Ted Lasso, Ryan Reynolds and The Gauldfather: My Life in the MLS
Writing exclusively for Nutmeg, Ryan Gauld breaks down his life on and off the pitch
By Ryan Gauld
A bit of me actually misses getting pelters, on and off the pitch.
You grow up in Scotland and it’s second nature. Portugal, to an extent, is the same. In the MLS, it’s a bit different.
I remember, one night, we were in the tunnel and getting ready to walk out for an away game. A few of the clubs now have hospitality areas that are right in the middle of that section. So, we’re lined up, ready to go, and there are a lot of supporters sitting right next to you. If you’re the away team, back home, you’d be getting slaughtered. It wouldn’t work.
But I remember this one game when they were clapping us down! Someone even shouted: “Welcome to our city!” I didn’t know how to handle that. Then, just before we went out, they all started clapping and someone else shouted: “Let’s make sure there are no fouls today, boys, keep it clean!” I thought, “What’s going on here?”
I have done a few things since I’ve been at Vancouver Whitecaps – and in the MLS – that I’d have cringed about previously. I would never have been the guy in the huddle beforehand ending things with: “Win on three…one, two, three…WIN!”
That’s the way they do it here and, like the rest of my experiences in football, it’s been great to immerse myself in a totally different culture.
Vancouver Whitecaps made a real effort to sign me. I spoke to other clubs, who all said they wanted me, but it didn’t feel like I was going to play as big a role as I could here. From that very first conversation, I knew they wanted me to play a big part in moving the club forward. They laid out how it would look and went the extra mile for me and my fiancée, Kat.
They asked a lot of me in return – and I liked that.
Teams have high expectations of their Designated Players, or DPs. Every team has the same salary cap, so they can build a really strong base, but are looking for the DP to provide that extra bit of quality.
There’s definitely a contradiction in how I choose to live my life away from the pitch and the way I’m packaged as a DP. I’ve accepted that’s a role I’m asked to play, to be more open and willing to get out there. I think I’ve got better at it and being made captain really draws that out of you.
They handed me the mic at a season-opener event, and I remember thinking, “What am I going to do now?”, but it’s forced me out of my shell. Having said that, if I’d known in advance about being called ‘The Gauldfather’, I might have asked for something in my contract to veto it! I feel like kids over here are better prepared for the other side of the game – public speaking and being in the limelight. They want to take that on.
I only ever wanted to play football and, beyond that, be left to myself. I don’t think my personality has changed too much – and I’ve still managed to hold on to the accent – but, with the experiences I’ve had in different places, I’ve definitely matured.
It probably helps that in Vancouver we play second-fiddle to ice hockey, even if our faces are on the side of a bus. I could go anywhere in the city with Kat and no-one would come up to us, whereas if the Vancouver Canucks players were out and about, they would be mobbed. I’ve got a mate who is good pals with one of their players. When I gave them tickets for one of our games, he was the centre of attention.
We’ve been to the ice hockey a few times and not been noticed. That wasn’t the case when I was starting out at Dundee United. One memory sticks out. I’d just turned 18 years old and was standing at a urinal at The Union in Dundee. Someone decided to take a photo of me. Jackie McNamara and Darren Jackson came up to me in training and said, “You had a good Saturday night then, wee man?”. I was panicking, thinking, “What have I done?”. They told me the picture had appeared in the paper. I thought that was a bit weird.
I don’t pay much attention to social media, so probably don’t see a lot of disparaging comments about the MLS. When I go back to Portugal and speak to people in and around the Algarve, some of them still see it as a secondary league – way off the level of some other competitions.
In Scotland and Portugal – the two leagues I’m used to – you have a couple of big teams and the rest are left trailing. In the MLS, because of the way it’s structured, it’s a lot more even and competitive. It’s the same across all the popular sports here. It’s not just the biggest, richest club that dominates year after year. The supporters want to see different teams challenging and it keeps things fresh.
The big adaptation, for me, was getting my body used to playing games every three or four days for 90 minutes. You could be flying into Texas to deal with that humidity. The heat is crazy. Then, the next thing you know, you’re dealing with altitude when you go to Real Salt Lake. You can be 50 or 60 minutes into a game and struggling for breath. So, there are distinct physical demands from place to place and you have to train for that. Again, I feel like that’s been an important challenge. As a result, this is the fittest I’ve ever been.
There’s no doubt that Lionel Messi and the Barcelona boys going to Inter Miami has probably opened a lot of eyes and given the league that extra level of credibility. The league has always had a lot of good, young South American players, for example, but now there are a lot more who are hungry to follow in his footsteps. The publicity around the MLS is huge off the back of it.
We even had Ryan Reynolds in the changing room just before the boys went out for their warm-up recently. I was out injured, by chance, and came in just after he had left. The boys mentioned how tall and good-looking he was. How good his aftershave was. Then I walked in…
There was also an Apple TV+ appearance for the club with the actor Brendan Hunt, who plays the assistant coach on Ted Lasso. He’s a big football fan. I have to confess, I’m probably one of the few that couldn’t get into the show. Maybe I’m too Scottish and cynical.
We do love the city and the lifestyle out here. We’re at our happiest when it’s just the two of us and our dogs roaming around. We live five minutes from a dog beach. In the other direction, we’re five minutes away from a big forest. So, we’re sorted, whatever the weather.
Kat and I love to explore. We managed a road trip down the West Coast of the US. Just us, the two dogs and a campervan, which was amazing. There was a rough plan to get to LA and we took our time. We got down to California after 10 days and into the Redwood Forest, which was incredible. We both love Kurt Cobain, so we managed to get to a park in the state of Washington where he grew up. We saw his house, which was cool.
Away from that, I’m big into my American football. We’ve got a good group of boys who are all hooked and we’ve set up a fantasy football league, with punishments for the losers. It gets really competitive but it’s a good social event. We play on the Saturday, so most of the time we’re off on a Sunday. We’ll get together to watch the games, grab a bite to eat and have a couple of drinks. It’s a really cool part of being over here. A couple of years ago we had an away game against San Jose, just outside of San Francisco, and The Golden State Warriors had their opening-night game in the NBA. We all got tickets to go and watch that. It was another brilliant experience.
Our two dogs, Noah and Olivia, made the move with us from Portugal to Vancouver. In Portugal, there’s a real problem with homeless dogs. You see so many shelters that are packed out. We had Noah from when we were in Lisbon and were looking into getting a second dog. Olivia came from one of the shelters in the Algarve. They need as many volunteers as they can get, so we got involved. Most of the time it was just about walking their dogs, because they had so many. Kat threw herself into it. This was just after things started to open up a bit more after covid. I’d drop her off at the shelter in the morning, go to the gym and training, then pick her up on the way back.
Kat and I have also tried to help out at Covenant House Vancouver, who do so much to help homeless youth in the area. That came about because the first year we were here, we couldn’t believe the number of homeless people in the city. They had nowhere to go, so we reached out to them. We like to try and help out where we can. We don’t have kids ourselves, so we want to make the best use of our free time.
I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t looked back and thought, “I wonder what would have happened if I’d gone here or there”, but I’ve been happy everywhere I’ve been, especially in the last four or five years. I’m enjoying football and I’m happier off the pitch. I’ve found a balance.
This is the most settled I’ve ever been. Even if you miss a few insults from time to time in the tunnel.