Flashscore caught up with Razov in the immediate aftermath of the United States' World Cup elimination against Belgium, a painful exit for the host nation. Over a wide-ranging conversation, he assessed Mauricio Pochettino's team, the search for a genuine number nine, Robert Lewandowski's move to his old club, and where MLS goes from here.
We're speaking just after the United States' elimination against Belgium. How would you assess the team's overall World Cup campaign? What did they do well and where did they fall short?
"It was hard to gauge what the potential was. The build-up wasn't the greatest in terms of results, but I think the manager had a plan in his head.
"Getting out of the group stage was priority number one, and that was accomplished very well. You lose to Turkey at the end in a game that didn't really mean anything, so you rest some players, which is fine by me. You beat a Bosnia team that isn't a top, top European side but is tough, and in knockout games you never know, so mission number two was accomplished.
"Then you come up against a step up in football. Belgium, for me, are somewhere between the sixth and 10th best team in Europe, a genuine top-10 side with real players. There was maybe this idea that the US are more athletic and dynamic, and playing at home for sure helped - the atmosphere in the stadiums has been wonderful, it's made a lot of people feel good about football in this country - but they'd actually played Belgium not long ago, maybe six, seven, eight months earlier, and I think the score was 5-2. It was a friendly, so it's different, but it should have been a warning sign.
"If I ask myself who played very well for the US, I think Tillman was the only one who showed his level. The rest were not themselves."
Mauricio Pochettino arrived with huge expectations. What has he already changed, and what still needs time?
"Speaking from the outside, you're always giving an opinion and guessing, because only the manager and the players know what's happening on the inside.
"I think he's really tried to challenge the group in terms of mentality, what it means to play for your country. Maybe that's something South Americans and Europeans feel more culturally, and I could be wrong, because I think the players really do care.
"The United States is very different from every other country. Every country has its identity, and this is a country of everything, from every walk of life. Gathering that passion and seeing it in the stadium has been really great. He's challenged the players that every game matters and nobody's secure.
"For the first three or four games, I saw the team playing in a very good manner. They were dynamic, they were bought in, they fought, and they ran. It could be they ran into a Belgian team that was ready and wanted to prove a point, and the US on that day was not ready for the fight.
"You can't make the kind of errors we made at that level. There were a lot of individual errors, combined errors, catastrophic errors, and once that happens, you have no chance in this kind of tournament."
You were one of the best American forwards of your generation. Why has the United States struggled for so many years to produce a genuine number nine?
"That's a very difficult question. I can speak from my club work here in Los Angeles over the last eight-plus years. When you see the kids coming through the academies, some will make it, but I haven't seen the kind of talent that makes you say, this is something special, the way you see it in Europe or South America. That's just in the small pool where I work in LA.
"The number nine position has also changed from what it used to be. The talented players like Lewandowski were more like the old-school strikers, and before him, maybe (Zlatan) Ibrahimovic, and you can go back to Ronaldo, (Marco) van Basten, Davor Suker. Those are very unique players.
"It's not that the country isn't trying and developing. In MLS, the teams play many different ways, and in my opinion, there's no one system that's perfect to develop a player. If you look at Balogun, he's not a product of this country. He's embraced the US team, but he wasn't developed here. The more of these guys who play in Europe at big clubs, the better, but that doesn't mean MLS can't develop them. I do believe players can develop here."
Do you believe Folarin Balogun can be the striker the US has been waiting for?
"Whether the US has been waiting for him specifically, I don't know. He had a good World Cup. He scored three goals, he was active and dynamic.
"Strikers always depend on the rest of the team. If the ball never comes, if you're having a day like they did with very few chances against another level of defenders, it's quite difficult.
"At the moment, he's shown he's the one most ready to be that man. We'll have to see how the next couple of years develop and what comes through the system, because maybe those players are out there and just haven't been discovered yet."
One more striker's name came to mind, Julian Hall. What's your opinion of him, because he looks like he has the potential to lead the US line for years?
"It wouldn't be fair for me to judge, because I haven't seen enough of him. I've seen a little bit here and there.
"He's a very young player, really in his first season at the first-division level. Potential is always great, talent is always great, but that's only one-third of the equation. I've seen so many players in all positions who had unbelievable talent and potential, but at this stage of my life and coaching, that number has gotten smaller and smaller.
"About one-third of it is real talent. The rest is desire, mentality, the ability to learn, maturation, wanting to improve every day, and luck. Luck is a big part of the journey. Timing, getting to the right place, being put in a position to succeed and then maintaining it. People score 10, 12, 15 goals somewhere in one season and then you never hear from them again. That's not a career. Almost everyone can do it once.
"But when you look at Lewandowski every season, Cristiano Ronaldo for a long time, (Romelu) Lukaku before he ran into problems, he was just vicious, a terror, and he did it multiple times. We need Balogun and these guys to do it every season. For Julian, it's the same, but it's way too early to talk about that. You just need to let him work."
What was your first reaction when you heard Robert Lewandowski was joining your Chicago Fire?
"I'm not so sure they're my Chicago Fire; it was a long time ago.
"We'd heard the rumours for months, and it makes sense. One of the things that made it special in Chicago in our days was the connection to the Polish community. We had several important Polish players: Nowak, Podbrozny, Kosecki, and forgive me if I forget one. There was a real connection to the city and the community, so it's a natural thing now to connect Lewandowski with Chicago.
"They're trying to get the team back to a status of relevance in the league. There's a new stadium coming, they have the training centre, and now it seems they have the top piece in place."
If Robert asked you for advice before his first MLS season, what's the first thing you'd tell him?
"First of all I'd tell him, why the hell are you asking me? I should be asking you for advice.
"I've been fortunate. I played with George Weah, Hristo Stoichkov, the Polish guys, Lubos Kubik, Claudio Suarez, the Mexican legend. The travel is what always gets you. The players I work with at LAFC, Hugo Lloris, Bouanga, Carlos Vela, Giorgio Chiellini, it's hard for them to imagine flying six hours one way to play on a Saturday, then four hours to play on a Wednesday, then three or four hours back to LA to play again at the weekend. One place can be snowing and another can be summer.
"That's the most difficult component. The travel is real, because you're not sleeping well in hotels, you're sleeping on an airplane. People say we complain, but it's not this rockstar lifestyle."
You're still the club's all-time leading scorer. With Lewandowski coming, is your record finally under serious threat?
"Back then, nobody was scoring 30 goals a season. Twenty-five goals was much more difficult. The fields weren't great and the level was different, even though we still had good players. Now, goalscoring is much more encouraged, and rightfully so, because we want to see goals and teams attacking.
"We've had a front-row seat to Carlos Vela scoring 36 goals in a season. Can Robert score 30 goals in a season? Yeah, I imagine so. He scored 30 at Barcelona. It's a different level and his teammates won't be the same, but I imagine he'll help them tremendously.
"It's more of a transformation from where he was to what his reality is going to be, playing through some hot weather and then the travel, and physically where he's at after a break. It's an advantage for him that the rest of the league stopped as well for a few weeks. We'll see how fast he gets back up to speed."
Do the Chicago Fire need to go shopping and bring in more players around Lewandowski to provide the service?
"I'm not sure you're familiar with the rules of our league. Even when there's no food in the house, you still can't go shopping when you want to.
"I don't know their financial status or how much room they have in their roster. It's not like Europe, where you can just say we don't want you anymore and pay out your money. That can happen one time in a season to one player on each team. So can you create space and navigate all that? That's not the reality in our league. You have to do much more homework and believe in the person you're investing in, the designated players, because you cannot miss.
"We have three available to each team, and two of the three have to be home runs. They have to be top for their team, not top in Europe, but top for the team they come to. If you miss on one, you can still be successful, but if you miss on two of the three, that's no bueno.
"They have a centre forward who's one of the leading scorers in the league right now in (Hugo) Cuypers, so I don't know if they'll play 4-4-2. The manager has a lot of choices."
Coming back to your Chicago Fire championship team with Piotr Nowak and Roman Kosecki, what was that locker room like, and what did that time under Bob Bradley mean to you?
"It was the best football-playing time of my career, for sure. The first three or four years with Bob, a lot of learning.
"Our locker room was very loud. We had a lot of personalities. A lot of the guys from that time have become head coaches and assistant coaches in MLS, which is unique. It would be interesting if someone did a study on it, because so many players from those teams went into coaching. Was it the influence, or something else? I couldn't say.
"We had a group that was committed and training was very intense. Sometimes that intensity led to arguments and shouting. But once we stepped on the field in matches, we quickly let the league know we were very serious about what we wanted to do."
You've watched MLS from the very beginning, as a player and then as a coach. Which international superstar has changed the league the most: David Beckham, Ibrahimovic or Lionel Messi?
"The first massive change was Beckham coming to the league, bringing a level of attention from the media and the public, and he was a very good player. That was the first earthquake in MLS, and everyone can be grateful it happened, because it opened the door to the future.
"Then you had Carlos Vela, who came in his prime at 28 to LAFC in 2018 and won the MVP, and Ibrahimovic. The rivalry LA created between LAFC and the Galaxy pushed the league. That was the most important derby, and maybe still is.
"And now you see Messi, which is a different equation, the greatest player of all time in my opinion. I think he's going to change and open the doors on everything."
This summer, MLS welcomed Lewandowski and Antoine Griezmann. Does that tell you the league has reached another level in terms of global reputation?
"I can't answer that, because I don't know. What I do know is that these guys come over a little later in their careers. They're not going to come at 26. Carlos was the only one.
"There's a shift in lifestyle for their family. Many of these guys can walk down the street here and nobody really bothers them. I imagine Robert Lewandowski can walk down the street in Manhattan Beach and no one bothers him. When Beckham first arrived, people noticed a little, but more people were interested in going to the beach.
"There's this idea that they can continue football and still add something, along with the shift in lifestyle and less pressure. This isn't a league with the week-in, week-out intensity of the Premier League or Italy, where if you lose a game, you might not want to take your family out to dinner. Here, that part is much easier for them."
Soccer is growing incredibly fast in the United States. Can MLS ever realistically become as popular as the NFL, NBA or Major League Baseball, or is that simply impossible?
"Soccer has been growing the whole time. Every kid plays soccer, the youth landscape is filled, there are leagues and club soccer everywhere.
"That hasn't necessarily translated into our league getting bigger, because they're not really connected. But attendance in MLS has gone past basketball and hockey, I believe. We have soccer-specific stadiums now, not 50,000 or 60,000 seats but 22,000, 25,000, 30,000, which is great because they're always full, and they're brand new. Our training facilities are world-class and rival the best in the world. You go to a place like Italy with such a tradition, and the infrastructure is crumbling.
"Can MLS ever bridge the gap with basketball, baseball and football? It's moving, it's getting closer. We want everything to happen today, but you're working against 100 years. All those sports have been going 100 years, and MLS has been around 30.
"It's the same with the national team. Before 1990 these were amateurs, playing in pub leagues with their friends. Now it's serious, and people are rightfully upset when we lose. Look at Italy, four-time world champions, who won't have made a World Cup in 16 years by the next one. Pressure is good.
"I see MLS possibly changing now, maybe a change in commissioner, maybe rule changes that allow even more. Superstars are great, but we also need the guy in between, the top player who doesn't have to be a big name, to really make our teams take off. Our biggest competition is with the Mexican teams in the Champions League, and they've won something like 24 of the last 25 finals.
"It's the way the money is spent. You can't have one guy making 50 million in the locker room and another making 150,000 who's figuring out whether he can afford dinner at a restaurant, and expect to compete at the top level.
"We have everything, stadiums, training centres, 30 teams. We just have to find the right recipe, because Messi is going to be gone, he can't play forever. Robert is here, but he won't play forever either, maybe two years. What's the next step for our league? I don't think just buying 37 and 38-year-old legends is the right recipe either."
You spent several years as assistant coach at LAFC. What makes that group different from the rest of MLS?
"From the beginning, it was a blank team. At the end of 2017, when I joined, there were no players, and then Carlos Vela was signed quickly. You had Bob Bradley as head coach with John Thorrington as GM, and we created this idea of connecting everything. We knew where the stadium was going to be, being built downtown, and there were already fans and excitement.
"There's a certain thing about living in Los Angeles: fans want to be entertained, because you can go to the beach or go skiing in the same day, and if you don't capture their attention, they won't come. Traffic is so bad that nobody wants to drive to watch a bad team play. So we created this idea of exciting, on-the-edge, fast-attacking football, and that gave us an identity right away.
"The best compliment in those early years was people staying up late on the East Coast to watch us, because they were genuinely excited. We were going to attack, press and counter-press. Did it always work? No. But it captured what we wanted to do. The club continued with that identity. A new manager came in and picked the fruit of what was grown, and quickly we were close to winning a title.
"That 2019 team is one of the best in the history of the league. The foundation was laid, and the managers who came in capitalised. We won the double in 2022 and played in a lot of finals, and we won the Supporters' Shield, which anywhere in Europe would make you the champion."
Still at LAFC, what has Son Heung-min brought to the club, not only as a player but as a leader?
"I was only there until January, so I left the club then. He's a wonderful guy, a superstar on the field who's very humble, with a real desire to win and a real level of professionalism and standard. He's a world-class player, and he revived the team at a moment when it needed energy.
"What was so profound right away was the electric combination with Bouanga. I think they scored 25 of our goals between them. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough in the end.
"He has a lot of pressure with Korea, and I know this World Cup didn't go the way they wanted. But my experiences with Sonny were really great."
If you could convince one current world-class player to join MLS next season, who would it be?
"That's difficult. I thought Kevin De Bruyne was going to be here by now. I've always admired him as a footballer. I'd have liked to see Bernardo Silva here too, because I'm only talking about players who are realistically at that stage of their career. I can't say Phil Foden or Cole Palmer, they're young and they're 150-million-dollar players, so I won't even bother.
"In the past couple of years, I'd have liked to see Luka Modric, because I'm of Croatian descent and he's a legendary midfielder, one of the greatest of all time."