The Rondo - USMNT Misconception

Today we're here with USMNT defender Austin Trustee

and he's gonna tell us a little bit about professional footballers' biggest misconceptions

The first misconception is, you can't go out and do things like go to the store

without being swarmed by fans. What period in your life, in your career

did you feel like, oh wow, fans are really starting to come up to me or start to recognize who I am in the city

I think when I got overseas to Birmingham, when I was in Sheffield, or even with Arsenal

and especially now, playing in Glasgow, it's a whole different beast. but it's never to the point where people are swarming you

You can't really enjoy yourself, but people definitely notice who you are, and sometimes maybe they don't say something

but you can kind of tell people are looking at you. What do you do when that happens

Because it's like if people are looking at you, do you just go mega awkward

Is it like, what's the vibe? No, I like it. I come from humble beginnings

so I have a story I've sung before with Raheem and all sorts throughout my career. I love it, and I appreciate it

I think about how I was when I was a little kid looking at Ray Gattis playing for the Philadelphia Union or whoever was playing

I would have been so shy and not know how to go about things. No, I appreciate it, but I'm just myself

I think a lot of times I try to have a conversation with them, and I don't want to ever come off in any kind of negative type of way

I want people to feel inspired or feel like I'm a normal dude who just happens to play a beautiful game

You're on social media a lot, bro, right? You'll see videos of people now wearing the meta glasses

and they'll go up to players. For example, like I saw a guy go up to, uh, who was it the other day

A guy went up to Lenny Uro and he asked him like while he was outside the car, like, what

do you do for a living? Like, what do you do when like someone is like pulling up on you and like instantaneously

is trying to do some social media with you? Like, do you feel weird about situations like that

Or would you like respond to the content? Nah, I'd respond to the content

I would just be, I would probably, I probably wouldn't say what I do. I would just, I would be funny or try to do something like weird and see what they say

That's vibes, bro. I love that, bro. What would you make up? What's your made up profession

A lot of people don't really care, but a couple of times I've had to say like, I said, oh, I'm in software

I do like online work and just kind of like leave it like that. Because when I say online work, they just kind of like don't really say much

I don't know what to do with that information. Like I'm a, yeah, I'm an entrepreneur

I like that, man. Second, football misconception. Players don't get starstruck by other players

Have you ever been starstruck by a teammate, coach or opponent? Not really I think the thought of it when I was younger yes but I been fortunate enough to play against some of my idols and people I really expect in the game But during the game my mindset is I want to absolutely lock these guys down

or I want to beat them. So I'm not really starstruck during the moment or maybe after

I'm like, oh, snap, I actually just locked this guy down. I think more after the fact playing these guys

So I'd say like playing Mo Salah, playing, you know, anybody. Tiago Silva, obviously my Arsenal boys playing with these guys

I can go out the list, you know. Tell me what it's like, and look, I've got a certain bias when it comes to this player, let's put it that way

What is it like playing against Mo Salah? I mean, those type of guys, people always ask, well, what's the difference between the levels

And the biggest difference is those guys, if they turn it on, they're going to turn it on

And they're not going to miss. They're so skilled. And when you get to a certain level, everyone's so skilled, so dialed in

You can't give any opportunities. So playing against a guy like him in his caliber, he's not going to miss if he gets the opportunity

While other guys play in the lower leagues, maybe they get a chance, maybe they sky, maybe they hit the side

or maybe they miss the pass up. A lot of times, majority of times, he's going to pull it off

Again, he's one of those guys you're not, like when I was playing against him, I'm not talking crap, I'm not saying anything

Those type of guys in the caliber, you don't give any type of reason for them to turn it on or want to play against you

You know, same with me. When people, when people actually start talking to me, I switch on even more

I'm already locked in, but don't, you don't give anybody a reason to, to, to do it

Be honest. Do you talk, like, do you talk crap? Do you talk normally? Like if it's just you

No, no. People try talking to me. I never, I just, I'm just locked in. I, uh, people, some people always try to talk crap

It's like, this is part of the game. I am usually one that just never talks back. I just, I just do my thing

We got this third misconception. Growing up, you were a fan of the clubs you've played for

Yeah, I mean, for the Philadelphia Union, I like the thought of playing overseas now

it was the dream that was in the Milky Way. Like it was so far away from happening in my like your reality

You didn't really consider it. So the closest thing to me and again, playing for the Philadelphia Union when I was when I first turned 17

it was like the biggest thing ever. It meant so, so much, especially from where I came from, from the story before with Raheem

But like also on a level of just like American soccer development, because a lot of these MLS clubs weren't invested in young academy talent

So it like a big deal when you make it like back in the day So back in the day Austin was the anybody the one so like you know kids are looking up to you know your kavin sullivans your guy your matthias albert looking up their clips on tiktok we didn have that back then you know i saying

there was no one to look up to zach pfeffer our first homegrown that was the most successful

retired at 23 to become a banker did he so it's like guys were retiring early from mls to get

regular jobs because it wasn't safe you weren't making as much money so when you saw guys like

Austin or Mark McKenzie and Brendan Aronson start to come through the pipeline and Philadelphia

Union realizes like, hey, we could make some money, you know, developing these kids, selling

them overseas to Europe is when you saw that big shift. But when we were there, there was no one to

look up to. So that was your thing, mate, when you made it, you're like, oh, shoot, like this is

there was no pathway. There was nothing for there's no person for me to really look up to to try to

like when Philadelphia offered, OK, you want to do you want to sign pro? Do you want to go to college? There's no one for me to ask how to go about things or how to get aged and how to learn everything

in a sense by myself so when i decided to when i decided to not go to unc on a full ride i remember

a lot of people around me pretty much being like how dumb are you to do that like why would you

turn down a full ride in the university of north carolina which granted unc is a great school but

me me deciding to to go after my dream and in gopro and really go for it and achieve what i

thought i could achieve it was a lot of people it was it really was the dumbest thing i could

could possibly do i'm glad i didn't listen to them so like you're a philly like fan presumably right

like when you make it and all of that do you try and inherit that fandom of clubs do you know what

i mean so you go to arsenal you go to sheffield you go wherever like birmingham celtic like do

you then become like a fan because you hear all those stories right like jamie carrigan's an

everton fan he plays for liverpool he's now a liverpool fan for example like you know what i

mean yeah yeah of course i mean i think if i i watch all the colorado games i still read the

close to all the guys in Colorado, the coaches and the guys who are still there on the team that

was there. Honestly, I've become a fan of all my teammates who I've really gotten close to. So like

Lyle Sabu Picard plays for Dallas. I'll watch his games when I can. It's not like four in the morning

here, but I've become a fan of the teams that when I play for, but also like my buddies

they want to support them. And that's what it's, that's what it's all about. Fourth biggest misconception. American players are more famous in America than in Europe

This is a big one because I feel like a lot of the American soccer players in the USMNT

They think they're a lot bigger than they are in America because how big they are in Europe. I think we're probably bigger in Europe

Yeah it just how it just how the culture is really I mean in states you have American football You have basketball you have baseball you have hockey Sometimes when the news I was watching the news last night like a clip of someone because I got a friend a family friend who does news

And they didn't include the union. They did all the other teams in Philadelphia except for the union

I'm like, what is this? What is this? This is a whole entire sports recap. And they left out the union

So, like, even just that thing, kind of, that obviously pisses me off. But that's just the culture and the state is still not widely adapted as it should be

And it's growing. and it is growing with Messi being there and the World Cup coming. And it will get there, I believe that

But it's here and overseas. That's why we all come over here to play overseas

because this is the culture. This is where it's at. This is where the big dogs are at

All right, last biggest misconception about footballers is that teammates hang out with each other

outside of football. That's probably the biggest misconception. Not biggest. If you're going out

then you usually go out with your teammates. Or if you're really close with a teammate

And maybe your missus will get together and you kind of link up. But a lot of times you don't really because you're with each other 99% of the time

So the moment you get to like for yourself or be with your family, there's no real like reason to, you know, you kind of enjoy your time because you're with them for 99%

Yeah, I think people would don't people don't understand is like, yo, just because these guys are like teammates and you're seeing to them geeking on social media together all the time, like that automatically assumes that they're going to be best buds

But like, bro, like at the end of the day, like football is a business. You switch clubs a lot

You know, you're going to different teams, players coming in and out. Sometimes you don't even really even know, get to know your teammates that well because

they're gone after a couple months. Like, have you ever had a situation where you had a friend on the team and they got

transferred out? Like, as soon as you felt like you were getting to know them. I mean, and it takes a while too

So like, sometimes it takes, you know, like different situations. Maybe the team, maybe you're starting to hang out in the hotel or you see each other at

breakfast and you have a conversation. you need certain any kind of relationship and friendship you need multiple occasions outside

of if you're training you train you do your thing everyone's so focused and you're some people have

different personalities when they train so you're not really like your true authentic self so a lot

of times you don't know and really get to see the other side of you so you kind of need multiple outside of soccer outside of football occasions to really get to know somebody so yeah something

happens all the time that's me when i play pickup i'm just like a complete menace don't talk to

anyone and you pack it yourself and then you balance it probably just think the one thing about you're like well this is not actually me