SoccerWise - MLS/CANMNT/USMNT Edition: Patrice Bernier(RDS) & Bobby Warshaw(Bloom)

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

The international break continues so David calls on Canadian National Team legend Patrice Bernier(RDS) to help reset with this Canada MNT squad stands. They also chat about Montreal's recent turnaround and chances to make the playoffs. Then David gives his thoughts heading into the USA-MEX match tonight. Last but definitely not least Bobby Warshaw (Bloom Sports) returns to "Make It Make Sense" for David diving into MLS club's youth development structures. 2:15 Patrice Bernier on CANMNT 12:25 MTL Turnaround & Decision Day Chances 18:50 USMNT - Mexico Preview Notes 26:58 Bobby Warshaw On MLS Youth Development Mailbag QuestionSoccerwise Live 2pm ET Every Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday on Youtube/Twitch/Twitter

Hey everybody, welcome back to SoccerWise. David Goss here for a big week of coverage at SoccerWise. We have USMNT and Canadian Men's national team games coming up tonight as the u.s heads to mexico for the first time in 12 years for a friendly and mexico goes to guadalajara for the first time in 14 years to play at estadio at cron it's going to be a fun one i'll give you my thoughts heading into that one for For Canada, they make their only performance of this window against Panama in Toronto coming up tonight. So we had to have a Canadian men's national team legend Patrice Beignere to join us for that one. And Patrice

will talk a little bit about CF Montreal as well as they head into decision day. Inside the playoff spots, trying to hang on, trying to bounce back from what was a tough year last year, trying to reset the course. So we'll talk a little bit about where Montreal stands. And one of my favorites, Bobby Warshaw, on to join me to do what we have now called Make It Make Sense for me. This time, it is one that was prompted by one of our fans, Dan in the mailbag.

So we will talk about youth development, where it stands in Major League Soccer, Major League Soccer against the rest of the world. And maybe some tweaks that could happen and how it could change. So a nice long conversation with him in this show as well. But we've got the Canada game coming up around the corner. So let's start by chatting with Patrice. International window continues on. The U.S. heading down to Mexico for the first time in over a decade. Mexico trying to get themselves back on their feet.

Both teams chasing the kings of CONCACAF, the giants of the region. Canada, the Canadian men's national team flying high off Copa America. And who better to join me than patrice bernier you can hear him on rds but you know him very well one of the best in the game patrice happy thanksgiving yeah thanks yeah canadian over here so definitely you you you nailed that one so but actually funny thing is i was in the states for the canadian thanksgiving so but uh yeah thanks a lot and uh yeah happy happy to be with you chatting a bit of football. We haven't done this for a little while. No, it's been a little while, but I always love talking the game with you.

And obviously no one knows both Montreal and the Canadian national team better. A legend of both those squads. Montreal making a push for the playoffs. So we'll talk about that towards the end of this. But let's start with Canada. They face off against Panama in Toronto, the only game of this window for this Canadian men's national team.

And this is the first time for them to play at home coming off what was a very successful Copa America, a historic run for them. Then you get some pretty strong results over the last window against the US and Mexico. What do you make of sort of where this team stands right now in the national conscience and sort of what Jesse Marsh is trying to accomplish? Yeah, funny you mentioned it.

You know, they were here in Montreal a few days ago, so I got the chance to reconnect with my former coach, Jesse Marsh, because he was first time I had coach ahead coaching MLS for the CF Montreal franchise and also got to see the national team up close. They were here in Montreal. I think he said it himself. He wants to be the people's coach, that this becomes the people's

team. And so that's why I think they're trying to have camps in different cities in Montreal, even though most games are in Toronto and Vancouver. They're trying to reconnect with most of the country and enjoy the fruits of 2022 and lately 2024. So it was great to see Jesse, the enthusiasm, the new vigor that he's put back into the national team

because there was kind of like this foggy period after the 2022 World Cup. They reached so much high. It was like, where do you go next and how do you bring this team to the next level? But you mentioned it, Copa America, it was a tough task for Jesse Marsh, but the team seems to have rekindled the belief, I think, in itself mostly. We know the talents there, Al think, in itself, mostly. We know the talents there.

Alphonso Davies, Jonathan Davies, Stephen Ostakio, and even more youngsters are coming in. Jacob Schaffelberg took the opportunity that he's given to him and now is a mainstay for the national team. Derek Cornelius, Moise Bombito went abroad for Bombito and are now in League One, playing in top leagues. So it's a good period now for Canada to reconnect, re-bolster their team,

knowing 2026, the World Cup will be at home, but going with a, moving the curve upwards. It was kind of on a steep, you can't say it was going down, but it kind of flatlined a bit. And now it's going up.

So very promising, and a lot of young talents. Matheus Chouinard moved to Europe. He's back in the fold more often. Nathan Saliba, young talent from CF Montreal. He's in. Ali Ahmed from Vancouver Whitecaps. Guys that were in and out, but seem to be a little bit more often with the group,

and some youngsters who are probably going to pop up here and there more and more, as the national team seems to show with Jesse Marsh, that we're back in trying to be kings of CONCACAF, or at least knowing that, hey, okay, we had a little dip, but USA, Mexico, we're on par with you guys. Watch out because we're not letting you just coast with first and second in CONCACAF for the next few years, definitely.

You obviously, over 50 caps in your career, you played with some really strong Canada teams that I'm sure, you know, stepped on the field and had pure belief you could beat the U.S. and Mexico, having Adiro in your team, having, you know, some of the stars, Pat Onstead in the back, some of the stars that were winning MLS Cups and whatnot. But you started to rattle off this team now. And, you know, two years ago ago we were questioning who starts at center back now they're both league on players you look at this team and you're talking about over the over half the starters probably are either going to play in Champions League or start in a first division in one of the big five in Europe did you ever see this coming like did you ever think the team would look like this coming out of your time think no uh look we all hoped knowing that

the mls gives an opportunity to a lot more local talents canada us and then you say okay who's going to make the next step we know alfonso davis did it jonathan david took another route he was there but then how many how often are going to be abroad or are going to be stellar players in MLS where you, you know, Jesse Marsh mentioned a lot. It's not just playing abroad. It's playing. So if you're in MLS, it's playing.

And I think I just heard Pochettino saying it also. Yeah, I love the guys that are playing top leagues and Champions League, but I do want players that are playing regular minutes and are informed and are confident. So back then, people were like, oh, Kenyan talent just rose to Europe. No, that's not the case. Julian de Guzman played in La Liga.

Craig Forth played in Premier League. Paul Stalterre played in the Buddhist Liga in Premier League. But now there's more. Yourself? There's more of them. Yeah, I played in Premier League, Paul Stoutieri played in the Bundesliga in Premier League. But now there's more. Yourself? There's more of them. Yeah, I played in Europe. Thibaut Chetien is a legend in Istanbul for Besiktas. But

now you have five players playing in League One. You have players playing in Bayern Munich. Jonathan Davin being one of the top scorers, not just in League One, but in Europe. And Kyle Lahren, a lot more. Steven Ostakio playing at FC Porto or playing Champions League. You got more and more of them.

So now you're like, okay, they're playing high-quality competition. They're most of them all starters. So that, for a coach, and you see the young crop is playing significant minutes wherever they are at so it's just interesting and look we're not talking about tio bear but he's in france also it's just because he has jonathan david calarit ahead of him but he's established himself and coming into france for this year so it's interesting, and it's a very good time, and this is a prominent generation where when you see the squad list, you don't just see, okay, Vancouver, Whitecaps, Montreal, CF, and TFC.

You see Olympique de Marseille, Lille, Bayern Munich, League One, Bundesliga, Premier League, and potential guys that are in championship are probably going to move on to these leagues in the future. So it will be really, really interesting to see the following. And the age. I think it's age. When you look, these guys are 23, 24, 25, 26, haven't reached the peak of their career.

So really interesting. And the young talents that are up and coming that most people are talking about. So I hoped, but I didn't imagine it would be such a disarray of players. We all hope, but now it is. And that shows why Canada is competitive and very strong in the CONCACAF region and hopefully more prominent when it comes to to 2026 world cup or the next tournaments let's talk about the this the road to get there then this week right is is a big part

we know the u.s is talking about this you know mauricio pochettino same for canada and jesse marsh there's just not that much time the 2026 world cup's coming up you don't have qualifying you don't have a ton of competitive games um what do they need to accomplish against panama what do they need to accomplish in this window so what it accomplished i think right now copa america really helped because you know jesse marsh the first thing i said man this is not an easy geek to king you're coming in you're playing netherlands seventh in the world yeah france second in the world but he got copa america and as national team coach usually don't have players for a long stretch of time he had a tournament where they could be together for at least two weeks and they made it a count so they went on for three weeks to a month

and he made it count made them believe that look we're going to play top 10 teams in the world. Now, you want to really show you're a top player? This is your chance. They played Argentina. Yeah, they lost both games, but they gave Argentina a run for their money. Chile, Peru, Uruguay maybe won it at the end for the third place game, but it took them a 92nd minute goal and PKs. So I think the work that's been put in was to re-boost the belief of what they did in 2022. And that now this is next level. And Jesse Marsh is giving them a lot more intensity. Having coached in Premier League, he comes in saying, hey, I've seen the high level. You guys can get there, but you need to reach the pinnacle of what you can give training in and out and games in and

out to prove that you are maybe a top 25 country in the world so the factor that Copa America comes in I think you couldn't ask for better it was a tough test they ended up doing really well but it was a good portion of time for jesse marsh to instill his belief system his philosophy of playing to say look we're going to be together and this is going to be video game in game out and i as i mentioned to my as i saw last week it kind of fast-tracked, playing seven games, where probably if he had not had the tournament, he would have had two games now, two games in November, and it would have took probably a little bit more time.

So kudos to him, kudos to the group to be able to have connected so fast and show that, yeah, we're back in it, and we are an underdog that people should be paying attention to. So let's talk about Major League Soccer before I let you go. CF Montreal, your former club, they are making a late playoff putsch, an unexpected one, and you've talked about Nathan Saliba with the national team. Shaquille Marshall already one of the young prospects a lot of people are excited about. Anthony Vilsante as well. Caden Clark now making a difference. What have you seen

from this Montreal turnaround and sort of where this club stands right now? Yeah, it's funny because if we take 2023 and take 2024, it's kind of like the same ending. The last game, it's decision day. MLS loves it. But for them, they have deja vu. It's just the difference is last year, at this time of the year, they were on a downward spiral.

Downward curve. Showing that they had won, I think they lost five of the last seven games, even though they were still in it loss after loss. Now they found a way, as a a group to get the confidence back and get four wins or four positive results in the last six games to give them the shot to be in the playoffs.

Because let's be honest, early August, you take 5-0 to New England, you lose to Cincinnati, everybody's like, I don't see them making the playoffs. The way they're playing, lifelessness, and now Josef Martinez is scoring goals. Natas Alibaba, after being in camp with the national team, seems to have taken another step.

Everybody that really feels in tune, Caden Clark, playing an offensive role, because in Minnesota, he played right wing back, left wing back. Now he's gotten back to maybe some of his better moments when he was at Red Bulls and he's scoring goals I think it's his second best period in MLS in terms of scoring and in short spans I think he only plays

seven games and he has three goals three assists so things are connecting at the right time and they're playing New York City FC with three possibilities of making the playoffs you win you're in you tie you're in and if you lose and the other two teams lose you could still be in though I think they're in a better posture than last year and especially the last few weeks Lala Courtois managed to be a bit more stable with his lineups and giving I can't say giving it's guys now find more confidence in each other and finding each other on the field because they were changing the lineup way too often. And now it's panning out,

knowing that the guys are realizing this is the end of the season, but we can still make a push. We're still in it, luckily, and they can still make the play-in spot. So they're already in the spot but they could to solidify that spot and make a playoff push who knows last one on this for montreal for for fans does this feel something that's been built that can last because that's always the question with with cf montreal right is it's good for a little bit and then wilfred nance leaves and all the players leave and you restart and you reset and um there's a lot of young pieces to this but does this feel like a long-term build or is this a

short-term fix uh i think knowing what how things happened last year they realized during the season okay we built a squad, but is it a squad that's built towards the way Laurent Courtois wants to play, or do these players, you see them in the long term, so they made certain moves, Caden Clark came in, and so they went to get Shaquille Marshall, Rudy, so now I feel like the end of the season, a few weeks ago, I would tell you, I don't know. They'll probably have question marks between do we want to keep going with La Concordia. But now the last few weeks saying, OK, we rejuvenated this team.

We've moved out some pieces that we probably didn't see the next year, more than the next year. So I see it as they will have a continuation and probably try to fill in some gaps during the offseason to better strengthen the squad. I don't assume Victor Wanyama will be back. That would be really a good question of Martinez finishes the season strong, but will he stay for another season here in Montreal, or do they want to have that cap for a player who's over 30 and maybe spend it on younger talent? Because that's what CF Montreal is about.

So I see it as another year and growing from that and actually maybe having a second year with Fernand Si. People forget 2021, they didn't make the playoffs. And it's 2022 that everything gelled and they even got further than what people expected. So I see Laurent Couture staying for another year and them just filling the gaps you have Corre hopefully you know don't know if he stays in and probably helps out during the offseason to get more better pieces and move

this team in the right direction and getting young talents that they assume that they might have to sell in the next summer, but definitely a more competitive team. Because if you look at it, there's just results here and there, and it could be seventh. Well, if you don't take that 5-0 in New England and you have a better result, it's one point. You're looking to finish in seventh position. So there are some question marks that are going to go, what did we go wrong that could have given us three or four more points? But definitely I see a little bit more stability in keeping the coach around going to go what did we go wrong that could have given us three or four more points uh but definitely

i see a little bit more stability in keeping the coach around and uh just giving him the the right pieces to the way he wants to play for next year and a coach who also like the players had a year of experience in mls because i know everybody says yeah mls next pro but it's not the same you're coaching guys were 22 to 18 right Now you're coaching guys like Jose Martinez, where you have to deal with their ego. You have to deal with Victor Wanyama, who's a great career DP player and other players that are veterans

that maybe are not happy or not playing the way you expect it in their philosophy. So I think he had growing pains also, which will help him next year deal with certain situations maybe faster and better than he did this year. Montreal winning four of their last six,

heading into decision day. As Patrice said, ending on a high, whether they make the postseason or not, much different than last year and some hope and excitement going forward. Some they're trying to steal from the Canadian national team, which has been the most hopeful

and exciting project maybe in the region over the last two-plus years. 7.30 p.m. Eastern time at BMO Field against Panama for that game. And Patrice, don't be a stranger. Talk to you again soon. Yeah, man, always a pleasure, man. You know, talking football, talking MLS, the Canadian national team, of course. So just give me a ring and definitely we'll keep on talking. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Deal. All right. So thankful for Patrice for taking the time to chat with me. That is the story for CF Montreal going into this weekend against NYCFC. It is one of the games to watch in that Eastern Conference window. I broke it all down for you in the weekend recap that came out yesterday. So you can go get back, go back to that and get a sort of reset on where the standings are in major league soccer. And the big match is coming up in the East and the West. I'm going to have Joe Larry on,

on Thursday to break a lot of that down for us and help us preview the weekend for this Montreal team currently sitting in ninth place, the final play in spot, tied on points with DC United. And as Patrice said, a few options to get in as they are three points ahead of Philly and Atlanta, who are trying to chase them for that final spot in that matchup hosting NYC FC. The other big game tonight, of course, on the international slate is the u.s men's national team facing off against mexico that one in guadalajara coming up at 10 30 p.m eastern time for the u.s coming off that first match five players leaving the team to go back to their clubs marlon fossey weston mckinney ricardo Pepe, Christian Pulisic,

and Zach Steffen. The understanding is Pulisic's been released for load management. This is something I've always felt very strongly about. Your club form is the most important thing. That is where you're playing soccer every single day. That's where you're getting your minutes.

That's where you're elevating your game. And so I love to see Mauricio Pochettino understanding the pressure on him to get a result in a friendly in Mexico. Not as important as Pulisic being fit and healthy and available week in and week out for Milan and then for the U.S. men's national team in their biggest moment. injuries that these players are working with working through so that's worrying for Colorado Rapids fans with the way Zach Steffen has played going into decision day their attempt to try and jump up the standings as well as of course into the playoffs and something to watch out for with Weston McKinney Pepe and Fossey as well as they go back to their clubs in Europe there have not been replacements called up to replace them there There were previous injuries. Of course, we're now hearing the news that Florian Balogun will be

out for up to two months, it sounds like, and probably through till the new year. Those players were already replaced on the roster. So there are a few different options for Mauricio Pochettino to go with. I would be surprised if Zendaya doesn't get a start. You're talking about a player who has played his entire professional career in Mexico and will be at least somewhat more comfortable in this setting. I would be surprised if Brandon Vasquez doesn't get, whether it's a ton of minutes off the bench or an opportunity to start. He is a factor in this game. So I'd expect to see him once again. I would expect to see Aiden Morris get the start in central midfield. There is not an obvious veteran option to put in there into this group.

And so it's going to be a test for a lot of these young players for this U.S. team of who's sort of going to hold things together, who's going to be able to be relied on in tough moments because they will have less of the ball in this game and it will be harder in this performance in Mexico could you see a Tanner Tessman get a start in central midfield alongside Morris to make things just a little bit more robust maybe could you see a formation change once again maybe Scali becomes the right wing back Moussa comes inside and you put in a genuine center back option out there like a Miles Robinson.

I think there's a few different options you could see, but I would expect to see the inclusion of some of these more veteran players or especially the players who have some experience playing in Mexico. And I think for a game like this, I go back to some of the games in the Bruce Arena, Bob Bradley days, early Juergen Klinsmann, where you had these friendlies where the U.S. looked clearly outmatched, but had this mental edge on Mexico and had this ability to steal performances. I always go back to the game where I think every year Jimmy Conrad reposts his goal in Arizona in 07 or 08 and Landon Donovan

scored a goal after the ball deflected off a referee as well, in which the U.S. didn't feel like they were on par with Mexico. But anytime they stepped on the field together, the U.S. knew they had a chance and felt comfortable in the way the game was played out. I would like to see a U.S. team here. I would like to see them press in their moments. I would like to see them speed the game up. I would like to see them make Mexico uncomfortable. But I think what you want to come out of this game with is feeling like it's a cohesive group that has started to gel under Pochettino. And I don't know a scoreline that will exactly tell me that, but I think you'll know it when you see it. And there was, you know, some signs of it in that Panama game,

but Panama at Q2 stadium, that's not the biggest challenge. And you need to see this group under stress and under pressure. And this is going to be a big opportunity for that. I've been down to Guadalajara for games. That stadium will bounce if the fans choose to come, which is not 100% sure. This is obviously a team that hasn't played in Guadalajara, as I said earlier, for 14 years. There's not as much money to buy tickets at the level that the national team spends. And there's a ton of frustration with the Mexican national team right now in the atmosphere for El Tri fans. So I think there are a lot of fans who are just staying home and don't want to be a part of this game. But if the crowd does come out to support this group, it could be a really cool atmosphere. So that's something you always got to live for. US versus Mexico, USA in Mexico.

We don't get it very often. We're not going to get it in World Cup qualifying this time. I'm glad these teams understood and got together to make this happen. And so you got to cherish it because this for me is one of the great matches in the world game. So that one I'm looking forward to. I will have all your recap coming up for that one on Thursday. Tomorrow, Jordan Angeli will be back with me. I am sure we will talk a little bit about Boss Nation or Boss Football Club or Boss FC or boss,

whatever you want to call it in, in NWSL, the new team that has been announced in Boston with the official name, still waiting on one more expansion team as well in NWSL. And we'll talk all about Orlando's loss this weekend, Washington spirit starting to get healthier, Temwa showing his record and the playoff race. So we've got that show coming up for you, as I mentioned, Joe, coming up on Thursday.

We're going to have a really fun interview on Friday. I'm going to sit down with Tim Bezbachenko, who you may know from his time as president and GM of the Columbus Crew, GM of Toronto FC, starting in 2013. So built that MLS Cup winning team, then moved to Columbus, built the stadium at Lower.com Field, built that MLS Cup winning team, and now has a new project with an organization called Black Knight Football Club that owns Bournemouth and four other teams. So Tim was kind enough to sit down with me over in England. And so we're going to put that interview out on Friday, all over the place a little bit,

but talking about his experiences, his challenge, what he's going through, and then a really interesting opportunity to just pick someone's brain about what they think the future of soccer is and could be in North America and Major League Soccer, someone who has a lot more experience and is now seeing it from the outside a little bit as well. But let's now go to our segment with Mr. Bobby Warshaw, our Make It Make Sense segment, prompted by a question from one of our mailbags. All right, well, it's everyone's favorite time

of every three or four weeks, whatever it has been so far, where I'm confused about something. And the director of North America Bloom Sports, but you know him better, is Bobby Warshaw. Comes on and he helps me make it make sense. Bobby, how are you doing today? I'm good. You know what I'm confused about in life right now, David? What? I got my first new iPhone since 2018 yesterday in the mail,

and they don't give you the port for the charging cable anymore. Did you know this? Yeah, like you're saying the wall part. They don't give you the block. Yeah. What do people do? What we could do is we could have tim cook on here and we could have him make it make sense and it's just a running segment where everyone comes on they have a question they bring the next guest on this is like a did we just invent smart list like are we the best podcasters

of all time that would be good content for sure this was great, Bobby. This was class banter from you who loves a banter session and segment on any show you are ever on. Are you excited to be back? Yeah, I always like talking soccer with you. I know you do. And this time, in theory, you also join to get access to our salary cap tables, which are becoming very useful as the season ends to see what players on your teams are free agents, what players have club options, how much they cost, all these things. I've been using it a ton as we've spoken about the Chicago Fire and what Greg Berhalter will have to do and all of that and depth charts.

It also gets you access to our discord in our discord. We have our mailbag channel where I use that mailbag to create a show once a week on Fridays, send yours in for this week. Last week we got a question that just was a little too meaty for me. So I did what I do, which is I went to Bobby Warshaw. We got this question from Dan H and Bobby, that's why I had to bring you in here. So you ready to go? I am ready. I have my notes ready. I haven't read the question yet. Why don't you read the

question? And then I'll give you some some pre some prologue. All right. So the question is from Dan H, one of my favorites up in Vancouver. And he says this one may be to save for the off season. But luckily, we got an international break right in the middle of the season, right before decision day. So we get to do it now. We talk a lot about MLS teams that can't reliably convert their academy kids into first team players. What do these teams need to do differently?

Obviously, hashtag play your kids, but is it structure, pathway, coaching, or other skill development? And are there commonalities between underperforming academies slash teams? Or is each situation unique? That is our question, Bobby. Yeah, it's a great question, isn't it? It is. I'm stoked.

Okay, so I have a bunch of notes prepared on this, David. When I was thinking through it, though, I think I need to go slowly. So I know that's not great content and I apologize in advance. And if you need to spice it up at some point, go ahead. I, you know, I am okay with the craft of content, but if it's right with you, we're just going to move through this slowly. Let's go. Okay. Cause it's, it's a giant topic it's a fantastic question i mean it's largely at its core how do you get the u.s men's national team to win the

world cup how do you make mls the best league in the world uh in fairness dan would want canada to win so just throw that in there as well fair and i do want to say we're talking about the men's side of it we're not talking about the women's side right now, because I think that's a different and equally as interesting conversation. And I do just want to say at the top, it's worth pointing out why is, you know, basically what is our objective here? What are we trying to maximize? And I think one of it is U.S. men's national team, Canadian men's national team success.

And part two is maximizing the resources of MLS investors and owners. Right. What is the best way to use their money to get the most return for the product on the field and the entertainment? Does that sound right? Yeah. When you think about youth development in general, David, how do you break it down? I mean, what does that phrase or word mean to you? When you're talking about it from a pro club point of view yeah you know at the elite highest levels but good distinction yeah i think you're saying um you're talking about structure you're talking about um roots into a community and across the country right you talk about scouting things like that um and you are talking

about sort of the um depth of a, like how far down does a club go off of the first team? How far down does it go? How large is a club? And then potential for it to then pay off both on the first team or monetarily? Okay. Yeah. And I also, one last point from the prologue is, I think it's a really interesting question where the u.s men's national team stands in the world hierarchy right i think doing this episode around pochettino's first two games right what are the expectations for the u.s men's national team how good is the player pool let's just separate that let's just assume that there's still opportunity to grow and ways to create efficiencies for the team and mls to get better and usl to get better so david the way i think about it which which I think you took in a different direction,

which is neither right nor wrong, but the way I think about player development is, and I say I, this is me basically synthesizing a bunch of conversations. There's five parts to the process of a player's development. The first is grassroots, right? This is, and we could make up the specific years, but this is something like zero to 11 years old, right? You're playing in the backyard, you're playing at recess, you're playing with local coaches, you're playing with your local club. You know, by eight, nine, 10, that local club might turn into Bethesda or Solar or somewhat more advanced, but it's roughly still more about participation and locality than it is

elite and premier. Sometime around age 12, you know, if you look at MLS, right, they have the pre-formation, which I think is under 13, under 12 right now. So something around there. We'll call this the competitive stage. So grassroots zero to 11, we'll call it the competitive, something like you 12, you know, 12 years old to 15 years old. I would then call the next stage the pre-professional stage. And again, something like 14 or 15 years old, you are identified and moved to into a pre-professional pathway. This is when you might join Real Salt Lake, Seattle Sounders, New York Red Bull Academy, and you're officially on the track to become a professional. Or, you know, that's the end. That's the ideal end goal. The third is the early

pro, right? 17, 18 years old, you sign a pro contract, you start to train with professional teams. And then the fifth, that was the fourth. Then the fifth is the early peak, right? You are 20, 21, 22 years old. You are in the professional team. You are getting minutes. You are making an impact. And this is where you are finished off. I think there's an increasing body of research, and I will let them speak for themselves,

that that is probably less important than we thought. That largely what you are at 19, 20 years old is probably what you are going to be as a professional player, minus some refinement on the edges. But we have those five stages, and we could quibble on the exact maybe there's a six maybe there's a year give or take here or there but five stages grassroots competitive pre-pro early pro and early peak are we comfortable with that does that all make sense david yeah and that aligns with most of the conversations i've had and i think it aligns with what you see i think we've talked about this major league soccer shifting their academy structure slightly coming into this year for i believe 16 and 18 to be their pro pathway um age groups and not 15 and 17 but in that still same span

yeah um once you get there most clubs now stretch to u12 but not all clubs yeah so i would say that there are um you know the next question is where does the u.s or canada insert whatever country where are you at those different points i think the easiest place is the place where you can actually start to measure across countries is the pre-pro because teams start to go play international tournaments. MLS hosts a Generation Adidas Cup. You have the Under-17 World Cup. What I find interesting about this is that objectively, major league soccer teams in the U.S. appear to be doing well, right?

If you look at the Under-17 Men's National Team results in the World Cup, they're pretty good, right? If you look at MLS teams in Generation Adidas Cup against Flamengo, River Plate, Valencia, Real Madrid, Manchester United, they are pretty good to excellent, right? And it's hard to create exact like for like, especially for GA Cup, right? We don't know what level of team River Plate,

they might not bring their best 15 players from River Plate, from Manchester United. There's also the weird age gaps. You know this better than anyone. Manchester United has a U18, not a U17 team. So they have to mix players and, you know, the Seattle Sounders have a U17 team. So, but I think those are pieces on the margin. That's all to say that as a team major league soccer team seemed to be doing pretty well at the early or sorry at the pre-pro stage then what happens so how does this feel like going through this conversation what do you what thoughts are going through your head now david what do you agree with what do you disagree what pops up no i agree with you so far i think to the question is when a player outplays a river plate u17 that you river play team has enzo fernandez and julian alvarez yeah are the mo it does not feel right

now like the mls academy players hit that same ceiling in the process so the question here i think becomes those next three years, what's getting lost? Yeah, like I think Kobe Minow is a great example here that you covered at GA Cup, who was on a mediocre Manchester United team, and then he starts in a European Championship final. What I hear from academy directors, from sporting directors across the world is that, and this is actually, I think, jumping ahead, I want to make this point later but that mls teams are pretty successfully developing groups of players teams right what they are not prioritized on is the star is in the reality and this is something i feel strongly will come to later when it comes to academies when it comes to mls next pro teams

it's like for better for worse and this is sad truth, and this is coming from someone that does not think as an American soccer ecosystem, we should care, but we shouldn't prioritize winning a World Cup because there are a ton of externalities, including this one. If you are objectively an MLS team, you care about two players. The other 16 are just like filling roster spots and giving you players for those other two to play with and against you really only care about those one or two what i think we hear from people across the globe is mls teams are developing competent teams but who's the player who's the one yeah right when you and i have watched flamengo valencia dino mozagreb there's oh there's one

right there's always a star who carries the moment there's a star who understands the coaching or is able to break out of a game and elevate things now it is different because so this is an argument i make a lot mls specifically it should be about market. Like the Portland Timbers should be focused on one because their argument is we don't have a large enough market of players. Yeah, I don't think Dallas and Chicago and Philadelphia should because there are too many good players in that area. The other thing is when you watch Flamengo, the left back is a national team left back, right? So it's not just the two stars because you're still developing players at every position who are high level experts at their position let me yeah this is a good point and let's adapt it you're not you're not only focused on one one or two players and i'm glad you brought this up but you're focused

on the player development more than the team growth yeah and it feels like that's missing a little bit with the individual but i think we're kind of getting to the subjective. I just think that's an interesting conversation that I wanted to bring up. What I think is the important part here, and I do want to say the other thing people talk about is the grassroots component even the volume, given how big our country is, of kids playing at recess, playing after school, or maybe even most importantly, Argentina, your under five coach is more likely to be able to teach you those skills that really matter at that age. But there's nothing we can do about grassroots, right? We're trying to talk about what's actionable for MLS owners and for US soccer.

I just want to make sure people understand this though, because I think as we do this show at SoccerWise, we're going to talk about youth development a lot. It's a lot of the questions we get. It's a lot of the interest. That is a massive part of where the U.S. and Canada is behind. It is also why you have great players that all come from the same area. Part of it is competition,

but a lot of it is the background of people that you coach are around. That's what being around the game is. When people ask, like, what is U.S. soccer culture equal to a different soccer culture i think in many ways it's better fandom all these things but being around people who when you follow your older brother or your parents or your older sister and you go watch them play and everyone's playing correct and has tactical ideas and understands the form of how to touch a ball and all those things that's all around you at all times and that's i think one of the things that

we are struggling with as you said that's not fixable in this conversation but i think it should be noted how strong that is of like at 17 if you don't have clean first touch and you're not comfortable on the ball to be able to learn how to deal with the pressure around you you probably are already lost but we can't we don't have eight billion dollars to fix that in this moment yeah so i think that smart people will recognize that we're probably underplaying the grassroots component and all of that but the point is what is really actionable if you have investment to make at the mls or the u.s soccer level the reason i bring all of this up david is i think it gets the part that really hits home here and what i do want to do is i want at the MLS or the U.S. soccer level. The reason I bring all of this up, David, is I think it gets to the part that really hits home here.

And what I do want to do is I want to add in this premise, which I think is fairly well-researched by multiple places, which is that the best predictor of future success, like if you don't know anything but you know this one thing, you can probably guess how a player's career went, and it's early professional minutes. It's basically minutes at ages 17 to 19. And some of that is largely self-selecting or confirmation bias where you play early because you are better, right? But part of it is certainly that if you play early, it helps with your development in these formative years. So I think

it's hard to know anything for sure in the world of soccer. One thing that we're almost positive about is that minutes at 17, 18, 19 are incredibly important to a player's trajectory, which is what I think is the main point of this conversation. And when we work with owners and executives around the sporting landscape, I think it's important to identify this as a key point. The next question is, how do you make that happen, right? How and why do teenagers get on the field? And the point that I want to make and really articulate and defend and have you challenge, because I think smart people might disagree with different parts of this, so definitely challenge it it's that teams need intentional structural reasons

or systems to get young players on the field i often hear the phrase if they're old enough they're good enough and i think it's a great line no great content good enough they're old enough yeah did i say it wrong you said it the opposite okay yeah if they're if they're good enough they're old enough. Yeah. Did I say it wrong? You said it the opposite. Okay. Yeah. If they're, if they're good enough, they're old enough. And it is, I would just say fundamentally untrue and actually a danger to say it out loud, because if you're around these teams, right, if you see a professional team train every day, a, for the most part, teenagers don't actually train that hard, right? right you know when you watch them every day they're talented but it's pretty rare that they actually on a daily basis you know are one of your best 11 players you can put on the field that weekend i think the second part

is really important too which is that a coach can be fired any given week any month right their lifespans are very short you can find how how long, you know, it's eight, six, something like 14 to 18 months for the average top division coach in Europe. I hit that numbers wrong, but you get the ballpark. Um, if you are that person who can be fired any week, would you personally put your paycheck on the line for the person with no sample size about how they will actually perform under the lights in a big game that Saturday. I'm sure people out there are saying yes. Like, of course, I don't know. I think the honest truth is that that's a really hard decision to make. The reason I bring all this up is it needs to be more top down, right? You need to have reasons outside of that 18 year

old is better than the 27 year old to get on the field because it's very seldom when that's the case and that's a reality that i think most people outside of the industry don't fully appreciate so at that point how do you create these intentional mechanisms and i think this is where it's helpful to look at the world context around the world there are two reasons that teams get young players on the field or like intentionally make that decision. The first is they have bills to pay, right? Most teams around the world run at an operating loss and they now have a fourth revenue stream.

Three traditional revenue streams in soccer were match day, commercial sponsorships, and broadcast. revenue streams in soccer, where match day, commercial sponsorships, and broadcast, you probably have heard often on your soccer shows that there's now this fourth one about player trading. Most teams around the world run an operating loss. They fill it in with local donors or sponsors who pay a little extra to fill the gap, or they have intentionality about selling players to fill that gap over some multi know, some multi-year averaged cycle. So if I have to decide between playing 32 year old David Goss or 17 year old Joe Smith,

that decision is made for me because if I play, if I don't develop and sell Joe Smith, I literally can't pay the bills. Yeah. Right. That is a, that pushes the choice for them. The second is that a lot of these teams do not have the budget to have squad depth. So they don't have a 32 year old

backup right back backup center midfielder that they can play over the 17 year old. So they have to get that person on the field just as a matter of the way you distribute your wages across the team. Do you know what's challenging about Major League Soccer? The fact that most of these teams, I guess, in theory could pay their bills. Yeah, the owners are rich. They don't need the extra $500,000, $2 million. They don't need the extra $10 million, right? They all already run out of operating loss. They've all already opted in and said they will continue to do it as long as the enterprise value goes up as long as they can write it off again like there's a myriad of reasons as to why these owners are okay with taking on a loss basically none of them have said i would rather have the four million dollars from selling a player than winning mls cup

so before we get into kind of this part of it, any thoughts, any questions? I mean, any challenges? So the clubs we're talking about that need to pay their bills, are we talking about Atletico Nacional? Are we talking about San Lorenzo and Dynamo Zagreb? Are we also talking about Sociedad and Benfica and Brighton? Basically all of them. I mean, Brighton, have you ever looked at the numbers of we'll take Premier League because it's easy. Do you know what their profit, their kind of profit loss statement looks like? No.

They lose about an average of $30 million a year. I mean, obviously, Chelsea loses $100 million. But for the most part, they're all running an operating loss of $30 to $50 million. Brighton is the only one. Brentford is close. But they basically all run at a loss and then man who knows what's happening with man city's books but yeah they're the other close one okay interesting and then in saying it about mls these organizations don't internally require themselves to try and make profit right it's not pressure on a president and g of an MLS team, even if their owner has the money to pay for it, to try and make it as profitable and close to break even as possible. Yeah, I mean, everyone, for sure, everyone has on their yearly objectives, like close the operating margin on loss, you know, lose less money. But I would ask you, I mean,

if you have the money and your sporting director tells you we can take a run at winning a trophy, what do you pick? No, I want my $4 million back. You just bought the team for $500 million. You might as well put, and your enterprise value is going up by a regular 15 to 20% every year. You know, why would you pick the five million dollars yeah and i know like this is a little bit different i mean the reason you get that rich is because you care about every every dollar i'm not trying to say that people don't care about the money but i'm saying that if you are that wealthy you also have a ton of moving pieces that makes that four million dollars a more complicated piece in puzzle, and you're willing to sacrifice it for a greater end.

Yeah. Okay. So then what do you fix? So there's two things, again. If we agree that you need an intentional system that is more than wait for the 17-year-old to show they're ready to get on the field, which I think is a flawed approach. I think it's proven to be a flawed approach at this point. There are two reasons. I think there are two reasons that force a team's hand, right? One is you need to sell players to pay the bills. And two is you just don't have enough money to spend on the mature backup.

So you have to, at some point, play a backup right back who is your 17-year-old. The two challenges that happen in Major league soccer are that one owners just don't need to pay the bills there's no reason that you have to get an 18 year old over the 30 year old in the field to develop them but two which i think is really understated in the conversation about major league soccer is that if i were to ask you david to name the top five player development clubs across the world who do you pick benfica um zagreb um ix barcelona and i don't know throw in your fifth yeah what do they all have in common they are all um from really good soccer cultures um i'd say outside of barcelona they're all

selling leagues what's the one fundamental trait all of those teams have within their own market like inside their leagues yeah they're all like the giant of their they're all the giant yeah yeah they all have a built-in advantage so you can play the 18 year old and the 21 year old who might not be up to the level because you're better at the other nine positions so you have the opportunity to allocate one of your 11 players and remember over i think the other thing that people misrealize about players and youth players and again i don't blame a coach for making from for misunderstanding this because it's their job their livelihood the pressure but any individual player is a fairly small impact within the grand scheme of things, right? Again, we know that a star player,

and if you work backwards from win probabilities to expected goals and the ways you can try and objectively measure it, right? A star player over the full season is worth like four to five points, right? I think Ryan O'Hanlon for ESPN just did a great job articulating this about Rodri missing out for man city and what that player was worth but if we know your star player is worth four to five then what's the difference between your seventh best player and the 15th best player who's 18 in any individual game like it changes your win probability by one to 2%. Okay. So anyway,

that's off target and I, or sorry, off topic and probably confuses the conversation a little bit. But you know, if you are, one thing we've seen is the best developers around the world have a built in advantage because they can spend more money on their other 10 players so that that one player doesn't matter as much.

And they can bring that player along on their journey to when so that that one player doesn't matter as much and they can bring that player along on their journey to when they are a star player okay mls however in the league of parody nobody has that every player matters slightly more at least it feels like they matter more so therefore there's there's less uh i don't know what, leniency to get the teenager on the field. Yeah, if we're 50-50 in every matchup and the teenager makes a mental mistake. Yeah, in the league of parity. Yeah. So I think if you, you know, again, there's a conversation about are we doing a good enough job with youth development?

And, hey, I don't know. I think that there's some evidence that shows right now the U.S. might be doing okay to under 17. Smart people that I really respect disagree. But I think on the evidence we have, then the question is, what's going wrong? My main point that I present to people is that it is the number of minutes and players you get early minutes, 17 19 years old there's another part about how good those minutes are yeah you know right now if you think about and i know i'm bouncing around at this point so i apologize it's hard to keep up but if you look at where the u.s is right now in the world hierarchy now we're talking about the u.s men's national team for us you know we are basically a quarterfinals team sorry a round of 16 team to get

into the next quarterfinals you have to be one of the eight and we've talked about this a lot david where that eight is pretty solidified there's been one-off outliers south korea at home croatia for sure now the new blue but for anyone who follows college sports is like the blue blood conversation like it'll the italy's and spain's and whatever as but down as italy has been they then go to euro finals yeah other random teams don't go to euro finals they go to a round of 16 if you look at the history of world cup knockout rounds when the top eight come up against not the top eight they basically always win maybe there's more you know the 20 examples there might be one or two but when brazil argentina england spain germany netherlands france they win yeah so it's hard for the u.s now is that

is our sample again you know it's basically you're in that eight or you're not and maybe then there's the next four to five columbia denmark croatia uruguay which also feels like the u.s is pretty far from but when we have this conversation about okay are we getting 17 18 year olds on the field that's part one the second is what is the level of game that they're playing in and the problem is that if you have an english team that gets a 17 year old for 17 year old on for crystal palace in the premier league that if you have an English team that gets a 17-year-old on for Crystal Palace in the Premier League, that's an advantage. If Frankfurt's doing it in the Bundesliga, that's an advantage. This isn't a statement about the fact that MLS is – I'm not trying to make a statement where MLS is.

It's just kind of, I would say, a fact that those six, seven leagues are better, especially if you have or on one of those teams at the top. So not only are you getting more minutes for the reasons we've talked about, but you're also doing it at a higher level. So your formative year is 17, 18, 19. You are also vaulting forward. Yeah. So wouldn't this either response or solution? Well, one would be the paying the bills is not the issue, but isn't the paying the bills faked by creating a salary cap? I can't afford that many veteran players. When my team is good, I can't keep them, right? That's the way you see a team.

And you have 20 roster spots, sorry to interrupt, and you have 20 roster spots that you've prepaid for. You've already prepaid for the salary cap and you have to fill those 20 i tell like one of the things i i talk about often which people don't really like but basically condensing your salary spend right yeah if you spend more money on your top 13 or 14 players all of a sudden your backup right back isn't very good and you have to put on the academy player and i use right back because i think one of the simple there are no hacks at this point in mls roster building but i think one of the obvious ways that you can uh solve other challenges is your backup right back should always be your best academy player whether they're center midfielder center back right winger whatever it is spend

money at that position they should get minutes they get the 25% of minutes that go to the backup outside back. But again, that to me is an intentional structure because if you're signing depth at every spot and you're waiting for a 17 year old to be good enough, you're basically never going to see that for the reasons that we described. So the way you think about constructing your roster, the way you incentivize your coaches needs to account for the inherent challenges because it's not going to happen organically and what we tell mls like do you know what an mls academy costs to run per year like five million dollars big range i mean the smaller markets do it for 1.5 philly reportedly is at 8 million But yeah, let's say a team that cares about there is $3 to $6 million. Right?

Do you know what MLS Next Pro Team costs to run? I have no idea. We'll say a million bucks. Okay. So, you know, on average, we'll say the league median is something like $4 million a year on their player development. Right. And this is public information.

Right. I'm not giving you anything proprietary here. You can piece it together from places that are public. So MLS teams winning $4 million. That's a, you know, that's honey mook tar. Yeah. Right. You can get a significant top five top six player in mls you don't often but you could yeah but i think the point is you would expect for what mls teams are doing i mean look around the league how many teams have a real contributor right now and then you think to yourself could i've gotten

a better player for four million dollars per year yeah you know two million dollar transfer fee and then you pay the person two million that's a four million dollars a lot of money for an amortized total cost yeah but the hope would be that the four million per year produces more than if i get that player and they twist their ankle that i've just flushed four million dollars down the drain for this year right where like if you build out a full Academy and you continue to pull players in and have opportunity, then your hope would be you can get more out of it. Plus, whenever you do flip a player that covers those years of costs for everyone else. That was the whole story with Brendan Aronson, right? That he was going to pay for the Academy for X years.

Yeah, exactly. So if i were to just summarize all of this and i really want i want to know your thoughts about all this too and the challenges but if i really were to summarize it there are inherent challenges in major league soccer to playing young players right again the way the salary cap basically nudges teams to have 20 professional players the fact that the owners don't really need the money on any marginal player sale. The fact that the league is a league of parody, and it makes it feel like every player matters more, and you can't take a player and bring them on a journey of development because you're better at the other nine spots. With all of those premises,

you have to be very intentional as an mls team about your player development pathway or else you are effectively flushing four five six million dollars down the drain yeah with what like your 13th best player on any given year now costs you five million dollars and listen i want to add too there's intangible values to having an academy yeah connection to community having people involved with the club having a press on fields across the country stuff like i don't disagree and i think it's valuable to parse that out yeah if you can quantify it that's great but you know from a pure soccer dollars and cents and i'm not trying to say every cent from the academy needs to only go to the return

in the first team. But it feels like collectively, I mean, David, if say all these teams are spending an average of four or five million dollars, there's 30 teams now. It's 150 million dollars in the American ecosystem right now. Yeah. Like only on the men's side only from these 30 investors yeah although you could then turn around and if you add up Alfonso Davies and Brendan Aronson and Weston McKinney and all of that you probably get close to that number as well of what you've sold and that's obviously more all

time right but it's 150 million dollars per year I understand that but I get that but you have to have the system to be able to sell the players and continue to do it sure you try and cover it for some time so here's questions thoughts pushback whatever you want to call this so the first one is nine teams make the playoffs so i don't need to be perfect every week right you want to talk about inter miami against columbus and every point over the course of the year counts, that's fair. But the Houston dynamo could put an Academy kid out there in June and

probably finished between fifth and seventh in the Western conference. Like there are minutes out there for moments like this for these teams. And there is opportunity to play people that I think is one of the counters with major league soccer. You talk about the i think is one of the counters with major league soccer you talk about the benficas of the world and like they have this advantage their disadvantages relegation exists in their league and they are playing the whole year to win the one thing that every single game affects which mls teams don't have yeah that's great i think the flip side what we said about benfica is that every point matters for that yeah and that's like not really the case for most MLS teams the other one would be then I think like with the salary guys

up you have to invent a little bit of it right wouldn't that be the solution that you'd come with is like I have said I don't think homegrown spending spending on a homegrown player should never hit a cap at no point in their career should it ever hit a cap and it shouldn't for any team because i think one of the advantages you could create is i as nashville could generate players that i could trade that to a team like let's say miami who doesn't want to develop players but wants to win now that won't hit their cap and then i'm able to run some sort of an ability to affect you know my first team through that even if the player doesn't affect my first team and i think you could probably generate multiple rules as much as

everyone hates gam tam allocation extra blah blah blah you right that's what you do is if you're saying it's not a need you generate rules to create minimum minutes that have to be under 21 x domestic players all those things that have to be on the field to create a scenario in which teams have to play these players yeah i mean i think my thought there is who isn't who does that benefit you know if you do that why i mean who wins from that i think your idea, one, if you want to be a top league, if you want to continue to push things forward, at some point you're going to have to generate players out of your own pool

that are at a high level because you can't always be importing. You can't, you're not going to hit on every import. And at some point you need to have some sort of structure and pipeline of players that are coming through to fill out teams because you're not going to have 21 international players on every roster right you need the domestic player to be talented at some point i agree with that i have two thoughts one is yes it's obviously beneficial to have i don't think anybody disagrees that having local domestic pipelines is really beneficial but again i think what i'm trying to point out

maybe i should have been clear about this thesis is that the idea that it'll happen organically you know at some point the players to the mls academies at age 18 will be better than the than the player that any MLS team can go sign from Denmark, Hungary, Sweden at age 28 has not come to fruition, at least not to the point with which the coach would rather play the domestic 18 year old. So I think we need to at some point acknowledge that this whole organic growth thing is unrealistic. And I hope that I've put some evidence and logic from the international scene behind that at which point at like you let's just acknowledge that this is intentional or bust from an internal planning perspective if you do not have two or three mechanisms that are very intentional about how you get your 18 year old on the field to grow it will not happen yeah that's what i'm saying creating rules and mechanisms that force teams to do it sure i guess i yeah okay sorry i i guess i don't i haven't thought that deeply about the league

creating mechanisms got it but isn't that what you see? Like Mexico has requirements under under 21 domestic players. So you could do it that way where it's a requirement or you talk about even the Canadian championship. You have to have ex-Canadian players on the field, which has forced Montreal and Toronto and Vancouver to have more Canadians on their roster because they have to, which unfair advantage in MLSls but required for that competition i think that's i think that's a good point to raise because i think the other the other piece i wanted to mention previously was that i don't at some point maybe mls teams should have a gut check with themselves to say when push comes to shove they're still not often putting the 17 or 18 year old on the field as if they are a high potential asset you're like they play them when they need them because it's a midweek game if you really look around the league how many teams have a 17 year old right now or in the last year or two that they're really excited about i mean maybe we've we've tried to present evidence that that the u.s ecosystem men's soccer ecosystem might be in a good place for players at age 16 and it's

that touch point of getting professional minutes, which they are lacking in major league soccer at age 17, 18 is the problem. But I think there's also a possibility where if you really gut check these teams, I mean, David, if you look around the league, how many teams have a 17, 18 year old that they're really excited about? Well, I would say most teams have someone that they are like their, each team has their star that they think will come through and be special. Right. You've got Serge Goma at the Red Bulls. You've got Christian McFarlane right at NYC FC, Esmere Brock, Tarevich, Peyton Miller in for the New England Revolution, getting first team minutes already. You have players at that age, maybe not exactly at that age in the league, but every team has that player.

LAFC has had multiples that don't factor into the first team. LA Galaxy would name four or five players, I think, out of their U17 team right now that they really like. And we haven't really seen that come to fruition into the next level, but we have seen it. Toronto FC has been fantastic at at the u15 and 17 level over the last few years and you barely you do not see those same players affect the first team yeah although toronto fc does play the most youth players over the last few years but those players are all players that are more like from the area it feels like than one that they quote unquote developed through the academy which maybe is a whole nother conversation that we should be having but yeah you

are right there are not but isn't that partially like you're not going to tout you don't want to tout a kid too early or make things too hard for them right what do you mean if you are excited what's happening with Kevin Sullivan is almost unavoidable because there's so much excitement, but it probably makes his career harder being noticed and having the pressure and all of that. So if you were smart about what you did, you kind of wouldn't do that. Yeah, this is where I acknowledge. I think this comes down to the technical side of it and the methodology side, which is something that i'm happy to conjecture on but i kind of want to stay out stay away from um but to just give you an example i remember when alfonso davies was coming through and people were frustrated including myself why is carl robinson

not playing alfonso davies more there's probably a year and a half when he was stopping stop and start with the idea that you're saying that you need to bring this player along slowly not to overwhelm them and it obviously worked so i think that's an example that um but yeah i think the exact you know what position should you bring them in at how many minutes how do you do it at the right training load i think all of those are really hard complicated questions but i think they start with this premise that MLS teams are spending four or five, six, seven million dollars a year on their pathway. Are they getting that return, quite frankly, relative to what they could get go signing a player from the world market?

If not, what can you do about it? What needs to change? And I think it's this intentionality where it's less emphasis on the organic opportunity for young players to get on the field and like acknowledging that none of them are good enough. We just had there's a great Brentford line. You know, do you have the guts to give them for the growth of American men's soccer is Major League Soccer teams overcoming. Overcoming is like a weird thing. It's not like an existential, but kind of moving past the inherent challenges that the league has relative to other development countries and finding ways to get the young players in the field. Well, thank you so much to Dan for asking the question, for giving me the excuse to bring Bobby Warshaw back onto this show. Now, I don't know that we answered your question perfectly. I think you were looking for maybe step-by-step inside of one club about how they could get better in building their pathway. But I think, Bobby,

I really appreciate the information you've brought on here. And you've sort of changed my thinking a little bit in terms of trying to see how clubs can find that endpoint goal to build the whole thing around. And how it feels like there was a great amount of progress for 10, 12 years in building the MLS Academy structure and MLS Next and then MLS Next Pro and obviously what the USL has done as well. But it feels like there's a little bit of stasis in this moment. And I wonder if having that specific goal is what's missing for most of these teams. And it could come from the league down or could come from the federation down, requiring those youth minutes and pushing teams, creating, you know, allocation funds to push teams to play young players,

or it could come from inside the building, right? If a John Thornton or Kurt Schmidt or Porig Smith or Garth Lagerwey set specific goals saying, this is what this team has to accomplish from a youth standpoint every year, that might change things, right? If John Thornton said, we spend all our money on in the salary cap in the attack, we have to produce two defenders out of our academy

that can be in the team at all times. Or if RSL says, you know, over the course of five years, we have to make $10 million in player sales. That then gives you an end point to go backwards and chart your way and create that pathway and know, okay, well, this is the age we need to push players in, or these are the positions we can try and push our most talent into to get them on the field. And it feels like right now there's maybe a waste of energy or resources because you are a little bit fluid with just the general idea of trying to help the US and Canada

win a World Cup, or just trying to make the league a little bit better. Yeah, I think that's, I think that's exactly right. And what I'm is that, you know, when MLS made its rules, that is implied within the framework of other countries that you hope to hit a performance benchmark, and you hope to hit a financial benchmark tied to the soccer that second part doesn't really exist in major league soccer right so there's not this implied notion where you need 3.5 million dollars from an academy player so therefore x y and z happen and it just feels and maybe i'm putting words people's mouths but it feels like that gap that lack of intentionality is just exists. And it's, it's led to money that could have gone to other initiatives in the ecosystem.

Yep. Yep. That makes sense. As always, I do my mailbag show on Fridays to try and answer your questions. And when they're too hard, then Bobby Warshaw comes on and he tries to answer my questions alongside you, Bobby, thank you for taking the time I appreciate it thanks for having me all right well thank you once again to Bobby Warshaw thank you again to Patrice Bernier for joining me enjoy the Canada game enjoy the U.S. game enjoy the Mexico game whatever you call it however you see it and we'll be back of course tomorrow with Jordan Angeli talking all things NWSL we'll'll talk to you all again very, very soon.