\n<\/p>\n
A<\/span>t the foot of Signal Mountain on a bend in the Tennessee river, over the little level crossing like a postcard of America, past the sheriff at the gate and through an avenue of pines, the perfect pitch awaits Lamine Yamal, Rodri and the rest. So does a man. He\u2019s 6ft 3in, 78 years old, his name is Bill Nuttall, and he\u2019s here every day.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got nothing else to do,\u201d he says, laughing. He\u2019s done it all: he cleaned out Pel\u00e9 and got cleaned out by Gordon Banks, coached Gerd M\u00fcller and built a US national team from scratch, the hosts making history in 1994. He also brought Spain here, an even better host now than he was back then.<\/p>\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that a story and a half?\u201d he says at the selecci\u00f3n<\/em>\u2019s training base five miles outside Chattanooga, home to the World Cup favourites. Well, it\u2019s one <\/em>of his stories. He has hundreds and, boy, can he tell them. The only problem is knowing where to start.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s begin at the beginning. It\u2019s 1976 and Pel\u00e9 has just hit town. It\u2019s the North American Soccer League season opener, the New York Cosmos at the Miami Toros at Tamiami Park. The Cosmos are winning 1-0 when the ball reaches Pel\u00e9, all alone, on the edge of the area. Enter, Nuttall.<\/p>\n \u201cI was the Toros goalkeeper. I\u2019m looking around, can\u2019t see anyone, so I go out and flatten him,\u201d he says. \u201cToday, you\u2019re gone. I didn\u2019t even get a yellow, but it was a penalty. Pel\u00e9 looks at me, walks up and \u2026 I push it wide. There was no footage then but some guy got a couple of stills. You see me diving but not touching the ball.\u201d<\/p>\n With that, Nuttall cracks up again and so it starts, a life in 90 minutes and quite the cast of characters: from player to coach to team manager.<\/p>\n <\/span>Bill Nuttall on the level crossing by Spain\u2019s camp.<\/span> Photograph: Pablo Garcia\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cHere we were in the NASL, chugging along, averaging 3,000, 4,000 a game. Then Pel\u00e9 comes and the whole thing goes crazy. The Cosmos started adding internationals. Eus\u00e9bio was at Toronto. We played at the Yankee stadiums, all the hoopla. It\u2019s America: all glitz and superlatives. The Cosmos magnified that but they were a team, not the Harlem Globetrotters. I found it fascinating.<\/p>\n \u201cWe moved to a 19,000 stadium called Lockhart, in Fort Lauderdale, and became the Strikers, but I didn\u2019t end the year well. I\u2019m 28, also working as a coach at FIU [Florida International University] in Miami. Ron Newman, the coach, calls me in and says, \u2018I\u2019m going to cut you loose. I\u2019m bringing in another goalkeeper, with more experience.\u2019 Oh. OK. I said: \u2018I understand I\u2019m out of here but do you mind me asking who?\u2019 He says: \u2018It\u2019s Gordon Banks \u2026\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s semi-retired. He\u2019s had the car accident. I said: \u2018Ron, I won\u2019t be a problem. I just want to train with this guy.\u2019 Gordon and I got close. I am fas-cin-ated. There\u2019s Gordon and he\u2019s doing this with one eye. You try doing anything with one eye, period.<\/p>\n \u201cI ended up as assistant coach, under Cor van der Hart, who had been Rinus Michels\u2019 right-hand man. We had five big internationals. Nene Cubillas, Brian Kidd, Jan van Beveren, Ricardo Villa \u2013 strange guy, Ricardo \u2013 and Gerd M\u00fcller, the nicest man you could ever meet, such a humble guy. All this press came to see him, every German tourist. But he always wore the same polo shirt, he could give a flip.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery time he got anything, he gave it to the staff. But he hit the juice hard. It got very bad back in Germany but Bayern Munich really looked after him, cleaned him up. I saw him years later, gave him a big hug. I was so pleased to see how they took care of him.\u201d<\/p>\n How does a guy like you coach guys like that? \u201cI don\u2019t,\u201d Nuttall says, laughing. \u201cI did the warm ups. Technical reports, scouting, corners.\u201d<\/p>\n Something bigger than coaching awaited. When the US were awarded the 1994 World Cup in 1988 they had no professional league and barely had a national team, just what Nuttall calls \u201ca college all-star team\u201d. It was his job to build one. He can still hear the laments, the plan to avoid them becoming a laughing stock. \u201c\u2018Why do they give the World Cup to a third-world country?\u2019 \u2018This is going to be a joke.\u2019 \u2018They don\u2019t know how to play football.\u2019<\/p>\n Alan Rothenberg wins US soccer presidential elections just after the 1990 World Cup. He says: \u2018We\u2019re going to have to have a standing national team ready for 1994.\u2019<\/p>\n <\/span>Thomas Dooley (left) leads the USA celebrations after they beat Colombia at the 1994 World Cup.<\/span> Photograph: Shaun Botterill\/Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cAlan, and Hank Steinbrecher, the general secretary, get Bora Milutinovic as coach. Hank and I have known each other for years. He calls me and says: \u2018I need to find a general manager who understands foreign coaches, the national scene, and has no baggage.\u2019\u201d There\u2019s a grin. \u201cI said: \u2018I\u2019m in.\u2019 I was in marketing at Mitre.\u201d<\/p>\n Time to get to work.<\/p>\n \u201cMy job was to sign players, organise it all, find a facility. We went to Mission Viejo, outside Los Angeles. That was their home for three years. The players were owned by the federation. Most were college kids saying: \u2018Shit, I can go to Mission Viejo, train there, get paid, maybe go to the World Cup.\u2019<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a>Free newsletter | Twice weekly<\/p>\n Sign up to Soccer Desk: World Cup Edition<\/span><\/p>\n Jonathan Wilson and Guardian journalists bring expert analysis and reporting on the biggest stories in soccer.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n \u201cI had to find games because we had zero money and a coach who says he needs competition. As hosts, we didn\u2019t even have qualifiers. I got lucky that the Soviet Union broke up: one potential game became six or seven. For three years we played somewhere in the world every 10 days.\u201d<\/p>\n The team they built made history, reaching the last 16 before Brazil ended their run. \u201cBrazil toyed with us, but that\u2019s not the point: we lost [only] 1-0 to Brazil, world champions,\u201d Nuttall says.<\/p>\n He, meanwhile, landed back at El Toro naval station and packed it all away, turning Mission Viejo back to the city and the players over to their new lives. \u201cThe national team experiment,\u201d as he calls it, was finished. \u201cYou\u2019re going at 100mph and suddenly, screech, it stops.\u201d<\/p>\n Thirty-two years on, the World Cup is back. Nuttall left US Soccer that same summer, but remained connected. He also came to live in Chattanooga, close to his granddaughters. In 2015, he had brought the US women\u2019s team to town as part of their World Cup victory tour, and as the US prepared for the 2026 men\u2019s edition, an idea formed: Chattanooga would make a great place for a base camp. The grounds at the $70,000 (\u00a353,000)-a-year Baylor prep school where his granddaughters go, five miles outside the city, were ideal. \u201cSo,\u201d Nuttall says, \u201cI call a guy I know at Fifa and say: \u2018What\u2019s the process?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Spain players\u2019 pigeonholes for their boots.<\/span> Photograph: Pablo Garcia\/The Guardian<\/p>\n Long, it turns out. A host committee is set up, an inspection committee comes and Chattanooga is included in the first catalogue. \u201cNew York, Philadelphia, Washington \u2026 and Chattanooga. People are like: \u2018What the hell are they doing there?\u2019\u201d Nuttall says, laughing again.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Germans come the first week. The Dutch. The Japanese. The most organised first. It goes quiet for a bit. A representative from Spain comes. A week later, five more of them come back: staff, coaches.<\/p>\n \u201cSpain fall in love. They loved the privacy, the size of the city, Baylor, the whole ambience. \u2018Who else is looking? We want it.\u2019 There are so many calls, visits, staff showing us drawings of what they need; we\u2019re doing everything we can, getting everyone on board. Spain even invite us to the Copa del Rey final, treat our staff like royalty. They were so lovely.\u201d<\/p>\n Nuttall cracks up again. \u201cThey originally wanted the whole school campus but it\u2019s like: \u2018You want million-dollar players in a 2 x 4 dorm? With no bathroom?\u2019 So a hotel is set up downtown, the work is done to make it just right. Spain pay to make this base just right \u2013 where we\u2019re sitting now has been put up on the tennis courts \u2013 and the same goes for the hotel.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of it will be taken down again but I\u2019m sure they\u2019ll keep some; it\u2019s pretty cool. Everyone will be like: \u2018I want to stay in Lamine\u2019s room. Which one\u2019s Lamine\u2019s?\u2019 Every room will be Lamine\u2019s. He\u2019s 102 \u2026 103 \u2026 and 104. The whole thing is just surreal. The city has been so excited. Everyone bought into it, gave so much, without realising the magnitude of the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n Now they know, hosts and hosted happy. After three weeks here, Spain reluctantly leave Chattanooga on Tuesday. Once more across the river and over the rail tracks where, for the last time, they\u2019ll be watched by the goalkeeper who flattened Pel\u00e9 and welcomed them into his home and theirs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the foot of Signal Mountain on a bend in the Tennessee river, over the little level crossing like a postcard of America, past the sheriff at the gate and through an avenue of pines, the perfect pitch awaits Lamine Yamal, Rodri and the rest. So does a man. He\u2019s 6ft 3in, 78 years old, 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NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"At the foot of Signal Mountain on a bend in the Tennessee river, over the little level crossing like a postcard of America, past the sheriff at the gate and through an avenue of pines, the perfect pitch awaits Lamine Yamal, Rodri and the rest. So does a man. He\u2019s 6ft 3in, 78 years old,…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31719"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31719\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31721,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31719\/revisions\/31721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}