He’s Searching for Diamonds in the Sand
Long before there was a World Cup or a European Cup or a Copa America or even an MLS Cup, there was England’s Football Assn. Cup, better known to fans worldwide simply as the FA Cup.
It is soccer’s oldest competition, the granddaddy of all cups. First competed for in the 1871-72 season, it reaches its annual climax Saturday when Arsenal and Newcastle United meet at Wembley in this year’s final.
The intriguing aspect of the FA Cup is that it is open to all English teams, from the millionaires of the Premier League to the lowliest village side. It is a knockout competition with a blind draw, meaning that giant-killing acts in which obscure clubs eliminate famous teams are an annual rite.
Over the decades, the FA Cup has built an enviable mystique and lore, one tiny portion of which belongs to a man who now calls Long Beach home.
In an FA Cup match between Bournemouth and Margate in 1971, Ted MacDougall entered soccer’s record books. Bournemouth defeated Margate, 11-0, that afternoon, and MacDougall scored nine goals.
“It was pouring with rain, a typical English day,” the 51-year-old former Scottish international recalled recently. “We were playing a nonleague team called Margate in the first round. I was flying then, getting lots of headlines--I scored 101 goals in two seasons for Bournemouth--and I remember their coach saying, ‘We’re not doing anything special to stop MacDougall.’
“Well, by halftime I’d scored four. We won, 11-0. But as I came off I found you can’t please everybody because as I came off some people said, ‘Well, what about the ones you missed?’
“I didn’t realize how big a deal it was until about 2 o’clock or 3 o’clock in the morning when we went down to Fleet Street thinking there might be a little bit in the papers about it.
“Well, every paper was just full of it. It went all over the world. I’ve even got a clipping from the New York Times. That [FA Cup scoring] record had stood since 1928. Some people think I did it in 1928.”
The feat, not surprisingly, remains one of the highlights of MacDougall’s career, standing alongside the goal he scored in front of 52,000 in his debut for Manchester United and the goal he scored against Sweden in his debut for Scotland.
Now, however, MacDougall is 6,000 miles, one generation and an entire culture removed from British soccer in the ‘70s. Now, he is working to improve North American soccer in the ‘90s.
After four years in Vancouver, coaching young Canadian players and sending the best of them to England to pursue professional careers, MacDougall has moved his base of operations to Southern California.
Since January, he has been slowly building a network of contacts and starting to search for those few players who have what it takes to make it at the professional level, especially in England.
“You’ve got to sift a lot of sand to get to a diamond, but there are diamonds out there,” he said.
MacDougall has credibility gained from a career that saw him win seven caps for Scotland and score 300-plus goals in more than 550 games for Liverpool, Manchester United, West Ham, Norwich, Bournemouth and even the Detroit Express of the late, lamented North American Soccer League.
His long professional career also means he has a wealth of key contacts in the game. One of them is Alan Ball, a World Cup winner with England in 1966. Ball now runs something called the Soccer Management Initiative (SMI), an English company that scouts promising young players worldwide and funnels them into the pro ranks.
MacDougall, who operates his own International Player Development Program, is SMI’s contact in this neck of the woods through another Long Beach company, the International Center for Education and Sports.
His involvement at, almost literally, the grass-roots level of the game makes his thoughts on the potential that Canadian and American players have worth listening to, especially since both countries struggle when it comes to producing top-level players.
“I think what you have to do is to get them young enough and develop them,” he said. “There’s no magic potion. It takes time. The problem here, the North American way, is, ‘Take a pill and it’ll work. Take me for two hours and I’ll be a player.’
“Well, it doesn’t work that way. It takes time. You have to develop them and develop their character and give them that self-confidence to be able to do stuff that maybe otherwise they wouldn’t try in normal circumstances.”
Although local youth teams have begun employing him as a consultant, MacDougall’s primary focus is in working with individual players, boys and girls ages about 10 to 18.
“Basically, what I am trying to do is an extension of what I’ve been doing in Vancouver for the past four years, which is to give young players the opportunity to open some doors,” he said.
That means sifting the sand, finding the better prospects, rounding them out as players and then introducing them to opportunities that await.
But only the diamonds are invited to England for polishing. There are particular characteristics MacDougall is looking for, and they do not necessarily involve playing ability.
“To me, ability stands out,” he said. “Anybody can see ability. But we’ve all played with players who had ability and didn’t make it [to the pro level]. So ability is fine, but then you look for desire, appetite, the different types of things that could make this a player.
“I asked Alan Ball when I first started. I said, ‘Alan, tell me what I should be looking for in a young defender. If a kid’s got quick feet or if he can strike a 30-yard ball or if he scores goals, you can see that. But a defender, what do I look for?’
“He said, ‘Well, you give them all the horrible jobs like the chasing and defending and the running after people, and if they come back for more then you know.’ ”
The passion for the game that MacDougall showed as a player he now shows as a discoverer of players. He loves what he is doing.
“This kid I’ve got in Vancouver, he’s been over [to England] twice and he’s going over again,” he said. “This kid is an absolute certainty [to become a professional].
“His name is Michael Greenaway. He’s 14. He’s angelic looking. He’s going to be about 6 foot 2. He’s mobile. He’s about 70 pounds wet through at the moment. He’s a nasty blighter. I can say that because I’ve played against him and he’ll hurt you. He’s absolutely fearless. His attitude is 110%.”
Attitude and commitment come up frequently. That and concentration.
“Among all the kids I’ve been involved with, that’s the biggest thing: their single-mindedness,” MacDougall said. “It’s as if they’ve got blinkers on. It’s like, ‘I’m going somewhere and you’re in my way, so look out because I’m going through you.’ ”
That is exactly the sort of mind-set that is needed if the U.S. is ever to reach the top internationally.
The “everyone plays” approach of some youth leagues is fine for those who play for fun, but it does not produce professional players. It doesn’t teach nasty. It doesn’t teach tough.
Neither, so far, do most high schools and colleges.
“At 14 or 15 you should be thinking about signing pro,” MacDougall said. “It’s a trade, and like any other trade you have to learn it.
“Intimidation is part of the game. We work on that part of the game, getting your arms up, getting your body across. The professional side of the game. You don’t just smile and hand the ball back.”
England’s so-called “schools of excellence” teach that, MacDougall said.
“When Manchester United plays Liverpool, let’s say, in the under-14 or under-13 or under-15 or whatever, there’s no win column or loss column. Games are purely for the development of the players. They have three 30-minute periods. You do all your coaching in that.”
MacDougall, in a small way, is trying to do the same thing here.
“I’m not developing a team, so I’m not worried about the winning and losing,” he said. “It’s worked well. I’ve been doing it for four years and been very successful with it.”
Youth coaches have to be handled with care, but those who have seen what MacDougall is doing have been supportive.
“There has to be a certain amount of trust because otherwise they think you’re stealing players,” he said.
Parents, too, have to be supportive. Not too many want to see their teenagers head for Europe on the off chance of establishing a pro career. But MacDougall can help there too. By sorting the diamonds from the sand, he saves a lot of sand from wasting a journey.
“If you reach for the stars, you might get the moon,” he said. “If you reach for the gutter, you’ve not got a lot a lot of places to go.”
And in the long run MacDougall’s approach will benefit not only the individual players but U.S. soccer as a whole.
“Having been here 20 years ago when the regular American person didn’t even known what a soccer ball was, they’ve come a long way,” he said. “This is a very, very exciting time for soccer worldwide because Americans now know that this is the biggest game in the world and I think they’re going to be center stage, given time.”
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31 DAYS UNTIL THE WORLD CUP
