Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #658: Club vs high school soccer with Matt Sahag

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

Matt Sahag, who coaches high school girls soccer in Des Moines, joins the pod to discuss a recent pitch from a big ECNL club to players and their parents, discouraging them from playing high school soccer this spring so they can focus on league ECNL play and national showcases.Sahag has responses to the claims made by the club. It's interesting. 13-yr-old's flying out for the weekend to play regular-season games, $2500 trips to Arizona for...what? And you don't get to play against that cross-town rival this season for your school, by the way. AND the pot at the end of this rainbow is probably a partial scholarship at a non-D1 college. Just another slice of the America soccer dilemma.If you want more from Matt on the specifics of the Sporting Iowa pitch, listen to his break-down on Soccer Talks, the Kick It Forward podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e210-high-school-soccer-matters-is-ecnl-super-cup-the-answer/id1458145533?i=1000739927583Join us for the trip to Germany on April 18-26, express interest here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfI4Cp1VpS2eCphsNjf6QHdaRDq86Tf-FeUhJ2tQ0RzkbxQhw/viewform Skip the ads! Subscribe to Scuffed on Patreon and get all episodes ad-free, plus any bonus episodes. Patrons at $5 a month or more also get access to Clip Notes, a video of key moments on the field we discuss on the show, plus all patrons get access to our private Discord server, live call-in shows, and the full catalog of historic recaps we've made: https://www.patreon.com/scuffedAlso, check out Boots on the Ground, our USWNT-focused spinoff podcast headed up by Tara and Vince. They are cooking over there, you can listen here: https://boots-on-the-ground.simplecast.comAnd check out our MERCH, baby. We have better stuff than you might think: https://www.scuffedhq.com/store Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the SCuff podcast when we talk about U.S. Soccer. Our guest today played college soccer at Drake University in Des Moines. Now he is, among other things, a lawyer and the head girl soccer coach at Dowling Catholic High School, which happens to be Caitlin Clark's alma mater. He recently recorded a podcast episode where he methodically evaluated the claims made by a soccer club about essentially what's good for teenagers who play soccer. So, you know, we love talking about high school soccer. We love talking about the grassroots here. So please welcome Matt Seahag. You need to be here.

Thanks for having me. Yeah, thanks for being here, making it work. So it just seems like an important line of inquiry to me. And it kind of cuts to the root of the matter, which is how do we get more kids to love the game and get good at the game? Could you maybe start by giving us the background what the ECNL did? What the ECNL is? what it did, what it's doing, and sort of the pitch that was made to players in Iowa about it. Yeah, sure.

So the ECNL is the, I guess the acronym stands for Elite Club National League. I believe that's what the acronym is. And to kind of understand the background, before the ECNL kind of came onto the scene, all the youth programming and the majority of it was run through USYS, United States Soccer Associations. And so they decided, you know, probably 15 years ago or so that they wanted more control, they wanted to take the control kind of away from these soccer associations and then start US or have U.S. club soccer put together, you know,

more player-centered programming. And so you get this kind of birth of U.S. club soccer, which clubs are migrating to that platform instead of USYS, and then the EC&L develops. So over the last 10 years or so, they have now created a platform, which is, you know, which they call the best clubs around the country, and they have created, you know, divisions countrywide.

And so, you know, it's now, they even have pre-EC&L. So it started 15 to 18s where if you met all of these, this club criteria. So you had club directors and facilities and all this stuff, you could enter to the ECNL and then get, you know, into the best programming to play the best competition. And then in addition to that, they started, you know, attracting college coaches to these of different events that you would go to. And so where kind of I got hooked into that or it started impacting kind of the players that I work with or just the soccer scene that I'm in generally is, you know, Iowa club teams

started applying to get into the EC&L. And the reason they were doing that was they thought that if they got on a platform to play against the best clubs in the country, then it would. make the player the pathways for the players so they could get exposed to colleges and start getting college deals and playing for big schools all over the country. And so that's kind of the history of the background on the UCNL. And so then what that has turned out to be, though, for Iowa kids is you're now in leagues where you're traveling around the country to multiple events around the country in league play.

And then they'll put on these national events that are more like kind of college showcases where you'll go start to compete in those leagues. So a team in Des Moines, an EC&L team in Des Moines may play in the league against a team from another state or even further away? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And so there's actually divisions around the country in the EC&L. Like, I mean, if you go to their website, you can see the standard. and the divisions that they've got. So, you know, sporting Iowa is the Iowa club team in the

EC&L. And so they'll be in league play against various teams from different states regionally. You know, so it might be Missouri teams, Nebraska teams, different things like that. And then, you know, depending on the region that you're in, you may have, you know, different amounts of travel. So I'll give you an example outside of Iowa. You know, I've got a brother who's got a daughter down in Texas. They're in San Antonio. Well, the league that they're in, there's St. Louis teams in the league.

And so there was one weekend where, and his daughter was, his daughter was 13 years old, my niece. There's one game where they got on a plane and went to play in lead games. They had two league games, Saturday,

Sunday, so they probably miss the day of school, get on a plane, play two games in St. Louis, and then come back home. and that's just a league game. And it's even more interesting because there's different divisions in the E.CNL. So you've got the EECNL top division, but then you also have the EECL Regional League,

which, you know, people don't like to think of this as B-Team players, but it's the second team in all these age groups. Well, my niece was on the Regional League team. And so even the second-level teams are traveling you know, all over the country and that's just for league play.

Man, I did not realize they were doing that just for league play. I thought it was just the showcases down in, you know, Arizona or Florida, which we'll get into are ridiculous enough on their own.

But, man, doing that on in league play. It's nuts. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it is a lot of travel. And I think it depends. I mean, to be fair, it depends on the region that you're in,

um, in the league, but it's a lot of travel. So what got you guys going on your, on the podcast is called Soccer Talk. It's the Kick It Forward podcast, you and Ben Brackett and Blake Sebers, right? Yep. But what got you guys going is the ECNL said they're going to start something called a Super Cup, right? And why does that, why does that affect you as the head coach of the Dowling Girls soccer team?

Yeah. So specifically, I think that they're, they're, the program, it's the Super Cup, maybe he's been around for a few years. But really what happened was, so Sporting Iowa is in the EC&L. And so, you know, sporting Iowa has probably got, I mean, there's thousands of players in the club. It's the largest club in Iowa. And so what they did, Sporting Iowa did, is they said, hey, we're going to offer, what we want you to do is instead of playing high school soccer, we want you to play club year round. And so, you're going to, you're going to we're going to offer program in this EC&L Super Cup.

And so you guys, and so we're going to do that because this is what's best for your player development, and this is what gives you the best chance of getting recruited to schools. And so I think what Sporting Iowa did is they just offered this to their players in a program that had already kind of existed. Now, I don't know the extent to which this super club exists, but, you know, what happens is, you know, traditionally is you'll play, once you get to high school ages, you'll play with your clubs in, you know, like in Iowa, the girls' high school plays in the spring. And so they'll play with their club teams throughout the fall and then some winter games,

and then they would play high school soccer in the spring in Iowa. And so what the clubs did or tried to do is say, hey, don't play high school at all, join this super, super club, and we'll offer the program to you in the spring. Okay. So they had a pitch for why players should do this, right? And I think you broke it down into three things, really. They said it's more similar to a college training environment. And number two, you've got to go to these big showcases if you want to be recruited by college coaches.

And then I guess there was an example they gave of a player from Wisconsin. Anyway, let's start with the more similar to a college training environment. argument. Well, maybe, you know what, before we even get to that, what is lost when kids decide not to play high school soccer? I mean, obviously, you have a vested interest. You are a high school soccer coach, but that's not the only reason you care about this, right? I mean, what do you think is lost for kids? Well, I mean, I think you mentioned one of ends. I mean, kids love playing high school soccer, the enjoyment of it, I think, number one. And a big part of that is you're playing for something that, you know, when you go to school on a game day,

everyone in the school knows it's the game day. And so you're in between classes. You know, some kids will, you know, wear their team gear or they'll dress up for the day. And so, you know, there's an event surrounding the game day. And so there's a ton of camaraderie in school spirit that goes along with high school where kids feel good about playing for their schools. I think And so, you know, if you get, and then when you get to the finals, you start to play in front of big crowds. And so I think, and that's just fun. And so I think that's one of the biggest pieces that is important for the high school experience, I think. There's a ton of other stuff, and that's going to bleed into what your question was.

But, you know, if you're going to go play in college, you've got to learn what it means to be a student athlete. and in the high school game, I mean, if you're going to be eligible, you've got to get good grades. You've got to pass your classes. You've got to be showing up for class. And there's some certain level of expectations. And so when you then start to look at, you know, what environment start to mimic each other's, you have a student athlete in high school and then you have a student athlete in college. And so it gets to be similar environments. You know, the thing about being fun to play college soccer reminds me of a story.

I think it was Jim Hart told me about two games happening simultaneously in St. Louis. One was between St. Louis Scott Gallagher and a club in Chicago. And, you know, just a couple fields over at the complex was two high schools. I can't remember which ones. Let's say it was Priory and Country Day or something. And the St. Louis Scott Gallagher, one of the, of the best, you know, one of the best development clubs historically in America, and they had nobody at their game, just the parents and lawn chairs. You go over to the high school game, and it's like,

you know, a thousand people are watching this rivalry game. And, you know, as the games were progressing, people at the club game were sending runners over to find out what was going on at the school game. You know, even though ostensibly the club game was better, a higher level of soccer. And I'm, I just think that that really kind of encapsulates the fun of high school soccer. Totally. We always say here in Iowa, the best day, and the high school associations have actually changed this, unfortunately. But the best day for soccer just overall in Iowa was the quarterfinal day. And for a period of time, they had boys and girls playing in the same couple of days.

and they would hold these games at the same complexes. And so you would have classes of games, you know, it would be 1A, 2, A, 3A, 4A played throughout the day, and then they would stagger the games. And so you would be at one complex for the high school state quarterfinals, and you then would have thousands of people coming into the complex. And so, and then you'd have just fans and students lined up around the sides of the games. Some of them are stadium fields.

But then when one game would end, everyone would migrate over to the next game. And so you just have this unbelievable atmosphere where everybody's in their school gear and these raucous crowds. And it speaks to kind of the example that you just gave. You just don't get those types of experiencing in crowds in club soccer. It just doesn't happen, even though, like you said, there's a lot of times when the standard is better. But maybe it doesn't have.

You guys talk about this a little bit on your show, but it doesn't, maybe. Maybe the club games don't have, the club games don't have as much bite as some of those good high school games? I mean, I think that's, I think that's probably true. Do you? Yeah. I mean, I think it, when you just look at competition in general, I mean, there's always more bite when you're playing for something, right? And I think sometimes, I think that's where, and I don't think this is just, I think it would have been unfair to say this, to cast the net over all club soccer games. But, you know, when you're playing in, you know, something like, I think like a showcase, for example, you're showcasing your individual talent.

And there's no real meaning to winning or losing the game. And so I don't think you can really have a true competition unless the result really matters, you know, on the level that we're talking about. Now, you can play an under-six game, right? And who cares? But when you get to high school in those ages, the game's got to mean something. And I think for anyone who's recruiting a player or looking at a player, I would think you'd want to watch a game that means something because you want to see how that player performs.

And so for me, there absolutely are high school games where there's a ton more bite to these games because the results matter and they matter to the kids because they just want to win. But all their friends, it matters to them too because they all want their school to win. And so it's just a different environment that club does. bring to the table. Did any of your, so sporting Iowa said, hey, come play for us and maybe in this

new competition, whatever, but don't play high school soccer this spring. Does it any of your players go that route? So far, no. So far no. They, I mean,

the way they pitched it, you know, I can see how it can be kind of tough for kids because, especially these high kids, school kids, they're navigating this process where a lot of them want to play in college. And so they're getting told certain things will get them to where they want to go. And so, you know, the message that was that was sent out basically is if you stay on this platform and you go to these events, that will get you the better opportunity to play in college.

And so I think to answer your question, a lot of the, there's a number of the Dowling girls who were in enticed by that proposition because they want to play in high school. But so far, I don't think they've, I don't think the club has got sort of the, uh, required a number of players to buy into that. And so, so far the, the girls are staying with high school. Okay. All right. So you had a lot to say about, um, you know, it being more of, about the training environment

at a club, one particular club in this case, being more like a college training environment than high school training environment. So maybe we should get into some of those details. Like why? Spoiler alert, you're going to say it's not more similar. But why? Why is that not correct in your view? Sure.

Well, I mean, first of all, the context of the whole situation always matters, right? Okay. And so I think that the issue that I had with just the general proposition that club is is more like college soccer was, you know, just saying that generally, I just, disagree with that because I think if you get in the right scenario in high school, you absolutely have a situation that's more like college soccer. So, you know, for some kids, they might be at a high school program that doesn't value high school soccer. Well,

for them, is the club environment better? Maybe it is. Fair enough. Yeah. But I don't think that you can just say, you know, club is always better in high school. So for, for me, my, arguments were, I mean, a ton of different things. I mean, one of the things I pointed out was, you know, when we train at Dowling, we go, first of all, the kids are at school where they go to class, and then when they're done, they walk right out into the stadium field, and that's where we train. So, I mean, that's what happens when you're in college. You go to class for the day, and then you walk out right at school and you you train. We have all sorts of video capabilities

and we have a software that videos all the games. So we will do all sorts of video analysis during the season where we'll break down plays, we'll break down the opponents, we'll watch game film so that we can improve. I mean, you do all of that stuff in college soccer.

And I don't know the extent to which the clubs these days are using video. analysis and video review, my experience in the club side is that it's not very much. And in today's day and age where you have all these technological advances, you know, you've got to be doing all that stuff. And we do a ton of it in high school. You look at just the physio, the physios, the trainers, the access to the medical, it's all right there at the school. That's different than in club. And so, you know, I think the argument can go on and on. But really, you can set up an environment that basically, I think, is identical to the collegiate environment just on a different

level. Yeah. Because you have, when it comes to video stuff, like you have, you guys play in the same stadium where the football team plays, right? We, um, the football team actually plays in a, um, in a different stadium now just because the Dowling stadium is not quite large enough, but, um, that's where they train. Okay. So you got like, like the same video.

Go ahead. Sorry. When we go play away, like, for example, we'll play in the same stadium where, you know, the other teams, football teams play. So you've got the same video equipment for home and away games. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. You got the same. You're generally the same video set up that the high school football team would use, right?

Yep. Yep. And also you play in the high school soccer season in the spring. You play games more often, more regularly, which is more similar to college, a college schedule too, right? Yeah, so I did that analysis, too. You know, one of the criticisms that high school soccer has gotten for years as well, there's too many games. It's not healthy for the players. You're playing way too many games in the week.

And, you know, that's just a general criticism that club has kind of cast over high school soccer. And so it's part of kind of it's part of the pitch in this whole process too is in terms of sporting Iowa's pitch was, well, we're going to give you more meaningful training sessions. And that equates to better player development. And I said, well, wait a second. Let's, why don't we actually do the analysis? So I went to the Drake Women's Soccer program season. And I looked at when they started in August and when they ended in November and just did the calculations for the number. of games and then the number of rest days. And then I did the same thing for our upcoming

dialing schedule. And then I did the analysis for kind of the program that the club was putting forward. And when you did the numbers, I mean, it wasn't identical, but high school soccer and the club game were virtually the same. And the other issue you really haven't in the high schools is, you know, I'll have control over, our program isn't huge, but it was probably between 40 and 50 players. And so the criticism that you've got too many games, well, you can control that by making it a squad game, right? So you can play more players in certain games than others.

And so you've got more, if you look at a college team too, in the season, it becomes a squad game, because those colleges are going to be carrying 25, 30 player rosters. So they'll be selecting, you know, players in the games based on probably where they're at, injury-wise or energy-wise and different things like that. We can do the same thing in high school soccer. Okay. All right. So, I mean, is there some part of you that says, okay.

Okay, supporting Iowa. Maybe your training environment is more sophisticated than what I can offer as a high school soccer coach? Like, and in what ways? I mean, there's a couple of different things. Sporting Iowa has who I consider some very good coaches. And so, you know, I'm not the guy that's going to say, well, you know, you got to come play for me because I can offer you, you know, the best product as a coach. So I think who your coach is really matters.

Yeah. And how they push you and how they set your environment up. And sporting has some fantastic coaches. And so I think if you had the right environment with the player, with the right coach, and the right group of players, then I think the answer to that is absolutely they could probably offer something better. I think the problem, you know, the issue we've got in Iowa is the size of the player pool. And so when you dilute the player pool, I think then you dilute or you take a whole. or you take away what you can do with what's best for the players. So if we had something in Iowa where you took the,

from 15 to 18 years old, boys or girls, you'd have a girls team to boys team, you took the best players in the state, and you put together a program for them that was year round and said, we're going to go compete you all over the country for the best soccer programs, and we're going to put a coach with you

that is the best coach, you know, or one of the best coaches in the state or what we have to offer, I think you would have something that very few high school programs or club programs could argue with isn't best for those group of players. The problem becomes is when you have the top player and the bottom player in one team not necessarily on the same ambition level or ability level. And that's what happens, I think, in Iowa because of the size of the pool. there's just not enough high elite players to yeah yeah totally totally but we've got we've got a lot of good players um and i would just not all and i think that's happening on the on the club side you know we've got multiple clubs and so so for example there's dowling girls that play in vs a rush and then there's dowling girls that play at sporting iowa and you know a couple

of them, in my opinion, are amongst the best players in the state right now. So if there was a team that put all of them together and competed all year round, I think they could make a pretty good argument that maybe what they had was better. I see. Okay. But then, and maybe this isn't something that matters as much to you, but the thing is, if you did do that, even if it was a better sporting environment for those. for those girls.

It's a really expensive thing to do, right? I mean, they got a, you're going to have a group of 15, the 15 best players in the state all playing for the same club under the same coach, traveling all over the country. Somebody's going to have to take out a second mortgage to cover all that, you know?

I don't know. I don't know how parents do it these days. You know, I'm a lawyer and I do, I do all right for myself, right? But I look at this and I go, I don't know if the money that people are spending would be affordable for me as a parent. And I only have one kid who's very young, but some of these families have three, four kids playing in soccer. And it's to the point now where if you want to be in these programs, you're spending in excess of $10,000 a year on one sport.

And it's just not, it's just not, it just doesn't feel like it's sustainable for anyone. And I mean, I just, and so then you've got to, you've got to really figure out, like, what bang am I getting for my buck? And this is the other thing we really talked about, I think, or we try to talk about on our podcast was, well, if you're, it's like, what are you doing all this for and what are you spending all this money for? And if you're spending all this money because you want to get a college scholarship, because you think that that investment is going to equate to scholarship dollars, then we're, we're spending. we've got to really have a conversation about, well, how much athletic dollars are you actually going to get? And then what actually level of programs you're going to be interested in you as a player? Because if you're going to spend $10,000 a year from 15 to 18, that's 40 grand.

And the question is, are you even getting get a scholarship? No. That's anywhere near that. No. Probably not. No. Yeah. So it feels like people are being, it feels like you're in the,

where it's say, we'll travel over the country to these showcases and to be an elite player, so to speak, but then you don't have an elite deal on the back end of it. Right. Yeah. It's, uh, it seems like such a, it seems kind of depressing that, like, because, because so many parents are willing to pay for it, right? I mean, it's, I don't know what it's like in Iowa, but I imagine across the country, the reason these sorts of programs are available. or made available and sustain themselves is because parents will pay for it, right? I mean, 100%.

Yeah, right. And so I think, I mean, you got to ask then... Why do they pay for it? Right. Well, I mean, I think people will say because it's more than just about the college scholars to deal at the end of it. I want my kid to be, you know, healthy.

I want my kid to be to socialize with friends. my kids enjoy it and so I'm willing to pay the money so I think that I think maybe that's the explanation you would get from them the pushback on that is well why not just why not have a program

that you don't have to pay as much money for that but I mean I also think it's it's a lack of options so and everyone's you know everyone wants to be in the best best team like in their local

community So, like, for, so for example, in Iowa, if you do want to play in the best club team, and there's some exceptions to this, you know, you would go try out at Sporting Iowa or VSA Rush. And then they have a set program and a set fee, and you have to pay that. And if you don't want to pay that, then you're not in the team. Okay. How, you said you have a young kid. How old?

Lucas, he's 16 months old, so he's really young. Yeah. But I'm looking at this going, well, in 10 years from now, right? Like, what's this look like? And just as someone, as a parent, I'm going, knowing what the scene looks like, and I said this on the podcast, I mean, I don't, I don't think that, you know, if he likes sports, I'm almost like, well, why not, you know, play golf or, you know, something different that, that, and you wouldn't get a team, team sport with that. But I just don't know what the cost is going to be. And just the amount of sheer travel to, it's hard to. I look at this from the developmental perspective, too. And again, I go back to the example of putting a kid who's 13 on a plane for a weekend game. I don't understand the development of value in pulling the child out of school,

putting them on, having him travel for two days when the ultimate. alternative to them getting better at soccer is you just putting them out in the backyard and saying kick a ball against the wall 500 times. And it'll take you 30 minutes and then go play with your friends. Um, you know, so that, that's just that developmental piece too for me to understand the amount of time kids are spending, traveling to play a sport that they love is, is difficult for me to kind of buy into. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, it does, it seems to me like rec soccer is, Or part of me hopes that rec soccer can be part of the answer, you know, if we can just improve rec soccer across the country. Like, you know, kind of a New Deal style rec soccer effort. Then that could create an alternative to this toxic cycle. But then, you know, you get your kids 10 or 11 or 12 and they're really good at soccer and they're playing rec soccer and you see like they're not going to get any better here. what do you do? Right.

So it is. Totally. I mean, I'm always, so my kind of take on that is, I think like, you know, I'm 44, so almost 45 years old. When I grew up, you know, my parents didn't play soccer growing up. And so 25 years ago when you got, you know, you had this scenario where not many parents were playing soccer, not many parents knew about the game. And so you have all these clubs for them. We've got these professional coaches and these professional coaching staffs that can actually teach the game.

I think the part where our country is getting now is that guys like me and lots of different people who have young kids now actually played the game. And so I think now you can put a better coaching product out there with parents. Yeah. And so if you can get more parents invested. at young ages developing these kids. I think that's where you kind of start with the process because I think that's where a lot of the costs are built in to these programs. It's the infrastructure in the clubs that drives the costs up.

And a lot of that's wages. Wages for the coaches, yeah. I think so, yeah, and stuff like that. So I just think we should be utilizing our parent workforce, you know, more so. now because I think we've got a ton of educated parents now in the game because they've played. Certainly more than when you and I were growing up, that's for sure. Correct. Right.

Let's take a break. Come back in a minute and we're going to talk about, you know, having a hangover after a night out in Scottsdale. And what that might mean for the meaningfulness of these showcases that kids are being told they should go to. We'll be back in a minute. All right, we're back with Matt Seahag. So let's get into the next part of it where, you know, these showcases and I guess the one that you looked at was in Arizona. But, you know, gigantic tournaments, kids flying from all over the country to go play with the hope that a college coach will see them play and that they will get some kind of scholarship to college. What do you make of all this?

So, yeah, I got a lot of thoughts on this. first of all, generally speaking, what I see is kids end up going to school around where they live. So, like, if you look at the Iowa kid who is going to play college soccer, they're going to the same schools over and over again. And they're Midwest schools, you know, so the girl's side has sent a ton of players to Minnesota State over the last five years. they're just north of us. You've got... In Mancato. Lovely Mancato.

Yeah. And you know what? They went to the final, their Division II school, they went to the final, I think, this last year. So a really good D2 program. There's one or two kids that go to Iowa,

Iowa State, usually every year that get picked up by them. But there's schools around here, right? So the concept that you have to go to Arizona to get recruited and you go to a place like Arizona that's going to draw coaches from all over the country it's hard for me to sort of grip

because most of those coaches at those schools are never, they're not recruiting out of the players. And so, I mean, I get it, you got to go somewhere in this, where all these coaches are kind of coming. But then the question is also, if you are going to, one of these events, I mean, how do these coaches even know you're coming there and are they

even coming to your games? And then if they do come to their gear games, how long are they staying at your games? You know, because you could have a coach show up for five minutes and then leave. So it's more than just signing up to go to a recruiting event, right? You've got a tell somebody you're coming. But then the other thing is, well, if you're going to one of these recruiting events, do you even know what schools you'd be interested in attending? Because I think that's probably got to be the first step for a kid is,

you know, maybe you've got an Iowa kid who says, well, I want to stay in Iowa. Well, you don't necessarily have to go to Arizona where coaches from Oregon and Washington and California are going to be, or in the East Coast for that matter, because you don't want to go there. So it just feels like we're sending players out to these recruiting events to places where they're not going to go to school. And it doesn't feel like the schools that are going to be there may not even recruit them.

And so the question really is, is, again, what value are you getting for the money that you're spending to go to these recruiting events? I mean, you put it as a rhetorical question, but what value do you think people are getting? Well, I'm not, so for example, let's just say if, let's just say Arizona and Arizona State were at the ECNL showcase in Arizona. I don't know if they were, but it would make sense that they are. I'm not aware of any Iowa players who have ever gone to one of those schools and played soccer. You know, you can, you can take that list and build it even further. The other thing you've got then, too, is, okay, so let's say you, I think I gave this example on the podcast. Let's say that the one trip cost me $2,500 to go to Arizona, and you're going to do that for four years. Well, that's $10,000 you're going to spend on one showcase. Let's say that there's a school that does see you there, and they say, hey, we liked you. We want to offer you, you know, $5,000 a year in athletic money.

you know, the numbers may not start to actually end up making up or working out. And so I don't know the actual deals that players are getting, but we're not seeing a ton of kids go to these events and have a ton of success. I'll give you a different example. I think one of the most highly sought after kids in Iowa right now is a player named Olivia Rotich. She's a junior now. She's a good player.

She goes to Valley High School. She got recruited and signed with Iowa State. Okay. And I think that's probably, that's one of probably the, and she's a good player. That's a good deal for her. But again, she's coming to Iowa State. Yeah. So, you know, you have to ask yourself, do you need to stay to travel around the country to do that?

Right. And I'm trying to think where do a lot of the good players? in central Iowa end up going in school. Simpson, Luther. Yep. Does Grinnell? Does Grinnell have a soccer program? They do. Yep. Boys, I don't know if girls do or not,

but boys have a soccer program that go to Grnell. Grandview is another big one. A ton of girls, a ton of guys got a Grandview. The men have got a really good program. They just won it. NAA. You know, there's the Graceland's down south. you've got

Warburg Warburg's another one This is the part of the show where we just named college It's in Iowa And that is where the kids are going Yeah It really is over and over again So

Kansas City schools You know as well You've got I mean Truman State's another one Places like that Okay You But there's two other things about the showcases

That I wanted to get into with you I made the joke about the hangover. But like some of these, I think some of the, one of the games that one of these Iowa clubs played at or is going to play at one of these showcases, that 8 a.m., I think. And you made it, I mean, make the point again,

like if you're a college coach whose season just ended, you're staying in Scottsdale, what's the likelihood of you showing up for a game at 8 a.m.? Right. And I was, you know, obviously, I was joking about that but I mean I remember I remember being 25 and being a coach that that's actually why I said that

yeah um because when we would go to tournaments I mean we would we'd go out at night right I mean that's that's what you had to do and you know it's not like we were you know doing anything we weren't supposed to be doing but at eight o'clock game you'd come pretty early yeah and so it's it's not only that I think you've got to it's who's going to be there but you've got to get good draws for games and if you if you get

I think I made another example because the players were also going to Kansas City for an 8 a game and it was going to be like 30 degrees yeah and so then the question is well you know I mean do the players want to really be there

you know how many coaches are coming what's the level of competition your playing? Is it a good fixture that's going to draw coaches out there? And then, you know, are they coming at all? And so all those things really, really matter when it comes to getting recruited, I think. And so, yeah, the reality, though, is at the end of the, at the end of October, November, the colleges have just finished their seasons. And so you're walking into, you're walking into, an environment where that that's possible now i mean i do think that people that go college coaches are probably professionals and still it's not like they're going out of the town all night and getting

boozed up and missing games but um the point is to be realistic about this stuff you know yeah your fixture matters the other thing is you know when you go to these events like so for the i sporting iowa teams you you know if they're like 10th in the table they're playing another school from like california or arizona that's all also 10th in the table. Well, all the college coaches know that. So when you're at a Arizona showcase and you've got Texas playing Illinois and they're number one in the table, I mean, that's where all those guys are going to flock to those games. Or that's where they're going to be interested in going to go to the games conceivably. You're not going to want to go see

the bottom of the level teams play each other unless you have a reason to do that. And then the other question is a lot of these schools these days will use I mean they'll be sending you letters about their ID camps and their camps and all that stuff trying to get you there just to come boost their camps

and so part of I think you know part of the question I've got as well for the showcase events is well are these schools interested in you for you to come to their camps or are they interested in you into you as players as well

and I think you've got to be realistic about about that too. Huh. So the ID camp stuff might give a kid and their family a false idea of how sought after they are

basically? Well, no, I just think the, you know, when you go to these showcases, a lot of times you'll get follow-ups from the coaches that were there to come to their ID camps. I see. I would actually say the ID camps we just had a

we just released a podcast we interviewed Andrew Hackenlibel he's an Iowa kid who's actually at Slu so he's he's an outlier that went to Slew and he just played in the final four

and he's done really well but what he told us was that's how he did it was actually just hitting the ID camp cycle where it's a little bit more pointed so it's like hey I want to go to Slu and I'm coming

and I want you to see me and so you're there in that environment for a couple of days just in my mind that makes sense that that's a more targeted sort of practice to get someone interested in you than just going to a national event and hoping you get seen. Okay, and then one other thing about the showcase is I forget which tournament was.

It might have been the Kansas City one. It might be one that's upcoming. But there were a lot of examples of this 10th in the table versus 10th in the table. And the Iowa club that was involved in the showcase, I think beat some team from San Francisco like 5 to 0 or something. And you had some points to make about the level of competition, I think, at these showcases.

Yeah, I think, again, who you draw as your fixtures matter because you're going out there to showcase your talent. And so if you, one of the sporting I was, teams actually went out and beat a team 15-0 in one of these events. Goodness. And so again, like, so you go to a showcase event and then you beat a team 15-0, or I don't know how that's, if I was a coach just evaluating that, I would say, what information am I getting from this game?

I don't think you were, if I'm recruiting you and you lost 15-0, I'm probably checking you off the list. And if you won 15-0, I'm saying, I need to see. see you in a more competitive environment. So the fixture matters. And there's games like that in high school too. Sure. But again, if you're going to pay all this money to travel to an event that's highlighted as a showcase, if I was the consumer, I would be upset if we're winning by large margins and not getting good fixtures.

Okay. Well, all this talk of getting into college to play soccer, do you emphasize that a lot in your work, or have you come to the point where you're like, you know, who cares? Who cares if you go to college and play soccer? Let's just play. Let's just enjoy what we're doing here,

the craft of what we're doing. Let's beat Valley. I don't know who is the rival. Is it Westmoreland Valley? Or Dallin's Valley for sure. Okay. Now, yeah, I think the answer to that is it depends on the kid. But I think it's it depends on, it depends on what you've done before you get to high school, quite frankly.

And whether or not you've put yourself in the position to go get that college scholarship. But I don't, in what we're doing at Dowling, I'm not focusing on like, hey, if you got to do XYZ to get the college scholarship, I'm more like, okay, so what are the ambitions of you as a player in this team and what our standards want to look like so that we can create a competitive fun environment? Because the deal, the scholarships, even the winning in the games, they're all secondary to the environment you set up. So for me, it's not really a part of the conversation in terms of how we build out the programming.

But then for the kids that have the ambition to do that, of course, it's part of it. And any advice that I can give them or any way I can help them, I do that, do that. Okay. Can you tell us a little bit about what Kick It Forward does? Because it's you and Ben. Is Blake also involved with that? Yeah. Yeah, a lot.

So the way to best describe us is we just look for innovative ways. to improve the game in our community and beyond. And so I started kick it forward about 12, 12, 13 years ago now. And it started because I was actually working in the clubs at the time, and I took a trip down to Belize and ran a bunch of soccer camps for some kids that were underprivileged. And I came back here and I said, you know, I work with a lot of kids, you know, from affluent neighborhoods. We should do something to try and, you know, where kids can help themselves and then, improve the lives as someone else. So that's how it started. Kids came in. We ran some training

sessions. They raised some money. We started donating money to various causes. From there, we built it, and now we've really got three different areas. We have partnered with Musco Lighting, who's got a broader initiative with the United Soccer States Foundation, where we build mini-pitches all over the place. And so we go into communities, mostly in our lives. And so we go into communities, Iowa into parks or school districts. And we will put a mini-pitch system, which is basically a footsoll court or a small court that's lighted into parks and schools throughout Iowa. So we've done about 50 of these in Iowa now in the last five years.

And then we've got a couple outlier projects that we've worked on to or we've donated money to. So we're really proud of that work because the whole idea. idea is you put these mini pitches in places where kids can walk or bike to them and then participate in free unstructured play. Yeah.

Which is really kind of the opposite to what we've been talking about is all this structure and this money is like, what is the game? It's backyard ball. Like, that's what it should be to look like. So that's a big part of what we do. We do some, and then we put on some free

clinics and some free programming. And then we've started to develop a media platform where in the high school game, we cover high school soccer games. So we will go out to a game. We'll bring our media team out there who will shoot. And then we'll do a podcast on the game. We'll do interviews with the coaches. And then we do like a week-to-week publication. We collect goals of the week and we publish those. The kids love it.

And then at the soccer tournament, we show up and we put a home base out there. And we just operate throughout the week doing anything. interviews and then blasting out great goals, good plays, funny interviews, all sorts of stuff like that. So we're looking at a way to promote kids and what they're doing in soccer.

And those are our three areas. And you're promoting the high school soccer, right? That's right. Yep. Yeah. So again, you get, yeah, you get, and then you get the fan base, right? So, you know, we'll have, you know,

the school with the, you know, 20 hooligans. It's kind of funny who will promote. And then at the state tournament, though, you'll get crowds of 2,000, 3,000 people, and it's really a cool environment. Can you, so how much of the cost to build a mini pitch? It, I would say it's about $100,000.

Is it a good, is a good kind of estimate. So what it is, is it depends, but it's a system, basically like a steel system that's got built-in goals, and then a built-in lighting system. system. And so you put it on a hard surface and then you put like a sport court over the top of it. And it sits right on top of a, um, I see. We, we put them on top of tennis courts. We put them in parking lots, different things like that. So the money is in the infrastructure of the lighting structure and then the steel surrounding it. Um, and then the surface. So usually what we'll do is we'll go raise the money. Um, so we'll, uh, it could be, uh, uh, it could be, uh, uh, uh, local community foundation. It could be like a county government.

It could be private donations. We've done them all differently. Like we put one in Newton, Iowa, about a year ago, where a local community leader went out and just raised $2,000 at a time, raised $100,000 and put it in. Actually, the NASCAR Speedway donated some money to the project. So we'll go out and we actually fundraise as well. And so that's how we put all these projects together.

And then our partner, Musco lighting is, you know, the world's leading and lighting stadium, cities, all that stuff. They are incredibly generous. Okay. Got it. Well, can you, you know, what we talk about a lot on our podcast is, when is the MES national team going to win a World Cup? I think we can safely say probably not this year.

But, you know, who knows? can you see like what do you think needs to sort of needs to happen for the sport to sort of obviously on the women's side it's already the best in the world but for the sport to sort of catch up on the men's side and how does this sort of structural stuff fit into that you know yeah yeah i think from my standpoint we have to be missing to me we have to be missing all the a lot of good talent who are falling through the cracks who don't have the resources to pay for the structure that we've been talking about, right? That's one of the biggest reasons why we are trying to do our part with these mini-pitches because we, you know, I don't think it's the answer, but I think it's part of the answer to getting there is getting more soccer facilities in places where kids live and they go to school, you know, all of the, all of the complexes, you see these multi-million dollar complexes

is now built all over the place and they're fantastic, but you got to get in a car and you got to drive there. You got to pay the $400 or $500 rental fee to actually participate. That's a, that's a financial barrier to access. And so I think, I think it is, it's finding all the talent in these, you know, grassroots its environments and then getting them into the systems. It feels like the MLS Academies, you know, the academy systems that they're building kind of have the right idea because it's free and then that's where they're really getting good development,

at least on the boys' side. And so then I think it's just a measure of them continue to reach into these communities and finding the best talent. I guess that's where I would go with that. And I'm sure they already have huge networks already doing some of that. But or maybe, you know, you're not so. Maybe you don't think the same. But I feel like that's where we'd have to go.

I was, if you indulge me for a second, I had this guy on my podcast last week who is Scottish. And he's the coach of the Sacramento Republic in USL. And he was just telling me about how he grew up in the game in, a town just south of Glasgow. It was, he had a school team, and obviously there was, like, I think he played for Kilmarnock as his, like, academy team.

But before you even get to that, there's the town team. It's the local, like, it's the neighborhood team. And I was like, is it, is it rec soccer? No, he's like, no, not really. But it's a way higher level than the school team that he was playing on. And he said there was, I don't know,

there was like four ultimately championship players in the championship level because he played in the championship for a while. In like two of these teams in his hometown. And I just, you know, it does seem like high school soccer is the closest thing we can, we have to that. It's, it should be part of the solution, I think. Yeah. I mean, so this is something I've thought a lot about too, because if you look at the youth soccer landscape, we've gone away from community clubs, like the one you've just talked about, to these massive organizations that have merged together and they're like 10,000 player club teams, right? And everywhere else in the world, when you look at these other countries, they've got local community club teams literally in every single town. Yeah.

Right. And so that's where the kids are developing. And so it seems like the practically then, if you're really, really good, then you move on from that. But like you said, like, that's where, that's what happens in high school. I mean, I would almost even make the argument that you would want better elementary and middle school soccer systems actually in schools in the United States. And that's where it actually could happen. So, you know, instead of mom and dad picking up their kid and driving them with the soccer for 5 o'clock to 630 practice, why doesn't the kid walk out of the back of school and have

practice from 3.30 to 5, you know, and play for the local. When they're in fourth grade. Yeah. And if you actually had, you know, good coachings and coaching staff that were to have to build out those school programs, I think that's where it would make a lot of sense, too. I like that. But there's no doubt. We just, we've lost this like community club feel, I feel like.

I mean, 20 years ago in Iowa, you had an Urbandale soccer club, a West Des Moines soccer club, a Grime soccer club, an Ames soccer club. And now you have a big conglomerate. And so we've gone away from that. And I do think that, I think it's an important part of the answer, I think. Yeah. I live in the Chattanooga area. I used to live in Des Moines a long time ago, but I live in Chattanooga area. And there's really two, like, kind of elite clubs here, Chattanooga FC and Chattanooga Red Wolves.

And, you know, my kid's not going to play in the Olympics. My daughter, she's eight, not going to play in the Olympics or anything. But she's pretty good at soccer for our area. and I look at what we would have to do to go play for her to play for Red Wolves or CFC. Assuming she'd even make the team, we're talking like 40 minutes one way to training, you know. And like just, I'm not even thinking of like the thousands of dollars it would cost. It's like just the whole way our life would have to change, you know, for to go play. And I'm like, there's got to be a better, there's got to be a better.

there's got to be a better way. And it kind of looks like there isn't actually a better way. But that's what I'm talking to you. Maybe there's a better way somewhere out there. Yeah, right now, I mean, no. But I mean, that's why I said, like, why can't you just have a, why can't you have a school league for 8 to 12 year olds? That's competitive.

I don't know why you, I mean, I don't know what it's like in Chattanooga, but, I mean, presumably there's going to be, you know, 10 middle schools in town. Oh, yeah. And so why not just have a competitive middle school league? Now, I don't know if that's ever even conceivable, because you have to now have to have these school systems buy into what you're saying. But, I mean, to me, that's where the development takes place is you go to school and then you do your extracurriculars after school.

That's practically how it makes sense. Yeah. But like you said, I mean, I don't know. Like, it's hard for me to believe that eight-year-old wants to get in a car for 40 minutes to go to practice. She doesn't. Yeah, definitely doesn't. And then, you know, it's like, then she wanted to just, like, play with a friend in the backyard. I don't know.

Yeah. So, but I don't. And then, but the other side of it, too, is if it's going to take 40 minutes to get across down to the big club, why isn't their solution closer, like on a club team, you know? And I think that's where it did used to be that you would have a club team in your community. So I don't know why you can't have someone 10 minutes away. But all of these clubs have gone to these models where they've got to have 5,000, 6,000 kids in the club. Yeah. Capitalism, baby, you know?

All right. Well, when does your season kickoff? we start like March 17th. So right now we've got all sorts, we've got some open gyms. The high school's limit when you can actually coach the kid. So we've got open gyms. They do morning workouts right now twice week at 545 in the morning.

And they're on a lifting regimen. But we'll start middle of March. I got to ask that. Okay, well, good luck with your season. But I got to ask this. What kind of soccer player was Caitlin Clark? Does anybody ever talk about that at Dowling? Like, was she kind of a Peter Crowe?

style striker or what's going on that? So, man, I'm going to probably, I'd probably be speaking out of turn if I started talking what type of a player she was. I'll tell you this, she was a good player, number one. I understand she was a striker, so she did score a lot of goals. So she had a nose for goal is what I understood. And what's crazy about that is, I mean, I think she played,

you know, she played, I believe, all four years. She was playing before I got there. I think she's, I mean, maybe she stopped. I thought she stopped after her 10th grade year. Okay. I could be,

I could be wrong about that, yeah. Even so, to be able to play both those sports and to become the world superstar that she is, is pretty incredible. I only say that, just in case, I got a couple of Dowling basketball players that I'm trying to get to play both. Nice.

And so if Caitlin can play for a couple of years, so good you guys, right? Come on, guys. Your school, your soccer coach needs you. That's right. Get out there. All right. Matt, thank you so much for this.

I really appreciate it. Thanks for your time. And thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.