Tyler Adams Interview: Bournemouth's Success & USMNT's World Cup Expectations

0:12Robbie Earle:Hello and welcome to the Two Robbies podcast, your destination for in-depth discussion and analysis of the Premier League. I'm Robbie Mustoe, he's Robbie Earle and this is a special edition of the Two Robbies podcast. We had the pleasure of sitting down with Bournemouth player Tyler Adams. A conversation we had a few weeks ago. This is how it went. Okay, Tyler, thanks so much for joining us. Absolutely. Just thinking about yourself and how you might be right now. You've been playing virtually nonstop through 2025 with both Bournemouth and the U.S. men's national team. How are you feeling right now?

0:46Robbie Earle:How are you physically and mentally?

0:48Tyler Adams:Yeah, I feel great. I think after Gold Cup, it was nice to just kind of disconnect for, what was it, two or three weeks before meeting back up with the team in Chicago. And it was also nice to kind of stay stateside for preseason. So it wasn't a lot of traveling. It wasn't like, you know, some of these clubs that do, obviously, like the Asia tours and all this. So to be fair, it's been pretty low-key. And then obviously when you're back in the UK, it's quite easy traveling. So it's only really the national team.

1:12Robbie Mustoe:Hi, Tyler. You and Andoli Uriola joined Bournemouth in 2023, that summer. Give us your first impressions of the manager and how your relationships maybe evolved over the last couple of years.

1:25Tyler Adams:Yeah, I think from the moment I talked to him on the phone, obviously before I joined Bournemouth, you could see he's very passionate, very detail-oriented in the way that he approaches the game. And I thought it was someone that was going to be able to push me and kind of help me develop. And I think it's funny because whenever I describe him to people as a coach, I tell them, I'm like, he's not a manager that will be on you 24-7. He wants to let you kind of be free and grow. He's going to critique you in certain ways, but he's never going to be the manager that says, what are you doing in this situation?

1:57Tyler Adams:He's kind of, he's an educator at the end of the day, and he wants you to learn and kind of understand why he's thinking about the game in a certain way. So yeah, I think the belief that he instills in the team, the clarity and the roles that you have, nothing is overcomplicated. It's pretty straightforward. So I think he's evolved, obviously, amazingly as a manager and he just creates a sense of belief in the team tyler both me and

2:20Robbie Earle:robbie were midfield players central midfield players long time ago now um just interested in i guess i got a couple of questions about your midfield game like how do you first off how do you kind of work on your own game like with the coaches with yourself do you do you look at videos

2:34Tyler Adams:do you try and how do you try and improve yourself as a midfield player it's funny i literally just left the analyst room um constantly just watching clips and and breaking down uh what were you thinking in this situation? Why were you thinking in this certain situation? What's the habits that you sort of need to break or the habits you need to create? You know, checking your shoulder, the awareness, the spatial awareness of the players you're playing with, all these kinds of things. I think a lot of it comes down in football at the end of the day to the relationships with the players you have on your team and the players that you have that help balance your game out.

3:07Tyler Adams:And, you know, for me, thankfully, I'm able to play with some amazing midfielders. I think we've found a good balance but for me personally I'm my biggest critic you know I know right away what I should have done in a certain situation if I did it right or I did it wrong and some of that comes down to tactics but also it just comes down to habits the way that you train every single day and I try to you know practice what I preach and do it every single day in training.

3:26Robbie Earle:Tyler do you feel like the role in the team right now I mean whether you're with Alex Scott or whoever you're with you're kind of the sitting guy is there something in you that's more attacking do you have that kind of desire to do that or are you very happy in the role that you

3:38Tyler Adams:have right now yeah I'm happy in the role that I have right now but I think it's something that I want to continue to add to my game but I I do also understand that with certain players that I play with they obviously have that knack sometimes for getting forward a little bit more often and there there does have to be that balance it can't be you know me watching Alex Scott or Ryan Christie who like to be that creator connector going forward and me thinking okay let my time it's my opportunity to dart in the box and try and get on the end of a ball so you know for me it's about you know understanding your role what you're good at first and foremost and when you have that opportunity

4:09Robbie Mustoe:how can you take it and capitalize on it you lost some really big names during the summer yet the squad doesn't look any weaker how's that happened and who are the guys who've really

4:20Tyler Adams:stepped up obviously including you yeah um i mean if if you were to ask me how good our team would have been when you lose players to real madrid psg and liverpool i would have said i'm not i'm not quite sure yet let's see how let's see how it goes but um the guys that have stepped in have done unbelievable you know you look at and we sign you know before the diquite and he comes in the day before the liverpool game and he plays against liverpool and like what a test that was he played unbelievable and of course you're playing the reigning champions it's it's very difficult but after that you could just see he understands the system so quickly and i again i i give credit to the the coaching staff because they make the game so simplistic for everybody to come in and and you know translate the game um really well and how you can have success right away and you know Adrian Truffera came in, the left back, and you wouldn't have even noticed that we lost a player to Liverpool.

5:09Tyler Adams:All the signings that have come in have done really well, but on top of that, Antoine Semenyo takes another step forward in his game, and he's obviously continuing to produce. Evan Nielsen, who for me goes under the radar every single game, the way that this guy holds the ball up against unbelievable players, and he's a creator for us. We have guys like Justin Klibert, who's not even fully back in the mix yet, and we're bringing guys like him off the bench right now. So the depth of our squad has grown as well. And when you can rely on certain players to have an impact, your team is going to get better.

5:38Robbie Earle:Tyler, you've captain the national team and always one of the most vocal players when we watch you play. Where does that come from, your leadership skills? Something you work on? Is there somebody influenced you in your career with that?

5:49Tyler Adams:My mom talks a lot. So I would say definitely from my mom. But also just the leaders that I've been around in my career. You know, in MLS at a young age, I was, you know, very fortunate to have good leaders. And, you know, someone I really relied on at a young age was Bradley Wright Phillips. And, you know, you speak to him as a 15-year-old, 16-year-old, and you know the players that he's played with, the families that he's from. You're talking to someone who understands the game. So when he says something, you listen. And it wasn't always, what the hell are you doing, Tyler? It was, in this situation, pull away to create more space for yourself.

6:23Tyler Adams:You might find it a little bit easier if you take a bad touch to get out. Like, you know, just little things like that, that as a 16 year old, I was I was ready to absorb the information and criticism from any player. And that helped me in my career. And then I think, you know, going to Germany at a young age, being in an environment where, you know, I wasn't always comfortable and really just outside my comfort zone, having to speak a different language and learn from different guys. Like, you know, it really tests you at a young age. And I think that, you know, it helped me build this resilience.

6:52Tyler Adams:And I'm not really afraid to step on anyone's toes.

6:55Robbie Mustoe:Just talking about the national team, Tyler, there's been a bit of an up and down period. What's the state of the national team nine months out from a World Cup starting?

7:06Tyler Adams:I mean, I think in all honesty, if you ask me, of course, you want to be in a better position than I think that we're in right now. Like you said, I think there's been a lot of ups and downs, but I think the turbulent process is granted. You have a new manager come in. he's trying to you know uh he's trying to uh explain his philosophies and get his philosophies across in a short period of time in these 10 days periods it's really difficult and then when i look at this gold cup period that we just had i feel like that was the most progress that we've made in a really long time because we had 40 days together throughout the summer um where guys are just battling you know we're having real training sessions um you're having games where there's this pressure of like are you going to get knocked out how do you progress you have to go to penalties how do you deal with that that pressure these these sort of challenges that I think helped us grow a lot and you know even going into last camp like we lose to South Korea but we bounce back against Japan I think you can start to see the mentality grow within the team and the confidence of what we're doing so I think we're making progress now and I think that the upcoming camps are going to be important for us.

8:07Robbie Earle:Just thinking ahead Tyler to the World Cup you know what needs to happen uh or what outcomes need to happen in that tournament that you can walk away with your head held high feeling really good about what you and the team have done in that tournament?

8:20Tyler Adams:Yeah, it's so hard to put a marker on it of what's deemed success, obviously. You have to kind of use Qatar as a benchmark, and we made it out of the group, and we lost. So how can you take another step forward in a pressure situation? And I think we managed ourselves really well without getting out of that group for it being our first World Cup and a lot of continue to develop in order to beat some of the big boys and I think that's the hardest part about the national team is you don't always have the opportunity to play against a lot of the big teams so when we came up against Holland coming out of the group were we 100 % prepared for it no we gave everything we had but you know we came down swinging so I think now in this next World Cup it's like how do you when you have to face a Germany when you have to face a Holland like how do you it's an upset in that situation we're always going to be the underdogs in that situation but How do you create those advantages and win a game like that?

9:16Tyler Adams:I understand you're a bit of a golfer. My dad's a golfer. My brothers are golfers. I've got to spend some time with Scotty Scheffler before and watch him up close at the Travelers Championship with PGA. So I follow it closely. I love it. For me, it's the detail of something like making a swing over and over again and perfecting your craft. It's hard, isn't it? Yeah, it seems so difficult. and I don't feel like I'm ever getting any better, but that's the joy of it. Last one, Tyler.

9:47Robbie Earle:Just like we have a laugh living in America, of course we're in the U.S. now. What's some of your likes and your dislikes about living in England?

9:58Tyler Adams:My favorite thing is Sunday roast. I'll be going for a Sunday roast every weekend. But yeah, I don't know. I think England is, in a lot of ways, very similar to the U.S., which is nice. Like after living in Germany, I come to England and it's like a breath of fresh air, just how outgoing the people are, the banter, all those kinds of things. But I don't know. For me, it's just, you know, growing up in a place like New York where, you know, everything is about, you know, sports and culture and a lot of these things. Coming to the UK and just having it be about football, which I love, is a breath of fresh air.

10:30Tyler Adams:You know, everyone speaks the language of football and it's very relatable for me. So I love it.

10:36Robbie Mustoe:Listen, Tyler, thank you for your time spending that with us. Good luck for the rest of the season. and obviously for the World Cup 2026. So what a fascinating interview with Tyler Adams. I was fascinated to hear he loves the roast dinner, must he? I mean, everybody loves the roast dinner. Well, we all love a roast dinner.

10:53Robbie Earle:What a great guy, by the way, and what a great talker. Absolutely.

10:57Robbie Mustoe:Talked to us about Bournemouth and the players who've stepped up the Diocortes, SNESIs, with people leaving the football club. Talked about his role in the team and how he likes to get forward if he can. and there's ambitions for the national team and the World Cup coming up next season. So great to have some time with him. It was a fantastic conversation. And that's it for this week. But for now, I'm Earl. He's Musto together with the two Robbies. Thanks for watching and listening. Be safe, stay healthy. It's a good night from me. And it's a good night from him. Good night.

11:37Thank you.