The Interview: Nedum Onuoha
The former player for Man City, QPR and Real Salt Lake has a terrific new memoir being released in the U.S. in October
Man, Nedum Onuoha is a great interview. It’s one of my regrets that we didn’t do one while he was playing in MLS for Real Salt Lake. But we finally rectified that recently, and the result was one of the most enjoyable conversations I’ve had for this platform.
The entirety of the written interview below is reserved for paid subscribers. As always, you can still get the entire free audio version of my podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to go for your pods.
Grant Wahl:
Our guest now is Nedum Onuoha of ESPN. Nedum played 17 professional seasons with Manchester City, Sunderland, Queens Park Rangers and Real Salt Lake. He also has a terrific new memoir, Kicking Back, that is out in the UK and will be released in October in the United States. You can pre-order it now on Amazon. Nedum, it's great to talk to you. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Nedum Onuoha:
It's an absolute pleasure, and I might say an honor as well, actually.
Grant Wahl:
Well, for me, too. Thanks for saying that. I just finished your book not too long ago. It is really well done, I enjoyed the whole thing. And I guess my first question would be, how did it come about? Why did you want to write a memoir?
Nedum Onuoha:
You see, I think where you went wrong there was assuming that everybody who writes one wants to write one at the very beginning. I think the way that football, soccer works is you try and be as quiet as possible whilst you play the game. And with that, you kind of don't tell some of the stories that are available. So when I retired, I was doing some punditry work. I was doing some stuff for ESPN, for the BBC and the like, and I realized there that through the training they give you that the reason you're there is to obviously offer the understanding of the game, but then tell stories, because most of these stories have never been heard before.
“To give the MLS credit, it's very different in terms of how it works compared to other leagues, but there's some really, really good players over there, and they keep you very, very honest. People who think they can come over, especially from the UK, and just basically try at 50% and be the best, they're in for a rude awakening.” — Nedum Onuoha
So as I was doing that essentially for a living, somebody came up to me and said they'd like to write my book and I said, "Absolutely not." I could think of nothing worse than sharing everything, but very quickly I realized that that's essentially what I do on a week to week basis now anyway. And not to think that my story is the most important story in the history of the world, but it's a story which hasn't been told, especially through the perspective of the places that I've been to.
There've been some very significant years, whether it was at Manchester City going through the change, whether it was at Queens Park Rangers, where we had a ton of money but then we had some of the most disastrous seasons in Premier League history, or being a foreigner playing in the MLS during 2020 when everything stopped. There's a lot to it. And I really enjoyed, at the end of it, just being able to talk for as long as I did and then essentially putting pen to paper and then that paper turning into the memoir, like you've mentioned. I never started off my career intending to write a book, I didn't finish my career intending to do so, but at this stage of my life it makes perfect sense.
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Grant Wahl:
In the process of doing this book, what are the challenges for you as you're doing it, and what are the rewards of writing a book about your life?
Nedum Onuoha:
Again, even to this point I get a little bit defensive because I think I might be a bit biased, you could say, I think it's a good book, but maybe it's because it's my own life. I'm the master of my own life. But the difficult part, really, was trying to remember all the way back. You soon realize that the way you feel about something today might be different to how you felt in that moment, and your memory of certain things isn’t necessarily as vivid as you would think because you don't have to think about them on a day to day basis. It's almost going back and seeing some of those things, speaking to friends, speaking to family, trying to make sure that the account that we put out is as accurate as it can be, because some of those moments were very significant, whether it's stuff away from the game or stuff in the game itself.
And then ultimately, I like to talk. I like to talk, but I also like to be talked back to as well, so I enjoy conversation. So for me to basically be told that I have to do all the talking now, I found that quite hard, but we did it, myself and the ghost writer. We probably had eight or nine sessions that went on for four hours-plus, of just talking and talking and talking and talking, so fair play to him for being able to find some sense in everything that I said. But then from when it comes out, I am internally a very private person. I enjoy just keeping myself to myself, so to be able to come open with things and understand that from when it's released, everybody's going to have access to it and from there, I have to promote it myself, but also, I've never promoted anything in my life. I like to just be myself and just remain myself to the people that can see me in real life.
So essentially, some people might say that I was selling out by basically doing all the promotion that I did. But then again, there was so much interest around this story, so it was easy to end up talking about it, and I overcame that. I overcame the idea of actually writing a book and overcame the idea of promoting it. And now it's very much out there and it feels really good when people come up to you and say, "I've read it. I enjoyed it. It's really interesting. I've learned lots of stuff about the game of soccer and about your place within it, and the places that you were.” Because ultimately, if people don't like your particular story, well, you can't change it because that's your life. So when people find your life to be interesting and the way that it's written, which I think, to give a lot of credit to Hugh Ferris, the ghost writer, I think it's been written properly. And I think for people who see it, they'll see it's a nontraditional type of memoir. As I said, I'm a little bit biased, but I think it's very good.
Grant Wahl:
I do as well, so you're not the only one.
Nedum Onuoha:
I appreciate that.
Grant Wahl:
You begin the book with a discussion about your name.
Nedum Onuoha:
Yes.
Grant Wahl:
And I think it's important, right? It was important to me to get your name right when I introduced you a second ago. What does your name mean, and what is the proper way of saying it?
Nedum Onuoha:
My full name is Chinedum Onuoha, and Chinedum means God guides me. Myself and my sisters, if you see a Nigerian person with Chi in their name, C-H-I, it means God. Traditionally, there's a lot of faith in Nigerian households, so that is instilled in our name. And for my parents, it's not just a throwaway name where they thought of it within five minutes. They're speaking to their parents, they're speaking to their relatives and the like to come up with something. And when they give you that name, it has real meaning for them, and they want it to have real meaning for you.
So then when I'm being raised in Manchester, being raised in England, and it's a name which people are very unfamiliar with. Unfortunately, lots of people then see it as unfamiliar and decide then it doesn't matter, so essentially to have people say, "Ah, I don't know how to say it," so they'll just call you a different name. "Oh, I don't know how to say it." But when you look at it, the letters are still from the same alphabet as other people's and they know how to say, for example, the name Siobhan, even though if you asked a child to write Siobhan, who's never really seen the name before, you probably wouldn't go S-I-O-B-H-A-N. So it can matter for some, but for some reason they didn't want it to matter to me, so I spent most of my, I'd say life, overall, being told that your name's different and as a consequence, people don't want to try.
So for me, I know the thing I appreciate more than anything is people attempting to get it right because they know how important someone's name can be, and even if you get it wrong after attempting to get it right, then some people say, "Oh, how do you say it?" and that's when I know that the people who I'm spending time with actually care about me and other people, instead of the ones you decide, "Well, this isn't for me, so let's just move on and forget that ..." As well as a name, it's a person behind that name and, for me, they should matter.
Grant Wahl:
Now unlike most professional soccer players, you continued your education in a pretty serious way. Could you explain how far you went with it, what the influence of your family was, and why you wanted to do that?
Nedum Onuoha:
So from my standpoint, and again, this is almost like the stereotypical West African story, you could be good at sport, but so what? You still have to do school and school's always a priority. For as much as they'll champion your successes on the field, it's not going to be at the cost of you not taking your academics seriously. So when I was younger, I was always playing very well for the academy team from the age of 10 at Man City, but I was only able to do it if I was also doing well in school. It didn't matter if I scored three goals on the weekend. If I didn't hand in my homework on the Thursday or if I had a detention on the Friday, I was not going to be playing on a Saturday or Sunday. Whereas for most people, it's the opposite because you're doing well at football, they want to put all the eggs into that basket and make sure that you do everything you can to be a professional. So with that in mind, it meant that every time I played from the academy through to by the time I finished my education around 20, 21, playing felt like more of a privilege as opposed to an expectation because I'd earned the right to be able to be there and to train.
The school system's a bit different in the UK, but I was in school full-time until 15, 16, like everybody has to be. But at that point, when you come in full-time in the academy, it's 16, 17. Most people choose to do a course whereby it's a box-ticking exercise, but myself and a couple others, we continued in college basically, proper qualification. And for me, it just felt like the natural thing to do. So even though I was basically two steps away from the first team, I was still just going to school like everybody else my age would be.
And then it gets really weird because then I'm playing in the Premier League, but I've also got homework deadlines because I'm still in college, so that's the thing that doesn't quite marry up. But again, I ended up doing better in college than I did when I was in high school, and that was because there was an insistence upon myself, by myself and by my family that you take this stuff seriously because this stuff matters, because you never know.
And people say you can fall back on it and so on and so forth, and to a certain extent there was that, but it also just always kept me grounded because for as good as I might have played on Saturday, I still had college on Wednesday. I still had college on Thursday. I needed to make sure I was ready on time and handing my homework. So yeah, it was good and it helped me, in some ways, just again, just appreciate football more because I made my debut at 17 and for some, that means it's the end of everything else apart from soccer. But for me to have something else going, it kept me levelheaded, kept me working hard, and I think overall I've turned out okay.
Grant Wahl:
And your parents were also extremely educated. What had they achieved?
Nedum Onuoha:
My mother had a PhD, so she was known as doctor and she made sure that everybody knew she was doctor wherever she went. Every away game, when you would leave tickets and stuff, she always made sure on the envelope that was going to go out to be collected, it was Dr. Antonia Onuoha. And my father, again, was also really well educated. He was teaching and he's an engineer, that type of thing. They were both incredible, really, for the amount of hard work they had to put in from the places they came from as well. But again, it sort of set the bar because they were working so hard and still working so hard to give myself and my sisters just the best opportunities that they could without essentially being able to afford it.
So sorry, my mom's PhD was in environmental sciences, by the way, so she was special, he was special, and for me I felt inspired and I think my sisters did as well, because they were going above and beyond. And now as I'm a father of three and I see how much it costs to put kids into school, I think to myself, "Oh my God, it feels expensive for me now, and I had a 17-year career.” So for them who didn't have anything of the sort, you realize the length they went to try and do the best that they could for you, that they were very inspirational and they drove myself and my sisters to try and be the best that we could be or at least give us the best opportunity to do that. And I think overall, I think they're proud of how we ended up.
Grant Wahl:
Now we are going to have a focus on your time in Major League Soccer at Real Salt Lake, because I'm very curious to hear your thoughts, but I am going to ask a couple of questions before then. And one is about a guy, Micah Richards, who has gotten better known in the U.S., especially, I think, in recent years, now that he's doing studio for Champions League for CBS. His voice and Joe Hart's voice comprise the foreword to your book. Why was it important to have those two guys be in your book right at the start?
Nedum Onuoha:
Well, again, for the book situation or the creation of the book, there's a certain plan that you can sort of have in play and it can look a certain way, but I've always been perceived as being different even within the field when everybody else is the same. And with the book, it was never designed to be a traditional autobiography, so we went for something that was a bit different, a bit quirky, and a bit 2021 because they had to do it over Zoom, that sort of thing.
They're two good guys who know me very well. They know me very well on the field and off the field, and they're also a little, not silly as such, but they care about me enough to want to do that on my behalf, but then also keep it very, very true and honest instead of something which was just mocked up by somebody because they had to do it. They wanted to do it. We had the idea, they wanted to be involved, and they were very much themselves and they went off piece. They said all sorts of things, and you should see the stuff that didn't make the book.
I think it gives you sort of an ideal representation of how I fit in with two people who are pretty consequential when it comes down to soccer in the UK, and especially at Manchester City. And for Micah, everyone sees him on CBS doing what he's doing and for Joe, he's still playing for Celtic, winning leagues and stuff, that's a former England number one. It just goes to show that sometimes you forget how, for me, anyway, I forgot how significant some of my friends and teammates were and how significant that era was because when you look back, for those two, they were a big part of it. And yet still we're as close as we are. And in some ways, we've outgrown even that particular moment, we're still friends to this day.
Grant Wahl:
It's also interesting. I did a chapter in my last book on Vincent Kompany and spent a fair amount of time with him and really enjoyed learning from him talking about the sport. But I giggled because I didn't realize that, as you mentioned in your book, you introduced him to the woman who would become his wife.
Nedum Onuoha:
That's exactly right. That's exactly right. He's still not paid me for that! You know what I mean? I set up his entire life and he has still not thanked me thoroughly enough for that. I was friends with his wife before he came to England. And then from when he came, I actually knew him through a mutual friend who used to play for Manchester United. And we ended up going to Hamburg while he was out there and spent maybe two or three days with him. I really liked him.
And then he came over to City that summer. And then I say, "Oh, Vinnie, I'd like you to introduce you to my friend," and here we are now over a decade later and they've had multiple kids, have lived together, traveled together, going to spend the rest of their lives together. And I'm thinking, "Hey, you're welcome," because maybe, just maybe if he didn't have his wife, maybe he wouldn't have played as well as he would've done for Man City. And to add to that, he took the number four away from me after I left. So basically, the reason City is successful is because of me introducing Vincent Kompany to his wife. Does that make sense?
Grant Wahl:
Makes perfect sense. That's a great story. I mean, there are some similarities with you and Vincent Kompany. Education, you both have continued your education into your playing career, tremendous quality on the field. Both of you have dealt with injuries in your career extensively. And I remember talking to Kompany about how he tried not to be too down about the injuries that he had in his career and used it as an opportunity to, I don't know, learn more about how coaches viewed the game or things like that. How did you approach dealing with the injuries you had?
Nedum Onuoha:
I think one of the big differences was, as far as Vincent goes, most of his major, major injuries or when he was perceived to be injury-prone was more towards the back end of his career, whereas for me it was at the start. So at the start, I knew no better that thing about you can't put a price on experience. You want to know and feel that everything's going to be all right and, say, look into coaching, but I'm not going to be looking into coaching when I'm 21, 22 years of age. Whereas for him at that point, he's probably played 4, 500 games. He's captain of the club, he's been successful, so he can look at things in a more measured standpoint, especially because he had his wife, he had kids and stuff. So at that point, there is stuff away from football itself.
And to give him to give him credit, because this is one side of things that probably doesn't get discussed enough, is when you're fit and you're playing week in, week out, and you're playing well and your team's winning, it's without a doubt, in my opinion, the best game in the world. It's incredible. It's a global game watched by everybody. And when you're playing in the Premier League, you know every single time you play, there are millions of people tuning in from everywhere. That's incredible. But then as soon as you become injured, the game moves on very quickly from you. For week one, they might say, "Oh, such and such is out for a while," but then after that, you don't get mentioned again and you still have to see the highs that go on with the people playing and also think to yourself, "I want be out there. I want to be out there."
Well, you can't speed it up. You're there for as long as it takes to get back, but then you don't know how long that really is going to be. And when you come back, will you be the same? There's so many potential doubts in your mind when that's the case. And then for someone like Vincent towards his time at City at the end, you'd come back and before you know it he'd be back out again. So that was a big test for him, and the fact that he got through it doesn't surprise me because of the man that he is, but he'll be very open and honest and say it was very, very difficult.
And I think that side, that human side of things, you don't see it because he doesn't get covered because it's not newsworthy, but it's this huge, huge part of dealing with being a professional athlete in essentially any sport and the way he overcame that, was able to leave City a legend, and now he's back in England coaching, fair play to him because a lot of people in that instance probably would've just quit and packed it in.
Grant Wahl:
One thing about books, especially memoirs, is I know publishers to some extent want you to be honest about people that you didn't always have great relationships with. It seems like you have had great relationships with so many people in the game from teammates, coaches, what have you, but you're honest in this book about a couple of figures. Roberto Mancini is one in particular, and I'm wondering how, for you, someone who's by nature sort of quiet, as you say, how tough was that for you to be honest about in a way that I don't think having read this now, that you're taking unnecessary shots, this is just the real story?
Nedum Onuoha:
So even to this day, there are people who've wronged me, who I can't just go and just attack. I try and put balance because I think that whoever they were, they still had value in any particular instance. Whether it was someone like, say, Joey Barton, who was a good player but I thought he was a bad teammate. So I can talk about the bad teammate stuff, but I will reference the fact that he deserved to play, just purely on an ability standpoint because he was an important player for where we were.
And for Roberto, he brought success to Man City, but he did it in a sort of villainous way, whereby people didn't really buy into who he was as a person. And so when I'm writing the book, I've told some of the stories before and, again, I try and be reasonable. I don't want to come across as being really bitter about something, even though essentially at the time I was, and I think that's because I have more closure now and I understand exactly who I am. I've had my career. I've had my moments. And though that era, that time doesn't affect me anymore, it really affected me then.
When he first came in and the way I felt I was being treated, I was having sleepless nights about it. It was probably the lowest point I've had as a footballer to not be able to sleep because you are wondering, "What's next? What does this mean? What does that mean? Why has he done this? Why has he done that?" And then for me as well, being a logical person, I can deal with most things if I can understand the why or somebody tells me why. So to never have the why was what made me spiral, to be honest.
But now at this stage, knowing that I've overcome it, and even though he didn't give me the why and don't get a closure, I can't go back and affect it, so I can just tell the story now. I can say how I thought he was a villain without getting angry about it as well. And I think that's the key thing, because in the words I'm not trying to show emotion in terms of how I feel about him today, but tell you about how I felt in the moment and how lots of other people felt in that instance as well.
And that's true insight, I believe, to being a professional because whilst you're playing, you don't do anything that might take momentum away from the bigger picture, and so you say nothing because you don't have anything good to say. But then from once it's over, you can be more honest and say how it was because at this point, it's not like a richer history. It's just a more honest depiction and in the time, showing, essentially, you did everything you could to try and not affect the team even though you were in a bad spot yourself.
Grant Wahl:
You end up connected to Mancini leaving Man City and you go to QPR, and I'm leaving out a lot of stuff here, obviously.
Nedum Onuoha:
That's fine. That's fine.
Grant Wahl:
You end up in 2012 playing for QPR against Man City in one of the most historic Premier League games of all time.
Nedum Onuoha:
Yes, that is exactly right, and it was also teed up to be one of the most stressful days of my entire life because I left halfway through the season, at the end of January, to go to QPR. The only reason I really felt comfortable going to QPR is because the old Man City manager, who was replaced by Mancini, was Mark Hughes, who went to QPR, and he was playing me before Mancini came in. So when he said he wanted me to come into play for him, it felt easy because the last manager that I was playing under was this same guy.
So I went and I never wanted to play in the Championship, never wanted to be relegated or anything like that, but all of a sudden the threat is pretty much there as we were fourth or fifth bottom for the majority of the second half of that season. So to then come back to City and to be playing against City for the first time, for the first time in arguably the biggest game of my career, where I'm thinking, "If this goes wrong, we go down to the Championship," and as far as the Championship goes, that's one of the hardest leagues to get out of because it's just so competitive, so I was stressed.
Also, I knew there was an away locker room, but I'd never been in it. I'd never gone down the stairs and turned right instead of turning left. For years, I've been going there, and now seeing all the same faces as I arrive for the game and they're all saying hello, but this time nobody was saying good luck because they didn't want me to win because for City, if they won, then they won the league. So to be rooted against at a place I used to call home whilst playing against the players I used to call teammates, people like Micah and Joe who were my friends, it was so surreal. The first time you play against your old team is so surreal, especially when I'd been there from 1996 or 7 and here we were in 2012, playing against them for the first time.
It was truly horrible, mentally, for the week leading up to it, and then when the game was going, it was so many highs, so many lows, but the biggest high was the one that came after the lowest low, because as that third goal went in, I thought we were going down and I was heartbroken. But then 5, 10 seconds later, when you see everybody in the stadium celebrating, including the Queen Park Rangers fans, it's the ultimate high because I had achieved what I wanted to achieve, which was stay in the Premier League with QPR. And I was seeing some of my friends celebrate the fact that they'd won their first Premier League and it was at the expense of Manchester United. I didn't need to say that, but I apologize.
Grant Wahl:
Thanks for sharing that. Obviously, we are going to skip over stuff because I want to go and talk about the United States, playing for Real Salt Lake. What went into your decision to come play in the United States?
Nedum Onuoha:
At the end of the 2018 season, I'd been at Queens Park Rangers for six and a half years, and I was becoming a free agent and I’d just won player of the season. So I thought I was going to get like a million offers, thought, "I'm the guy. Everything's going to be fantastic." But unfortunately, the way that a players above 30 are perceived in England isn't necessarily according to their true value because people now, they'd rather invest in an 18, 19-year-old, who they might be able to make better and sell on than they would do somebody who's capable of going in and doing the job straight away.
That's not all across the board, but that's the tendency. So I realized that I wasn't going to be able to do what I thought or wanted to do because I was looking to maybe see if you can get back in the Premier League, but I didn't have those options. I had one or two in the Championship, but for the amount of money and stuff they were offering, it basically opened up the whole world market.
So I thought, "Oh, it'd be nice to see Europe," because I'd been watching the MLS, been watching other leagues around Europe, and thought maybe this is the time to do it, and my wife was ready. My eldest child at the time, I think she was four, so we're thinking, "Well, this is a good time to do it. We can move and not really affect too much." So nothing was coming up in Europe because again, there's a big youth mentality to it. And then I saw Michael Mancienne and Wayne Rooney move to the MLS and I thought, "Hmm, that's really interesting."
Then, I'll be honest, you watch the MLS, but you don't know how the MLS works, but upon seeing those two go, I started to pay attention to how it works. So next thing, I'm looking at teams with international spots, seeing when the window closes, seeing how things are done, how people are traded, links to this team, that team, and I realized there were probably four or five options. One of them was Orlando, I think, and they were bottom. I'd just seen them lose four games in a row by like a billion goals. So I thought, "Well, maybe they'll be interested in a defender." And then my agent spoke to them and they said, "No, we're okay for this year." I was like, "Okay." I'm not used to that sort of mentality where it's okay to continue to concede, but I was like, "Fair enough."
And then there were a few other teams, and they were saying basically the summer window isn't the prime window, especially for when it was for me because this was July time, July, August. So I'm just waiting every day, waiting, waiting, waiting. And then I got an offer. Real Salt Lake said they were going to put an offer in for me. And then she was like, "Salt Lake? I know nothing about there other than the fact there was a Winter Olympics." So I do my research, and people who were saying they could get me to MLS were saying, "Oh, I can take you here. Take you there." The way they sell it to players from England, they say, "Oh, get you on the coast. I'll do this. It's New York. It's California. It's all that stuff," disregarding the fact there are like a million teams in the middle as well.
So they said, "Yeah, I'll do all that but whatever happens, we won't speak to Salt Lake. Won't speak to Salt Lake." And I kept hearing that. "Won't speak to Salt Lake." I was like, "Okay, fair enough." I didn't know any different. And then Salt Lake came in with an offer. I went over there for three, four days to see the team, see the facilities. I landed on a plane. I thought, "Wow, this is beautiful." Went to the training ground. I was like, "This is incredible." Went to the stadium, thought, "This is amazing," and the people were really, really nice to me. And I was like, "I tell you what. I think I can see myself here." So they gave me an offer, which was going to be for the remainder of the 2018 season, all of the 2019 season. And if I play, I think, three quarters of the games, I'd then get the 2020 season.
So I thought, "Yeah, I liked this offer because it'll take me to 34 years of age and at that point, maybe I'll be happy to call it quits. One of the biggest wins I've had in my life was being able to retire on my own terms instead of the game spitting me out. So I had my plan. I said, "I like this," and I knew my wife was going to like it and knew my kids were going to like it. I was at the stadium and everything was great. Then my agent got a call from LAFC and he said, "Okay, they've just come with an offer." So I'm standing there in Salt Lake and you say LAFC comes with an offer. So imagine now, talk about things that break your brain.
Probably the only player that said, "I'll tell you what. No, I don't fancy LA. I'm quite happy to stay here in Salt Lake," but the offer they came up with was one whereby they said they'll sign me up till the end of the season and then they've got the option to play me for the next year. And I thought as a man with three kids looking to try and move somewhere and settle, no, I don't think so. That's not job security. That's basically playing according to their terms. And if I was maybe 10 years younger, then fine, but at this point, no.
So I ended up coming over, brought the family over. They loved it when they saw it in October for three weeks during the holidays. I honestly loved it because I came over and nobody knew who I was in the team apart from maybe one or two people. Nobody knew who I was in the league, and I didn't really know the ins and outs of what it was to be successful in that league, so it was a chance to prove yourself again. And every time you played, you were playing someone for the first time. And the last time I felt like that was when I was 17, 18 years of age playing in the Premier League, and that was so exciting to me.
And I loved traveling around the country. Some people say, "Oh, there's so much travel, planes, blah, blah, blah." I loved it because wherever I went, it was a chance to see a new city, a new city which I might not have gone to on the holidays in the vacation, in the summer when the Premier League season’s finished. I'm seeing Chicago, I'm seeing Kansas. I'm seeing Houston, I'm seeing Orlando. I'm seeing all these places, and I'm playing against all these players for the first time.
The real thrill was we played Vancouver. It's my first home game and a guy was running at me and I didn't know whether he was left or right footed, so I didn't know what I was supposed to do, so it took me into this primal just stop mode and I thought, "This is awesome." And to give the MLS credit, it's very different in terms of how it works compared to other leagues, but there's some really, really good players over there, and they keep you very, very honest. People who think they can come over, especially from the UK, and just basically try at 50% and be the best, they're in for a rude awakening because the quality, it does get better every single year. And I think there are certain clubs and certain players who have the real know-how about trying to be successful, which is why it's always the same sort of teams at the top of the league. And if you can get in there, it's a fantastic experience.
Grant Wahl:
Were there any things you learned about MLS, whether it was structurally how the league works, which were interesting to you or how players take it seriously or don't?
Nedum Onuoha:
Yeah, there are lots of ups and downs, but it's the same with other leagues. First, I'd never seen that level of control from a league before, to the point where everybody's wearing Adidas [kits]. I didn't know that was a thing. That blew my mind because I've been a Nike guy for my life and it's like, "Well, no, you can't wear that over here unless you're endorsed," so it's like, "Okay, that's weird." The transfers as well, the system is very much the system, but it's more linked to the other American sports as opposed to, say, football on a global level, so some people might find certain things hard to explain. Someone might ask, "Oh, what's the record transfer between two MLS teams?" and you're saying, "I think it might be $3, 4 million or something like that," I'm like, "But it's 2022. How's that a thing?" Well, it's because players don't really move and then the transfer situation, you've got the international spots and the DPs are like this. The DPs are earning like $10 million, but this guy's earning $80,000."
It's very confusing from the outside. But once you get into it, you understand. And even the thing about making the playoffs, I understand it so much more now than I did when I first came, because in my mind, I thought it's not a strength to be rooting to finish sixth. But then when you see how it fits in with the mentality of American sport overall, when you're talking about the NFL, the NBA, NHL, the playoffs are when the game really comes to life and I think that in itself, from when you understand it, you buy into it. You don't poo-poo it because it's great to finish first and that's a credit in itself, but it's a rush to see people wearing those ski goggles and have the tape and stuff over the locker when they've won everything. That's incredible, and I get it. I really do get it.
But the downside, to talk about the negative, is when you play abroad, some of the clubs have been there for over a hundred years, so it's generational support and stuff that they had and they really represent that space, to the point where it's life or death to a certain extent. Which is probably a bit too much, but it means you play in a different manner because every time you put on the jersey, you're representing a lot of people in a really, really deeply connected way. And so when things go well, great. You get held up by the arms of everybody in the city, but when things aren't going well, it's a tough spot to be in.
But I found in the MLS it can be very quickly just moved on from, and it's because realistically, nationally, the coverage isn't there. We're not being debated on First Take every morning. As soon as the NFL season finishes, they're debating who's going to win the Super Bowl the next year. There's all that type of stuff there. There are some players who play, I know, because you play with no consequence, that ultimately doesn't really matter if you win or you lose. And the more people you have in your roster who are like that, the harder it is to be successful because when things are going well, it's the easiest game in the world or when things are going badly, is someone prepared to give that extra 1% to try and make the difference, go out of their comfort zone? And unfortunately, the answer's no, especially in a league where you kind of have to fill all the roster spots across the way, and so they can just come back the next year with the option and not play again and then be happy to do so.
Grant Wahl:
It's funny because a few years ago when Zlatan Ibrahimovic's book came out, I interviewed him. And when people write in their book stuff about their career, it gives you license, even though I had never interviewed Zlatan before at the time, to ask him, "Why do you dislike Pep Guardiola and Louis van Gaal so much?" because I had just read it. Now, you have a section about Zlatan Ibrahimovic in your book, and there was a thing between the two of you at one point. Can you share it?
Nedum Onuoha:
Yeah. So this could probably fall into the realm of certain negatives within MLS because I find that because it's so driven by the stars because it wants to grow, at times the stars can get treated in a way which other people will not get treated. They'll go over the top to protect people or to promote them when they don't sometimes deserve it. And so for Zlatan, he came, he scored a ton of goals, but some of the soundbites that he gave off weren't beneficial to the league itself, because he brought a lot of fans on board from his general hive. But then those fans were also critical of the MLS because he was critical of the MLS. So ultimately, did he actually add value to the league during the time he was there? And for me, I'm not fully sure.
So for example, he said, "I'm like a Ferrari amongst Fiats." The only people that shouldn't understand that are people who've never seen a Fiat before, but let's just say it's two completely different cars. So when he talks about the league and stuff like that, it would upset me a little bit, especially because some of my teammates, they'd be laughing at it. I'm saying, "Don't laugh. He's trying to humiliate you. He's talking about you in a negative manner."
And also the way soccer goes in the UK, nobody really says anything about anybody because if you do, you get the full treatment from whichever team it is that you play against. And that's not just in the top tier, you could be playing against the team in the fifth tier or a bunch of guys that live down the road that want to play against Man City. And if you disrespect them, they will kick the living daylight out of you. But in the MLS, that was never really the case. So Zlatan, he'd say what he'd say or whatever.
So we were playing in a game against Galaxy at their place, and I think it was 0-0 at halftime. We came back out for the second half and he grabbed me around the neck and threw me to the floor. So I was on the floor, I was looking at him. I said, "What are you doing?" And he started just telling me to get up, effing get up, do this, do that. I said, "Who are you talking to?" So I got up, and now I'm riled because he's trying to treat me like I was in the wrong, and I'm not having that. I'm in his face, ref's telling us to calm down, players trying to hold us back and so on and so forth. So I'm all in now, I tend to just play the game. I'm tough but I'm fair, but now I'm going to be tough and unfair, so we're playing. I do something wrong. He's laughing. He's mocking me. He does something wrong. I'm laughing. I'm mocking him. I'm playing with as much pressure as like a proper battle.
He said, after the game on TV, he says that's what he needs to feel alive, he said, because he was getting a bit bored, so he does stuff to just rile people up, but he ended up scoring the winning goal, and I was devastated. There's a picture where he is laughing in my face, but if you notice, my eyes are closed and I didn't see it because if I saw it, I probably wouldn’t have done nothing, which is probably a good thing.
But again to the MLS thing, after the game one of our players, Sam Johnson, who we had at RSL, he was asking to take a picture with him. This is after I've been feuding with him for 45 minutes basically, and he's just scored the winner and we've lost. So we go into the locker room afterwards, I'm furious because we've lost and we deserve more because I thought we played well that day. And then in he came, he's asking me have I calmed down yet. This is five minutes after the game's finished. And to be honest, to be clear, that doesn't happen for anybody listening. Nobody from the opposition side comes into the other team's locker room straight after a game, barely at all. But he did it, and I don't know him. He's not my friend. I didn't welcome him in. He's coming in and he is trying to humiliate me. So I politely asked him to leave, ever so politely, in a very aggressive manner, obviously. And there was a bit of video about it, but I was trying to stand up for myself, stand up for my team.
It's not just about the stars. It's about us as a collective. If you humiliate one person on the team, it's all of us. We're all in it together. And I stood by that and to be fair, he backed it as well. And in some ways, the next time we played against each other, I thought it was going to be more of the same. But there was more of a mutual respect because he respected me for pushing back against him, whereas most people didn't and they would never, so it was a significant time in the MLS for the two of us having that battle and it made it to the UK. But the downside is that hive who thinks that the MLS is full of Fiats, they were very active on social media coming to find me, let me know that I'm worthless, and I should never, never mess with the lion or whatever. I was like, "Oh, shut up. What are you talking about?"
Grant Wahl:
Oh, shoot. I want to ask you about an off the field topic, but it's a really important one. So you were living in the U.S. in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by police. You in your career with England were subject to racist incidents, racist chants on multiple occasions in different countries. And I want to be clear here, I did an event at New York University a couple years ago with Lilian Thuram, the French World Cup winner, who ...
Nedum Onuoha:
Was this for his book White Thinking, by any chance, have you seen that?
Grant Wahl:
At the time, it wasn't for a particular book, but it was a discussion in front of a very large audience about his career and what he was doing in his post playing career, where he is focused on racism in sports and society, and it's one of the deepest conversations I've ever had with an athlete. But one thing he always said to me is, "Why do you media always ask the Black players after something like this happens? You should be asking the white players what they think about it."
And so I'm aware of asking the target of racist taunts, there's something about that, but I know that you have very deep thoughts about all of this, what you've experienced in Europe, what you've seen in the United States. And I guess I would be curious to know what those thoughts are, and if it's any different what you sensed in the United States compared to what you sensed in Europe.
Nedum Onuoha:
Yeah. So Lilian Thuram is very, very deep with his thoughts, and I am reading his book White Thinking. He makes some points in there, which I never really perceived before. For example, he asked the question, not just what is it to be Black, he says, "What is it to be white?" And a lot of white people who he came across when he asked that question, they get really defensive about it. But surely that must be a thing if it is a thing to be Black. And another element he has within that is that some of the abuse that, say, some people get, it's not because of what they are. It's because you are not one of them. It's not the fact that you're Black. It's the fact that you're not white or, say, you're not part of that majority group, and he is very thoughtful.
And for myself, I found Europe is very, very, very different, depending on which country you go to and which part of the country. And in some ways, you could argue, that's like what the U.S. can be at times. But the difference I felt between the USA and, say, lots of parts of Europe is the USA overall is a lot younger. And when you look at, say, some of the Civil Rights Acts and stuff that have changed, they didn't change 200 years ago. There are people who are still alive who saw that change happen. So certain things have become illegal, but from a sort of cultural aspect, for others, it's still kind of similar, but they just do it in a different way.
I don't walk around in Europe, in England, in the USA thinking everything's fine because I'm acutely aware of the fact that it isn't necessarily always fine for everybody. And there's certain speech, which the country is very much about free speech, but some of that speech is very dangerous and there’s lots of dog whistles and stuff like that. And when you can hear it, in the sense the impact that it's having on, say, people who look like me in that particular country, I know I'm not having the same experience as other people. And that, as I say, just makes me a little bit more cynical. And if I'm more cynical, it means the experience I'm having isn't the same as somebody else who just goes into a shop and sees everything and thinks everything's fine.
I'm aware of how I am perceived from the get go. I know some people perceive me to be a threat. Some people perceive me to be a criminal. This is all around the world. In the UK, for example, in the major cities, there's a ton of diversity but in other places there isn't, so the only people they see like me will appear on their TV screens. If they're watching sport, maybe that's who they perceive me to be. So then the way they talk about people who look like me who play sport will define how those people see me or if they're seeing somebody on TV being arrested for this or they're criminal or that, then all that stuff sort of feeds in.
So I try and be hopeful, but I'm also realistic because there's been so many times where you get let down by your optimism, and I don't enjoy being that person that's optimistic and has to sort of rethink everything because bad things happen. So I walk through the world not expecting the worst, but not believing that everything is good as it could be. And I understand now through the stuff that I've seen that the journey towards a place where everything is equal for all, it might be the longest journey that mankind might ever be on. But I suppose every little step counts, because if it didn't, then we'd still be back where people could be very overt about some of the thoughts that they have, whereas at least now they're trying to do it in private.
And the point you made about why do you only ask Black players, white players and so on and so forth, I think real change comes when it's the white people who are also sticking up for the Black people, not just the Black people sticking up for themselves because together then you form a majority. And if it's majority ruled, then surely that means we'll be in a better situation, as opposed to, say, some of the minorities within any particular situation all banding together and asking to be heard, because at the end of the day if you don't have empathy from another side, then you'll never have enough people to be able to drive change.
Grant Wahl:
No, thank you. I realize we could devote an entire podcast to this topic. And I feel like we're giving it short shrift, but I do want to ask you about your decision to go into media. You're doing work for ESPN, doing good work for ESPN. What went into that decision, and did you have any interest in coaching? Do you have any interest in coaching or things like that?
Nedum Onuoha:
This is without a doubt the only easier question than that is what's your name. No, I had no interest in coaching whatsoever, zero, zilch, to the point where I made a conscious effort to not do any coaching badges or anything associated with having a career in coaching at all. I love the game, but I love playing the game and I love the simplicity of it's between you and your friends or your teammates going out and playing against another side, and I also like walking away from it and moving on to something else. So with coaching, your hours are longer, your pay is less, your stress is more, and you do it for longer. You could potentially do it for the rest of your life, and you see some managers who are working to the bone. I prefer the thought of being able to do whatever I want to do, as opposed to knowing that my schedule is set by that soccer calendar again.
Like, I'm going on holiday in the next couple of weeks and the Premier League season started, and that's fine because I create my own calendar. That really excites me. Someone could say they're getting married in two months time and I'll say, "Perfect. I'll write it down," and I will not work on that day. Can't do that when you stay in the game, so I've no interest in doing that.
But from the media standpoint, I've been running my podcast, which in fairness, has kind of stopped now. I've been running that since 2019, got through, I think, it was a hundred episodes, basically, and I really enjoyed it. I really enjoyed speaking to people. And one thing I tried to say to them, as is to be fair the case here, it's my platform, but it's for your voice. It's not for me to grow mine or to tell my story over and over and over. This is for you to be able to talk in a manner which you've probably not been able to before, because whilst you're playing, people tend to ask you questions about the game that’s just been or the game that's to come, and about very specific issues in the moment.
But for the people who come on, there's a chance to relax and talk to a peer and be really open and honest to know that I'm not trying to get you with a gotcha question. This isn't the headline. This isn't going to get clicked. This isn't clickbait. This is you. You can say as much as little as you want, but allow people the opportunity to really see who you are or who you want them to see you as.
So from a media standpoint, I was doing quite a lot of that, understanding how to create shows. I was producing them myself and so on. And I was doing some stuff for RSL, some stuff with BBC. And then just as I was leaving the USA, I was speaking with, I think, it was CBS and ESPN. And ESPN, the way we were talking and the stuff they wanted me to do, it felt good, and I've been doing it for a year and a half. And ESPN FC is the main show that I'm on and I really enjoy it because, for me, soccer isn't life or death, but there's still a lot to talk about. And on that show and the other things which I choose to do, I can definitely do that.
And you can come and be your personality, understand how you fit in with the overall rotation of people on there. It's been probably the best thing to happen to me work-wise since I've retired because it's just so much fun. And because it's based in the U.S., it always happens after 10 PM UK time, so I can really do as much or as little as I want to during the day, and then get the chance to have the second-best job in soccer, which is just talking about it stress free, so I enjoy that a lot.
Grant Wahl:
What other things would you like to do in media at some point?
Nedum Onuoha:
Again, this is an unpopular opinion, but I'm not chasing a career in media. The stuff which I'm doing, everyone who watches the game knows they can get their sort of media from a ton of different places and have a ton of different things, whether it's live streams on YouTube, watchalongs on YouTube, social media stuff, digital written stuff, TV stuff, network stuff, but things I want are the places where you don't have to have a hostile opinion to be able to get a seat on a panel.
So I'm doing the ESPN stuff and doing stuff for the BBC, I did a bit of consultancy for The Athletic, I’m a trustee for the Man City charity, and I do some stuff for them around matchdays. It's five things, but it's not a lot of time that's required to do all five, and I'm still in a position where I can travel the world with my wife, with my kids, but still essentially be paid enough to call it a living.
It's a complete paradox. I'm the only guy that has a book out and is working on certain networks that doesn't promote anything that he does. It doesn't really make sense, but that's exactly who I am. So as a consequence, I don't want to be out there more because I do enjoy the freedom of seeing my friends, seeing my family, being able to travel, and just, as I said, just see the world. And I think if I committed to something full-time there, I think I'd lose that opportunity, and I don't want to do that. I just want to have quality work in the places that I enjoy working. But then outside of that, it's just go crazy, just do anything else because soccer's great, but like I said, the best version of it is playing, and if I can't play then just do other things that bring me that sort of joy.
Grant Wahl:
Nedum Onuoha of ESPN has a terrific new memoir, Kicking Back, that is out in the UK and will be released in October in the United States, which you can pre-order now on Amazon. Nedum, thanks so much for coming on the show.
Nedum Onuoha:
Oh, it was an absolute pleasure and an honor, like I said before.
He's a very likeable person. Loved the Zlatan anecdote. Now, Grant, if you could only get Onyewu to spill the beans on what really happened at Milan!