Canucks Abroad caught up with Frank Yallop as his San Jose Earthquakes visited BMO Field to take on Toronto FC.

To what do you attribute your long playing career in England?

For one thing i felt i was comfortable at Ipswich and i didn't want to move, the only time i did move was when i finally did and i felt it was the right time to move. Other than that, you have to take care of your body and take care of your injuries and all those things and i was able to keep my career going until i was 34 years old.

When you moved to MLS from England what did you find was the biggest difference between the two?

England was pretty structured, everyone knew exactly how you were going to play and there was a similar style of football. Coming over there was more football being played - because of the heat - and back in England i felt like i was always looking to pass and help the team that way because that's what i like to do. So when i came over it was really nice to be able to do that. At Tampa we played a 3-5-2 system and it allowed me to get on the ball and do my thing, which worked out for me.

And you got to go into coaching too...

Yes. At the end they didn't want to renew my contract so they could bring in some strikers, and i understood about that stuff, and so then they offered me a coaching spot and i took it. I felt comfortable doing that and i felt it was a good time to do it and also staying with people i knew too.

Having won a championship with San Jose in your first stint, what do you think are your strengths as an MLS coach?

Well you'd have to ask other people, my staff and players about that. But what i try to do is be as fair as i can. Not everyone is going to like the decisions that i make, but as long as there's some insight behind them and you stay strong with your convictions it's fine. What you can't do is not talk to the players, and that's never been a problem for me. I'll explain to them what's going on and why it's going on and then you get some honesty, and from there you tend to get some good results.

As coach of the Canadian National Team you had to deal with the disappointment of not qualifying for the last World Cup. Would you have done anything differently in hindsight?

No! I think the main thing for me was funding and not enough games. I just felt that they were not taking the program seriously, and for me we played 20 games in 2 1/2 years and that's not good enough, that should be for one year. There should have been longer camps, there should have been more quality games, more games when we wanted to play them and more of them at home. I felt that while i was there i gave alot of players a chance to play and now you can see some of the players that i gave a chance to - the Julian De Guzmans, the Atibas - they're playing great, and the team is playing great. They've really taken it to another level now and i'm very happy for them.

Do you see any changes in the CSA right now with the way they're approaching this next World Cup Qualifying cycle?

I don't really talk to any of my friends that are still there. I mean, i talk to them socially, but we don't really talk about that stuff and i don't need to know. But i do have to say that with the game against Jamaica we have to be prepared and i hope we are prepared. The last time with the Guatemala game was a good example where we had 3 days to prepare and they had a month, and we lost and that hurt us.

You have a pretty good track record of identifying and signing Canadians on your teams in MLS. Is this something we can expect in San Jose this time around?

Yeah, i like the Canadian boys, i know what they're going to give me. I've been in contact with many of them, even some in Europe, but there's the rules and other things that get in the way. But for me anytime i can bring in a Canadian onto my team, i feel good and patriotic about that. If i had the choice i'd bring in as many of them as i could.

Canucks Abroad would like to thank Frank for his contributions to Canadian soccer and wish him success with his new club.