full interview with Carlos

The American State of California may have received unprecedented attention from English football fans over the past six months due to the exploits of a certain high profile sportsman-come-celebrity, but Fulham fans have been enjoying a connection of their own to the Sunshine State for a few years now. In January, Carlos Bocanegra will celebrate the fourth anniversary of his joining Fulham. A regular for the Whites practically ever since, he and team-mates Brian McBride, Kasey Keller and Clint Dempsey have arguably done more than anybody else to prove that, contrary to what many believed, Americans can excel in the English Premier League. But with the spotlight of late focusing on his country of origin, Boca spoke to FulTime about the rise and rise of the beautiful game in his homeland.

Carlos Bocanegra was born and raised in Upland California, less than 50 miles from the Home Depot Centre in Carson that has been the focus of much of the world?s football media this year. ?It?s a suburb outside of Los Angeles and much like anywhere else,? he says of his hometown. ?There are houses, supermarkets, malls and the weather?s better, a lot better, a million times better!?

Yet despite a climate more suited to beach pursuits, and more significantly, America?s well known passion for its four primary sports, Carlos remembers getting into ?soccer? from an early age. ?I was about 5, with a team called Peewee Soccer, which was part of a youth soccer organisation in America,? he recalls. ?All the kids in my hometown played. We had local leagues and stuff like that. My older brother played and he liked it, so I assume that?s why my parents put me in it.?

Although, unlike in England, where children easily become obsessed with their football idols due to saturated media coverage, in 1980s California, Carlos and his buddies had no such influence; not that it quelled his interest.

?I didn?t really watch it on TV until I was a teenager, but it didn?t matter. If you like a sport as a kid, that?s all you care about. I was having a good time and that was the main concern.?

A natural sportsman though, soccer was far from his only sporting distraction.

?I played baseball, American football, basketball and track. You do pretty much everything when you?re young, and then you kind of pick one or two to specialise in when you get a bit older.?

As we now know, Boca?s choice would eventually be football of the English variety, but it wasn?t a decision he arrived at before his late teens.

?It wasn?t until I was about 17 that I chose soccer outright because I was playing American Football and baseball up to then. I dropped baseball, but was still playing American football and soccer until I was 18 when I went to college for soccer,? he explains.
Like many young, talented athletes in the States, Carlos was fortunate enough to be awarded a scholarship to university; an environment where, not only would he receive a high standard of education, but he would also be able to hone his sporting prowess. Opportunities such as this are limited to only those with exceptional ability, but it is a well-trodden path for some of the biggest names in American sporting history.

?When you?re a sophomore in High School, which is when you?re 15, the colleges can start writing you letters and expressing an interest in you attending their school,? he describes. ?They keep an eye on you and if they really like you by the time you?re a senior, they bring you out on what?s called a recruiting visit. The school pay all your expenses and you go to the college and stay on campus. They take you around, you go to a game usually to get a taste of the atmosphere, and all the students are there; they want to show you that there are girls at the school as well! That?s kind of how it goes. You go out for dinner with the coach and the players a few times and they basically just try and wine and dine you into going to their school.?

Carlos majored in history at one of the world?s most highly regarded academic institutions, UCLA, giving him a level of education that may be considered rare for a football player in this country, but contrary to the English football stereotype, until recent changes to the system in the US, it was the norm for young athletes to value an education as highly as their sporting career. A compulsory aspect of the development of Fulham?s young Academy scholars is their education to GNVQ or A-level standard utilising the dedicated learning facilities at Motspur Park, but such initiatives are not obligatory across the board in England and instead, a culture remains whereby young wannabe superstars will sacrifice schooling in pursuit of their dream. But despite the arguable strengths of his country?s system, Carlos isn?t necessarily critical of the English mentality.

?I think it works both ways,? he considers. ?You wouldn?t get a player like Wayne Rooney if he?d had to go to college and worry about academic studies. People forget he?s still so young because he?s been around for a few years now, but I don?t think he would have developed as fast if he?d had to focus on other matters. But for us in America they show us that education is the number one thing. You have to keep a certain grade point average in order to get into the team at college and that?s just how it is. I didn?t really realise any different until I came over here.?

Once the student/athletes graduate they are free to pursue their sporting dream, and the usual route is via the ?draft?. Another concept perhaps alien to supporters in this country, the draft system aims to distribute as evenly and fairly as possible the new batch of emerging talent each year across every team in the league. Clubs are assigned a pick number based on their league position the previous season (the lower their league placing, the earlier they pick) and teams take it in turns to select the players they are most impressed by. The idea is that the struggling teams get the first opportunity to select the best players, thus improving their squad for the following season and maintaining equilibrium across what is, as a result, a very competitive division.

?It?s the same in the NBA and NFL,? compares Carlos. ?All people coming out of college put themselves into the draft and the coaches and the general managers from the teams in the league come down to a combine in Florida. The top 50 or so kids coming out of college are invited to play in some games and show off what they can do in terms of strength, speed and all that stuff. Then there?s a draft at the end of the weekend when the teams take it in turns to pick the players they liked the most.?

In principle, it?s a fair and well organised system, though not always ideal for the players who may find themselves drafted by a team up to 3,000 miles across country. But Carlos was happy with how things turned out, despite having to swap the West Coast of Cali for the East Coast with Chicago Fire.

?Chicago was a really cool city,? he reflects. ?I got lucky. I came into a good team; we had a lot of good veterans. It?s hard to keep a team together for very long because of the salary cap, because when the younger guys start doing well they want to get paid more, which is natural, but I had four good years there before I thought it was time to move on.?

The salary cap Carlos he mentions is another example of a measure employed in the MLS to prevent the kind of financial divide that is becoming ever more prevalent in this country between the ?big four? and the rest of the League, and is designed to limit the amount of money each club is allowed to spend on their squad?s total wages.

?I think the main reason we are structured like we are in the States is because we have to get the league off the ground,? ponders Boca on the subject of the main differences between the MLS and the FAPL. ?If we just pay ridiculous salaries we?re never going to be able to make money and stay afloat and the league will go under. The fact that you can be traded even if you don?t want to kinda sucks though, so I like it how it is here. The players have a lot more say on what?s going on which is how it should be; both parties should be a part of making decisions. There are pros and cons to both systems, but you just kinda get used to it wherever you are.?

There can be no questioning the fact that the MLS has received greater media attention this year than ever before. Formed in 1993 as part of the agreement with FIFA that saw America host the 1994 World Cup, the league kicked off in 1996. But as USA ?94 faded from memory, the US public?s interest in the sport dwindled, and a poor showing by the national team at France ?98 led to widespread criticism of the standard of the league. However, a fresh focus on developing American talent saw a new generation of young players break into the national side to impressive effect at the 2002 World Cup. The nation?s interest was reignited by the success, and the MLS began to take off again. Ever since, the two have appeared to improve in tandem, with the national side peaking at 4th in the FIFA rankings in April 2006, and playing to a progressively higher level in fixtures against countries of an increasingly better standard.

?I think the league in the States helped a lot,? says Boca of the improving fortunes of his national side. ?Kids are also able to leave college early if they want to, or take the option of going straight professional without going to college, which has played a big role in developing talent faster at a younger age.

?The 2002 World Cup in Korea and Japan generated a lot of interest and popularity because the US team did well, and the US Soccer federation also made a big deal about improving our team in terms of everything on and off the field ? making it more professional and really taking it seriously. Now we have the right people in the right positions, some good youth coaches, backroom staff, fitness teams, trainers and everything, so hopefully we can keep pushing on and improving. We do have a massive country to pick from too, so that helps.?

But for all the increased interest and progress, Carlos confirms that the sport still falls some way short of the traditional US pursuits in terms of attracting interest.

?Soccer still tends to get the fourth best athletes,? he says. ?The others tend to pick the other sports first. When we start seeing athletes like Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant, with their size and speed, taking up soccer then people like me probably won?t be in the team anymore! But it?ll be pretty awesome for our country.?
Carlos himself has been involved in the US National soccer team since youth level, playing through the ranks alongside the likes of Everton?s Tim Howard, and earning 49 senior caps to date. However, his proudest moment came this summer when he captained his country to glory in the CONCACAF Gold Cup.

?Anytime you put on the US jersey it?s a great feeling of pride because you go out there knowing you?re representing the whole country,? says Boca. ?We?re not the most liked country in the world when we travel around so there?s a sense of camaraderie. Everyone in the nation gets behind us and being able to captain the side makes it that little bit more special.?

Further personal achievement almost followed recently when he was shortlisted for the prestigious Honda Player of the Year award, for the third time. Awarded to the most highly-rated American soccer player playing anywhere in the world, it is the most treasured individual accolade in American soccer, but after making the final three, Carlos narrowly missed out on this occasion to LA Galaxy?s now four-time winner, Landon Donovan, and Tim Howard.

?Obviously you want to win awards, but it was nice to be shortlisted,? he reflects. ?But Landon and Tim are really good players as well and they?re really important for our country, so just being involved with them was cool.?

Previous winners of the award however include Fulham?s Kasey Keller (twice) and Clint Dempsey, whilst, unsurprisingly, Brian McBride has also made the final three on more than one occasion. So along with Boca, it would be a fair assessment to say that the Whites have four of the biggest stars to emerge from America in recent times. Spanning an age gap of 13 years, and representing four separate US States, the Fulham four have a broad appeal back in their home country, so despite all of Mr Beckham?s efforts to get American soccer fans watching their domestic league, there?s still likely to be a significant amount distracted by events in London, SW6.