Golden Soft Sombrero Moment with Brian MCFaddin

Diegos: “Congratulations on the Football Superstar series on Fox 8. It’s in its second season and with its hopes, dreams, tears and evictions it’s as popular as ever. Is this season’s show going to uncover the next Harry Kewell or Timmy Cahill?

McFaddin: Yeh I hope so. We’re a little further ahead so I already know who has won the show and I can tell you that the last six were better than the guy won the show last year.

No one could decide between the final three because they were all very different kinds of players and Ernie said that any one of them could get into his team.

So the level of football has definitely increased this year – a much higher level of ability and more skilful.

I think the kid who won could definitely be showing his face in the A-League in the near future.”

Diegos: “In terms of the talent how skilful are these kids?”

McFaddin:  “They’re amazing and it’s amazing to watch them.

I’ve played football my whole life. I’ve been surrounded by pro footballers for a long time, I don’t know what it is but these kids today have so much skill.

It just not about the playing of the game, tactics, passing and shooting, these days they have close control skills that just blow me away.

They can all do it. You look at some of these guys, full backs and centre backs, big tall skinny lanky guys, and you think there is no way they are going to be able to control a ball but they do and very very well.

We did a juggling competition last week in a really confined area and this one guy who was about 6 foot 5ins, skinny, lanky, and looked like he couldn’t even do two juggles, kept the ball up for 33 minutes.

I was in shock. I’ve seen some amazing footballers do 50 or 60 in a row but this guy blew them away. He was just incredible.”

Diegos: “According to Four Diegos logic – you are Irish and you can sing so therefore it’s a logical conclusion that you can play football. Tell us about your football background?”

McFaddin: “I actually grew up playing Gaelic football for Dublin but soccer was my number one passion.

In Ireland 90% of the Catholic Schools, as I was growing up, didn’t allow you to play soccer. This has changed over the last five years or so but they wouldn’t allow it when I was a kid.

They were very strict on playing the national game so it was always about Gaelic football and Hurling. So soccer only happened after school and it became a bit of a cult thing with people going against the church and playing a game they wouldn’t allow.

Irish people always love breaking the rules so they really got into it. It’s just an Irish thing - anything to do with a ball they just want to play.”

Diegos: “Rod Stewart, Vinnie Jones, Liam Gallagher, Gordon Ramsey and Brian McFaddin – you and all these guys chose celebrity over a football career. What tipped you towards wanting to sell millions of albums and be wanted by millions of girls over running around in the mud and kicking leather for a living?”

McFaddin: “It was just the money. It was simple as that.

Seriously I actually know all those guys you mentioned and they love football especially Rod Stewart.

Rod lives for the game – he has a football pitch in his backyard that’s how much he loves the game.

We all wanted to become footballers but at the end of the day singing and music were the things we were good at and had a realistic chance of succeeding in.

To other people to be a singer would be a big dream but I think to most of us to be a footballer was our main dream. We still try and kick around as much as we can.”

Diegos: “Out of your celebrating singing mates, who was the best footballer?”

McFaddin: “Obviously one is Vinnie Jones. He was actually a proper footballer with Wimbledon and Wales.

I’ve played with them all. Gordon (Ramsey) is bad. He got injured when he was 16 years old when was playing for Glasgow Rangers. I reckon if he hadn’t have got injured I reckon he could’ve been a pretty good footballer.

Liam Gallagher is useless. Rod Stewart is not bad. He was actually a nippy little winger and is still pretty quick for his age.

Diegos: The boys on the show are staying in the Superstars Mansion. Happily Hugh Hefner is not there but in their spare time they come up with their own rap songs. To be honest from what we have seen, as rappers they make good footballers. Have you coached them in the music side of things?”

McFaddin: “No I just keep out of it.

These kids are into all this rap and hip hop music – stuff that I’m not into so I don’t even talk to them about music.

They are not interested in talking about guitars and pianos. All they want to talk about is ‘bitches’ and stuff like that.”

Diegos: “We love the way you keep the pressure on them. It’s not just about just being in a mansion and wanting to be selected to play for Victory, every now and then you give them the taste of the odd cheerleader and you mess with their heads that way….”

McFaddin: “It’s a Fox 8 thing. They love their cheerleaders.

I don’t get it myself. It’s the young boys and hormones thing. I think the producers think it’s going to get them going.

The only problem is they seem to be getting uglier by the week.”

Diegos: “In terms of the show you set up a lot of competitions. Is there a competition – ‘I’m mortally wounded like a Brazilian so give me a free kick’?”

McFaddin: “Not yet but excellent idea. …I’ll mark it down for the next series.”

Diegos: “As with all great reality TV shows there is a weekly eviction. Some of these guys are really quite likable. Have you ever been sad to see anyone go? And on the flip side have you ever been happy to see anyone go?”

McFaddin: “There have been a couple of the guys that I’ve been pretty happy to see go.

Some of them have real attitude problems. They are 17/18 years old and when you get to that age and put 15 of them in one house sometimes they are all ‘too cool for school’.

So yeh there have been a couple that I have been happy to see go but at the same time you get attached to a few, especially when you talk about the last group of six.

At that stage you start to spend a lot more time with them and their real personalities come out. Then it’s hard to see them go and I’ve felt sorry for them.”

Diegos: “On the Football Superstar website the webmaster doesn’t mind showing the whole world bloopers from you and your co-host Lee Furlong. It’s good to see that the Diegos aren’t the only media personalities that stuff things up…..”

McFaddin: “I didn’t know that they were going to put the bloopers up.

It’s so hard to make sure you don’t curse. I keeping forgetting that they are going to use whatever I say on the website. I’m on edge the whole time to make sure I don’t use too much bad language.”

Diegos: “Let compare the first season with John Kosmina with the second season with Ernie Merrick. Who demanded the biggest caravan on the set?”

McFaddin: “They are two different characters.

Kossie has a sort of suave modern day manager style. I got on very very well with Kossie.

Ernie is a completely different kettle of fish. He has the more school principal approach.

He treats the kids with the same respect he wants to get back but he is very stern with everything he says.

I’ve liked working with Ernie. He is a very nice man and a great coach.

He has a great vision for football and he handled the shows very well. He taught the kids a lot. The kids this year definitely learnt a lot more than they did in the first year.”

Diegos: “Given that the prize was for Melbourne Victory did Ernie make it really really clear that they weren’t to miss breakfast?”

McFaddin: “The boys got a bit loose and we did see the evil side of Ernie so I’m sure the breakfast thing got mentioned.”

Diegos:  “Delta is one of our very own. All of Australia wants to know whether you spend any time in the backyard having a kick with Delta?”

McFaddin: “She sitting beside me now. That’s all we ever do, just kick a ball around the house. We have two little dogs and sometimes we just wrap them up in cellotape and use them as footballs …..”

Delta: (in the background): “…don’t tell them that!”