Scuffed | USMNT, World Cup, Yanks Abroad, futbol in America - #660: Mike Woitalla on the coaches' convention

Episode Date: January 23, 2026

Woitalla, the executive editor of Soccer America, joined the pod after going to Philadelphia for the United Soccer Coaches Convention. At the event, Matt Crocker said there's still too much yelling in youth soccer, Roberto Martinez was gobsmacked by a Barry Pauwels presentation, Tony Lepore discussed plans to grow the ranks of talent scouts, and US Soccer, for the second straight convention, made a strong effort to be present and accounted for.The Germany trip! Throw your name in the hat: 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 just spent a few days in Philadelphia at the United Soccer Coaches Convention. He's the executive editor of Soccer America, probably the national go-to guy on the structure of the sport in this country and the state of youth soccer.

Mike Waitala, welcome back to Scuffed. That's great to be back. You had a memorable appearance on NPR back in 2006 where you imagined a playground scene where kids are lined up for the monkey bars. An adult is standing next to the sandbox shouting, dig, dig. So you were, it was, it was very well done. You were arguing for fewer drills and less screaming in youth soccer practice. How are we doing on that front? It very much depends on

where you're at, what feels you're at. You know, I would, one thing, one area of progress I think we can point to is some of the coaching education that comes out of U.S. soccer, you know, and if you go to a bigger club where they understand that there are stages of development, including when children need to explore the game on their own terms, you'll have that kind of culture where the coaches of the younger kids know that, you know, you shouldn't be screaming at them. And then the parents, right, you have to monitor the parents. And, you know, I notice this refereeing. Some clubs are able to, you know, enforce the idea that you, you know, it's supposed to scream at the kids the whole time. You're not supposed to coach them from the sideline. I've refereed games where you,

you know, you got like a 24-year-old coach on the sideline. On another side line, you got a bunch of adults screaming out there at the 10-year-olds. And the 24-year-old doesn't know how to, you know, tell them to shut up. So there's a lot of challenges. So I think there's always going to be an issue with that. It's the way that, you know, parents are. But I think the people that know, know what the best way to develop players is, you know, are making progress in a lot of, in a lot of different ways. So, you know, you're always going to have overbearing parents. But yeah, I think, you know, I'll give you one more example is, you know, your coach, I was coaching, I mean, I was refereeing a game. And one of the coaches is big time former,

played on the national team, you know, he's big time, he's sitting on a lawn chair, hardly saying anything. Every once in a while, you know, you might say something to us. substitute or maybe he says something quietly to one of the kids, but it's never like screaming yelling. The other guy's going nuts. You know, it's a volunteer parent. So my point is that the guy who really knows the game knows not supposed to be screaming and yelling at all the time, right? So it's a lot about just educating, educating people. And so there has been progress. And as the Matt Procker thing I was at, you know, it's one of the things he brought up is that, you know, he sees too much yelling at kids. Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was going to, that's kind of why I

brought it up because he said that, right? What was the context for that? What was he referring to? It was, they were presenting the U.S. soccer pathway. You know, U.S. soccer has decided that they really want to be, you know, unify U.S. soccer. We can talk about it later. There's been different phases of how the, how U.S. soccer has done that. But he was also talking about a positive environment being important for, you know, developing players. In a way, it's kind of common sense, but it makes me think about how, you know, talking to professional players who talk about the coach being fun, you know, like even pros want to have fun. Yeah. You know, they don't always, you know, and I mean, it's common sense, right?

Like, if someone's angry at you at work, your boss is, if you think your boss is angry at you, or even if he is, I'm not sure that's going to make you work better. It might for a few people, but generally speaking. So he's talking about a positive environment. He brought up an example of how coaches welcome players when they come into youth national team camps. And one of the first steps he said they do is they talk to the kid and they tell them why they're in there. They emphasize the positives. You know, the reason we called you up is because you're good at, you know, this, this and this. And, you know, we're impressed with that.

And then they, so the kid goes into the trial, into the camp because you know he's nervous as heck, right? Right. With a positive feeling about themselves. I'm here because I'm good at this. I'm good at this. Yeah, yeah. And so they, I think there's a lot of that sort of, you know, smart knowledge now around there that you've got to communicate the way you communicate is so important.

That doesn't mean, obviously they're going to give them feedback on what the kids need to improve on. And from what I've heard is that, you know, they're pretty good about that. But that's what the context was is, you know, the common sense thing of we want to create a positive environment. And, you know, it's just, which I like to hear because it's a sport, you know, it's a game. It's supposed to be fun. You know, I think, I think about this a lot in the sort of wreck grassroots area. And if I find that where I live, which is not a soccer, you know, a sophisticated soccer community, the idea of what sports is for a lot of the parents is like a discipline, you know? Like, it's a thing that you got to grind and you got to work for the rewards and you got to listen and you got to.

And I, and I mean, I find often well-intentioned parents are saying stuff like, you know, I had a girl the other day. We're playing double goals scrimmage like three on three, like really small-sided. And she was kind of like shifting the ball back and forth to trying to decide which goal she wanted to go to. And for me, I'm watching her do that. I'm like, this is great. She's like, she's making decisions. She's like taking ownership. And she goes one way.

She goes the other way. She goes, and that's, if she's doing that, that's like success, you know? Absolutely. To me. And the dad, who's a great guy, he goes, and she lost the ball. And he goes, well, you just messed around with it too much. And I was like, no, don't say that. Don't say that.

You know, let her mess around. But I find like it's a lot, a lot of times the yelling from the parents. is um it's that kind of thing it's like they have this idea of what sports is that doesn't quite fit with soccer development i think there's a couple yeah no there's a couple issues here so you know what parents are you know evolutionarily hardwired to help their children right um so when we see them do something we want them to succeed and we want to help them help them do that you know for the right reasons but you have to suppress that especially when it comes to learning a sport. And I think there's two issues here. The first issue is sports are a

sanctuary for kids. Playtime is important for the human animal. They should have a right to do that. They should have a right to do it on their own terms. And because we don't have a lot of free play in our regular society, youth soccer has been the substitute for free play. It's a perfect substitute for free play. And I can throw PE in there, you know, PE at school there too, because that's, you know, disappearing. Or it hasn't like the old days. It's like, you know, park and wrecks. Most environments in the United States, your kid doesn't go to the, you know, the park and play by himself. So yeah, this wonderful sport that by its nature is a player's sport. So let the kids enjoy that. It's important for children to play without you telling them how to do it.

And then you have the part about soccer development. So can you imagine how many times, you know, Marta lost the ball trying to dribble or Leo Messi lost the ball trying to dribble. You can't be able to figure out these amazing moves if you don't, if you don't try him thousands, I'm literally thousands of times and they're not going to work. So when these kids are at that part of the stage of the development where, you know, they're experimenting, they're trying stuff and you don't let them do that. You're denying them an important stage of their development. Yeah.

Yeah, I just, yeah. I guess I just feel like it's a It's a tough thing to get across to non to you know Crocker talked about didn't he talk about the volunteer coach You stumbles into it doesn't know anything about soccer Somewhere I talked about that recently we also I mean I've been to other countries And you've got people yelling at kids even if they've had that soccer tradition But we do have a situation of most American sports are coach driven right

You know I always find it really amazing that you have a quarterback who makes 30 million dollars a year but he's got like a microphone, you know, he's got a headphone in the, and it's the coach making his decisions. I believe that's the same way it is with pitchers, right? A coach is telling them what to do, and that makes sense in those sports. It makes sense that a coach is calling the place. That's how that sport works. Basketball is a little closer to soccer. There's more innovation, more creativity, more improvisation.

But even there you have plays, right? Right. To get the point across, the way I did it when I start, when I coached 60-year-olds is figuring that I had a lot of parents familiar with other sports. I use a basketball example that if a basketball player gets the ball, you got three choices. Do you dribble, do you shoot or do you pass? Now, if you're going to be a great basketball player, that decision's got to come quite instinctively, right? So when if you tell a little kid what to do in that situation, you're just to be a kid. denying them the chance to develop and make that an instinct and make that part of their game

and reading the game. You know, you have to allow for that. So I think there's ways to do it. There's ways for coaches to, for parents to comprehend that. And you see it at a lot of clubs. Again, if a club is well run, well organized, if you articulate that to the parents, they start getting it, you know, and we would have things, you know, you can come up with tactics like, you know, you have a parent and say, you're in charge of making sure the other parents aren't screaming at the kids or some people will say like oh you can cheer but don't use verbs you know don't say you like the pass pass shoot shoot one like drives me nuts like telling a kid a little kid one to pass one to shoot and it's hilarious too because sometimes they'll do it when a kid's about to shoot or

dribbling toward the goal like first of all let them get closer to the goal and why you tell them to shoot like can you imagine trying to focus on doing something difficult while you're getting screamed at and again you're denying it so as far as like addressing that problem i think um you know a lot of good clubs, a lot of the coaching education, they really do, you know, try and send that message in a comprehensive way. Yeah. Okay. I mean, it is beautiful to see a coach who just sits quietly and lets the game. I mean, it's a wonderful thing to watch.

I really. And let me add something else is when they're looking like they're having fun. I do this whenever I go to a big, you know, when I go to soccer field, I look at the coaches and I look at their body language. and does it look like they're having fun, you know? Are they smiling? Are they? And it is unbelievable how many times I watch you soccer and the coaches don't look like they're having a good time.

I mean, ridiculous. Like, you know, whether it's yelling and it's screaming, whether it's frowning, whether it's lecturing. And I have had so many situations where after the game, if I was ref, I would want to go up to the coach and I would want to say, excuse me, I'm just curious, do you like soccer? Do you like being around kids?

because I watched you for two hours and you look miserable. You look like you don't like it out here. You know, and body language is important. I mean, I love the way, you know, like watching Jill Ellis on the sideline or Pia Zunhaegh before her or other coaches where, you know, they're showing this, you know, you have a tense situation and the coach is looking relaxed. You know, can you imagine how positive that is for the players when they look to the sidelines and the coach is relaxed if they see them all stressed out?

and now you bring it back to like 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 17 year old kids, they look over and they see a coach who looks angry at them. How is that going to help them be better, right? No, it doesn't help. Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's tempting to get frustrated, though. I mean, I do understand that part of it, you know. But anyway.

Back to Crocker. So we haven't spent much time on this U.S. Way initiative on the on the podcast mostly because I'm just allergic to PDFs I see a PDFs I start I start sneezing yeah but what is what is it can you like what is it anything is it just a bunch of well I would say that a lot of the things they're talking about and when you get I'm 61 and I've been involved in you know three decades or more more than that 40 years I've ever been in at Soccer America, but I've been involved. A lot of it is stuff we've been hearing forever, right?

Right. So is it any different, I guess? A lot of the, the difference is what the Federation has decided to do as far as its role in the youth game. And the big news was that it was going to handle the internal operations of U.S. club. So they're getting involved in one of the most sort of independent type of soccer, youth soccer organizations we've ever had. So, you know, back in the Development Academy days, as a Development Academy evolved,

it got more heavy hand. The Federation had an era where it was perceived as my way or the highway. People were talking about ivory tower. Hey, they're telling us how to line up. Everybody has to have the same formation. Our kids can't do this. Our kids can't, if they play on a Sunday, they're not allowed to play on. They're not allowed to play high school. Right. Very heavy-handed involvement. And at the time, I'm thinking, you know,

and then you have people, a lot of times, you have people say, you know, the Federation should be in charge of everything because that's how it's on every world's in the world. Well, we're so different than the rest of the world that we can't use that as an example. We can look at it and tweak it. But, you know, I'm thinking, you know,

maybe the best thing for the Federation to do is focus on the national teams, the refereeing, they can do coaching education, and let the youth, scout the youth, let them all do what they want. and find the best players and find the best teams. Obviously, they're not going to do that. So what they've decided to do is actually make a big effort to unify the youth game.

To be involved in that and the pathway would be up to the pros, to the national teams. And as far as putting their money where their mouth is, it was just moved to take over the internal operations of the U.S. club, for which I believe in the most previous year that we have to see taxed returns U.S. Club paid $6 million to a company to handle those operations. Okay. So that's going to now be U.S. soccer the way I understand it, handling those operations. And the way that Crocker described it is it's like we're going to work together

and we're working toward making the game more affordable and on this pathway thing. And then you had other things like U.S. clubs partnering with the U.S. soccer on one of their big championships and stuff. So, you know, there's this idea that, okay, maybe it can be sort of, you know, coming together because it's always been a Wild West, right? Right. Well, let me ask this. Okay, so U.S. soccer, that's the Federation. Right.

Then there's two other entities we're talking about here, U.S. club and U.S. youth soccer. Right. And then you have M.S. makes. Can you give, like, explain like I'm 10? What's U.S. club? What's U.S. youth soccer? So let's go back to the year. Let's start in the 70s.

Uso starts picking up. It's about the boom. You've had AYSO, which is a really cool organization, you know, still around, volunteer, you know, inexpensive way to play soccer. But very recreational. And then you have U.S. U.S. soccer, which is a U.S. soccer member, but independent. Like, I get like a fed. It's a federation. It's not like a, you know, it's.

It doesn't have, its members have a certain amount of economy. The Federation can't just tell them what to do. But anyway, so at U.S. Usock, or so you've all these state associations, wherever you're in your state, up until 2001, it would have been U.S. Usock. And in around 2000, there were a number of coaches from the best clubs in the United States. And they launched U.S. club. And the reason they did that, because they felt that the directors of clubs, the DOCs, weren't the ones making the regulations.

They weren't the ones making the important decisions on how to run soccer. So let's say you have a rule where kids on your team can only be from your city, right? And there's DOC saying, well, that doesn't make sense. I'm the best club in this area where I should be able to get the best players here. Or there's some other rule they don't think it's a great idea. And the person who's making those rules is a volunteer president, maybe a great guy, but not a soccer person. So the idea was that, okay, we're going to start this new thing for elite clubs. You got a lot of great people involved in that, guys like Derek Armstrong at Nomads.

And, you know, the best club DOCs got together and said, we need a new way to do this. So at the same time, they came up, they were the kind of leader on internet signing up for registering players. You know, a huge thing. And they had fewer regulations. What ended up happening is you had a lot of teams that would register for both. U.S. youth, they played out in their league, U.S. clubs. allows them to, you know, play in different tournaments under U.S. Club, whatever. So you had this, they were saying, the important thing I should say is that in 2001,

they were sanctioned as a member by USA. Oh, okay. So that was huge. So that's where the, and again, it's going to depend in different parts of the country, but your top clubs would migrate toward that because it was more of a sort of like, okay, we're focused on the elite players. We're not going to make, we don't want to make rules for the rec players that are going to impede what you want to do with the elite players.

Of course, a few years went by. And when you're talking about US soccer, you're talking about revenue and U.S. Club realized, okay, we're about elite, but we're going to also expand to everything because revenue comes from registration. Yeah. So they, you know, and they also did things like, you know, under 11 national championships, under 12, you know, state cups, you know. In California, they invented the state cup where it wasn't single elimination. You know, so it used to be a state cup was like a FAA cup. Yeah.

They kind of invented the one where, you know, there's group play and then there's, you know, and then there's not just one. There's like gold, silver, bronze. You know, I won like a state cup in Northern California. We weren't the best team by far in Northern California. We were like the bronze or whatever. But the point being is they became like everybody else in youth soccer. How do you make money? You make money by having as many players register as possible and you make money with state cups and tournaments.

And then you have the EC&L went under U.S. Club. So now you had a big time two major youth governing bodies, U.S. youth and U.S. Club. Okay. And this was long before EC&L. EC&L came. ECNL, like, ECNL, I can't tell you off the top of my head. But so when you have, so they're part of U.S. club, right? Oh, okay.

E.C.L is part of U.S. club. So East NL people say, hey, we're going to make the best women's league in the nation, and we're going to register our players through U.S. Club. If we can't do that through U.S. youth because they already have their national championships. They already have their state cups and everything. We'll do it under U.S. club because U.S. club is, you know, that's what U.S. club is designed for, for someone coming, you know. And EC.N.L turned into this big giant national elite league for, you know, for girls.

under the umbrella of U.S. Club. Okay. They're their big part of it. That's probably, you know, that's probably the biggest chunk of their, you know, revenue. Obviously, they have tons and tons of boys stuff, too, whether, you know. Right. It's almost like ECNL has become like a synonym for sort of, sort of all the excesses of travel soccer. Well, they were, you know, they, you know, yeah, they took that and just.

you have to have a team at every age group. They have to go to so many events. And when they go to that event, they have to book it through our website. And they have to stay at this hotel. And if they don't stay at that, you know, travel is huge. That's where the revenue is. You know, you get the travel agent kickback. You know, it's hilarious.

You look at the, you know, it used to be like, what, under 16s and under 19s maybe travel, then under 14s maybe. And then now it doesn't matter how it can be as young as possible. And the reason they do that is, you know, a tournament has a financial economic impact of three million or whatever. And they go, well, what if we add the U-13s and the U-12s? Of course, if you're talking revenue, you're going to add every age group for travel

they don't need and championships they don't need. So it all becomes just part of the big industry of youth soccer. So Federation a little different, right? they want to feed their national teams. Yeah. That should be what they're what they're about. Yeah. I do think, you know.

Go ahead. Go ahead. So this might be what you're going to ask me is like, is it a good thing that U.S. soccer, the federation is now involved in something like U.S. club? Is it a good thing that like, you know, MLS is involved in U.S. and Usocker, MLS next. Now, I'm not going to sit here and saying that U.S. soccer doesn't see a way that they can make money off of U.S. soccer. But what I will say is they don't depend on that. Yeah.

MLS does not depend on revenue from parents to run their business. Yeah. And U.S. soccer, I'm less worried about an entity like the U.S. Soccer Federation exploiting parents and kids that I am about some other organizations because they have. have other revenue sources that are huge. Right, right, right, right. Yeah, so I guess, so the difference between this alignment effort and previous ones is so far this concrete move for U.S. soccer to take over some of the operations of U.S. club. Yeah, that they're going to do what they call the internal operations.

And Matt Crocker says, we're not sitting across on the table, we're sitting next to each other. and it sounds interesting to me you know um i do think one of the things that's a lot different about the matt crocker approach to what was going on at the later years of the d a is it's much more it comes across as much more open-minded he will say that he will use things like suggestions you know this is what we have we're going to provide all this material for you about how we think kids should be coached and how clubs could be run and we want you to look at it and we hope you'd consider it. But it's not like heavy-handed.

You have to do this so you can't be part of us, you know? And that was sort of what, like going back to the ivory tower approach, that at least at this point, the Federation really does seem a little more, much more reasonable about how they're reaching out to people. But we're respectful, too, about how they address, you know, clubs and coaches. There was a time where it didn't feel like the, the people who were running the Federation coaching and all that, which at the time, you know, a lot of them were important, not familiar with some of the heroes of our grassroots

soccer environment. You know, you really have to respect people, whether it's volunteers or you deal that work at the grassroots soccer. They're so important and they, you know, they're not, you know, that's a big part of our game and you can't just go in there and say, hey, we're the Federation, do this, do that, do this. And we're like, hey, do what it's like coaching in my state and my city and what it's like, coach in America? No, you don't. You think it's not like IACs. It's a little different.

We have different things. Well, I was going to say maybe the difference in approach is the difference between the Welsh approach and the Dutch approach, you know? Like under Crocker, the Federation seems more open-minded. Maybe it's just because he's not Dutch and doesn't come in and be all blunt all the time, you know? Yeah. I mean, one thing about Crocker was he was involved with the English FAA when it finally

turned around and made the biggest sort of move in the history of English soccer since they won their only World Cup in 1966, right? The English national team, their youth teams never did anything because the English always figured we invented the game, we don't need to ever change, right? And then it was about 20 years ago, they started winning U-17 and U-20 World Cups as they start realizing that, you know, we're going to think about soccer, we're going to look at the soccer that's winning and we're going to consider whether we shouldn't consider those attributes that win games like skill and, you know, ingenuity. And so he was part of that.

You know, he was, which pointed to open-mindedness. And I think he was also smarter enough not to come in here and start telling everybody how to, you know. Yeah. What's worse than like you work in your ass off for 20, 30 years, a new soccer? And then somebody comes from, you know, a tiny country like as big as Holland or Belgian and tells you how to do it. And you're like, you know.

And even, and. And then why even like, and who the person is, like it's like it's your Encroft walking in here and telling them this something. Right. It's like, right. If it was Yon Kreif, maybe it's a little different. Yeah. Well, so what's the, what's the outlook for all this? I mean, I pulled up the, I think I have it here.

I pulled up the timeline of like action items or whatever. I guess right now we're on, let me, and I quote, co-design of the pathway strategy, step four. Next is after that is design activation, and then after that launch of the pre-professional segment, and then after that the launch of the competitive and recreational segments in 2028. So I don't know. Yeah, I don't, I think the, personally for me, the most important thing about youth soccer is accessibility and it being a sport or kids in under. serve areas have access to fields and you know uh i don't lose sleep over i care about parents but i'm

losing less sleep about eccel parents than kids who don't have parents or kids who's parents you know what i mean is right right right right a big part of our game should be we got to a point where uh it became so expensive and it even had a reputation that was deserved as being um you know not what soccer used to be a sport for everybody. You know, when soccer, when the youth soccer start, boom started in the 70s, one of it's selling points. People used to say this, people would point out that it costs less money to have a, to run a youth soccer team to equip a youth soccer team than one American football player, right?

Pop Warner, Pop Warner football costs way less than youth soccer. Yeah, isn't that crazy? So the idea of that pathway, I personally am less concerned about that. The other thing that happened is convention they gave an update on U.S. youth national team scouting. And it's pretty impressive how huge that network is, how many people they have, how many more people are going to get. You know, from the federalist's point of view and from people who care about the national teams being good, I think, in my opinion, the key is having, not missing players and having people look for players who can make our national teams better. And then, you know, I don't know.

The other part about the pathway is MLS Next. MLS Next is the elite boys youth league. And they took over when the DAs, when the Federation pulled out of the DA. And that's the big, big question mark. Hard to see. I mean, they're not, I don't see. that being any different than it is now. So, and I don't know how they're going to work with the federation.

I mean, generally speaking, you know, when it comes to the scouting department, you know, you've got a very close relationship with a league like that for obvious reasons. Sure, sure. Now, that presentation was from Tony Lapoor, who's the head of the talent ID for the Fed. He's been there for a long time. He's outlived a lot of presidents. He has been there for 20 years. and I think the only people who've been there longer, Tom King, who, you know, manages the national team stuff.

And then probably Aaron Hyfitts and Michael Cameron who are communications guys. Yeah, right. So, yeah, he's been there for a long time. And he has, I think he's done a very admirable job of running the scouting system, you know. And what they showed there is, you know, one of the things they pointed out is that a third of their full-time staff are Spanish speakers, which is very important. We go back some years where you look at the scouting thing and you're like, you got to be good. We need to respect the Latino community and what they can do for our national teams.

And we need to spend. So you have progress there. You have progress on the women's side. And then just like the crazy part about how big our country is. I remember going to Spain and learning that Barcelona had, this could have been 20 years ago, Barcelona had 30 scouts in Spain. right there was more scouts than the federation had in the entire country for its national team program you know and then you have a you know you're going to have different level of per die so yeah then

you have per diem scouts you know you got a couple hundred per diem scouts and then you're going to have a new thing called you know I'm not talent reporters is that what they're called I think so I get yeah it's like so so you'll have your per d it's like it's like a lower level of the 200 something per die type scouts. And so I think, and then you have the club recommendations. Obviously things, it's easier to communicate now with different places in the world and

stuff. But the point there is that you want to feel like they're looking at all players. You know, there was a time during the Development Academy where coaches felt very strongly that if you're one in the Development Academy, your parents, your players weren't going to get a look. or they weren't going to get a break or they weren't, you know. And so whatever the concerns are, and there's always going to be hard to find players, but there's certainly been, you know, huge progress in that.

Okay. Okay. So, yeah, I was going to ask you about Tony's presentation, but let's, I think that kind of covers it. So Roberto Martinez, the former Belgium coach, he was pretty excited about a presentation from Barry Pavels, the head of U.S. youth national team development. Gonzalo Sigaris, you said, the thing about the World Cup thing. Yeah, he said this is amazing.

What was so amazing about it? I think it was that they shared so much information about how they tracked players, how they built the national teams, how they continue tracking them, and that they were communicating that. I think he was maybe, you know, maybe a little surprised that a federation would just make that public.

but, you know, it's not like, but also that, but the reason they were making, they were trying to, like, show the rest of the coaching community in the United States is this is how we do it. And he said, I can't believe more people aren't in here. You know, part of that is that if you're at the convention and, like, it's hard to tell people like, look, I know this, this is just a classroom section, but, you know, might be interesting. So I think he was impressed by the fact that the Federation had so much detailed information about how they, scouted, how they tracked, you know, how they just did their whole system, and that they shared it and that people could see exactly how they did it. Okay. Let's take a break for a second.

If you want to skip the ads, join the Patreon. The link is in the show notes. If you want to come to Germany and the Netherlands with us, you can also find a link to that in the show notes. I've flogged that trip endlessly. so I won't do it again. But the links in the show notes, if you listen to this show,

you know what it's about. And I think emails are going out to people shortly. We'll be back in a second. All right, we're back. Before we get into some World Cup stuff, was there anything else at the presentation that caught your attention? I think the most important thing was that it was a second coaches convention in a row where U.S. soccer went to such a great effort

to be a part of that gathering. that there were times where they weren't, they didn't have, and also with refereeing, you know, fantastic, you know, to have so much, that's what they should do. And the thing about the convention is that it's, it historically very much has been a time for the soccer community to, you know, to feel united, to, you can be in your different, in your different factions and your different turf where, but it's a reminder that, hey, you know, we are all. in this together. It's the same sport. We might have to compete in this and that. And then for the Federation to make efforts to be, you know, to reach out to explain what they do. I think it's very, you know, it's very important. Yeah, I keep meaning to go, but I still have never been. I'd love to go sometime. You know, we've been talking a lot about development pathways and scouting and, you know, youth soccer and stuff. And I wonder when it comes down to it.

it, is there anything the Federation can do to improve youth development that would be as effective as a deep run at the World Cup by the men this summer? It's a good question because I think the Federation is expected to do a lot of things they really don't have a lot of control over, right? Like, they can only do so much. I think that, I think, yeah, the best thing that can happen for the, for youth development is for success in an interesting way at the top, right? Like I think I think you sort of create a momentum, you create a culture of success.

You know, I don't think I don't think great players necessarily come out of out of like the coaching schools or anything. Well, I know they don't coaches. I think it's more about who they emulate, right? Yeah. And, you know, success. So, and the lead, you know, MLS. I think is obviously a big, big part of that. And the higher the level of MLS and the more American players who, you know,

enter the pros through MLS. I think the domestic professional league, you know, plays a huge role in how good a country's national team is going to be. For sure. Yeah. Yeah, I guess you've got to capture the hearts and imaginations of the children, you know, basically is my take on it. but what effect do you do you think the World Cup will have? I mean, on the sport in America. Obviously, 94 had a huge effect.

We got a professional league out of that. Yeah. It's been 30 years. Big steps made, I mean, we made big steps forward in the 90s, no doubt about it. But what's going to happen as a result of this? And, you know, a tangible impact of that World Cup was the 50 million plus that the U.S. Soccer Foundation got out of the profits from it. which is still there, which is still bringing soccer fields. It did all kinds of stuff.

It helped at all kinds of levels of the game. And of course, once that happened, FIFA said, whoa, we're going to make sure that hosts don't make money off World Cups anymore. So every year there's like less revenue that goes to the host. And now we have one where FIFA controls all the revenue streams. And the ticket money goes to them. And, you know, they pay rent for stadiums. but there's no sales tax on this tickets. There would have been something going on in those stadiums if there wasn't a World Cup.

So you can't say that the stadium rent revenues, anything. It's absurd that an organization that's going to make billions and it could be between 10 billion. It could be 20 billion, all that. But if you live in Kansas, it's your taxpayer money that's going to be renting those buses for, you know, soccer fans that go somewhere. So it's a it's this kind of thing about the World Cup that sours it a little bit besides the political things that we saw at the draw that were just horrendous. It was like it was 1936 Olympic type stuff. So you have that side of the of the World Cup and then you have the side that's soccer that's going to be good. We love the soccer.

You know, this World Cup are great. And I'm not even answering your question. And I would say that the biggest impact it could probably have, I think, is to make MLS closer to one of the top leagues in the world and closer to, you know, the level of the other big professional sports. You know, we got we have enough kids playing you saw. It's not like we don't lack for players, right? Yeah, I just worry that they're not that what they're doing out there isn't really that useful, you know. Well, it's accessibility. I mean, I think we want to make sure that every kid at once.

play soccer and play soccer. And I think that as far as the U.S. becoming a better national team, I don't know if this World Cup is going to do that. I do think it's going to, no matter what, it's going to make soccer even a bigger sport in the United States. There's no way that it won't, right? The 94 World Cup, we already had plenty of fans to fill stadiums and stuff, but you did have a lot of, it just, you know, it's a,

long term. It's such a long term. It's interesting to say. I think it'll, I think it could, I think it'll, it'll boost soccer at every level, I think, you know. We're just not going to get money from, you know, it's actually like we're having the money that we did to actually specifically, you know, help in underserved areas the way that the U.S. Soccerf Foundation did. And I, we will, though, have more sponsors with the Federation because of the World Cup. and the Federation has said that those sponsors and those partners are working with them in, you know, their, what they call Soccer Forward Foundation. Okay. And they've got a lot of interesting stuff up there.

You know, the one that I, that I'm very happy about is the soccer and schools toolkit. You know, the Federation is supporting, spreading soccer in schools. I think that's the most important. The most obvious way to increase accessibility is soccer and schools. it's a safe place. It usually addresses travel issues. It's got facilities. So it's good to see that that's being emphasized.

And hopefully, you know, if the World Cup somehow drives something like that, then that makes me very happy. Yeah, that would be cool. I mean, it feels like it's going to be a World Cup that people mostly experience on TV. I mean, which is how World Cups tend to be. Like, you've talked about the money that FIFA's going to get from this. The ticket prices are going to make it. Like in 94, we've talked about this on the podcast a lot.

But in 94, somebody might have showed up at a game on a lark and become a lifelong soccer fan. That's not happening this summer, you know, with tickets at $1,000 a pop. That, I mean, it's, I thought. Again, I'm 61 years old, and I thought I had seen, like, the human animal hit a point of greed that was a ceiling. And FIFA has proved that there's no ceiling for greed in the human race, you know? It doesn't matter how many billions they make. They come up with another way to make more money, you know, to what end? You know, so that's disappointing.

The other big question is the fan festivals. Are they going to be successful? You know, you mentioned about it. You're limited in going to the stadium. So can you provide a World Cup experience that's not in the stadium like in Germany in 2006 where it was an unbelievable success? Okay, so FIFA tells the venues you have to have a fan fest. They're money losers. You lose a lot of money.

You don't make money on fan festivals. So they're already talking about charging for them, right? Right. So easy solution. Okay, FIFA pay for the fan festivals. Yes, right? Like, why, why should taxpayers, why should cities, why should the venues have to be raising money to run these fan festivals? When down this, when a mile or a few miles away, there's a stadium where people are buying, you know, where all this money is, all this revenues being collected.

Again, no, no taxes on the tickets, right? It's like, they're, so, I, you know, generally, whenever there's a World Cup or Olympics and we're really worried about all these. things that things kind of usually work out and be happy. But yeah, you want to be able, you want people to experience the World Cup and enjoy it even if they're not in the stadium. Yeah. Well, yeah, let's talk out. Let's leave aside the cares of the world for a moment and just talk about the men's chances. Who is going to have a big World Cup for the U.S.?

And why is your answer, Weston McKinney? No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I do, I do, I actually want to ask that question without leading a witness. I might be like the most interesting player his career to follow, right? He's just such a,

whenever you look, whenever you think things aren't going right, he comes out and he starts scoring, just in quite, right? I was at the Uruguay, the US beat Uruguay 5-1, right? And I was after,

after they beat Paraguay. And I was, and then, you know, they had a couple of games before that. That really changed the way I kind of feel about the national team, right? Because pretty amazing that the 5-1 win was something else, you know, that obviously, you know, it was friendly and all that, but it was Uruguay. I don't have this. I mean, they don't hardly ever give, they don't give up goals a lot and they're Uruguay.

So it kind of said, okay, it's like what people, like when we interviewed Tabramos, the thing that he kept saying is, no, we have players. We have a, we have a, that proved how deep the pool is, right? Because, you know, you had a lot of players on that, on that field that weren't part of the World Cup team that just had a couple caps. We were missing, we were missing like seven of our, seven of our, you know, projected starting lineup. Yeah. No, it's, it was great to see the talent, the talent, the talent is there and maybe Portchartino. And I think Portitino's kind of like figured out where it were he needs to be flexible and this and that. Yeah, Weston McKinney, I think a player can be confident.

I think his challenge was always like how, what role does he play? And when he comes to the national team, does he play? Does he try to be everything, right? Like, I remember watching games early on. And like, if you watch it at different parts of the game, you'd think he was either a center forward or a playmaker or a defender. And I think he, I think he has to, you know, they have to make sure that he doesn't. whatever um obviously you know you know polisic it's about being healthy um about him getting the ball um i tim way uh i don't know tillman's a hard one to gauge you know i you know especially

now that he's struggling in germany um center forward situation again a little tough because you got balla gun who's probably the best one all around you know you got guys had you right you got a watching them score and then you've got to remind yourself it's in the second division you know yeah yeah yeah you got to love watching go ahead i've just really soured on the second division um the translational effect of second division excellence as you know and specifically the championship mostly because of josh sergeant you know he i watched him all last season score goal after goal after goal after goal for norwich come play for the u.s and look like he can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag and um yeah yeah he's put just he knows he's put his

you know, made a reference once to the champions to the second tier in England. And it was very, it was subtle, but it was telling. It was like, you got to remember it's the second division, right? And even Holland, I mean, I love Holland. I recommend every American player to start their career abroad in Holland. It's a lot of easier to score in the Dutch in Holland. And I super admire Riccardo Pepe. I think he's a great player. I like a lot of things about him as a person as a player. I think he's an excellent goal score. And I hope he's healthy. But, you know, can he go, you know, hopefully he can succeed at the, you know, with the national team. He's healthy and everything.

So, yeah, there's a lot of questions. And then there's a big Giorina one, of course. Thinking about it recently, I wouldn't be that surprised if he does, unless there's something else going on, you know, if there isn't any weird, like, issues, dynamics, going on. I wouldn't be that surprised if Pertitino brings them even if he's not playing that much

because you can get a guy fit in time for the World Cup. And however much progress the U.S. has made, when you watch them, you still see that they're missing that thing where you've got a player that can kind of control the pace a little bit

that can hit a pass where you say, and that's one thing Gio did, right? Like even the Oregon game when he came off the bench. Every once in a while, he'll hit a pass where you're saying And I don't know who else on the team hits that pass, right? Yeah, totally.

Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, Malik Tillman is the only one who's even like in that conversation for me. Maybe Wes, maybe Wes a little bit too. Wes can hit a good. And that's kind of like a big circle back to what we're talking about. It's probably I should have answered one of your questions like this is that that's what we need. We need to, we have players all the kind, but we don't have those special players who do the unpredictable and who can hit a pass that you didn't think of when you're watching the game.

Tabrabomist mentioned this when someone brought up Diego Luna, and he started talking about coaching philosophy. He said that Diego Luna is the kind of player who doesn't know what his next move is going to be. And there are these skillful players who are like that, and the coach has to understand that you can't go up to him and say, what would you do in this situation? If they look at you like they don't know, it's because they don't. because there are special players that are unpredictable and

and we're still, you know, we're still missing that, you know, we don't, we have a lot of great players. You had really, you know,

but the players where you say, wow, you know, oh, look at that, look at that pass. Like, I didn't see that coming,

you know, that's what we need to focus on at the youth level. Yeah. Yeah, totally. What's, um, what's the coverage plan at,

at soccer America for the World Cup? Brian, Broadbrush. You know. Well, so, I mean, not focused as usual would be the U.S. national team while at the same time covering everything as much, you know, it's a little different because during the World Cup people can get World Cup information quite easily. But part of our attributes, I believe, and part of the people who are recently like this is that they'll get the stuff they, you know, interesting stuff that maybe hopefully we put an, you know, national team coverage. But they also want to see what else is going on in the world when they open their E letter in the morning. So we want to provide that, we want to provide that as well. During the run-up, I think, I think we're doing a pretty good job and we're going to ramp it up is informing our readership about the events that are World Cup related, about what the cities are like. You know, we've been interviewing people from certain, we're going to go through all the venues. We started with Philadelphia with Jonathan Tannenwald and, you know, we did Houston. So we want to kind of make sure that we're reeling as much interesting information about the venues and the World Cup buildup.

So, yeah, when I start talking about that kind of thing, it really gets me excited about the world. up. Yeah, yeah. What's the, so this is a question from a, from a listener who is, as it happens, the editor of a small town newspaper in Wisconsin. But I'm also curious, what is the playbook for independent soccer media to survive in today's landscape, you know? How have you and Paul, Paul done it, basically? Well, you know, we're owned by Media Post, a guy named Ken Fadner, who pretty much invented the E-letter,

and that's really what's distinguished us, and we had the advantage of a history, right? I think that's a great question that I've been thinking about, because I've seen so much good soccer journalism in the United States. You know, out in Nashville, Ben Wright, who's starting to freelance for us. And almost all the cities have these, you know, not traditional media type of like you said. And it's impressive on how they're able to produce good content and, you know, last year after year after year. So they're probably in a better position to answer that question because where we're coming from is from a media publication that was around since 1971. So we had that runway that these other outlets.

Yeah, and we had the runway. We had the, you know, we already had the memberships and the readers and everything. And it's really cool to see that generation of, and I mean, I can talk about you as well, you know, the podcasts and stuff. Unbelievable. It's fantastic. when you think, you know, because I'm old enough to remember when, you know, you didn't have, you know, you didn't have that kind of information out there. You didn't have that fun soccer content to find here and there. Yeah, yeah.

I can attest the E letter. It's an email that comes to your inbox every morning. And it is the best, it's my favorite way to consume soccer news at this point. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, Paul Tengennerty is amazing. I don't want to pull up the, you know, some like a website and click through a bunch of headlines. And I forget all that, you know, just bring it to my email.

It does work quite well. It's quite an elegant solution in this like very information dense environment we live in. You know, you can tell me you don't want to talk about this. But what's the succession plan at Soccer America? Yeah. We're working on. You can say, yeah, you're working on. I don't know. I, yeah, yeah, it's, we're always like looking at two things, long-term, short-term.

Yeah. So when I'm in short-term mode, it's hard for me to bounce back and forth. But, you know, we've always, we've got terrific people at media posts that help us with a lot of stuff that we've been doing. That's new. You know, what it? So, yeah, I can't get. I don't know. Exactly.

That's all right. That's all right. When you're with a publication that's been around since 1971, you know, you figure out to wait. Yeah. All right. I think that covers it. Anything you wanted to talk about that I didn't bring up?

I think we had a lot of stuff. It's really fun. I really appreciate it. And, you know, I, I mean, we didn't, do we say the word messy? No. And I, you know, when Leo Messy, we talked about, we talked about player development, right?

And I think one of the most important things that ever happened in American player development was when Leo Messi and Yesta and Chavi were the three best players in the world. And kids watch that on TV and coaches watch that on TV or on their phones and on their thing. The three best players in the world were five foot seven, five foot eight. Yeah. Right. And all of them just intensely creative. Yeah.

We've been living in a country where we emphasize size and athleticism, where British coaches would mock that type of soccer and everything. And then there's the proof. You know, what really matters is soccer, smarts, reading the game, you know, skill and creativity. And, you know, so I think that was just that that really had a long-term impact on the way that coaches saw the game and how. and for players to emulate, you know, being able to watch that kind of soccer for kids is so important.

Again, I think you learn more by playing and watch and then you do from what a coach tells you. Yeah. I don't remember anything a coach ever told me, all the sports I ever played. I don't remember any of it. It's a good point. It's a really good point. Yeah, that's a great point. I get to start asking questions in interviews.

Yeah, I do remember You know, I do remember watching Andre Woolridge, a very unknown point guard who played for the University of Iowa, the way he would hit a 12-footer from the baseline. I would go out and practice that on the court, you know. So you're right. I mean, watching soccer matters a lot. And all right, well, I guess we better get on with our days. Thanks for doing this, Mike.

I really appreciate it. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.