Latest / I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth / I Hate Soccer #118 - Ian Barker, United States Soccer coaching educator developer

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I Hate Soccer #118 - Ian Barker, United States Soccer coaching educator developer · I Hate Soccer with Jason Collinsworth

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been around coaching education for, I don't know, more than 10 years, you know who Ian Barker is.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Ian Barker is currently a coach educator developer for U.S.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: soccer.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I got a chance to sit down with him at uh the North American Soccer Expo in Novi, Michigan.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we got to discuss coaching education.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: We discussed uh the United States versus the world, a little bit of promotion and relegation, player development, and the overall health of soccer in this country.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a fun one.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: This one is a full circle moment because uh I came up coaching in region two with the state of Michigan, and he was one of those region two guys uh that I looked up to for so long, and now he's on the show.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm sitting at 4,860 YouTube subscribers right now, and for some reason, 70% of the people that watch my podcasts on YouTube don't don't subscribe to the channel.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: So please, if you're watching this on YouTube, go hit that subscribe button, and it gets me uh it gets me an opportunity to talk to more people just like Ian.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Enjoy this episode with Ian Barker.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: Everything.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So if it helps you.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Came in 87 straight from college in the UI K.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Division I with Wisconsin, with Travis Roy and Mike Trentities in Scotland Fear, all of only the kids.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then State Director for Minnesota USYS.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: D3 McAllister College in St.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Paul.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Ten years of the NSCAA Director of Coaching Ed, and now uh freelance.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: Got it.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And then what is your role right now with US soccer?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm an educator developer.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So what we've done with US soccer is we've gone from we have players that become coaches, coaches become educators.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: But those educators for US soccer and the NSCAA are not necessarily trained educators.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: So now we have a training program.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody teaching US soccer courses has gone through a training program to be an instructor.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: How hard is it to get into being an instructor?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because I remember when I took my first NSCAA diploma, the national uh diploma, and I fell in love with that space.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like something changed in me.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's like I no longer want to develop as a coach.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, I want to develop the the best players that I can, but I also want to make an impact on developing coaches.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because I think that when you develop coaches, you impact so many more players that you can never that you would never reach just because just the scope and how the size of the country and stuff like that.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so how when did that change in you?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: So the way to become an educator of coaches previously was either informally, you were in your club and you just had a senior rank and you just shared back with the junior coaches or the novice coaches.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Back in the day, to be an instructor or an educator for NSCAA or US soccer was really networking and who you knew and if you were identified as being a good coach.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: But there was not necessarily a ton of thought put in to be whether you'd be really good at sharing your coaching knowledge with other coaches.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: And this is where it pivoted about six, seven years ago, where US soccer really made uh a great intentionality and train the trainer.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_01: So now our educators are identified with potential and then are directed into a training course and assessed in the training course to see if they've got the right content knowledge and the right delivery methodology and the right spirit mentality, emotional intelligence to be effective educators.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: And go into how there's there's been a lot of pushback on how to get into some of the courses because it's very it's because oh when the switch happened, when it went from a nine-day course to a full-year course, that kind of limited did that limit uh US soccer's capacity of being able to take on a bunch of coaches?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I think initially there was a supply and demand issue, so very simple as demand.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: So US soccer changed, I think intelligently the way courses were delivered, because we I think we can all agree the old seven to eight to nine.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Nine days ago, I did not enjoy it.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So the the longer experience with a lot of distance learning thanks to Zoom and other technologies, with hot spots of in-person.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I think the B has two in-persons of four or five days.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: The D has two uh Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays over a seven-week period.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: That's the D, but those are all done at a local level, so they're all drivable for people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So all of those initiatives came in.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: Initially, especially the B was one of the more contentious ones.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: There was the demand outstripped the amount of um educators to develop it.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So the the next thing was to train up and retool the education stuff.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um now on some of the courses, there's a very modest, uh, certainly at the higher levels, there is a kind of an interview process or an application process as opposed to just a blind registration.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I would say within reason, as you go up through the licenses, you might have to sit one cycle.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but if you're a if you're a person that's working in the game full time in the youth side or or high school college, and certainly in MLS and pro, um, you'll be able to get your badge within a two-year period.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if you want the A license, which is a year long, yeah, you might miss one cycle, but you'll almost certainly get in the second cycle.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Also, though, make sure you've got a bit of an advocate, uh, somebody to put on your registration.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So like a mentor or somebody, yes.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And ideally, if there's somebody that is a delivering courses, so if if for example Paul Thomas.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: Paul Thomas with USYS, if he says, I need more educators in this market, or I need better trained coaches in this market, and he supports your application for the B, there's a much greater chance you'll get in than somebody who just does it by themselves.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Do you uh okay?
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: When let's say let's talk about like 2018, when US soccer failed to uh uh get into the World Cup, we failed to qualify.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: I took it personal because I was coaching at the time.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not coaching anymore.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I was coaching at the time, and I'm like, it's all of our fault, it's all of our fault.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: We should all take this personal.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And then about a year and a half ago, I started this podcast and I realized how many good people are in the game.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I get to come to a place like this and see how many good coaches are in the game.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then when we crash out against Belgium, everybody started blaming youth soccer coaches again.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, that's not the problem.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: We are we have a lot of good coaches, and we are so much better than we were when you got uh here in 87.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and I started playing in 92-ish, and we are so much better.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it and do you get frustrated?
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: Does the federation get uh upset when like everybody just blames youth coaches?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, or do they or do you think that maybe that is the problem, that we're still not there yet?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I would I would be very happy to discuss and debate with anybody the failings of the educational system.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, let's say, in the case of US soccer, grassroots to the pro license, I'm happy to debate that and discuss that.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: But the person should have gone through those programs so they're coming from a point of knowledge as opposed to just a blind critic, because anybody can do that.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: If you just look quickly, though, to this recent World Cup, in my estimation, in the first round of all those games, the I think arguably 24 games, obviously, the best game, the best game performance was probably USA.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: USA versus Paraguay.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now, our expectations get lofty because we have a somewhat naive press in many cases.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when CNN's covering it, they don't really know how good Australia and Turkey might be.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if you look at the final eight of the World Cup, six European teams, Morocco and Argentina, I would argue that the current American men's squad is not in that company.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_01: So given how the tournament worked out and the Korean did rise to the top, round of 16 was probably the correct place.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: The performance against Belgium was very disappointing.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: But let's also remember Italy didn't make the World Cup.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: Germany and Holland went out at the same round as the US.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, Norway probably overachieved a little bit this World Cup because they were in the middle of the hand.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I think the US found its correct space relative to where we are now.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: How do we get better?
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um the and people talk about pay to play, and pay to play is a huge issue and a discussion point.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: But right now, our MLS academies, there's not enough of them, but they are essentially free to play.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: So we now have a situation, it doesn't happen young enough, but there is a point where where young men are being put into pre-professional environments on the basis of their God-given ability, not their socioeconomic ability.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: And as outreach into finding players in in small communities because their immigrant parents work there and they have soccer ability.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: So the MLS Academy piece will definitely help because we're starting to funnel kids into better environments.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: We also then, of course, have our own domestic lead, the MLS, and developing the USLDs, but a lot of our top players are playing in Europe and being developed differently and in different ways.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then somebody like Pochettino, in this case, has to bring that back together.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I do feel, and I'll I'll let you get a word in edgeways, I do feel that perhaps the hardest job in world international coaching is the men's team.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: Because if he plays too many MLS players, why aren't you playing the European players, European based players?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you do it the other way, you're dishonouring the league.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: If we play a more South Central American style, why aren't we playing to our strengths as sort of more of a Northern European style?
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: More direct, physical, kind of Bruce Arena 2002.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: That was my favorite team.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: But then if you do that, if you if you do that, then why aren't we, if we go to Northern European, why are we playing like the English or the Dutch or the Germans?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I think here 2002.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: So we relied on our athleticism.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: We relied on bunker and counter and and fast uh wingers with Beasley and Donovan, and we just it was very Manchester United.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was kind of like that type of style.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Here's where I get frustrated is like 2006.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: We think that we've arrived, and we're like, oh, we could just open up and play, and we're gonna go toe-to-toe.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and then no, we we can't it wasn't the same manager, it was the same manager.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: What changed?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: But like Pacetino kind of uh, and obviously I'm not at the level of him, and I'm not gonna always question him, but why are we trying to play with Belgium?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like they're still a top 10 uh nation, and the difference between 10 and 15 is massive, and we're 15, and they're nine or eight or nine.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I think that we need a manager that will can change tactics, and we need to develop players that can change stylistically based on our opponent because we are not at the point where we can uh dictate the play or rely on them to change for us.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: We're not there, we're not.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: I will we ever be there?
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe, but it's gonna take some time because I think that we're still a very young nation in terms of the best players that I've ever coached are second generation soccer players.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: The majority of players that I've coached are first generation.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: They they're the first play, and I think this is gonna take time, but I want somebody like maybe Josie Mourinho, where where we'll bunker, we can bunker encounter, or we can high press you and and we'll we can you know uh win the ball and counterattack and it just I don't know.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answers.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So the the Belgium game is an interesting one, I think, because I think an in a reasonable interpretation is their manager did not start De Bruyne, Lukaku, or Doku.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Doku, and Pochettino is somewhat committed to having to start the 11 he started because we see the drop-off when they played Turkey.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the tactical opportunities available to the Belgian coach on the basis of the depth of his squad, especially based around Anana and Tielemans in the center midfield, gives him more flexibility.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, to your point, if Pochettino had seen that coming and maybe been prepared to be a little bit more conservative in the style, because the low block was a big part of the first round of the World Cup, which was the Curaçao and the Kate Verts.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but maybe in and of course now we get for the the discussion of group stage play where you're just trying to get enough points in three games to knockout play where it's it's one or done, right?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um so I think I mean there's a lot in there.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, there isn't enough depth in the current men's US squad, and there isn't enough exceptional players in the right position.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Anthony Robinson, he's a I'm a big fan of him.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: I just I wish he'd gone to Liverpool because I like Liverpool and I like um and Balgin definitely showed some real high qualities.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: He did.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think McKinney, Tyler Adams, Freeman, these are good players.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the group stage, McKinney might have been our best player, even uh higher than Balgan.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, maybe.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, but uh but in but in in for thought, would Winston McKinney get anywhere near the French national team squad?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Anywhere near it.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so and he's our strongest player.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: So the Or England.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: So that exactly.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that charge that explains the gap.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: The question then is so first of all, don't get too upset if you come in the round of 16.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: Round of eight would have been exceptional, round of 32 would have been disappointing.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: Round of 16 is about right.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: So where's the gap?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where's the player development?
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_01: Because we have so few MLS teams, um there's a there's a there's a small number of kids getting that that opportunity.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: And now where I come out heavily in the pay-to-play discussion is coaches are incentivized to win games at U10, 11, 12, God help us U8, U6.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: They're incentivized, they're driven by their club environments in the pay-to-play environment.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because that they can recruit kids that way.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_01: And they what they can't either they want or they're not, they're not empowered to be brave and say, hey, play the little guy in the midfield tournaments, a youth soccer tournament, which is five, five attritional games over a long weekend.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_01: Where does a coach in that situation have an ability to play through his rosters?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um play players out of positions experiment.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: If he wants to win the tournament, he doesn't because he's got to win three group games.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it becomes attritional.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So the gap between the ones you start and the ones you finish, the ones you don't start gets bigger because there's less opportunity.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And the ones that you probably play the most are the ones that can physically survive some of the attritional nature of youth soccer tournaments and youth leagues.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we all have heard the story of Messi, right?
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_01: Wasn't getting a game in Argentina, he's undersized, he's on um medications to improve, and he goes into an environment which nurtures him and loves him and isn't looking for him to win today or tomorrow.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: But what can he do when he's reached full maturation and he's put into an environment which now becomes uh more driven to win loss competitive?
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_01: But we're putting our young kids in those environments and binning them out way too soon.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the DA started in the first place.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: They're trying to get rid of I I don't want to say meaningless games, but like too many games.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: One of my uh biggest mentors would say all player needs to really develop is 36 games a year or 40 games a year, and uh that's all players need.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we have youth players playing 100.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, like, think about the training to game ratio.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm big on training to game ratio.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And years ago, Real Madrid came out and we were studying them for some reason, and uh at one point their academy was eight to one training to game ratio, and I started really focusing on my own, and I'm like, we're two to one because we're playing way too many games and we're not training enough.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I think that's a a big piece of why well for all your listeners, there's never there's no dis there's no winning is always important.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: That winning is important, winning's part of a competition, it is, but it has a much different place in the list of priorities when we're U6, U8, U10, U12, U14, U16, in pay-to-play state leagues, ECNL Regional, Girls Academy, USYS State Cup.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: Winning is always there, and the kids in the parents know that.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that one of the places where this could really start to be corrected is effective sport parent education for our mums and dads, who are the customers, they're the ones paying the money for these programs, having them be more discerning about what environments they're putting their kids in and ultimately what would they like out of it.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because if the parent says to me, I want my child to win a plastic trophy on a fake Marvel plinth at the end of the season, there are programs for that.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_01: But unfortunately, most of the programs drive that way.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_01: If I if the parent said to me, I'd like my child to have a two-year development window where he or she gets a bit stronger, learns to love the game, learn some new positions, learn some new skills, get some playing time, but doesn't have to be the best player on the team, you've you've reshaped the conversation.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um But I was just talking to one of the guests here.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: If a if a club comes to me and says, uh hypothetically, uh, we want to recruit your son and daughter away from your community-based club to play for our super club in the metro area.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: One of the reasonable questions is if you're recruiting my son, I assume he's taking somebody's place.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: The kid he's replacing, what's happening to him?
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: And that club's not going to be able to tell you because it's a it's an arms race.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's I've got 16 players, but I see two over there I want.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go and get them, bin these two, and keep going.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's in pursuit, ultimately, it is really in pursuit of plastic male or female figures on fake marble plints.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh-huh.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how do we balance that?
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because winning over or development over winning was the catchphrase of from 2010 to 2025, 26, and still is today.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: How do we still, and then I forget who said it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody said like described what they love about the American player, there's somebody from maybe it was Fred Lipka, but he said what he loves about the American player is how competitive they are.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do we balance or make sure that our kids are competitive?
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I spent the last 11 years in Buffalo.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had my own training company, I had my own facility, and I was club neutral.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the players would just come to me, and I had some very high-level girls, especially.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a very good ECNL uh area.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I would ask a girl, oh, how'd the showcase go?
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: How did Florida go?
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: They come home and they're like, We lost, we lost all three games.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: We only scored two goals, but I scored one of them, and this college was there, this college was there, and that college was there.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: So it went well.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you're okay.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, are we losing a little bit of that competitiveness?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like where games should matter more?
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because Luis was saying this yesterday, Roblace was saying that the the bad side of Fest.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: MLS Next Fest is that it's a showcase.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the college coaches and the scouts for U.S.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: soccer, they want can they want to watch you in a competitive game.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: They want to watch you where that game matters.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: They want to they're more at playoffs.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why they're expanding the playoffs next year.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: So how do we balance that?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a it's uh you make a really interesting point, and this is one of our challenges in the US.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Opportunity, right?
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_01: And the ability to have competing programming, different programming, everybody's in the market.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I I I've many times have heard the argument I want to see the kids in meaningful competition where something's at stake, so I can make a better assessment of the kids' character and ability under real adversity.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: The flip side is the reason the festival concept became around was it gave the coach an opportunity to play all the players so all the kids could get a showcase opportunity and to be less win-focused.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: So you're kind of damned if you do again, you're damned if you don't.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um, one of the things that I was actually talking to Ben Bartlett from US Soccer about, we would Ben Bartlett, who's originally most recently coached Fulham Academy, um, Houston, and now he's with US Soccer, he feels very strongly that the pathway for players in the US is still not well enough defined, um, how they get from point A to point B, depending on what their objectives are.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: Consider this.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm in a, let's go with the MLS League, and I'll be a little controversial and I have a lot of friends in MLS, so hopefully they'll be kind.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: If there is real, really no jeopardy on promotion and relegation, why could I not, as a mid-table MLS team at a given point in the season, commit to putting my academy the kids as opposed to a really seasoned pro 23, 24, 25 from South Central America who's gonna make my team better?
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: I get that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I want to win supporter shield and I want to win MLS Cup, and I want to maybe have some players around that get developed so that I can sell them to make money, but that would be a much harder argument to make in the English Premier League, right?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: Fulham is not gonna put the kids in when they're mid-table because if they get relegated to the championship, it's all over.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_01: There are opportunities in our league in our men's professional league structure, because of no promotion and relegation, to be a bit braver at times.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's something we're just kind of playing with as a thought, and I see you looking skyward.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe you're seeing it too.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I I think that's the positive, that's the best argument of why we shouldn't have promotion and relegation.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not trying to make that argument.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's just an observation.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's the biggest argument.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, yeah, coaches get blamed, but since the World Cup, that's the biggest thing.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like we need promotion or relegation.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, good luck.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good luck.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because it wouldn't work, or it's not because it's it might be a better system.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: Pay to play is not gonna go away.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if if we have promotion and relegation, that's pay to play is still gonna be here.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: And that's the biggest neither of those two things are going away in yours and mine lifetime stuff.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not gonna instantly build fans.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like ML okay, in the when Arsenal Arsenal clinched the league in match day like 33, right?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: Was it 33?
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: It seems a bit early, but anyway.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but uh maybe 34, or maybe it was two years ago, Liverpool.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Promotion relegation doesn't mean that more people are gonna watch.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that it's actually gonna grow the game because when when the title is won that early, their ratings actually go down.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's uh at that time, nobody cares about the relegation battle.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: The get the league is almost over.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: And personally, I don't want promotion.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm okay with promotion and relegation.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: I want salary caps though.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: I want salary caps because I don't want a I don't I I went on this tangent a couple weeks ago, and I did all of uh the top European leagues last 15 years.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Every single league had at least one club that won eight out of 15.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody talks about promotion and relegation, and they talk about the bottom and how awesome it is, and iron sharp is iron, and everything's competitive and stuff like that.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: But then nobody talks about it at the top.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna win La Liga this year?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: You can name two clubs, and it's gonna be one of those two clubs.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Who is going to win uh uh uh French League One?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: One team.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: You you would name one team, and you're probably gonna be right.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Bundesliga, same thing.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: Two you would name two clubs and they're gonna win.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: Do we really want a system where it's gonna be inner Miami just winning every single thing?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I think where we're kind of going with this discussion, and I know we're all of it, everybody that's in this space, full-time, part-time, pundits, podcasts, etc., we talk about promotion relegation, we talk to pay-to-play.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_01: It gets pretty old.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And although some of these things are not gonna change anytime soon, ultimately it's gonna be micro changes at grassroots level with informed, better informed clubs, better educated coaches, better informed parents.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I really do think, and I kind of operate more in the grassroots space and of course, so do I up to about being licensed educators and things like that.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just wish the people that are fueling this machine, which is mums and dads.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's a little bit like the emperor's no clothes, new new clothes.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: That the emperor is naked, right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_01: And finally somebody says, you do realize the emperor's clothes are invisible, they're not real clothes, and then everybody's like, but we need a parent to say, you know what?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna follow the other parents to the super club down the street, or I'm not gonna miss my Thanksgiving meal with my family.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna ask my son and daughter to stay home.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_01: Reasonably, reasonably, they're gonna end up in the place they're intended to be, an NAI school or Division III school, in a USL program.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they're they're gonna, you know, not play soccer.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And we see lots of kids that have spent tens of thousands of dollars and then decide, I want to go to the University of Michigan.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not good enough to be on the University of Michigan team and not playing soccer anymore.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: Their key there is could we get them into coaching?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Could we get them into the club system?
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Can we get them to be low lifelong lovers of the game and teach their kids to play it and help their kids?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Ultimately, it needs to be communities building at the grassroots level that feeds into these systems most strongly.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I Tom Beyer, soccer starts at home, you know, and it's then it's that it's it's the culture.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: And why do why don't we have a culture?
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're not we're not born into it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: I spent the last 11 years in Buffalo.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody wakes up if the Buffalo Bills are playing, everybody walks up wakes up thinking about that game.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody's waking up on a Saturday worried about Manchester United.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so yesterday, I I wore a uh a George Brett baseball jersey, right?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: I saw it.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, why am I why is this guy wearing a baseball jersey at a soccer expo?
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why is Well, you've already called your podcast I hate soccer, so you're already deep enough in the baseball shirt's nothing compared to that.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, yeah, and then when Renee called it out uh during his little chat, that was funny, but uh no, I didn't, I I I did that to prove a point.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: The first professional athlete that I pretended to be in the front yard or my backyard was George Brepp.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked about like 15 people yesterday.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I go, who was the first athlete that you pretended to be out in the driveway or in the in the front yard?
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And who who did you pretend to be?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Out of 15 people, only one said a soccer player.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody else said, everybody else said uh most of it was baseball.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: That was beard.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Most of it was baseball.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: And then a couple said uh one said Joe Montana, one said Tom Brady.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, let me challenge your scientific so you're talking to maybe all Americans 35 to 55-year-old crowd, right?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, these young people down here that are currently on the field.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you took them out of the soccer environment and met them casually in their school setting, right?
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: So they weren't being primed for a soccer answer.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of them would have soccer.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think some would have American football and basketball, probably not ice hockey, uh, probably not baseball, but probably football and basketball.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: I know as a practitioner, many years ago I would do camps in rural Wisconsin, they'd all be in Michael Jordan shirt t-shirts, all of them.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_01: In a soccer camp.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: And now you do the soccer camp and it's a messy jersey.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's a messy jersey.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_01: The thing, and we bemoan it all the time, in a in a football, number football is number one culture.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_01: We read about it, we hear about it, it's sky sports, it's it's soccer.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_01: These young people are not exposed to soccer 24-7 in the media, in in the conversations they're having at home, in the school setting, with other individuals, in the same way we would in a European country or a South American country.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_01: But it's it's getting there.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely getting there.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say baseball and ice hockey is probably not the primary sport for a lot of these young people at the demo players at this event.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think more of them could tell you, I because one of the things we'd like to do is you'd like to be going out to training and say to the kids, did you see into Miami versus Seattle Six Sounders yesterday?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: You see the goal that you miss, he scored.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: And some of them will know that because they're having that type of exposure.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I also think, sorry to go on, USL connecting the dots.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_01: So community-based soccer, USL two, USL 1, more chances for parents, if they're smart, to take their kids to see what the next level could look like and get excited about adult soccer at a local level, not just the World Cup and and the occasional MLS broadcast and the NBC.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think some community-based soccer would be is uh adult soccer was really important.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean it's the kids going to watch their dad play or something like that, too.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And well, in other cultures we see it, right?
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: We see that all of the activities based around the adult male game.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the mums and the kids watch the the dads play.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: In other cultures, the some more of our suburban middle class culture, everybody goes to watch the children play.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a very different spin.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Go watch some of the ethnic leagues, go watch some of the unaffiliated leagues, adult uh leagues, and yes, it's all about adults, it's not about youth.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_01: I never thought of it like that.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's what I'm here for to feed you.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: That blew my mind.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah.
• 33:31
  SPEAKER_00: Boy.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do you I can't I'm not gonna I I was gonna say, like, do you do you think that we could ever win a World Cup?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to answer, I don't want to ask that question because I don't like I don't think it's gonna take another 30 years.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I think can we continue to close the gap and see an improved product in four years than we see now?
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: 100%.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think reasonably with what I see in current world soccer with the rise of Asian African nations and Asian nations like Korea and Japan, US should be in the top 16 teams in the world.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's a reasonable and lofty goal.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: What is I know Emma has a very big impact in what's happening in US soccer.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think the role should be of a national team manager with the overall federation?
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't see Tuchel having a big impact on the FA.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or is is Klopp gonna do DOS reboot 2.0?
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like I feel like we asked too much of our national team manager, or we expect them to change everything, like Jurgen tried to do.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's not I don't in my opinion, it's it sounds a good idea, but I don't think it's right.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: That the senior national team is about winning and qualifying.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: That should be your role, and that's all you should.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Everything beneath 21s, 23s, not in the case of the women, but case of the men's Olympics.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: The women's Olympics is the first team, but 23s for the men, um, youth national things.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's great to win youth national world cups.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, the webinar I did for US soccer last week, we were talking about how Brazil had won an Olympic uh event over Spain.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_01: Eight of the Spanish players that lost to Brazil in the Olympics just won the World Cup.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: And my response was well, everybody wants to win the Olympics, everybody wants to win the under-20, under-17 World Cup on the men's side.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_01: But those are still part of a process.
• 35:45
  SPEAKER_01: So a nation that understands that everything that goes beneath is funneling towards the ultimate glory of the first team, of the senior team, that's the connection.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: So knowing for the four years of Pocha's site cycle or Emma cycle or the eight years of their cycle, what type of profile of players they want, what they want to see develop.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: But the chance you can do that in four years to provide them with those players four years later is pretty limited.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_01: So we just have to have really solid programming beneath.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then when our national managers drop in, they've got better resources, better, uh, better tools in their arsenal to employ the systems and the methodologies they want.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And how how important is winning those those youth tournaments?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I feel like we don't care as much about like the U17 World Cup or the U-20 or U23.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our women since the since the start of the ECNL 2009, our women have our youth women have only won one youth world cup.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's like we don't do that.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: We we used to win everything on the women's side.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's gone.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and then our men have never won a youth world cup.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then you look at Spain, they want to win everything.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: They want to win that U-17, they want to win that U-19 or U-20 World Cup, U-23.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what they don't do in places like Germany, Spain, Holland, they don't blow everything up every time they have a setback.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh-huh.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: They still of course you can always find a counterexample to any any example.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I do think we we are still in the US, in my respectful opinion, we're not mature enough yet to have really forged our identity.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I I do believe with the National Training Center in Atlanta, if Emma and Mauricio can continue to do good things with the senior teams, um and and in the case of the women's game, which is not my area of experience, much less expertise, um everybody is now most many nations are driving forward with with girls and women in soccer.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: So it is somewhat inevitable that our US women's national team being caught up through no fault of any system, because it's just more energy.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that if you follow Talk Sport or the VVC, the women's league in in the UK gets incredible press, infredible resources.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um I honestly think that in the US we wring our hands too much and we tend to be informed or worse skilled uninformed critics of everything, as opposed to a bit more aspirational.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: But not just this giddy, we expect to win because we're a world superpower, so our soccer team forwards have it.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_01: Think about the player experience, and think about how we can contribute at our level to a better ultimate soccer uh ether soccer uh ecosystem.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: How so I used to be that uh skeptic and uh the world's burning and through this podcast being able to talk to people like you has given me so much more hope.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that we're healthier than we think we are, and I think the game is in a very good place, and part of the reason why I moved back to Michigan is because Michigan's more of a hotbed than where I was in Buffalo, and there's so many more people I've talked to, and I I'm all over the state, and I'm genuinely happy of how healthy Michigan is.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: Not every state is like Michigan.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're at an event put on whether they like to admit it or not, there it's put on by one club, uh-huh.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you have all the competing clubs here, you have Midwest, you have nationals, you have Liverpool from the ECNL.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's different, it's different here.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: We all talk to each other.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: We'll go have a beer together.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm in Buffalo, it's not like that.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like that in other states.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_00: When we would go to the convention, it's called the Michigan Mafia.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: We'd all go like go to one bar and it'd be a hundred of us from Michigan, and we're all just different clubs, and we just hang out.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And and it's so healthy.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think Michigan's what one of the healthier states.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm biased, obviously.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I think the country is too.
• 40:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is I I I think it's hell, I think it's way healthier than the pundits and the podcasters, even though that I am one of them.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I I'm happy.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: I I I'm not content.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna say I'm content because I won't always want to grow and get better and better and better and better, but I think we are.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many good like people in this game here.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it drives me nuts.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: So this is uh I think this is a good place.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: If hopefully anybody that listened to the appropriate everything that went before this has stayed around long enough to realize that we're actually decent humans, if not necessarily the most informed or wisest.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there is a a Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, and essentially the idea of dynamic changes that if you walk down to the river in the morning, you stand in the river, you walk down and later on in the day, you're still in the same river, but the water and everything's changed, right?
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_01: So it's always moving.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: So if we think about soccer in those the soccer world I live in, literally on Saturday, August the 1st, 2026, it will be slightly different on Sunday, the second.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: And if we can continue to move with that, we're in a good place.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_01: Those of us that get stuck thinking we're still in the same river, that's a mistake.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_01: Your optimism and your positivity about Michigan, I share the same at a at a national level.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: So if I think at the highest level, our women's soccer is envy of the world.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_01: Everywhere you go in the world, they talk about American women.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: In the case of the men, I think there's healthy respect.
• 42:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think people see good things in the MLS.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not quite the retirement league for European superstars anymore.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Not.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: And they see players coming from the MLS, like Berholt, who I think just went for 2 million to Yuttlesboro.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, um, listening to a lot of British talk radio, there was some very naive trepidation about this most recent World Cup.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_01: Ticket prices, stadium prices, immigration visas.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: There was lots of negativity.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: I can tell your audience if don't listen to the British press, it was universally well received.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: People were amazed about the stadiums, they were amazed about the friendly of the friendliness of the people.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: They understood they were gouged by FIFA in some instances and stadium owners in some instances.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody everybody in Europe was weird about the Balgun situation.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: They were weird about the trophy celebration.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: But those things happened.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_01: But the overwhelming consensus was US put on a great tournament along with Canada and Mexico.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Wonderful stadiums, friendly people, knowledgeable soccer fans.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I recently moved from Kansas City, but I know that Algeria and Lawrence, Kansas, yeah, they fell in love with each other.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: They like took over the yeah, I'm originally from Kansas City.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: That's why I was wearing that jersey yesterday, also.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_01: So we're we're we've got a lot to be excited about, and each of us should find out little micro battles and fight the battles that we can win.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's great to sit over a beer and and and solve the problems of the world and bemoan the problems of the world.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_01: But reality, when we go back to our day jobs in youth soccer or college soccer or high school soccer, make try everybody my in my hope is everybody makes it tries to make a positive impression.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: Be true to themselves, think about the player experience first.
• 44:04
  SPEAKER_01: And if we do that, we'll have a lot of 55, 60-year-old people playing soccer for fun and helping their children and their grandchildren, and we'll continue to grow.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: What made you stay?
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: What made you stay in the United States?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_01: I think for me, it was very clear.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: It was ultimately opportunity to have a bigger impact in the game.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_01: And not just career-wise, but just touch more soccer players and be even more involved in different aspects of the game than would have been allowed to me as a college grad without a professional background in England in the 80s.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_01: I would have would not have had a pathway to be influential.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and of course, as we know, that there is pay to play now in European countries, but it's even now it's still less.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you think about your influence?
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think about like that uh ever?
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and how many how many people have pulled you aside this weekend just be here?
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this is relatively small.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to if you go to the convention, it's gotta be insane how many people want to uh pick your brain or talk to you or say hello.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm 62 years old.
• 45:14
  SPEAKER_01: I stopped working full-time in the game as the director for United Soccer Coaches from the MSCA four years ago.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: But I still work in Olympic development in USYS, coach education for US soccer, and in the Olympic movement with coach development.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so you reflect on that question you asked, and you have to have a somewhat pithy answer.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_01: But this is this this is sincere, whether it's believable or not, that's up to your audience.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_01: I believe now that if you do youth soccer, soccer correctly, and so it just because you're in sports doesn't mean it's necessarily a good thing because it could be a very unhealthy environment.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's done correctly, communities are stronger.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that would be the case if it was theater, dance, if it was religious drive, if it was spelling bees and academics.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to be a soccer coach.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_01: I happen to be a soccer professional in as much as I'm at my living in the game.
• 46:11
  SPEAKER_01: I believe now, at this point in my career, which would not have been the case 30 years ago, because it would have been about winning games and winning trophies and recruiting the best players from Livonia, Michigan.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I believe now that if we do it right, the legacy will be that communities, families, individuals will be healthier and happier.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that sounds really hokey, but I really actually believe that.
• 46:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do you do you wish the country's massive and it's a melting pot, and everybody comes from different backgrounds and cultures, and they want to put their own spin on the game?
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: Does US soccer wish that there is one uniform style or identity?
• 46:59
  SPEAKER_00: Are they trying to still find that?
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because you said it earlier about trying to find that.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: What is our identity as an as a soccer nation?
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think that's possible when we have so many different we have South American influence, we have French influence, we have English influence, we have, I mean, uh Dutch uh is huge also.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh does US soccer wish that they had dude is it possible?
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: I I I believe that most right-minded people would wish we had some of the economies of scale to the good that Holland does.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_01: A country you can drive across basically in an afternoon, everybody has played the game, it's the number one sport.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody has a clubhouse in their community, we all play for our community clubs, and then we go up and we go up and we end up at Ajax, and then we I'm sure we'd all love that.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I also believe that most of us realize that is not possible and not worth pursuing.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so, again, my point about the most difficult job in international world football is probably US men's national team because of all of the diversity you speak to.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: But I think what US Soccer does a great job in their educational programs, and Ben Bartlett talked about it this week, is you come in with your set of needs, your context of your environment, and US soccer is there to ask you questions, support you in developing with good content in the way that you need to because you're a high school coach or you're a club coach or you're in a private school or a division one or a two-year or a four-year.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_01: I believe US soccer is developing enough resources to let people be the best they can be in the variety of environments.
• 48:49
  SPEAKER_01: Then at a much higher level, towards the top of the pyramid, it's up to the Pochettinos of the world to see all of that and say, I need to get more players from MLS, I need to get more players that have recently been developed and gone to Europe.
• 49:01
  SPEAKER_01: I need more of the diaspora in my squad.
• 49:05
  SPEAKER_01: I need to be more single diaspora focused, and that would be the national team's choice.
• 49:11
  SPEAKER_00: What do you think US soccer's biggest role should be?
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: Is it is it the national teams?
• 49:19
  SPEAKER_00: Is it coaching development?
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Is it trying to solidify what is going on in youth when when we have competing national bodies?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not national bodies, but competing.
• 49:30
  SPEAKER_00: We have ECNL versus MLS next and like that fight in rift all the time.
• 49:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what what do you think their biggest role is?
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: And do they want to get those two together and maybe one system for all?
• 49:43
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's always somebody is always going to be upset and start their own league, I feel.
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_01: I think the answer to the question, do they want to, is yes.
• 49:50
  SPEAKER_01: Why is it so challenging?
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I go back to like 1994.
• 49:55
  SPEAKER_01: Alexi Lalas from Michigan had never played professionally, but he's a star of the World Cup for the US Men's National.
• 50:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 50:03
  SPEAKER_01: So because of the lack of professional leagues in 1994, I mean, forget with all due respect, I'm not talking NASL now, but there was no full pro league, right, for an American player, male or female.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what is the function of a federation in that instance is to support the development of the men's and women's national team.
• 50:27
  SPEAKER_01: A first world FA, KMVB, DFB, English, English, uh, English FA, obviously the South American equivalents, would be to run referee development, coach education, um, adaptive soccer, school soccer, community, you know, every that would be in a first in a first world soccer nation where the development of the players, the at the elite level for the national teams is being managed by the professional clubs in the professional league.
• 50:57
  SPEAKER_01: If you really think about it, US soccer didn't have that opportunity to attend to all of the full range of products because they had a much, much bigger responsibility to maintaining, developing, sponsoring, supporting, paying for the national tips.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: So now US soccer, much wealthier, a developed MLS, a developed NWSL.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to say late to the party in any pejorative sense, but a lot of things have happened, right?
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: All the the multi-USYS, US Club, yeah, AYSO, PCNL, Girls League.
• 51:29
  SPEAKER_01: We we had that we played around with US soccer's development academies.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_01: You've got college soccer is huge, USL, MLS, that kind of tension.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Does MLS want to be in charge of player development?
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a it's a much difficult job for the feds federation to control that and to or to corral that.
• 51:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe the development of the National Training Center Atlanta, which is amazing, right?
• 51:51
  SPEAKER_01: More money being put into these things, and now trusting that Tyler Adams is getting a good experience with Bournemouth, uh, Winston McKinney's getting a good experience, in the case of the men's experience at Juventus.
• 52:02
  SPEAKER_01: Now our federation is in a much better position to come to the table.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: They just have to deal with a ton of egos.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you've only been with the federation for four years?
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been full-time with the federation.
• 52:17
  SPEAKER_01: Most of us are freelancers.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: But I've been a coach educator and been a coach educator developer for 35 years.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 52:24
  SPEAKER_01: So and also I must just add, when we were running ODP for USYS, prior to all the other platforms, that was the single single most effective pathway to US soccer national teams.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_01: So US soccer was very heavily reliant a long time ago on USYS ODP.
• 52:42
  SPEAKER_01: Now there's a much more challenging number of platforms they have to go and find players from.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_00: Do you miss the importance of ODP?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's still important, but it's not the same because when the DA came, it's like, oh no, you're not allowed to do ODP.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_00: That me coaching ODP and getting to go to regional camp was my real first access to top coaches like yourself, but also the top players.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: I got to coach guys that are still playing professional soccer.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_01: So I I was very, very hurt personally and professionally when US soccer said you can't do ODP, you gotta come into a development academy.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_01: And yet at the U14 level, USYS was still supplying the core of the U14 national team.
• 53:38
  SPEAKER_01: And when the so it felt like it felt like um it felt very callous.
• 53:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um but some of us have continued to work in ODP and realize now, like a lot of things, you don't have the players that you previously had, the the top players.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um I mean, Landon was an ODP player, Freddie Adu was a and the from Marcus Beasley, he's a region two kid.
• 54:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, Michael Bradley, or these guys.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Of course.
• 54:08
  SPEAKER_01: Fresh lots of those guys.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um but what's nice is I just recently finished the Midwest Regional Camp.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: We had 1,200 players.
• 54:17
  SPEAKER_01: None of those, 1,200, 600, 500, 500 girls, 630 boys came to our Midwest Regional Camp in Rockford.
• 54:27
  SPEAKER_01: At the 2009-2010 level, most of those players will be fortunate level-wise to get into a D2 or D1 scholarship NAI type position.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not the talent pool we have.
• 54:42
  SPEAKER_01: But they've come because they want to finish through the process, they still have aspirations to play for their high school teams, they're still sniffing around for a little bit of college exposure.
• 54:50
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_01: At the 2014 and 2013 level, because of the quality work of USYS states who will go to the most obscure places in their states and supports financially players that can't do it, and many of our states do that.
• 55:07
  SPEAKER_01: At the 2014-2013 levels, we're seeing MLS scouts come because MLS Scouting cannot do what effective USYS state level programming can do.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's that's Mark Zathy goes to Jane.
• 55:23
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Zathy goes to Luddington to run a district trial, and there's a great kid, right?
• 55:28
  SPEAKER_01: Either a great Michelander or a kid who comes from an immigrant community.
• 55:33
  SPEAKER_01: Mark Zathi says, Would you like to come and do Michigan ODP down in the cities?
• 55:36
  SPEAKER_01: And Michigan, if the kid can't afford it, Michigan may be able to help him.
• 55:40
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when he's in that environment, maybe an MLS or a USL championship scout is wandering about.
• 55:46
  SPEAKER_01: But they're not, with all due respect, they're not geared yet to go to Ludington to find that player.
• 55:52
  SPEAKER_01: So all of our platforms, be it US Club and ECNL, Girls Academy, USYSODP, God Help Us, AYSO, YMCA, SAI, all of these platforms, if they're touching, um, if they're interfacing and touching children in those levels and identifying and supporting, the support is key because you've got to get them out of those environments.
• 56:14
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually somebody will find them.
• 56:16
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in other countries, smaller countries, cream, the talent, the cream to the top is usually found quite quickly and effectively.
• 56:24
  SPEAKER_01: In a country the size of the US, but one of the best players I dealt with recently for a while was a guy called Casey Townsend from Travis City.
• 56:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Casey, yeah.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_01: So Casey, my brother was working for the Wolves and he called me and he said, This this kid just showed up at our trial trainings from Travis City.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_01: He's 14.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_01: And my this is a long time ago, obviously.
• 56:43
  SPEAKER_01: My brother said, This kid is this kid is different.
• 56:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 56:46
  SPEAKER_01: And he was an Anglo kid.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_01: Mum and dad, I don't think, were soccer players.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 56:51
  SPEAKER_01: The kid was just Casey was just special.
• 56:53
  SPEAKER_01: So Casey ends up coming down playing for the Wolves, Michigan ODP, Midwest uh region two camp, uh, region two team.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_01: I actually coached the team when he scored two goals against the Spanish national team at Disney Showcase, which got him a scholarship to Maryland, and then he plays in the MLS.
• 57:11
  SPEAKER_01: And that's a kid from Travis City.
• 57:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that pathway from USYS Club in Traverse City down to the Wolves, to Michigan, to Midwest Regional, to Disney Showcase beat Spain, to recruited by Sasha Shirofsky to the MLS.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's not bad.
• 57:31
  SPEAKER_01: And he was deserving.
• 57:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was probably I'm thinking when was Casey 14?
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking that was probably 2000.
• 57:45
  SPEAKER_00: 2000, no, it was probably 2011.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_01: 2012, maybe.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, now what would have happened today?
• 57:52
  SPEAKER_01: That pathway probably wouldn't have been a ton different because he would have come down from Trava City to Michigan ODP when he was really little.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: We would have said pretty good.
• 58:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then the MLS would have got to him, so he would have skipped the whole college piece.
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: So now the MLS are getting him at 14, 15, 16, and he's perhaps signing pro, going and playing USL 1, USL, USL 1 or USL Championship.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_01: So his whole process is sped up because he's missing those four years of of college.
• 58:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it's still a same pathway.
• 58:25
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, scouting is scouting, right?
• 58:26
  SPEAKER_01: Identifying the talent at the right age and putting it in the right place.
• 58:31
  unknown: Yeah.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_00: My first you bring up Casey, and I'll bring up Caleb Stanko.
• 58:39
  SPEAKER_00: Remember Caleb?
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he I didn't, I've never I never saw him play it.
• 58:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I go to regional camp with Paul Barteschak and Todd Derby.
• 58:49
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, and they're like, just wait till this kid can get here.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was coming from national team camp, and he's uh 13 at the time.
• 58:58
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, just wait, just wait till you see this kid.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, like I I played against Simone Omaconda.
• 59:08
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I like I I've seen uh I've played against Nate Norman.
• 59:11
  SPEAKER_00: Simone's here.
• 59:13
  SPEAKER_01: Is he today?
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he came over and said hi.
• 59:15
  SPEAKER_01: And the funny thing, just because you mentioned his name, he scored a goal for our regional team in Blue Den's Austria against Man United, and we beat Man United 1-0.
• 59:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I said to Simone, he is responsible for my 1-0 and one record in competition against Man United with the youth teams.
• 59:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's Simone, he was quite good.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_00: He scored the most insane goal on me, and I still to this day don't understand how he did it.
• 59:38
  SPEAKER_00: He was on the goal line.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_00: He it was a Friday night game.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: He had to leave at like 20 minutes in because he was the homecoming king.
• 59:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and he had to go.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: He is like on the goal line, and he just clips a ball with the insane Ben in the far post.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, what am I supposed to do?
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what in the world just happened?
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_01: And the Michigan, the Michigan success story, because I know we're Michigan podcast.
• 1:00:06
  SPEAKER_01: If you go back to Alexi, obviously, yeah, you've got Ali Curtis, who's still an executive in the game.
• 1:00:11
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, playing it doke, and I work with him.
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_01: I met I met Ollie.
• 1:00:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then obviously the guys I know, like Corey Williamson, and I had three.
• 1:00:19
  SPEAKER_01: We had Masonov is is a Michigan guy too.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:00:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I really do need to, I do need to go, but um, not because I want to, but because I have other response, I should be down on the field actually.
• 1:00:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Mike Clark and Brian Masanoff went to Indiana.
• 1:00:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and the next year uh I was at Wisconsin and we recruited Travis Roy, Mike Gentili, and Scott Lanfear from Lavonia, Michigan, and Churchill.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: So those five guys were top, top Division I players of that era, and of course, all five of them got MLS contracts.
• 1:00:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Mike and the three from Wisconsin ultimately didn't activate on them, but anyway.
• 1:00:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but uh I coached at Wisconsin for nine years and saw a lot of decent Division I soccer.
• 1:01:05
  SPEAKER_01: The single best performance I ever saw, and I had seen we played against Claudia Reina, we played against some other top, top guys.
• 1:01:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but the best performance I ever saw was Brian Mazenov on a wet night in Indiana where he ran a game by himself against our team, and with all of the massive Caleb Porter and all the supporting casts, another.
• 1:01:23
  SPEAKER_01: I think that was a lot earlier than Caleb, but all of the supporting casts in yet, that's how good Brian was on his day.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and he remains a great human being as far as I know, because I do interact with him a little bit, but of his day, Brian Masenov was that good.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: And he played in the World Cup, so he's yeah, it's not yeah, absolutely.
• 1:01:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and I'm gonna have him on.
• 1:01:41
  SPEAKER_00: I actually helped him.
• 1:01:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I coached with him uh through NTC, uh, the National Training Centers.
• 1:01:49
  SPEAKER_00: I did it, I did his goalkeeping a couple times uh when he was with the U17s.
• 1:01:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm really glad things are going well for him in Ohio State.
• 1:01:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think uh he's great.
• 1:01:58
  SPEAKER_01: He's a very good guy, but there's there's so many.
• 1:02:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I am way uh underqualified relative to some of the people you could talk to around here, like Bob Bukhari, Paul Bardashuk, Donnie Gemmel back in the day, and now people like uh because you've got Donnie.
• 1:02:13
  SPEAKER_01: Michigan soccer has a ton to be proud of.
• 1:02:15
  SPEAKER_01: And when I was doing ODP, as you know, it was always Chicago and Detroit.
• 1:02:19
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely, Mada Magic Soccer.
• 1:02:21
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was always Illinois and Michigan.
• 1:02:24
  SPEAKER_00: That was the the biggest.
• 1:02:26
  SPEAKER_00: But thank you so much.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's a pleasure.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 1:02:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a lot of just two guys chatting, talking.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_00: That's all it is.
• 1:02:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's like if we just got a coffee or a beer without alcohol in front of us, I just for anybody who was wondering.
• 1:02:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
• 1:02:40
  SPEAKER_00: Appreciate you, Jason.
• 1:02:41
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you.
• 1:02:42
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:02:43
  SPEAKER_00: I hate soccer.