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Talking with Stef
61 Plays4 years ago
We sat down with Stef Frei for a discussion about his new project with Novo Fogo, his art work and, of course, goalkeeping. As usual, it was enlightening.
This week's music: Perry Como - "Seattle", "RVIVR - "Ocean Song", Woody Guthrie - "Roll On Columbia", "Your Journey Begins" - OurMusicBox (Jay Man) (CC BY 4.0)
Thanks to James Woollard, Sounders Public Address Announcer, for doing our sponsor reads. You can follow him on Twitter at @BritVoxUS - if you’re looking for a British Voice to advertise your business or non-profit, please reach out to him.
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Transcript
Full Pool Wines' Book Release
00:00:00
Speaker
This episode of No Sadietes is sponsored by Full Pool Wines, a Seattle-based wine seller who recently released their first book, 36 Bottles of Wine. The ethos of the book, a highly curated look at wine categories that provide exceptional value right now, should be familiar to full pool readers. But there's loads of fresh content, and since it's not trying to sell any wine through the book, there's a bit more of a sass factor.
00:00:21
Speaker
And there's food. Lots of it. Fulpel's unique writing style is applied to recipes like leftover Thanksgiving turkey, schmaltz-a-ball soup, and pregnancy nachos. This book can be purchased through Sasquatch Books.
Seattle Sounders Podcast Episode
00:00:32
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to... There's no study at this. What? Hey, Ocean! Let's go! Jordan Morris getting in behind Florian Youngford. Jordan Morris! Scores!
00:00:50
Speaker
And how's this for a save from Steph and Fry? Here comes Roy Deers from the middle to crowd it to Seattle. What do the Tigers dream of? They take a little Tigers in. It's the Sounders and an S-Com. I feel a lot better than Bob.
00:01:34
Speaker
I didn't know what it was. Is that what you young people call twerking? I have no idea. I don't know.
00:01:45
Speaker
Welcome back to another episode of the Sounder at Heart podcast. And no sardietes. I am Jeremiah O'Shan, joining me today, very special guest, Stephen Fry, that you know, the goalkeeper of the CL Sounders. How's it doing, Stephen? I'm doing good.
Stefan Fry & Novofogo Collaboration
00:02:01
Speaker
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, so one of the reasons that we actually, in full disclosure, the reason that we got this set up was through a product that you're involved with. And we may as well get this right out of the way, because we're going to be drinking it during the show. So Novofogo is a Brazilian cocktail. I'll let you explain what it is. But it's not Jessica. You actually designed this packaging. It's kind of interesting.
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah, it's been a really cool collaboration. So as you mentioned, Novofogo, it's actually a local company from Seattle, but they have distilleries down in Brazil, where they make cachaca, which is Brazilian rum. And their national drink is a caipirinha, which essentially is, you know, cachaca, lime, sugar and ice muddled together and it makes for a really refreshing cocktail. And I think it's kind of, you know,
00:02:54
Speaker
taken North America by storm I think people are getting introduced to it and and they're liking it, but my story and why I teamed up with them kind of goes back to when I first moved to Seattle we my wife my wife and I in 2014 we we lived in belltown and we went to to a bar and.
00:03:12
Speaker
And they had an event there, Novofogo, where we, you know, we ran into them and were able to meet the CEO, the president of the company, and chatting with them. And, you know, growing up in Switzerland, somehow Kachasa had made its way over to Europe, to Germany to
00:03:29
Speaker
Austria to Switzerland so I was familiar with it and I enjoyed it ever since I was old enough to be able to enjoy it so you know we kind of hit it off there and stayed in contact a little bit and then in the beginning or end of last year I should say we kind of really decided hey is there is there a way for us to collaborate and get together so
00:03:48
Speaker
learned more about the company. It's an amazing company, Carbon Negative, an all-female distillery team. So a very conscious company that tries to do it the right way has been trying to
00:04:04
Speaker
really helped the Brazilian Amazon and the rainforest in their Unendangered Project, Unendangered Species Project, which really tries to get the 36 species off the endangered list.
Fry's Artistic Journey
00:04:17
Speaker
And we kind of saw potential not just to create something together as me as an athlete and a caipirinha lover, but also as an artist, get into the packaging and also
00:04:29
Speaker
get something going with what we call the Treekeeper program to raise some more funds to be able to help the rainforest.
00:04:37
Speaker
Yeah, so I'll show, this is, what I thought was really interesting is it's not just like you're the spokesperson for this product. You actually designed the packaging and you got like little, you making the save here. And I guess if I looked closely enough, it does artwork by Seattle's 100's goalkeeper, Stefan Fry. So this is, I mean, this is like a, it's like showing multiple sides. It's not just, they're not just bringing you in for a pretty face.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's what I'm saying. It was a perfect collaboration, perfect opportunity for me to strike that partnership. And as you see behind me, my art style is very, I have an identity as an artist, but as we were talking about before we even started here, with the posters by the people, I've done numerous ones of those. There's ways for you to show that you have a bit of diversity and that you can
00:05:30
Speaker
create other things as well. And so for me right away when the opportunity arose to create packaging, you can't just really nearly go and paint some lines because you have to be able to read what is this product, you have to convey what are you selling to the consumer. So those were all super interesting things for me to try to tackle and learn a little bit. So we came up with these two things, the one you just saw right here, but yeah, from scratch,
00:05:57
Speaker
took pictures that they had taken down in Brazil where they grow the cans. So the background, you see the mountains, the mountain ranges, those are actually the mountain ranges from where they have the distiller. Then there's some Pacific Northwest things, these
00:06:14
Speaker
these little plants and the wild nature that you see. I took the pictures up here in Bainbridge Island and kind of emulated some of those things from there. So it's kind of a mixture of both worlds, very colorful. Brazil is very colorful samba, lots of energy, lots of vibrancy. So it gave me lots to work with when it came to that. And then we also, like you mentioned, we had to make a cool logo to come out with our tree keeper
00:06:42
Speaker
treekeeper program. So we have that. It's been a bit of a crazy time with obviously supply chains. So I designed this a few months ago where it was finished, but we're finally going to be able to launch this six pack here of canned cocktails and then the caipirinha kit, which is this big thing right here too, which I also designed.
00:07:03
Speaker
in January of next year, and it will be available in Washington, New York, and also Oklahoma. So it is a long process, but I learned a lot, and it's been super interesting. Yeah, so that was actually one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is how your art has evolved over the years. You know, you look back at that 2014 poachers by the people, I wish I had it here, but people may remember it. It was sort of a witch looking into a cauldron, and I think it was a preview of Sounds of the Earthquakes game.
00:07:33
Speaker
very, I mean, like, it couldn't almost not be more different than the art that you're doing now, which is very modern, like hard lines and angles. And this is, you know, it was much more of like a very free hand and and like, you know, like maybe I don't know, traditional is probably the wrong word, but like, you know, it was a very distinctly different style. And and and the reason we started talking about this is, like, you mentioned that that is much more evocative of what this
00:08:03
Speaker
Like this packaging looks like it is a similar, at least closer in style. But how much of those two styles do you continue to do in your own time? I mean, obviously you have a very distinct style as a like a budding artist.
00:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, and that is my style and that is my identity. So the things you see behind me in this, that's me and my personality coming through. It's a lot of goalkeeping in that art too. The precision with the geometric shapes, that's the everyday work a goalkeeper puts in on the field. Not surrendering any control at any given point and trying to
00:08:40
Speaker
pay attention to the utmost detail. That's me coming through on that. But it's also really important to show that diversity, the capability to do something different.
00:08:55
Speaker
In the posters by the people, when we started that whole thing, it was important for me, I saw little kids, and if I would do something abstract, they would be like, what am I looking at? So for me, it was important there to do something that kids could point at and be like, oh, look at this, oh, look at that, oh my God, she's got a big wart on her nose. Just all these details that I spent hours putting in there. But it was also challenging, and I think that's important too.
00:09:20
Speaker
to not get too comfortable in your own style, but to keep exploring. And that's why I love art too, because as a goalkeeper, I don't get to explore much. It's like, these are the parameters, don't screw up, or else there's big consequences. In art, it's like, oh, let's see how this goes. Let's see what happens. And that's really refreshing for me to keep me saying as well, the goalkeeper.
00:09:45
Speaker
So it was, I assume you've been an artist for probably most of your life, but when did you start looking at art as something that not just something you were doing in your own time for your own reasons, but something that you wanted to put out into the public and be kind of known as an artist?
Art vs. Goalkeeping: Fry's Perspective
00:10:02
Speaker
I think it started getting more serious once I turned pro in 2009 with Toronto. My mom and my brother got me a pen tablet as kind of like a gift for going pro. And at that point, I started really using it to deal with the pressures of being a goalkeeper. But quickly, obviously, you know,
00:10:25
Speaker
management teams, they love the fact that you have other things about you as a player that they can maybe share with their fans. So I started doing a lot of things for charity events, whether it was designing something that went on a guitar, whether it was designing a huge poster that was then gonna get put on a banner, things like that. So it was a lot of, I wasn't really selling things, I was just,
00:10:52
Speaker
creating revenues for good causes. So that was a really good thing. But I decided a few years ago that I was super fortunate to be able to turn a passion, a profession with football, soccer. And so why not do this again when ultimately that time comes to make the transition. I love art. I'm proud of the way I've evolved and what I've been able to create and I see a good future in it.
00:11:20
Speaker
I wanted to learn away from the digital space, how to do things in the old school way, on canvases, on walls, on stuff like that, because ultimately, for me, the love for art grew with graffiti. That's where it started. So that is always going to be some nods of graffiti in my art pieces, because that's how it started.
00:11:44
Speaker
But who knows where it will end up, right? Right now, still trying to build this second thing a little up, but give soccer the utmost respect and try to do it as long as I can. Was there a point where you started to think of yourself as an artist? Like you weren't just someone that was doodling in their notebook, but actually putting it out for public consumption?
00:12:05
Speaker
I mean, I hired a branding company and they had to correct me multiple times whenever I would say I'm an aspiring artist. They're like, stop saying that. You are an artist, you know? And I wrestled with that idea quite a while in terms of
00:12:24
Speaker
You know, most fans that see my art are maybe my soccer fans. And so they're most likely not going to be the most harsh critique on the planet. And so the question is like, well, do they like it because they like it or am I doing something completely?
00:12:39
Speaker
terrible and people are just lying to you, right? But I kind of decided that it didn't matter. It was an expression of myself and how I felt and who I was. And that's, I want to keep doing that. I love expressing myself in that way. I can spend hours in the studio in here and be so happy seeing something come together, you know, constructing something, building something. Again, as a goalkeeper,
00:13:05
Speaker
It's really strange because I don't really get to build. I am the last destroyer, if you will. Maybe that will be the second chapter of my life is I'll build instead of destroy.
00:13:19
Speaker
So do you look back on some of your earlier pieces and like when you look at that, like going back to the 2014 posters by the people that you did, you look at that and go like, I don't know, I like that. I like where I was going with it. I like my mindset there. Or do you find yourself critiquing your old art?
00:13:38
Speaker
I think you critique, always critique the art. And I can't remember who it was. It was a famous artist, might have been Van Gogh or something. An artist is someone who is trying to find perfection, but knows they'll never achieve it. And that again is, for me, that's a goalkeeper.
00:13:58
Speaker
100% the same thing. To the public eye, I can have a perfect game as a goalkeeper, make brilliant saves, but the one thing that I'll remember is in the 56 minute, I try to hit that ball 30 yards to this guy and I just miss him by five yards and it's bugging me.
00:14:15
Speaker
Because you're striving for that perfection. And you know, you'll never be perfect. It's impossible. You'll always have something that you could have done better. And so maybe the fact that I've lived my life that way and because of goalkeeping for so long, I feel really comfortable in the space of being an artist. Do you feel like you have improved? Are you satisfied with your journey as an artist? Do you feel like you're moving in the direction that you want to be moving? Yeah, I really like it. I wish I had more time.
00:14:45
Speaker
to grow quicker and more deliberately. But again, I have to remind myself that being a professional athlete requires a lot of attention and fairly so. So I want to make sure that I give it that attention.
00:15:03
Speaker
That's the thing, I don't think there's any missteps in art, right? Like, you know, even that posters by the people that's completely different, maybe there's certain elements I learned in designing it or completing it that I can use or help me view something in a different light, you know, like the latest piece I'm working on, which is that bottom one there, purple-ish and orangy.
00:15:28
Speaker
It's starting to introduce some collage techniques, some actual organic painting with markers, which for me back then was like a big no, no, no. I could not ever try to paint a human or a horse or something like that. But it's kind of like starting to get in there because I want to create juxtapositions as well, like organic and inorganic shapes.
00:15:52
Speaker
those different worlds of control versus uncontrolled as well. So it's fun. It's awesome. I love it. And who knows where I'll be in maybe in five years or 10 years, Martin will look completely different, but it's a process, a journey.
00:16:06
Speaker
And similarly, do you look back on your goalkeeping of previous years and find yourself critiquing it and thinking like, oh man, I look back at some of the stuff I wrote when I was younger and I cringe.
00:16:23
Speaker
And, but I mean, and I'm not suggesting that you should go back and look at your old goalkeeping and cringe, but I mean, do you, do you find yourself, like, do you think you've, you've evolved for the better as a goalkeeper? I know that that's sort of counterintuitive maybe to. Oh, I started the evolved.
00:16:42
Speaker
Oh, there you go. I think he just clicked for a second. Yeah, no, I certainly evolved as a goalkeeper. And I think you have to, right? There are certain things that come with age, like experience, which is great. And that's something that you can't be like sitting here now saying, I wish, you know, I had done this differently 10, 15 years ago, because you didn't have that experience, right?
Adapting to Evolving Game
00:17:04
Speaker
But
00:17:05
Speaker
And on the same side, that's why I have a huge admiration for someone like Nick Romano, because I know how he was able to change with the game. The game keeps evolving.
00:17:18
Speaker
Maybe I was in the same boat. We were told when we were young, when in doubt, kick it out, literally boot it out of the stadium. And now all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's a lost possession. What are we doing? So you have to adapt in the most uncomfortable way there is, you know, like when the alarm bells are ringing.
00:17:37
Speaker
you're supposed to stay calm now all of a sudden and do the complete opposite of what you were doing before and that's pretty scary but you have to be able to do it because the game keeps evolving and so there's things where I think have improved throughout the years there's things where I definitely still need to improve a lot and still want to improve
00:18:02
Speaker
But I'm happy. I'm happy with the fact that I've been able to do it for so long. I think that's a testament to it, right? There's certainly a lot of video that I do not want to look at. You have to also have selective memory and, you know, look, know which things to look at in the past and know which ones to definitely avoid.
00:18:22
Speaker
Well, you know, that's one of the things that Tommy Dutra I know has said at times is that you have to have a short memory sometimes as a goalkeeper that you can't get too focused on your failures because it's like you learn from them, but you kind of have to let go of them. And I think is maybe a phrase that he's said, but I am, what is it? We've heard so many times that Tommy Dutra is a great goalkeeping coach. What is he doing differently or what does he understand that makes him such a good goalkeeping coach?
00:18:53
Speaker
Number one would be his passion for goalkeeping. The guy lives and breathes goalkeeping. There's no substitute for that. Yes, I should be self-motivated and I love goalkeeping. I'm motivated every day. I love goalkeeping more than soccer itself.
00:19:15
Speaker
When you come to training and you have someone who's leading the sessions and he is as motivated as he is, and into it, I mean, if you were to ask him questions, you know, nonstop, we'd be at the training facility until 8pm, you know, you would not stop.
00:19:31
Speaker
So it's really easy to follow that lead when you have someone as passionate as him. I think the dialogue is there. We're able to focus in on things and then get feedback. And then he changes it as well. We look at video. We do a lot of work, a lot of extra work. We look at video. We see that, oh, this thing is creeping in. Let's pay a little more attention in the next two, three weeks on this thing to make sure we nip it in the butt. Do you see this is the thing with goalkeeping?
00:19:59
Speaker
We have sometimes young goalkeepers that come in and I see it that we're talking about hand positioning, for example, and it's viewed almost as in like, oh, once you find a hand positioning, it's a check mark. And then for the rest of your career, you're done. Your hand positioning is perfect. That's not how it works. It's ever evolving. You might change, the game might change, the ball changes.
00:20:20
Speaker
the whole situation changes. You have to constantly try to get better in every aspect. This is why you see the best of the best in the world still have terrible days at the office. Otherwise, Neuer knows how to have his hand positioning. Neuer knows how to push off his proper leg. He's got it all, but there's still moments where he cannot do it perfectly. It's
00:20:43
Speaker
It's the beauty of the game. The margins are so, so tiny. And we try to literally pay attention to every inch that we do, every step, everything. And there's a lot of pressure comes with that. But it's fun. I love diving into that world and get into it so deep that you forget everything around it. And again, to bring it back to art. Art is the exact same way. I can be here on a stable painting and
00:21:10
Speaker
Five hours later, I'm like, whoa, what just happened? You know, I know I can't believe I just spent five hours on this, but that's how it goes. I mean, going back to these things, you know, like I was kind of in Brazil in the rainforest for a while, you know, like trying to, you know, hear the cans of different flavors are standing on the actual greenery, you know. On this side, they're hanging like their fruits themselves, you know, we have
00:21:36
Speaker
really cool little details like here in Brazil, for example, the A is a girl kicking the ball instead of an A. There's just so much stuff to get lost in. There's the Seattle skyline right here, just little nods that, you know, lots of details. And that's maybe a little bit different than what I do with my art because
00:21:56
Speaker
Again, this is kind of like something people can look at and can really just go and discover and dive into themselves. While sometimes maybe with my abstract art, it's a bit more difficult to see the point or the thought that was behind that work.
00:22:11
Speaker
And so if you were to get into goalkeeping as a coach, what features would you, or what characteristics would you be looking for in goalkeepers? Or what do you think you would be like importing? I know what you mean. And obviously it depends on what level we're talking about. I would love to work with kids at an Academy level because I did a lot of coaching stuff when I was in college, you know, with camps.
00:22:40
Speaker
And granted, there is still a lot of kids that get sent to these camps in terms of almost a babysitting, like take care of my kid for a little bit, but you can suss out the ones that truly enjoy the position very quickly.
00:22:53
Speaker
And then the thing that I love to see is when you see the wheels turning, right? If I say something and it's not just like, oh yeah, okay, or whatever, but when you see, okay, what are we talking about here? And then the first step to getting better is you feeling the things that we're talking about. So if we're talking about a simple thing of you're not getting the proper push on the proper leg,
00:23:18
Speaker
And, you know, next thing you see that kid make a save and then they make the save, but as they're down on the ground, they're like, ah, then they're realizing, they're starting to realize what is actually going on. This is why we use a lot of tape. We tape almost every keeper session and watch it because instead of me saying it five million times, if you see it two, three times on yourself,
00:23:40
Speaker
it just changes quickly. But that's the first step is having an open mind to realize that there's things to improve and then having that kind of intelligence to be able to realize these things as they're happening, feeling them. That would be the thing I would look out for first. Do you ever allow yourself to look at a goal that got scored and say, there's nothing I could have done there?
00:24:10
Speaker
Very rarely. I couldn't really tell you one right now. It goes so far back. You're talking about the technical aspect at the end of it, the dive and the catch and whatnot. Then you're talking about the footwork before.
00:24:25
Speaker
Then you can go even further and say, what about the organizational part beforehand? We take responsibility in that as well. Very rarely will you say, I organized 100% perfectly because clearly you didn't because something broke down. Then you just go down the whole thing. Like I said, there's no such thing as a perfect game and there's no such thing as a perfect goal scored on you.
Balancing Self-Critique and Improvement
00:24:51
Speaker
But then I always wonder about that because it's like I would think on some level, it's a balancing act, right? Like you need to give yourself a break sometimes. Like you can't beat yourself up over everything, but yet you need to hold yourself accountable at the same time.
00:25:05
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And that comes with experience. Let's say you have a Saturday or a Saturday game, you have an absolute howler on the Saturday game, the first one. You want to look at that thing. You want to look at the video. You want to see what you did wrong. But then by Monday, you want to really just be done with that. Maybe work on some things in training that emulate that to give you the confidence that, hey, I've gotten better on that particular thing during the week.
00:25:35
Speaker
And then you start preparing for the opponent already, right? Because you have to then do your research on and you're scouting on who you're facing, what their strengths are, what their weaknesses are. And then your butterflies arrive for that new game. But if you've done all that properly, you should hopefully be able to deal with those butterflies then. If you really still have that last Saturday, huge blunder circling around you, come kick off of next game, you're probably not going to be able to have a good game.
00:26:04
Speaker
Is there a goalkeeper that you watch that you feel like you learn from when you watch them? My favorite two goalkeepers growing up were Oliver Khan and Peter Schmeichel.
00:26:16
Speaker
And I, I rewinded that VHS, the VHS tapes of them training or highlight videos of them until the thing was just done. And at that point I was probably seven, eight, nine years old. And I didn't even understand the intricacies of being a goalkeeper, right? That nitty gritty detail I was talking about. So, um, but what fascinated me was the hunger, the drive, the, the relentless, um,
00:26:44
Speaker
The willingness to sacrifice yourself from the greater good in a way, right? Like throwing yourself into a shop where other people would cower away from it. That was just awe, that was inspiring. And you could see when you watch old Bayern Munich games, you can see that rub off on the teammates. They're like, holy crap, this guy is insane, literally insane. But it would make them find another level. And I wanted to be that.
00:27:12
Speaker
That inspired me. Video games, I'm the same way. If you can pick your class in a first-person shooter, I'm the support. I'm the medic. I dish out and make sure everybody else is good. You've got to kind of be a supporter in a supporting role as a goalkeeper, someone who wants to bail out their teammates. You're the last one that can do it. If nobody else makes an error, you don't have anything to do. But you've got to love the fact that someone makes an error and you can come to go and help them.
00:27:39
Speaker
So I know you said that art kind of bleeds into the goalkeeping aspect of it.
Fry's Relaxation Techniques
00:27:45
Speaker
I know you're an avid, I guess gamer is maybe the right term, but does that bleed into goalkeeping or is that completely like that? No, that's my not goalkeeping stuff in my life.
00:27:57
Speaker
I would say maybe that's the only way it bleeds or goalkeeping bleeds into video games for me is that I try to stay back, be a bit more calculated, a bit more strategic, and then make my moves. And again, more of a supporting cast role than like, you know, the striker that goes crazy and has to have the highest kill death ratio. I don't really care about that kind of stuff. But other than that, video game provides yet another outlet to just kind of forget about sports.
00:28:26
Speaker
Forget about the pressures. I love role playing games at times because you can go to ancient Egypt in Assassin's Creed and you can walk through that, you know, and just dive into a different world. And if I had a howler on Saturday, if I play that on Sunday, I will not remember that howler. So that's good.
00:28:44
Speaker
So I'm guessing that another area that you're able to get some relief now is that you're living on Bay Bridge Island. We've talked about how you have to do that commute. You take that ferry ride across the sound, I guess every day almost. Are you able to use that time to like get away from soccer or are you using that time to sort of think about it? I think the ferry ride for me has really
00:29:14
Speaker
been very good to dissect or separate my worlds and it's almost like a threshold that I have to cross so in the morning, you know when I take the ferry and it's about 30 minutes.
00:29:27
Speaker
It's time to get ready in terms of your mental space, ready to go to work. And when I get to training, you know, the prep, the activation, the treatment, all the things that you do before training is like 100%. And then training is 100%. And then after training, when I get back on the ferry, it's almost like decompressed time for 30 minutes.
00:29:50
Speaker
and go back to your oasis. And it's helped me a lot. People keep asking like, don't you hate it taking a ferry every day? You know, my wife even says I couldn't do it every day like you do, but I love it.
00:30:01
Speaker
because it gives me that separation. And the fairies, again, either I take a nap if I'm exhausted from training for 20 minutes, 30 minutes after training, or maybe I get my emails done, or I do the social media for 20, 30 minutes. It's not a waste of time, so to speak, right? And so it's been great. I enjoy that way more than sitting in traffic for 30 minutes, that's for sure.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, I can, I actually have thought that doing a fairy commute would be a pretty pleasant like all like you look at the kind of commutes you can do that seems like would be pretty pleasant. There's a certain there's a certain island lifestyle that you have to get used to in terms of there's a schedule and so you know you can't just be like all right let's go and do something you kind of have to figure things out beforehand.
00:30:51
Speaker
I'm somewhat organized as a Swiss person. So I'd like to think and it hasn't been a problem for me. And do you find that you're able to sort of like, because you're able to do social media or do your email or do those kinds of things on the ferry, are you able to kind of put those things away and not get wrapped up in that stuff when you're at home? Try to, yeah, exactly. I think, you know, that's the one thing that I've been trying to,
00:31:19
Speaker
A point I've been trying to get across and I probably haven't done that good of a job with it since I've come out as an artist. You know, when I created my logo, it's the 24 and I've had this obsession with my number.
00:31:32
Speaker
since I was probably six years old. And it started just as a simple obsession and now it's like, you know, I have to do it in gym. It's a full-blown obsession. There has to be two sets of 12 or three sets of eight and all that stuff. But when I came out as an artist and I decided this was my logo, besides it being my number, I wanted to make a point that in the day there's 24 hours.
00:31:55
Speaker
24 hours for you to go and do something. Free to be productive or at least free to be conscious of what you're doing. Kind of Carpe Diem in a way. So yes, when you're in a ferry and you spend 30 minutes on silly Reddit or whatever, mark that as in like, hey, it wasn't a waste of 30 minutes, but I spent that 30 minutes deliberately on there. It helped me get my fix in terms of that, but I've done it, you know. And so yeah.
00:32:25
Speaker
That is still a struggle. I think every person struggles with that, making sure that they are paying attention to where they spend their time and how much and what they're actually doing. But as long as those silly moments are breaks that I acknowledge and I get lost in things that are a bit more productive like art, then I'm fine with it.
Life on Bainbridge Island
00:32:46
Speaker
Has moving to Bainbridge helped in that way? Like have you found that it's actually like you're it's a better like I know we can say that it's a better separation but is it a better separation? I think so yeah I mean it's calm here right and we're in a rental here right now and
00:33:00
Speaker
where we started the process of building our own house. And it's still peaceful here. It's peaceful. The family loves it. The dogs love it. You can go down to the beach, especially someone who doesn't work normal working hours. If the tide is low at 2 or 3 PM and we can go down to the water and there's literally nobody down there and the dogs can just go and run.
00:33:26
Speaker
It's really nice. It's really good for the soul, I think. And sometimes when I come back from training, my wife has to kind of kick me in the butt and be like, let's go. We're going to go walk the dogs down by the water. I'm like, oh, I'm exhausted. I don't want to do it. But when I'm actually down there, it really is really good. It recharges your batteries. It's good for your soul. That's the only way I can put it. And yeah, so far it's been great.
00:33:48
Speaker
So you've been with the Sounders since 2014. I guess it would have been almost exactly seven years that you got traded to the Sounders. Does the Seattle now feel like, I imagine it may have been a while, but does Seattle feel like home for you?
00:34:03
Speaker
Eight years. Eight years. And yes, no, I don't. It totally does. I mean, bad mouth. It's no. Yeah, I'm trying to I'm trying to get to 10 plus. That's why I'm aware of that. For me, again, like, you know, having grown up in Switzerland, like.
00:34:19
Speaker
players that were able to stay with us with a team for a long, long time was was special for me, like thinking of me Mitchell, for example, at Bayern Munich, you know, that's, that's a legendary thing to do, especially in today's day and age, we don't see that very often. So that's one of my goals. But 100%, this feels like home, you know, my wife is Canadian. And
00:34:41
Speaker
She she she's a flight attendant in the private sector and used to fly out of the Middle East and recently made the transition to get a green card to be able to put down roots herself here you know because we love it we love it here and we see the future here and so she found an amazing
00:34:59
Speaker
company and family to be part of as well here in the Pacific Northwest. And yeah, we love it. And we would love to stay here for quite a while. Was there a point where you started when you got here and you thought, no, I can put down real roots here? Yeah, I mean, honestly, one of the biggest things for me is loyalty.
00:35:26
Speaker
I'm an extremely loyal person. Honestly, I had all that intention even in Toronto. Because in Toronto, I owed a lot to the people that gave me a start to my career. I was really fond of the people there. The fans were really respectful and supportive.
00:35:47
Speaker
The people in Toronto were good. I know the city was an incredible city, so I enjoyed my time there, but that last year and a half was not ideal. And these jobs are cutthroat jobs. These are result-based businesses, and you can't waste money on people that are not playing on top of that. So our intent was to go to Europe, because I had the Swiss passport.
00:36:15
Speaker
We were at our honeymoon and that's when we got word through my agent that the sounders were interested and
00:36:22
Speaker
For me, that was a no-brainer right away because I was starving for success as a team, not personally, because personally, really, I was an immediate starter. I was defensive player of the year, almost every year in Toronto. Finally won some championships, some Canadian championships, but other than that, we never made the playoffs.
Choosing Seattle as Home
00:36:44
Speaker
And so for the Sounders to come knocking and be like, hey, we would love to
00:36:50
Speaker
for you to come over and work to try to get a starting spot. I was on board right away. And having spoken to Tommy at that point, to Sigi as well, with the German connection there, I was hooked right away and I wanted to come as soon as possible. So while you've been here, obviously you've been a citizen since what, 18? Is that right? Yeah, sounds about right, yeah. When did you decide that you wanted to become a U.S. citizen?
00:37:19
Speaker
Interesting. Good question. So when I first in 2009, when I took the job in Toronto and I was a year starter there, I got questions from the US national team to try to play for them. And at that point, I just didn't feel like that connection was there for me. So I said, no, I'm good. I'm going to hold off on it.
00:37:43
Speaker
The reason why I decided to become a citizen in the end was because I had realized that I'd spent half of my year in North America, half of my life, sorry, in North America at that point. And as much as I enjoyed my childhood in Switzerland, I think it was the best. I couldn't ask for anything better and I strongly identified as a Swiss person. I also had acknowledged that this had shaped me and my time in the Bay Area.
00:38:08
Speaker
a little bit of time in Toronto, but then also back here again, and I liked it. I wanted to also be able to speak my piece, speak in terms of what was going on in this country, and it's still going on in this country. And as a foreigner, I felt like a guest here for a long time, even though I was a green card holder.
00:38:28
Speaker
And so I felt like it wasn't my place to speak. And so it was a time for me to get to the table to say my, my words, and for me to be able to do that I wanted to actually become a citizen first and so that's why I did it. Do you think last year and everything that we went through both
00:38:46
Speaker
You know, socially, but also, you know, with the pandemic and everything else, did it make it easier to navigate that knowing that you were a citizen and that you could speak like as an American and not just as someone who was visiting and like you said, probably, I think.
00:39:03
Speaker
I think the fact that I'm also older probably helps. I'm at peace with being who I am. I stand behind what I say and what I do and what I believe in. I think especially when they're very basic things in my opinion of trying to be a good human being, accepting of everybody and giving everybody a fair shot.
00:39:28
Speaker
It's come easier and easier as I've gotten older, I think, to be a bit more firmer with that because when I grew up actually at Cal, when we did interviews and tried to prep for that next world with interviews, the point was always,
00:39:47
Speaker
If you don't want to say something, you can always say no comment. And I think at this point in time, maybe, again, this is because I'm older, but I think no comment says a lot as well. If there's a topic that is an important topic, can there really be such a thing as no comment? I mean, you've got to have an opinion about it, right? You can say that maybe this is not what you want to talk about because you have other people that you're representing or organizations and such.
00:40:14
Speaker
it's been interesting since I've gotten older. I think that I've drifted away from that no comment. I feel like that is the biggest comment of all of them. You're afraid to say what you actually want to say, right? Yeah, I don't think I've ever heard you say no comment. So I feel like we've talked plenty of times and I'm fairly certain I've never heard those words come out of your mouth. So you're doing well there.
00:40:38
Speaker
By the way, how was your drink? Are you still on the line? Yeah, I was still drinking the lime, and it's extremely refreshing. I'm impressed. I have not had a lot of canned cocktails in my day, and it's good. It's a good drink.
00:40:55
Speaker
I'm not going to lie, it's got a nice punch, but it's very easy drinking. Yeah. Well, that's the other thing with this one. Well, this lime one in particular that you're drinking right now, that is like the highest rated ready to go cocktail that you can buy out of the can. And you're absolutely right. I'm old school too. Can I mix my own cocktail? Can I make it?
00:41:19
Speaker
I feel like that's where the new culture, new drinking culture is coming. Ready to go cocktails, you know, out of the can. And a lot of them are not good. But this one, this is the highest rated one. 94, I think 96 points or something. And also it packs a bigger punch, like you just mentioned. I think it has like 8%. Yeah, 8.2% apparently. Yeah, our heart seltzer is around five. So, you know, you get what you want on this one. No, but it's a good drinking.
00:41:48
Speaker
But so one of the other things I was I was curious about, you know, the sounders now have you guys have always had a bunch of Spanish speaking players. Huh? Yeah, go. Okay. You have you have you now have a bunch of French speaking or a few French speaking players. You even have a couple Portuguese speaking players. Have you had a German speaking player since you've been there?
00:42:13
Speaker
Yeah, we had Andreas Ivanchitz. Oh, that's right. And then we also had Nelson Valdez who spent his time in Dortmund for a long, long time. So funny story. Let's go to a funny story. When those two guys arrived or were just about to arrive in Seattle,
00:42:33
Speaker
Ziggy asked me to go and make him feel comfortable. I speak German. Go take him to a nice dinner, put it on the team's tab. So it was like, okay, Metropolitan Grill. So Metropolitan Grill, we went and it was funny because we went and I didn't know at that point, it wasn't 100% set whether I was going to take the bill or whether the team was going to take the bill. But I was like, you know, it's fine. These are awesome players. I'm so excited they're joining our team.
00:43:01
Speaker
it'll happen until Nelson Valdez turns out that his father-in-law owned restaurants and he's a he's a fine wine connoisseur who now is sifting through this list of wine that's like four or five hundred dollars and i'm just like oh god i i cannot pick up this tab this cannot happen i didn't have to in the end
00:43:24
Speaker
So what did you, did you have the company credit card? What did they give you there? How did that work out? I ended up, I ended up paying it and then they reimbursed, but he did, he only showed what the good wines are. We actually were pretty PG that night. Um, and yeah, it was a good evening. I miss those guys. They were, they were fun that on a team. Yeah, that was, and I mean, obviously you have plenty of German influences within the team. I mean, I, does Brian actually speak German?
00:43:49
Speaker
And then he calls himself German. I've never heard him speak German. So I wouldn't know. I've never heard him. But Ziggy must, you must have spoken German with Ziggy. Yeah, Ziggy all the time. I mean, Ziggy, I spoke, I remember when the Sounders played in Toronto and I was still part of Toronto and this must have been 2012 or something like that. And after the game, he pulled me aside and we spoke in German for a little bit and you could be as loud as we wanted and nobody could really understand us.
00:44:19
Speaker
But even there, you kind of planted the seed that, hey, we think you're a good goalkeeper. We've been following your career and such. So, yeah, spoke spoke German with him all the time. And, you know, obviously, he loved his German food as well. So do I. There's an incredible German place in Guryen called Hanses Delicatessen.
00:44:39
Speaker
Hans's delicacies and Hans and his people, they even have, I think they imported the sausage making like meat grinders and stuff from Germany. They have incredible stuff if you ever need a German fix.
00:44:53
Speaker
Ziggy would send me there all the time. He would ask me, are you going to Hans's? And I'm like, no, I'm not going today. And then when I finally would go, he'd be like, oh, just give me a little sound of this and this, but great place. And miss that guy too. He was a good coach. Good guy. He was a great guy. Well,
00:45:10
Speaker
That's probably a good note to end this on, Steph. You've been great. Again, I really appreciate you doing this. This project you're doing this NovaFogo seems to be pretty exciting and it's, and it's great that it's not just, like I said, not just your pretty face but you're actually doing your pretty art on there so that's pretty cool. Pretty art and we're trying to raise some funds you know the whole Treekeeper program too it was like,
00:45:33
Speaker
It was a great catchy name with tree keeper and we're keeping the trees as a goalkeeper I'm keeping another trees, but I think the idea is to potentially make me sort of the captain of this and then see if we can make branches out you know go go maybe.
00:45:49
Speaker
some other goalkeepers maybe some other people that are not goalkeepers but right now with this tree keeper program a hundred bucks get donated for every save that on the sounders we make towards this Unendangered Species project and I think we're over eight thousand dollars at this point thanks to not so much me but mainly Stefan Cleveland and Spencer Ritchie and also Alex Roldan. Oh he got credit too good to see that Alex got credit for that he doesn't seem to be getting enough credit for his goalkeeping.
00:46:19
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's been great. And hopefully we can keep going with it and raise some more awareness and raise some more funds. Awesome. Well, I really appreciate you doing this. I'm signing off. This is Jeremiah for the Sandra Hart podcast and No Sadie at This. We'll catch you next time.
00:46:43
Speaker
Green Douglas, where were the waters cut through? Down to wild mountains and tangents you flew Canadian Northwest to the ocean so blue It's Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Roll On, Columbia Roll On Your power is turning our darkness to dawn Roll On, Columbia Roll On
00:47:20
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!