Team USA’s Chris Richards on Preparing For His First World Cup

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0:27This is The Run Through. I'm Chloe Mel. And I'm Joan Minardi. And today on the pod, we have a conversation that I am very excited about between two of our Vogue football fiends, Taylor Antrim and Teen Vogue's Alyssa Hardy, and the U.S. soccer star Chris Richards. The World Cup is upon us, Choma! I'm sorry about U.S. soccer stars. No.

0:56I don't know. I think we're going to crush you in the World Cup. I think that's probably true. But you know what? I think Germany and France and Spain are going to crush all of us. True. True. We just had this big sporting moment here in the UK. Arsenal fans. Oh, I know. Of which Mondami is one. I know. He wore a special Ede Arsenal curta. It was very exciting. He did. Spike Lee is also an Arsenal fan. We had a huge parade. It took over all of London, and everybody was watching the UEFA Cup. So it's been pretty much football mania here all the time. How does the football song go? We were playing it.

1:41Graham did a presentation of the World Cup to Arthur's kindergarten class, And this morning he was reading the book to the kids and playing the British football song. How does it go again? Yeah, it's coming home. It's coming home. Yeah. It's coming. Yeah, exactly. It's coming home. It's coming. OK, well, I can't sing that right now, but I mean, for you. But Chris Richards is coming home and he will be he we hope is going to be playing in the World Cup, but he's injured. So it's a very newsy moment for Chris because there's a U.S. team friendly game against Germany this weekend that he won't be playing in, but we then hope he will be playing in the World Cup.

2:28And we had a really fun soccer-ish shoot in our summer issue featuring a handful of some of our favorite members of the U.S. men's national team. and we shot it with Iman Haman, who is a huge soccer fan herself. She is Dutch-Moroccan, and so she is a Team Morocco fan. But she also plays soccer on a Brooklyn Rec League, which I thought was super charming. And Harry Lambert styled the shoot, and it's such a delight. And so that will be, the shoot will be out next week, but we are hearing from Chris today. That's so fun. I can't wait to see that. I know. I hope you've got a shoot coming up with Wemby soon.

3:10That's all that's coming through my feed. Well, that's very sensitive in here, Choma, because we're a Knicks podcast. Thank you very much. But he's the greatest player that may have ever lived. I like it. You say it as if he might not be alive.

3:31Choma, I want to hear about your gorgeous wellness retreat last week. It looked so fantastic. I was particularly into the axe throwing. I know. I know. I think Anna was a bit shocked by the axe throwing. Anna was like, isn't that dangerous? I was quite scared. I thought if the axe goes in the wrong direction, we're all screwed. But it is such a thing. Apparently, people are axe throwing. Archery was my favorite. It was all part of this. We did an egg and spoon race. It was like super sports day-esque. That's so fun. Archery in the British countryside is really bringing me back to the animated Disney Robin Hood.

4:08So that's exactly what I want. Yeah, it was super fun. Yeah, the Cotswolds are pretty dreamy, and they're especially dreamy when there's a heat wave. So I think we were all kind of relieved to be out in the countryside. And yeah, it was super fun. We had our friends at Allo help us out, and it was really cool. um what was what is something you learned from one of the conversations or classes or whatever yeah I think one of the things that stayed with me because you know I have a really love-hate relationship with the word wellness for me I'm most passionate about women's health that for me I know health isn't a sexy word and I think wellness came along because health never got good enough PR um so one of the things that stayed with me was the fact that most clinical trials on women weren't done until 1993.

5:01So that fact that there's such scant research around women's bodies just really infuriates me. So yeah, that was one of the most, I guess, the thing that stayed with me the most, but there were a ton of other things. We had amazing sleep experts. And as you know, I'm one of the 3 % of the British population to have an adequate amount of fiber in my diet. Oh my gosh. Wow. Margo and I have a conversation that's going to be on the podcast soon all about the different health and wellness and beauty things that she is trying. And she says fiber is the new protein, i.e. the thing we should all be focusing on getting enough of.

5:41So you're ahead of the curve as always. I am. My doctor told me I'm one of the first patient I've ever had who has the adequate amount. I think it's called butrate. There's a bacteria in gut that loves fiber and is an indicator of a high fiber diet. But girl, I work on it. As you know, we've all heard, I will not bore everyone with my breakfast routine again. Choma, did you meet Michelle Obama? I did. She was here for South by Southwest doing a talk for her podcast with her brother, which was amazing, delightful. She's hilarious and looked totally chic in head to toe drees. And we had a really good, very quick chat about that because I was obviously fangirling out.

6:25I went backstage afterwards just to say hello. And it was quite an emotional moment. I think I just said to her, I was just so proud to have lived in America when her and her husband were in office. And I remember that hot November day in 2008 when they won and we were all dancing in the streets. And she was like, we need to bring that energy back. And I was like, yes. and I think we were quite emotional about it. I think her handlers were ready to push me along because I was talking her ear off. But she did say she loved Dries and that I should say hello to Julian because I'm interviewing him tomorrow evening.

7:02Oh, fun. For what? I'm traveling to Antwerp for a talk with Julian, which I'm really excited. Krausner, who is the new, well, recently, not so recently appointed. New-ish. I guess he had to step into, He had big shoes to fill, so he's still considered new. He's filling them. Yeah, he's more than filling them. I love his work. I'm so jealous. I love Julian. He's also so cute and charming. He loves you. The first thing that he said on our call was, oh, I just love that, like, you know, like, the likes of Chloe and you guys wear my clothes. And I thought it was like, he notices that. And I thought that was really lovely.

7:41And obviously, I told him about your biannual trip to the Drees. Our pilgrimage. Our religious experience. Yeah. Yeah, it was really cool. Choma and I make a point to go to the Drew store once a fashion month. Very important. We fit it into the sketch. We make sure. We make sure. But other big news this week. Dua Lipa and Callum Turner getting married at the same place that my mother and father got married. No way! Yeah, it's actually not far from my home. It's very trendy now for people to get married at, I guess it's, Marlebone Town Hall. So there are pictures of my parents on the steps. My mom wasn't wearing anything like what Dua Leather War.

8:28She was inspired by Bianca Jagger? No, she bought her wedding dress the day before on Kings Road. No way. She was a true free spirit, 60s gal. So it was a swing in 60s. So the Kings Road was the place to be. And she bought it there. but I thought that it was quite cool that, I wonder, do you think that Dua Lipa actually channeled? Bianca Jagger? Bianca Jagger, yeah. Do you think that she actually channeled Bianca Jagger? It really looks like it. I mean, not a bad person to channel, if we're being honest. Like, she kind of looked quite incredible. And it was Schiaparelli couture, obviously, customs, and she's had so many great moments in Schiaparelli.

9:08So it was really no surprise to me that she wore Schiaparelli. And obviously it's a bit of a drum roll for the big event that's happening later in the year. She's getting married. Where is she getting married? In Italy? I think Palermo. It'll be interesting to see what she wears for her. I mean, I'm sure she'll have several dresses, but it'll be interesting to see which one of her designer friends she wears for her actual wedding. Maybe Simone Port Giacomoose. She's a friend of the house and he's so good at designing wedding dresses as well. And it's very her vibe. So let's watch the space. We're watching.

9:46It is such a beautiful time of year in New York. It is such gorgeous weather. It feels very sort of beginning of summer. It's warm, but not too hot. I've been enjoying Central Park. I went to the puppet show in Central Park. I took Alice to see the amazing Batiste Sarr exhibition at the New York Historical Society of her collection of black dolls that she's collected over her whole life and then did watercolors of the dolls during COVID. And so they're displayed really beautifully. And then I went to our dear friend Jesse Heyman's baby shower and it was so much fun to be reunited with old and current voguettes alike.

10:27So far, I love that time of year in New York when the weather's actually temperate, which is like maybe two weeks. Speaking of not temperate, And the French Open has been such a heat wave. It's been crazy to see these grown men like slamming themselves with huge bags of ice, sort of weeping from the heat. And then tomorrow I'm going to see a new documentary on Rafael Nadal called Rafa. So it's a big, big tennis moment around here. I'm going to the French Open on Friday. Oh, my gosh. Exciting. I think it's going to be an interesting set of semifinals. So we'll see. I'm excited. I've never been to the French Open.

11:07I've heard it's super chic La Costa hosting me. It's going to be really fun, I think. That's amazing. I saw the amazing Deb Haaland's magazine story. Congratulations. I know. I'm really excited. I'm so thrilled that she won for many reasons, but also because it was a wonderful time to have our story go live. I have been such a fan of, I still think of her as Secretary Haaland because she was secretary in Biden's administration. But she I think she is one of the best examples of someone who uses fashion in a really powerful way in a public office. And she incorporates native designs and indigenous jewelry and accessories and pieces into very office appropriate Capitol Hill types of scenarios.

11:56Anyway, I've been watching her for a long time. I think she's very impressive. And her daughter, Soma, is this young activist who we've also been watching. And so we photographed Deb and Soma together in her home state of New Mexico. Wow, that's super exciting. I also know that this wasn't this week the week that the CFDA finalists were announced. I was so happy to see a few faces I knew on the list, like Claire Sullivan. I know when we talked about it. So I'm a judge for the first time. I know that you have been a judge many times. And it was really fun to be in that room with the other judges at the CFDA deciding, whittling down 31 runners up to 10 finalists.

12:39And immediately when Claire Sullivan was presented, I said, ah, Choma's Met dress. I love that dress. And ex-Dog.com employee, Emily Dawn Long. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, she used to work on the picture desk. Oh, my God. A researcher. I didn't know that. Well, we'd love to see it. It's a really fun group this year. I think we have such a variety of types of designs and fabrication techniques from artisanal knitting. So I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with and puts together. So that'll be really fun. We have our cocktail party next Wednesday announcing them. So fun. What else is going on this week?

13:25We have the Tribeca Film Festival kicks off this weekend. And Lisa Macabasco is attending and telling us everything that we should be seeing and taking away from that. Governor's Ball is also this weekend. Hannah is going. She's seeing Lorde and her beloved geese. And obviously, big, big deal for Vogue. Tony's are on Sunday evening. Ooh, that came around quick. I know. And the big debate, will it be Nathan Lane or John Lithgow for Best Actor? Choma's holding her breath. I'm doing my best to get into theater. I actually have a theater suggestion for anyone who's coming to London for the first time.

14:06Oh, tell us. I love Dangerous Liaisons too. That was fab. So I've been slowly ramping up my theater consumption. Yes, I went to see 1536. And I was originally going to go to the opening night because apparently it was like the most major opening night, partly because Margot Robbie is a producer on it. But Quentin Tarantino was there. It was like an insane crowd. And so the anticipation was high, but it was absolutely brilliant. It's this new playwright that I think Baz Luhrmann is actually working with called Ava Pickett. And dialogue, it just sparkles. Oh, wow. Choma, I haven't heard you that rapturous about a play for a very long time.

14:49I hope that it comes to New York or I come to London. I think it will. I think that's the news in our world today. The Run-Through will be right back with Chris Richards on Big World Cup Fever.

15:09Hi, this is Bella Freud. Each week on Fashion Neurosis, I interview highly creative people in the world of fashion, film, art, sport, literature and music. The format of the show is that my guest lies on the couch and I sit in a chair like an analyst. I know. I ask questions, quite simple things that revolve around how we reveal or hide things through what we wear. How we do or don't draw attention to ourselves. Find Fashion Neurosis on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.

16:00So, Alyssa. Taylor. Oh, I'm here with Alyssa Hardy, who's the digital director of Teen Vogue. and I'm the deputy editor at Vogue and a sort of frequent co-host, guest host on this here program. But the reason we're here is there are actually a lot of sports fans at Vogue. A lot of people, like, you know, a lot of Nick's energy right now. When the Super Bowl rolls around, like, people are hyped. People are into it. There are almost no soccer fans at Vogue. Devastating. Which has come into, like, stark relief in this run-up to the World Cup where it was kind of like Chloe Maul was like, what should we do for the World Cup, guys?

16:34And I just was kind of looking around like, you know, where are the soccer fans? And at Team Vogue, we have a diehard soccer fan. Diehard soccer fan, yes. Yeah. I love watching Premier League, but I love watching actually all the leagues. But I'm a big Liverpool fan, huge diehard Liverpool fan. But this thing about there not being any soccer fans at Vogue really surprised me. And it's weird because it's a very fashionable sport. Totally fashionable sport. And so, you know, I feel like F1 is so fashion adjacent. But, like, the players look incredible in the tunnel walks. Like, it's kind of the same energy as any other sport, maybe more.

17:08Right. And, yeah. It's occurring to me that this is actually a terrible introduction to a Vogue podcast about soccer for all you soccer fans out there that are tuning in. But sort of the reason we're here is that part of those discussions with Chloe about, like, what should we do about the World Cup? I work on the print magazine, and we pulled together a really fun shoot for the summer issue of Vogue, which is coming out in a couple of weeks. And what we did was we asked six members of the U.S. men's national team to do a fashion shoot for us down in Georgia, which is where they were training at the National Training Center.

17:43And we got Iman Hamam, who is a wonderful model but also happens to be like a legitimate sports fan. Grew up in Amsterdam playing soccer, played for a rec league in Brooklyn. And we did this just like very vogue confection, which is like these awesome athletes, like wearing American fashion with Amon and like, you know, just having fun. But it's and so it's in the summer issue and it's coming out in a few weeks. And that's sort of why we're here, because Chris Richards was one of the guys that came along for the shoot. We're recording on Wednesday. This episode is coming out on Thursday. And then on Saturday, it'll be the final round of international friendlies before the World Cup starts next week.

18:24And now we're so excited, Alyssa, we are about to talk to Chris Richards, who is on the U.S. men's national team, and excited to chat with him. Hello. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the run-through. We're so excited to have you. Glad to be here. You're talking to the two legitimate soccer fans at Vogue. We were just talking beforehand. There are a lot of sports fans at Vogue, but when you dig deep for the soccer fans, you come up with me and Alyssa. So we're really excited to be here with you and talking to you. We got the best. Yes. Yes, yes. Again, thank you all for taking the time out for it. We're so excited for the World Cup.

18:58And honestly, I'm joking, but the ranks of soccer fans at Vogue are swelling by the day because we've all got a lot of World Cup energy. So we're really, really psyched. Amazing. Sorry to start this way, But like, we all want to know about the ankle. How is the ankle, Chris? Let's start there. No, it's good. I mean, it might be a little bit harder getting into some shoes, but for the most part, you know, it's doing much better. So I should be good for the first game. Oh, that's awesome to hear. Okay, so just so everyone knows, like maybe two weeks ago or something like that, you were playing with your club, which is Crystal Palace in London, and you twisted your ankle.

19:35And I have to just ask myself, like, three weeks out from the World Cup, you suffer an injury like that on the field, what's going through your mind? Are you like going crazy internally or are you able to kind of like handle an experience like that? A little bit of both. I almost couldn't believe it because something along the same lines happened right before the last World Cup. About three weeks out, I had a big injury. And so when this happened, I was super nervous. I can't lie. But then I almost forced myself to go back on the pitch and finish the match, even though I probably shouldn't have.

20:05But I think for me, it was just a sign where I was I was like, you know, I have to get through this. Regardless of what the actual injury is, I have to get back on the field. And that kind of saved my chance of it once I woke up. And then what does the rehab and recovery look like? Like I saw some stuff on social media. I think you were out on the field like today or something like that. So what does the recovery look like? Yeah, you know, I spend a lot of time in the gym just doing ankles, strengthening exercises, and a lot of compression, a lot of, you know, trying to massage the swelling out.

20:35But I pretty much spend six or seven hours in the treatment room just trying to get the swelling down and trying to ease the pain a little bit. It's been working, but I think it'll be like this probably for the rest of the World Cup. Wow. Yeah, so I think something that a lot of people don't realize is how close to the World Cup those roster announcements come. They think it's kind of like a shoo-in. You're a superstar on the team. I'm wondering for you, what is it like to get that call up? Yeah, I think regardless of your role with the team over X amount of years, I think there's always kind of that question mark of, you know, does the coach really see me in that light?

21:07Or am I really this kind of shoo-in that people say on social media? And so again, it's nerve wracking. Regardless of who you are, it's nerve wracking. And for me, I remember sitting, I was laying on the ground in my living room waiting for the call. And it was 6 p.m. still didn't see a message. And I was like, oh, no, please tell me this doesn't happen. And it was just because the coaches were tardy. But regardless, you know, it was a nerve-wracking 12 or so minutes before I got the message. Chris, what are the pre-World Cup jitters like? I mean, I was thinking about this question and thinking, OK, this is a guy that's played in the FA Cup final.

21:41You know, early in your career, you played for Bayern Munich, which is nuts. Like, that's one of the biggest clubs in the world. And so you've been thrown on big stages in your career. But I just wonder what the World Cup feels like. We're a week out from you guys playing. Yeah, it almost doesn't feel real. It's crazy hearing you say we're almost a week out because I haven't even thought of it in that light yet. I think it'll really hit us once we hit L.A. But for right now, we have we're in Atlanta getting ready to play Germany. And I just feel like another national team camp. But I know once we set foot in L.A., it'll be a completely different kind of journey from then on out.

22:20That's when the World Cup starts. Right. What Chris is referring to is like this weekend, And there's a friendly against Germany. USA plays Germany in Chicago, I think. Is that right? Correct. Yeah, correct. So that's like the last warm-up friendly before the real action starts next week. Yeah, exactly. It feels like everybody's still kind of pulling their breath, waiting for the first steps in L.A. And then everybody can just exhale and be in the moment and understand that this is the World Cup. That's so exciting. So you grew up in Alabama. um i would love to hear about like was it weird to be a soccer player in your town it's a big football american football town what was that dynamic like oh man it was so weird like i yeah we probably had what three clubs in birmingham and we had maybe five like i guess bigger clubs in all of alabama so it's a very small community everybody knew everybody but a lot of kids that played soccer were also like the kicker for the football team or you know honor for the football team and the high school i went to was a huge huge huge football school uber high school and um you know every every year oh man just come and play for us for a little bit you know and uh it hurt because you know like all my really good friends were you know some of the stars on the football team but i just it was always the seasons always overlapped so i couldn't i couldn't do both um what age were you when you started i was five years old when i started playing soccer oh wow Wow.

23:44And so were you on a club team like right from the jump when you were that age? Well, at that age, I was playing. Funny enough, I was playing at like my daycare. I was playing in the gym. Not a travel team at age five is what you're telling me. No, not quite. Not quite. But that is so different from your peers, I'm sure, in the Premier League where they come up through academies, things like that. Just a difference in being an American playing soccer for sure. definitely i mean i think when you think of american sports culture you think of basketball football baseball and i think a lot of kids kind of model themselves after the role models which are the guys you can see on tv um and so you know for me that's you know that's what i was looking at i didn't really have a role model when it came to soccer and when you see everybody in europe now they're playing on the streets with their friends they're uh joining academy at the young age playing at some of the best players in the country or the region whatever you want to call And so my first move to Europe, I kind of felt like I was a step behind just because I didn't have those foundations that all these kids had.

24:44Your dad was a basketball player, a college and pro abroad, right? And you played basketball. So you played basketball and soccer. So tell me a little bit about the choice to go with soccer and to drop basketball and how that went down in the household, in the Richards household. It was a stressful conversation. My dad is a pretty big guy. I think figuratively and also physically, he's a pretty big guy. So I remember I took a trip to Argentina to play soccer. And I came back from that trip. And I remember telling my dad, like, this is all I want to do for the rest of my life. I'm going to play soccer.

25:19Now I want to go to college. I want to hopefully go to MLS. Yeah. And he's looking at me. He's like, man, if that's your dream, so be it. But I think you should stick with basketball. But I was very firm on it. So my parents were very supportive of my dream. But I think they'd also admit that they also questioned it a little bit because, again, we didn't have people to look up to in the soccer world, especially from Birmingham. It's not something that many kids had ever done or dreamed of. So I was kind of, quote, I guess a pioneer, you could say. That's so wild. You must have just discovered you were really good at it.

25:54And, you know, I mean, it's so unusual. I'm thinking of my son, who's 11, and Brooklyn is like a soccer hotbed. And he's on one of these like kind of high powered clubs now. And like, it just feels like there's so much support for a young kid who's interested in soccer. But you're saying that was like, it was a different world that you were growing up in, in Alabama. Yeah, completely. Completely. I mean, I even, so I left my family at 16, right after I turned 16, I moved to Houston to live with the host family. And I remember when I was leaving, a director of a soccer club in Birmingham told me like, oh, this would be the worst decision of your life.