SS: The national team is going through a bit of a strange moment right now. As you look at it from the outside, what’s your sense of how things are going?
BA: I don’t think things are going great. I think there’s an inexperienced staff and it’s going to take them a little bit of time to get more experience and understand the international game, understand the profile of a player who can contribute at that level. They’re learning that. And then how do you create a national team environment? I still think that they’re a little, they’re not certain about that. They’re coaching a national team like it’s a club team.
SS: When you say that, do you mean that in terms of system they’re trying to play?
BA: System, daily routine, on and off the field, all of it.
SS: How different is it on the club and international? You’ve done both, obviously.
BA: It’s very different. You don’t have those players the 300 days a year they’re with their club teams. They’re coming to you, you’re not changing their habits, you’re not changing how they play. You’ve got to have a system of play, of course, but they are who they are, and coming into a five-day camp, a two-week camp isn’t going to change them a whole lot.
SS: Do you think in general it’s good to simplify a bit on the national level, for those reasons you just lined out?
BA: What do you mean by simplify?
SS: Well I guess how I would put the way the national team is going right now, is that they’re trying to fit a lot of square pegs into round holes.
BA: I just think you have inexperienced people there kind of getting a little confused. It’s like you’re watching Manchester City play or whatever and think that that is the equivalent of how you play with a national team. You have a collection of, in theory, a collection of talented individuals, and you’ve got to make them into a team in a short period of time. You can’t reinvent the wheel.