There’s a lot to know about Jonathan Bornstein. He can play anywhere on the pitch. He’s a SoCal guy through and through. He is the most popular man in Honduras. And he could very well be the key to the US’ effort in South Africa.
Jonny’s back in town because…well because he never really left town. After Los Al High School he went to Cal Poly Pomona, then UCLA, then Chivas USA, and for the last few years he’s been with the US National Team–which conveniently enough is also based out of Southern California, at the Home Depot Center in Carson. But when I sat down with him, he was in Los Al for his “Jonny B Deft Touch Academy.”
The Deft Touch Soccer Center is just part of the growing business of creating better soccer players; and this one, like all the others, presumably has a lot riding on Jonny’s performance in the World Cup. But where Deft Touch is different is that it’s not a club team. Founder Trey Scharlin described the goal of the Soccer Center as: “To create a training that you can’t do in a club environment.” Which really just means taking all ages and all skill-sets. Of course as he says that I can’t help but look at the Championship banners hanging on the wall. Coach Trey makes sure I know that 3 of them are his and Jonny’s. In ’02 Coach Trey’s Los Al High School team, with a young striker named Jonathan Bornstein, won CIF and was ranked 3rd in the Nation.
But how exactly do you make better soccer players? How do you turn the huge number of American kids that play soccer each year into World Cup-caliber players? Basically, with all the athletes this country has–why aren’t more of them being pushed towards soccer? “That’s the million dollar question,” Jonny says. “That’s what US Soccer, as an organization, has been trying to figure out.”
As we sit on the bench watching some of the Academy players mess around on the indoor fields, you can’t help but wonder if these kids are going to stay with soccer or if another sport will pluck them away. “Peter Crouch for example is really tall guy”–which is an understatement, the English striker for Tottenham is 6’7- -“if he grew up in the US everyone would say to him ‘Oh you’re tall, you should play basketball.’ But instead he grows up in England and so soccer’s his life. Can you imagine Reggie Bush playing professional soccer?” It’s a game many US soccer fans play, with the usualy suspects being Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant (who is a huge FC Barcelona fan.) But it’s not a hypothetical that most countries in the World Cup have to play—although, I would like to see what Pau Gasol could do on the pitch.
As a player, and now as a teacher, Jonny and the rest of the US team don’t just have to compete against England, they have to compete against basketball and football.
As an instructor, though, Jonny’s advice can be a little more specific. Throughout the youth ranks and even in college he was a forward or midfielder, but when (then Chivas-USA coach) Bob Bradley drafted Bornstein he made a pretty drastic change. Suddenly Jonny was a left-back. “I don’t know if that was the original intention or if he just saw my potential as a player, but we didn’t really have a left-back on the team at that moment. It was probably the only way I was seeing the field as a starter, because we had pretty well known forwards, very talented midfielders. (Left-back) was probably one of the only spots we were missing.” It worked out pretty well–Jonny was the MLS Rookie of the Year.
Soon though, Bob Bradley had a new role: head coach of the US National Team. And he took Jonny with him. Of the 30 players Bradley invited to training camp (23 will actually go to the World Cup), only 2 have played for him in the MLS. “Coaching the national team you take on a different role and you have different tasks he has to perform. I think on Chivas it was much more personal, we saw him every single day. You could go in the coaches’ locker room and sit down and talk with him. And now with the US you only see him during camp–although the (National team) offices are in the Home Depot Center. You don’t have that exact same personal relationship.” But having the personal relationship with him from their Chivas games also means that Jonny becomes the go-to guy to ask about the coach’s tactics. “A lot of guys (on the National team) would ask me certain questions, like ‘what kind of training are we going to do today?’ And you’d look at the way the cones are set up and it’s the same thing we did for a whole year so you know what to expect.”
Part of the reason that so few guys have had Bradley in the MLS is that now more than ever the US National Team is made up of guys that play overseas. Of the 30 players invited to camp only 9 play in the MLS. And just like his teammates ask him about Bradley, Jonny gets to then ask them about the guys they’re going to see in the World Cup. “A lot of the guys on this team play against those guys on a weekly basis so I’m definitely going to use their knowledge.” But could he be one of those guys? Would he leave the comforts of So Cal to play in Europe? “Yeah, it’s always been something that I’ve left the door open for. We’ll see where to goes. It all depends on a quality World Cup and being seen by the right club.” And that will be a theme of this tournament for the US. Only Tim Howard, and maybe Clint Dempsey, are set in their club, the other 21 guys are auditioning in front of a billion people.
And Bornstein’s already ready for the big time, he recently did what all breakout stars are supposed to do: he joined Twitter. “I joined Twitter because two of our rookies are on it and they had something like 60 followers. So they bet me that I couldn’t get 100 followers in 48 hours. I got it in like 2-and-a-half-hours.” He’s now up to 400-plus and presumably a good World Cup will only make that number skyrocket; or a bad World Cup could make the critics pounce. “There’s a lot of good comments, there’s also criticism. I think it’s a really good way for the fans to feel closer to the player.”
Of course once word gets out in Honduras that he’s on Twitter, he’ll have more followers than Ashton Kutcher. After the US had qualified for the World Cup, one of their young strikers, Charlie Davis, was in a devastating car accident–one person lost their life, Charlie broke his leg, his skull, and lost part of his bladder. The US had a game soon after against Costa Rica. 24 minutes in, the US was down 2-nil. But then something amazing happened: they did it for Charlie. Michael Bradley put them on the board in the 72nd minute and then about 23 minutes later (about the 5th minute of stoppage time) the US tied it up. That tying goal came off the head of Jonny B. The team erupted, they pulled up signs for Charlie, they unveiled his number (9), and the foundation of good chemistry was set.
But somewhere else in the world there was another group celebrating even more. With Costa Rica getting the tie (and not the win), Honduras qualified for the World Cup instead. They knew who to thank. A few months later Honduras would meet the US in a game at the Home Depot Center, and many Honduras fans were wearing clearly-personalized jerseys. On the back of those jerseys: “Bornstein.” During the game Jonny would look in the stands and “people were literally turning around showing me their blue (Honduras) jersey with my name on the back. It was pretty awkward to have another country have your name on the back of their jersey.”
The US is still a rival after all, so the entire team didn’t get showered with affection but Jonny’s family was at the game and during the introductions every US player was booed, save for one. “It was very surreal,” Jonny says now about it. He calls it the highlight of his (young) career, and it prompted many Honduran government officials to invite him down to their country. It’s not something he’s taken them up on yet but “It’s been something I’ve wanted to do, I just haven’t had time since then… Maybe after the World Cup, after the Chivas season.” I have a feeling he won’t need to pay for drinks his entire time down there.
While Honduras celebrates just making it to the World Cup, the US has much higher aims. I asked him about what would make this World Cup a success, and I was sure that simply making it out of the Group stage was the goal. Instead Jonny and the rest of the team are aiming higher than that: “Getting to the quarterfinals… the quarters are the farthest we’ve ever gotten in a World Cup, that would be a huge stepping stone, and anything beyond that is a gigantic step…Beating England would be a huge accomplishment.”
But is that realistic? Does the US really have a chance to beat England? “A very strong chance.” Despite the team speed that England has–particularly on the wings (which means the guys that Jonny will be going directly against)? “I’ve played against some pretty fast guys before. The way you defend those guys is you keep them in front of you, don’t let them get behind you and limit their touches and the amount of space they get.” England’s speed is going to be key. Guys like Theo Walcott and Shaun Wright-Phillips are going to be flying down the sidelines and it’s going to be the back four’s job to not get burned. With Oguchi Onyewu coming back from injury, who exactly will play is still up in the air. If “Gooch” can’t make it, then Carlos Bocanegra takes central defense and presumably Jonny B is at left-back. But what if Gooch can play in the center, does Bocanegra go out wide even though he lacks the speed that position is going to need?
Bornstein has training camp to prove that he belongs in the starting eleven. If he does that, then he has 90 minutes to prove that he can keep pace with some of the best players in the world. And if he does that, if he proves that he can hold his own for 90 minutes, then he will get to prove that he can consistently be a world-class defender. But…he’ll probably have to leave Southern California to do it.