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Jimmy Conrad is an American soccer defender, who currently plays for the Kansas City Wizards of Major League Soccer and the United States national team. He is also team captain[…]

Outsmarting Zidane.

Question: How do you know you’ve played a good game?

Jimmy Conrad: Ultimatley not making any mistakes and I think if you want to be considered one of the best, you have to demand that kind of perfection and for me a lot of it goes down to just making goods subtle decisions, a lot of decisions that you can’t see on TV’s it is hard to see on TV, but if even came live as the fan you just basically going to watch the ball a lots, watch in the little things, but lot of it from me defensively is positioning and so this been a right position to make my game is easy for me as possible, if you stay on the right position and have an understand of your angles, were the ball might pop out and you just make nice easy pass and than how you perfect for me, so as long as that I don't make any mistakes on that touch, we can getting goals score on us and my be if I score that would be the probably the perfect game but ultimately, it’s about the team winning and us putting together a good performance.

Topic: A recent triumph.

Jimmy Conrad: There is play I talk about with some guys, this going to like a soccer dork, we have the opportunity, MLS sent an all star team to play against Real Madrid in Spain and play in there Hallowed stadium, the Burnabov [phonetic] and so unfortunately for us, they kind of cobbled together a team about 48 hours, before the game. So we had to fly over there, get the time changes playing with guys, you have never played with before and goal begins one of the best club teams in the world. At the time the heads are down and everybody yes so, for me there was a play where the ball came down the left side, that was on, I was in the middle of the fields and you have got in this Zidane and Zidane was wide open, because this is kind of the broken play and they are counter attacking the other way and Raul, who is now captain of the Real Madrid and obviously he has the great career, he was next to me, I was just will actually I was marking. So basically I had to defend Zidane and Raul of the same time and ultimately what I did was using the off side strap which we take as another hour to explain to the lay person, I just kind of held, I waited for Zidane, I kind of sat on his first touch if you want to play Raul first time and I had that covered and then when he took that first touch, once you realize I had covered that I then step to him because Raul him made the run behind me, so I held him off sides. And so I basically out smarted Zidane for one play and so for me that was that I got a lot of appreciation and satisfaction from making one of the best players ever play. Do some thing he didn’t want to do and so in the small scuttle way, I was the victory in itself, even though he kept the ball and I think they ended up getting this shot, but for what I could do at that moment, I did the best possible thing and that some thing that people, probably wouldn’t even think twice about, when watching the game live.

Recorded On: 3/24/08


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