ES = Ernie Stewart; DI = Duncan Irving

Dave Jones

Roanoke, Va.

We saw your great performance at the Trinidad/Tobago game in Richmond. How do you like your new position? Do you find it harder to attack from the defensive midfield position?

ES: No, it’s not hard to attack from the defensive midfield position, because it’s a position where you have everything in front of you. It’s harder as a forward because you have your back to the goal a fair amount of time, but in midfield, everything’s in front of you. That makes attacking a little easier.

I like the challenge of doing something different than I’ve done before, so I like the position. I think it’s great.

DI: It gives you more freedom, but more responsibility, too.

ES: I don’t mind more responsibility. I guess that’s one thing you learn real early in Europe — it doesn’t matter where you play, as long as you play. That’s the most important thing. Responsibility is good, and it also gives you a little bit of a clue as to what the coach expects from you. If he does give you a responsible job, that means you’re not doing bad.

Joel Mayer

San Antonio

How could the U.S. national team players even consider a hold-out for the World Cup qualifying tournament? If the U.S. had failed to qualify for France because our best players refused to play, it could have been a fatal blow to the pro game in this country.

ES: Yeah, it would have been a fatal blow… I’m not really allowed to say much about that, though. We’re playing now. That’s the most important thing.

Kristian Rhein

Raleigh, N.C.

What are the major differences you have noticed in regards to playing under Steve Sampson versus Bora?

ES: I think I have to agree with what Tab Ramos said a little while back. Our team has improved every single year from 1990 up to now. It’s not that Steve has no impact on that, or that Bora didn’t have an impact, but I think that everybody’s getting a little bit older, they’re easier on the ball, they’re getting more educated in soccer. All of that together is making us better, and I think maybe where Steve comes in as opposed to Bora is that Steve lets us be a little more, and lets us be creative in playing in our offensive half, whereas Bora sometimes said you had restrictions — you couldn’t do this or you couldn’t do that. Steve leaves us more to ourselves —
in the hotel, whatever; you do what you want to do as long as you show yourself in the game the next day. I don’t think he would mind, and this is hypothetically speaking, if you stayed up until say 1:30 the night before a game — as long as you played well the next day. You do whatever’s good for you. In that sense, he leaves us be a little more than Bora did.

Thomas Dorazio

Oviedo, Fla.

How did becoming a regular U.S. International affect your career in the Netherlands?

ES: I don’t know if I benefitted from it that much, but I guess I gained a little bit more respect, especially after playing in a World Cup. I think I earned some respect for that, but I think people who knew me knew how I played before I started my international matches, so I don’t think that’s changed a great deal.

Brian Hinkle

Thousand Oaks, Calif.

Ernie, how was the transition from Willem to NAC Breda? Did you leave Willem on good terms and did Breda really help you with the transition?

ES: Yeah, they helped me in the transition. I obviously moved up a step — NAC is a little bit further than Willem II. They play in the same division [Division I], except NAC’s ambitions looked better to me, so I thought it was time to move on. I left Willem II with a good relationship — I still go back and watch some of their games, but NAC is a step up for me and that’s why I moved.

DI: A step up in terms of club? Money?

ES: It’s a step up club-wise, money-wise; the ambitions that the club has. They want to play in the UEFA Cup; they bought a lot of players, and they built a brand new stadium.

DI: Are they on course?

ES: No, actually they’re not on course now, because we hadn’t played well up until two weeks ago. We’ve been struggling to find the right system, to get used to each other. The last two weeks, we’ve been playing well — we lost against Feyenoord 1-0 in Rotterdam, and it’s always tough to play there. But we played really well, and that gave us hope for the next game against Ajax that we won [2-0; Stewart scored the second goal]. Now, we’re starting to play well, so we’ve got to start gaining.

Kenya Brown

College Park, Md.

Ernie, I’ve been a huge admirer of Dutch football. With all of the changes that have taken place in European football, especially with the Bosman ruling, do you feel that this will give clubs such as NAC Breda a better chance at winning the league title?

ES: No, not at all. In other countries, it might give other teams a bit more chance to win a national championship, but in Holland, I think always, or for a long period of time, it’s going to be Ajax, Feyenoord, and PSV [Eindhoven], because they still have the most money. Whoever plays in the Champions League, which is Ajax right now, gets so much money that they still have the power to buy players that are under contract, and they don’t have to wait necessarily until a contract ends so they can get a player transfer-free because of the Bosman ruling. Those clubs that are more wealthy still have the edge in terms of buying players.

DI: Have they abolished the transfer system altogether in Holland now?

ES: Yes.

Mark Singer

Santa Cruz, Calif.

Are there any particular difficulties or challenges about playing soccer in the damp, cold weather of the Netherlands? Are there any special preparations you take, that would not be necessary for games in a more temperate climate?

ES: I’m so used to Holland that it takes me, not that I have problems with it, more time to adjust to warmer weather than the colder weather. You just get used to the cold weather — it’s something you deal with year in and year out, and I’ve lived there for 20 years. One game the sun shines, another day it snows. We have a heated field, so we always play on a good field.

DI: What about playing a game under conditions like those in Trinidad? It’s very humid there.

ES: That’s one thing, I never seem to have problems with weather conditions. Maybe because I grew up in California [outside of Sacramento] and then grew up in Holland. If it’s cold, it’s cold; if it’s warm, it’s warm; if it’s humid, it’s humid. I don’t have problems with warm weather at all.

Dan Johnson

Chesapeake, Va.

Are the games in the Dutch league anything like the World Cup Qualifier against Guatemala as far as the roughness goes?

ES: No. That was, that was way out there. I guess you can blame the referee a little bit for not taking a hand in real quickly and dealing out more yellow cards. I think he could have slowed the hacking down a little bit more, but that Guatemala game — I’ve never experienced a game like that before, and it is not at all common to Dutch soccer.

DI: Did the level of roughness surprise you in that game?

ES: Well, that they got away with. But you can’t say much about Guatemala. If you’re allowed to play like that, and you can break down a team by doing that, and the referee isn’t whistling and isn’t handing out yellow cards, then by all means, keep doing that. You try to get to the limit of the referee, and once that limit is set, you play from there. The limit for that game was a little bit too high, in our opinion, but, then again, the referee didn’t give yellow and red cards, so I guess it was allowed. They used that.

Mike Jaskowiak

Stillwater, Okla.

Ernie, I know this is probably a touchy subject, but I think it is a question that needs to be asked. Have you ever experienced any negativity in soccer in the United States because of your race? If so, how did you deal with it? What is the current situation of that subject in U.S. Soccer? Do you consider it a major problem?

ES: No, not at all. I’ve never encountered anything like that in the United States, at least. I have encountered it in Holland. Like five or six years ago. It’s still going on there now, but it’s at a level where sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it’s not that bad. Five, six, seven years ago I couldn’t deal with it, I had problems with that. I’d be listening to the crowd, and that would take me off of my game. Right now, it doesn’t bother me. There are fools in the stands, and you can’t do much about that — you just play the game and try to win.

DI: Are there any teams that are worse culprits than others? For example, in England, you tend to find that Northern clubs will have fewer afro-Caribbean or black players, while the metropolitan clubs will have a more.

ES: It’s real weird in Holland — it’s not situated in the East or West or anything like that, because most of the Dutch teams have several different races in their squad, But the supporters…their dark players are good, you know, there’s nothing wrong with them, but the opponent’s dark players are their targets, and they try to get at them.

DI: Are their any Indonesian players playing in Holland, or is it mainly players from Surinam?

ES: Well, most from Surinam, of course, because it’s a colony of Holland. And Africans. There’s not many Indonesians, although there probably are a few.

Norman Ericks

Berkeley, Calif.

Is MLS ever a topic of conversation among European players? If so, what are players saying about it?

ES: At first, they were real skeptical about it. Not only players, but media, thought it was doomed to fail within a year because of what happened years ago. Right now, in the Voetbal International, every single week, they have an article on MLS, and they see, hey, there were 29,000 people at that game, there were 70,000 at the Rose Bowl. They’re thinking, these people are getting more and more and more, and we’re playing in front of 5,000 people, so it’s gotta be pretty good. I know for a fact that a lot of my friends that play soccer, and other players too — they’d love to play in MLS. That says a lot about how far the league has come in just one year.

We have a new cable station in Holland, whose job is mainly to promote the Dutch league of course, but we do get a little bit of MLS, and of course you get highlights on CNN, but that’s only a goal real quickly. We don’t actually get to see that much, but they do cover Thomas Rongen, because he’s Dutch, and if highlights came on, it’s usually the Mutiny that would come on. I guess next year it will be the New England Revolution.

David Sepkoski

Los Angeles

You are undoubtedly one of the national team’s most talented players. You have obviously benefitted from your years playing in Europe. Have you considered joining MLS? If not, do you believe that the MLS can produce American players of the caliber necessary for success on the international level?

ES: Yeah, MLS is gonna keep going up and up, and the level’s going to get better and better. As long as it keeps going, that’s the most important thing — let’s talk in five years. Nobody knows, but the way it looks now, it’s going to keep going. In 10, 15 years, maybe we’ll be playing in the semifinals of a World Cup. I think there’s a lot of talent in the United States, and if you can develop that talent and bring it into MLS, that’s great.

For myself, right now I’ve signed a three-year deal with NAC Breda, so the next couple years it doesn’t look like I’m going to be playing there — unless they want to buy me, but that costs a lot more.

John Pfeiffer

Carmel Valley, Calif.

As a forward do you feel it’s more important to go 110% all game long (and risk being tired), or to save up for the crucial “opportunity” moments?

ES: That’s a good question. It depends on what kind of a forward you are. If you’re a real striking forward like Romario, I would say hey, just hang out, and whenever you think you can put the ball in the net, do it. But there are other players that have to work hard, and create scoring opportunities and then try to score. There’s a big difference in these type of players, but that’s everybody for themselves. I know I have to work hard, and I do so trying to get my goals. I can’t just sit there and relax, and think my chance is going to come — I have to get into the flow of the game. It just depends on how well you know yourself — if you overestimate yourself, then you’re never going to score. You have to know what you need to do. If you have to work hard, work hard; if you don’t have to work hard, and you score goals, hey, so be it.

J. D. Brown

Minneapolis, Minn.

In your opinion, who are the fastest players in the world?

ES: That’s real hard to say. You have fast players that are real fast without the ball, but the most important thing, I guess, is having fast players that can run with the ball. One person that I do know that can do that is Marc Overmars. He’s unbelievable, and George Weah is incredible with the ball.

Josh Holloran

Denver

What did you do to mentally prepare for the game against Brazil in the 1994 World Cup?

ES: Nothing different than I would do in Holland. Before a game, I’m pretty laid back, relaxed. I take a walk, listen to my music. I do have to say that I woke up real early that morning. I woke up at like five in the morning, and didn’t want to wake up my roommate, so I went out walking and I didn’t come back until 6:30. I went out maybe because I was nervous, tense, but it’s always the same. I walk and listen to my music

DI: What sort of music?

ES: R&B, soul. Laid-down, mellow music.

DI:Those are all your pregame rituals, then — you don’t have any rabbits’ feet?

ES: I used to. When I was younger, I’d have to warm up the same way if I’d scored the last game, and this and that, but I guess as years go on you don’t have to do that. And if I don’t listen to my music now, I don’t listen to it — it’s no problem.

Stephen Tracy

North Ogden, Utah

You have been my favorite player for as long as I can remember. Was there ever a better moment on the soccer field for you than when you scored the winning goal against Colombia?

ES: No. That’s real easy to answer. I don’t look at it much, but if I’m not playing well, that’s a moment I have on videotape, and I’ll pop that in and look at it real quick. It makes me feel a whole lot better, and I can go into a game more confident. When you’re not playing well, you can get down on yourself, and maybe I get down on myself too much sometimes, but I look at that goal and it makes me feel real good. That was the greatest moment in my life.

DI: Do you remember what it felt like when you scored?

ES: No — that’s real weird, I’ve been asked that so many times. It’s like you’re in a trance. I can’t go back and even remember the 10 minutes after I scored. I went off the field (because I had an injury) 10 minutes before time or something like that, and from that moment on, I remember what happened. I still played 15 or 20 minutes after that goal, but I can’t remember any of it. I don’t even know if I touched a ball after that. I know Bora shouldn’t even be hearing this (laughs). I don’t know. It was a rush. I remember everything up until the goal. Then it’s all a blur until I went out of the game and could actually see the rest of the players playing the game. Then I sat down, and I almost started crying, because I looked up and saw my parents there in one of the skyboxes. Then it finally sank in, and I realized I’d scored.

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