Latest / Bleacher Report / Ernie Johnson Joins USMNT Pregame Show & Reflects on His Soccer Roots

Transcript

Ernie Johnson Joins USMNT Pregame Show & Reflects on His Soccer Roots · Bleacher Report

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So happy to be adjoined by a man who knows
• 0:01
  Speaker 1: a little something about major sporting events in this town.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: The legend himself T and T his own Ernie Johnson.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Be careful with how you throw that term around. It's
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: great to see you, guys.
• 0:12
  Speaker 3: That's having the best dressed is done.
• 0:17
  Speaker 4: What did we even bother?
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: What do you what do you make of this scene
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: right here?
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: I tell you there was a time in my life
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: growing up in Atlanta, I never thought I would see
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: anything like this for this sport. We moved down here
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: in the mid sixties and the Atlanta you know, the
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Atlanta Braves from Milwaukee, And it wasn't long after we
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: moved down here that the Atlanta Chiefs came about. Dick
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Cecil was a guy, a sports executive in Atlanta who
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: decided he thought soccer would would work here, and so
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: the Atlanta Chiefs were born. I was at this game
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: when Pele, playing for Santos of Brazil, played an exhibition
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: against the Atlanta Chiefs.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: Why was it that, guess the first time I've been
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: to a soccer game, He's played in that game. Be's
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: played that game.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: And so I with those kind of roots, I mean
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: soccer took off and so many kids were introduced to
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: the game because of the Atlanta Chiefs.
• 1:23
  Speaker 4: Way back when said.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: I grew up, my firstborn son played soccer for a
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: sport that he played. So it's amazing to see and
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: the city has just embraced it.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: Well, you've hosted so many major events, but I think
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: there's some people that probably don't recall that back in
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: nineteen ninety you were the host on TNT of the
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: World Cup. On TNT, it was a World Cup that
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: was played in Italy, and you weren't just a host.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: There wasn't really legalized sports gambling back then, but you
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: were a prognosticator as well, picking winners right off the bat.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Take a look.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: We haven't talked much about it, but just in general terms,
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: who's gonna win this thing?
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: Do you think?
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: Well, you have to always generally look at what chemist
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: fay are we're playing in Okay, I kind of like
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: the West Germans. Maybe they're maybe they're in the trendous
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: offensive output today for sure, that's great.
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: Wow, do you remember that?
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: Hell?
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Do you remember that? I?
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, I do remember that because that German team had
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: low tarm matteas so on it and Jurgen Klinsmann and
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Kyle wrote, Junior and I were just, you know, we're
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: doing every show, and that was early on. I just said,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: I kind of like, I kind of like West Germany
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: and this thing.
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: I didn't really know.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: I just know that the game we were watching they
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: looked really good, so I was I'll pick them.
• 2:39
  Speaker 5: Growing up in this business with a guy like JP
• 2:41
  Speaker 5: Della Camera was always important for me because that knowledge
• 2:44
  Speaker 5: institutional knowledge of the game. But he also would remind
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: me in the ninety World Cup that fax machines were
• 2:51
  Speaker 5: the main way to have conversations with people on site
• 2:55
  Speaker 5: and try.
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: To get as much.
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: You didn't have the left you have the technology.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Nowhere close, nowhere close. In fact, one of the things
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I remember too. Look, I was a newcomer to the game.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to learn who these players are. It's not
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: like I could look at a game and say, oh,
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: that's so and so, and that's so and so, and
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: I remember, we're doing highlights of a game in progress
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: featuring Yugoslavia against somebody, and a lot of our folks
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: working on World Cup didn't know the game real well either.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: But here's a here's a highlight of a game still
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: in progress. They hand me a shot sheet and with
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: one with one play that said, UGO hits post.
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: That's amazing. I don't think I can.
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: Go on the air just with that, but I faked
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: my way through it somehow.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: I think you just keep it simple. I mean, you
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: keep it simple. That's what we do, right, We try to. Yeah,
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I mean, and soccer has made its way onto your
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: show on the inside.
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: A few times. Yeah.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I would say any of the
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: times it made it onto your show it was successful,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: but it was enjoyable for all of us.
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: Julie.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah, look at that. Look at the size of that
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: goal too. That's Kenny the jet.
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: Yeah, that's we were here for this. We saw this.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: That's right there. I got some type jeans. Look, Oh,
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: I can ball, now, Ernie, I can ball. Oh, I
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: know I can ball. I know you were just hiding it. Well,
• 4:24
  Speaker 4: Ernie's wished the camera caught it, right. I like that.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: That's something that's been I don't know, nothing new basketball
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: and soccer culturally.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: You know Steve Nash juggling the ball when he's in
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: the NBA.
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: Have you noticed that that overlap in those things being
• 4:39
  Speaker 3: similar increasinger has that always been though, I.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Mean, I've just seen I've seen that most good athletes
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: can do basically anything that they want to do.
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: A lot of I mean a.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: Lot of hockey players are great golfers a lot, you know,
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: So I see there's a lot of crossover I have
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: seen and I don't think we had the clip from
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: our tnt UH sports competition in which kicking a soccer
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: ball was part of it. This is this is way
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: back in the day. But yeah, Kenny, it was terrible.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: He was lucky you could make contact. So not not
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: all athletes are great at everything.
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: Well, listen, you got a kind of a big thing
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: coming up this weekend. Uh yeah, people might have been
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: following it. Final four going to Indianapolis.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, even on Thursday. And what I mean, it's gonna
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: be a great final four.
• 5:28
  Speaker 4: You got in both games.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Really when you saw what Yukon did to be due
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: to the other night, I mean, that's that's what largs
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: mathis is all about, That's what competition is all about.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: And so they'll be taking on Illinois.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Then we've got uh, you know, Michigan and Arizona in
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: just this battle of Titans uh, cannot wait for it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: And there's really there's nothing like that Saturday in anything
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: that I have been around. That Saturday of the national
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: semi finals is us magical. I mean, you're gonna you go.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: You guys know how magical the World Cup is.
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: But I mean, and and certain events are that way.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: But man, that's Saturday when you have these fan bases
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: from these four schools all over the streets of Indianapolis,
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: and then going to the arena and watching those games,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: it's just tremendous.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I can't let you leave without you predicting a World
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: Cup winner this time around.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: Oh, USA, there we go. Let's go USA US that
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: that was an easy one.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Legendary Ernie Jenton, the godfather, the godfather of T and
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: T sports.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Stop. Yeah, but godfather wearing an I f P. It's
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: almost realistic. Guys, thanks for helping me be here. I
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: appreciate you.
• 6:55
  Speaker 4: I appreciate it.