Sporting Kansas City midfielder Benny Feilhaber joined hosts Nate Bukaty and Steven St. John on The Border Patrol on Sports Radio 810 WHB Wednesday morning. Feilhaber discussed the challenge of playing at Toronto on Friday, the Benny Feilhaber Show and new podcast, and the United States U-20 Men's National Team beating France.
Toronto FC changed the start time of Friday’s match due to the Toronto Raptors playing in the NBA Finals game later that night. Bukaty and St. John brought up the possibility of there being fewer fans at Friday’s match because of the NBA game. Feilhaber addressed how there could be an advantage with a smaller crowd.
“I personally like playing in a sold out stadium, whether that’s home or away. It just makes it more exciting,” Feilhaber said. “I do think we could potentially have an advantage with a slightly lesser crowd because the home team could be affected by only seeing half the crowd there. I don’t know if they would get as pumped up.”
Bukaty mentioned the fact that both Sporting and Toronto will be missing a few players due to national team duties. With both teams looking for a win, Feilhaber elaborated on facing an unpredictable Toronto team.
“It’s tough to know what you’re really going to get with Toronto. They were the best team in MLS history two years ago and last year they went through a lot of injuries,” Feilhaber said. “This year they started off really well and recently they have dropped some results. The only thing we are focusing on right now is ourselves. It doesn’t really matter who we are playing, we are looking for points.”
When Feilhaber was previously with Sporting, he had a smash-hit YouTube show called The Benny Feilhaber Show. Feilhaber was asked if the show would make a return.
“The Benny Feilhaber show is pretty much retired. My friend Sal Zizzo just retired so he has a little bit more time on his hands,” Feilhaber said. “We’ve been talking throughout the year about starting a podcast, and we are going to do that. The first episode of The BS Podcast dropped today. We did our first show with Andy Gruenebaum and we’ll continue to try to do it once a week.”
The U.S. U-20s defeated France 3-2 yesterday at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Bukaty asked how big of a deal it is that the USA's youth is doing so well.
“I think it’s fantastic. It was pretty amazing that the U.S. was down early in the first half and at that point were able to establish themselves. They had the confidence to continue playing their way,” Feilhaber said. “It was great to see and the goals were well taken.”
Listen to the full podcast below.
