asked him where he got that drill from.
"Yeah, the coach says, you won't see that anywhere in the Dunatul. It's eastern, from the plain. You know Egri Erbstein, he coached the Grande Torino? We were in Nagyvarad, both came to Budapest when things turned nasty in the first war. I learned it from him. I run it every now and then. He said he got it from a gypsy, that there was a wagon train he was trying to steal from as a boy and saw them do it - they must have gotten it from a wandering Englishman or something. "
That's the first and only time I've ever seen it, Gansler says. So tell me Sigi, where'd you get it from?
All I could do was shrug. Don't know, Bob, I said. It just came to me one day. Seemed to make sense. Who knows? Maybe there was some old world influence, it's possible.
No, don't worry about it, Bob said. What I saw with that coach, those boys, I see that here, too. And that's what I'm going to be doing with the national team here in a few months. People won't understand it, but this is the beginning. It's got to be a fresh start. You're part of that, right now.
Thanks, I say. So what do you see happening with the national team?
Well, we'll develop some decent talent - I think we'll struggle in 1990, but we'll surprise people the next time around, even though I'll be long gone. After that, who knows? You'd like to think we could build on the success. We'll probably continue to get better. And then we'll turn over the team to someone like Bob Bradley at Princeton and he'll run it into the ground.
We laughed long and hard. We even made a little bet. And then I'd forgotten about it because why would I care? But today Bob Gansler has been leaving messages on my phone. And I'm sort of afraid to check, because now that I remember the story, I know why he's calling. Bob wants his money.
Even after beating Spain, you say? Yeah, Gansler's one sick puppy.
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