Why Chicago Fire defender Carlos Bocanegra wants to spend his career in the United States … A typical week for Bocanegra and roommates John Wolyniec and Evan Whitfield … What music he listens to to get pumped up before games … The keys to the Fire’s success. Get to know Bocanegra, in SoccerAmerica.comÆs series on the nationÆs most promising talent. INTERVIEW BY BRYAN ALVAREZ Name: Carlos Bocanegra Team: Chicago Fire Position: Defender Height: 6’0″ Weight: 170 pounds Born: May 25, 1979 Hometown: Alta Loma, Calif. College: UCLA 2000 Season: 27 games, 1 goals, 1 assists, 3 points International: U-18, U-20, U-23 national teams SA: What is your favorite sport besides soccer? CB: Football. I like the Tampa Bay Bucs. SA: What is your favorite book? CB: I like the Harry Potter Series. SA: Who is your favorite musician? CB: I like Limp Bizkit a lot. SA: What song/music gets you pumped before a game? CB: I listen to some Bizkit or some hip-hop in the car before the game. SA: What’s your current living situation? CB: I live with John Wolyniec and Evan Whitfield in Chicago. It’s cool. We have a good time. Those guys are great. We live five minutes outside the city. It’s a fun town. SA: How did you adapt to living in a new city? CB: It’s a lot different than California. The weather, the people. I had to get familiar with my surroundings. But I did all right. The guys on the team helped me, which is really cool. SA: Do you have time to go out, be young? CB: Yeah, I can still be young. Not as much as college, obviously. We have a good time every once in awhile. SA: Being on the road so much, do you get homesick? CB: Yeah, I get homesick. I miss California a lot. My friends and family are back there. But, I’ve gotten used to living out of a suitcase. SA: What are your impressions of your first year in the MLS? CB: It was a really great experience. I have a lot of respect for the players around the league. I had a lot of fun. I got drafted by a great organization. I’ve developed some pretty cool relationships around the league. SA: Do you have any best friends on the team? CB: I hang out with Evan and John. I hung out with DaMarcus (Beasley) a lot last year, too. SA: How is the MLS different from the college game? CB: It’s faster and a little more physical. Your mentality has to be there. You have to concentrate the whole game. In college, you get away with making a few mistakes. You can get by with athletic ability. Now, I have to concentrate the whole 90 minutes. SA: Did you expect to come in and make such a big contribution? CB: No, I was just trying to come and get in where I fit in. I was trying to get some playing time. I lucked out and it turned out really well for me. SA: What was your favorite moment from last season? CB: It was my first start in our home opener vs. Miami at Soldier Field. That was probably the biggest thrill for me so far. SA: Who has been your greatest influence? CB: Last year, Sam George helped me out quite a bit. He’s from California, too. Also, I went to school with his brother, Seth. We knew each other like that. He took me under his wing and helped me out. He prepped me on the forwards I was going to be playing against. C.J. Brown was great in the back with me. Chris Armas, too. All the guys were really supportive of me. Whenever I would make a mistake, they would tell me to shake it off. SA: Is Chicago a pretty tight team? CB: Yeah, we have pretty good relationships throughout the team. It’s such a great team to be on. I’m glad I got drafted here. SA: How do you plan to improve in your second season? CB: I lost a little bit of weight in the offseason. I’ve been working a little bit harder. I’m trying to come in more fit because it’s only going to be harder this year. SA: What are your opinions about college and high school players coming out early? CB: It’s different for everyone. But you take a person like DaMarcus — he is doing a great job. He’s young and he’s doing a great job on the road. For me, I needed to go to college and mature a bit. I loved the college atmosphere. SA: What can the MLS do to improve? CB: They’re doing a great job. It’s getting better and better. It’s getting harder to make the roster each year. If they keep getting the top talent from America, and get them to stay here, then I think we’ll be all right. SA: What can the MLS do to retain its young stars? CB: They’re doing an OK job. They can’t offer us much money. The league’s young, and we don’t have the television contracts like baseball and basketball. Also, getting seen by Bruce Arena and getting a chance to make the national team is incentive to stay here. SA: What’s it like living on a MLS salary? CB: It’s different. I never really lived on my own — my parents always supported me. Last year was all right. I had to budget a little bit. It’s not bad. We don’t live a lavish lifestyle. We have fun and we go out. If I want to buy something, I can buy what I want. SA: What is your opinion of single-entity? CB: I’d like it if we could be free agents at the end of our contracts. But I can’t really do much about it. SA: What’s your commitment to the MLS? CB: I have three more years with them. SA: What is your relationship like with the fans? CB: Our fans are great. They took me in at the beginning of the year. We have great attendance. Our fanatics and the Barn Burners do a great job. SA: Do you get recognized in public? CB: A few times last year, I did. Especially with the blonde hair. It’s cool sometimes to get recognized. But then sometimes you just want to hang out and not be bothered. But we don’t have to worry about that too much. SA: Give me an example of a week during the season. CB: Sunday, we get a day off. So after the game on Saturday, we go out. On Sunday, we just relax. Monday we have practice. Afterwards, maybe catch a movie with some of the guys on the way home. It’s pretty much like that everyday. Maybe, we might go out for a nice dinner midweek, [at] like Ditka’s restaurant. SA: What is the best play you made last year? CB: I liked my goal. It was pretty cool. It sticks out because I only had one. SA: Are you going to take a more offensive role this year? CB: A little bit. I feel a bit more comfortable where I can go forward. I have the confidence that Bob (Bradley) is behind me. So, if I mess up, he’s not going to yank me. Not too much more than last year, though. I guess the difference this year (in preseason) is that I’ve been finishing more. SA: Who is the toughest opponent you faced last year? CB: Clint Mathis was one of the toughest forwards I had to guard last year. We had a great rivalry with New York. SA: Are you a soccer fan? CB: Yeah. I’m getting into it more and more. When I was younger, I didn’t watch too much. When I was in college, I didn’t watch the European leagues or MLS too much. Now, I watch it quite a bit more. I try to watch players in my position, to learn the game as I’m playing it. I see what they do and take what I like from them. SA: Who is your favorite player? CB: There are a lot of good defenders, but I really like Edgar Davids. I like how he runs through everybody and is just a fighter. He’s great with the ball, too. SA: Do you eventually want to play abroad? CB: I don’t know. I’d like to stay here in the States and play my whole career and have a nice career with the national team. It’s been brought up but I still have three years, so I’m not really thinking about that. SA: What are your predictions for this year? CB: I’d love to win them both (MLS Cup and U.S. Open Cup). We almost had it last year. We’re coming back in with a really strong team. We lost Ante (Razov), but the forwards that we have here in preseason are doing very well. Hopefully, (Hristo) Stoitchkov can stay healthy. With Josh (Wolff) up front, that’s a pretty good combo. We’re pretty solid. SA: Where do you see yourself 10 years from now? CB: Hopefully, a nice veteran in the league, having a solid career with the national team and hopefully married with a couple of boys. SA: What’s the future of soccer in America? CB: As long as we keep building with our young Americans, increasing our level of play, I think we can be a top competitor throughout the world.