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There are so many things about playing football that seem to me uniquely American. Anybody can succeed, anybody can play, but you've got to work hard to do it.

Sure we have skilled players, but the biggest thing might just be that we are so well conditioned and how we can play for 90 minutes at a high tempo which is needed in soccer at an international level.

The way I grew up playing, and the way most Americans have grown up, is that you hit the ball up in the air and then it stops where it lands.

It's fun to be there with the guys, to practice with them, arrange the balls, do this, do that, but when you play you can get some of this nervousness out of your system.

The players have competed on the level the last 25 or 30 years are always going to be the players that compete at a high level. These guys practice hard, they work on their game, they still hit the ball extremely well.

You hear all the time about European players playing the game. These players that come over at 17, 18 and 19, they just don't all of a sudden become skilled. From the time they were little fellas, they learned the fundamentals of the game. Let them create.

When I started to play football, when I was around 15, 16, I remember the players that played on the national team and noticed that it was only typically Swedish guys.