Reclaiming the American Game: Mike Woitalla on USSF Integration and Youth Reform

Welcome to the SCUF Podcast, we talk about U.S. Soccer. Hey everybody, late last month, the U.S. Soccer Federation in an entirely separate organization somewhat confusingly called U.S. Youth Soccer, announced they are coming together. U.S. Y.S. will be integrated into U.S.S.F if you want the alphabet soup and joining me to help make sense of this news, which J.T. Batson called, quote, a defining moment, end quote, is Mike Quitala, one of the great American soccer journalists in the executive editor of Soccer America. Mike, how are you? Good. Well, thanks. Thanks for having me on the show. Well, before we get too deep into it, let's just start with some basic context for the uninitiated. U.S. Youth Soccer is one major youth soccer organization. U.S. Club Soccer, which runs ECNL is another, the roughly equal in size. What is a simple way to understand the differences between these two organizations? Are U.S. Y.S. parents driving kias and U.S. club parents driving BMWs or what's going on there? That's not a bad analogy. First of all, I'd say that U.S. Y.S. is bigger. I mean, they've got, you know, like, two and a half million registered players or so. Oh, OK. And, you know, U.S. club is what a million or something. So U.S. Y.S. was, when the whole soccer youth boom started, you basically had A.Y.S.O, which is still around with, you know, tons of players, but always recreational and still volunteer model. And then you had U.S. Youth Soccer. And that was the way it was for a very long time. And they were both under the umbrella of the U.S. Soccer Federation, but, you know, kind of independent. It's a, you know, it's not like they're actually part of the Federation. And then in 2001, the coaches of, like, the most elite clubs came together and started U.S. club because of the, what they called the bureaucracy of, you know, 54 state associations. They wanted to do things that they thought, and they had a legitimate, you know, concerned because they were playing the rules that they didn't think really applied to their level. You know, things like, your players have to live in your town to play like a little league thing, but they're doing a, you know, elite soccer thing where you don't want to have all these restrictions. But that's how it started. It started to serve the elite clubs, but it didn't take long for U.S. club to realize well, to be in this youth soccer landscape, you want numbers. You know, that's where the money comes from. And also, you know, legit reasons for having that, you know, to have the grassroots connect with it. Anyway, they just grew, and they grew, and they grew, and they came to states with, with options that were appealing, some, for good reasons, some for getting numbers in. And so, so they really got huge. And then EC&L is based on the EC&L, which for so, which has, did become the elite platform for, for girl soccer. So now you had these, and basically they were, they were taking, getting teams from, as many teams as they could to register with, with U.S. club, whether that's under EC&L. And anyway, so they, they really, they really heated up the tour for. And then, and then you had a period where the U.S. soccer federation had the development academy that entered after COVID, and MLS next came in to, you know, to kind of replace that. And then you had the girls academy. So, you know, I would say the work tour for has been around for probably 40 years. Sometimes that refers to clubs, you know, competing against each other, but also leagues competing each other. But the level it got to, you know, up to this point, at this point, is just, it just is crazy, you know, it's just too much competition and, and so much of it being money driven. Does this news indicate to you that there is someone at U.S. soccer who is starting to enact a master plan to, to fix all that? Um, I mean, that seems to be the message, right? Yes. Um, I think that, I think that U.S. soccer, there's two parts of this. One is trying to feed into the national teams to get better at the national team level, right? But the big issue at U.S. soccer is a 99% or 95%, or whatever you want to call it, of kids that aren't ever going to be on a pro team or a national team or something. So you're trying to address two issues, and that kind of makes it complicated. I don't know how much of this is about the, you know, the national teams. I mean, it, it, it should be, to some extent, but that's always going to be, uh, issue in U.S. soccer because you really, you want to serve the, just all the kids that are playing for fun or should be playing for fun, and then trying to funnel win the top kids. Uh, you know, the motivation of U.S. soccer, I think, is, is good. I'm sure they're also very attracted by putting another three and a half million, you know, red kids under their direct, you know, organization plus their parents and everything. So there's a, you know, a financial incentive for them to write from sponsors and everything, and hopefully if that helps them, you know, get more sponsors or whatever, that money will go back into the youth game. But yeah, I, obviously that, that's always been an issue. I think that the, that U.S. soccer may have also been reluctant to get that involved at the grassroots because it's, you know, it's a tough thing to navigate. You want to get in the mix of all that, right? And for a while, they, they, they did with a development academy was just about their, their elite players. It was just about the players are trying to get into the national team. And now they've decided to get in right in the middle of this, in this huge turf floor. Well, I mean, to me, the two things are inextricably connected, you know, like the national teams and the 99% who play for fun. Yes. You're not going to have, you're not going to have elite talent to funnel into the national team system. Uh, or actually, I guess I should say this way, you're, the elite talent that you have to funnel into the national team system is a function of the quality of the play of that 99%, right? Yes. It's a direct function. Yeah. And we'll have to jump around a little bit because you soccer in the United States gets a very complicated, partly because of college soccer. So if you take a country like Spain, Argentina, Germany, and, you know, one thing I've kind of realized over the years is, and I've been told this and I've seen some of it, take a country like Argentina, not that many kids play club soccer compared to here, but all the kids play soccer. And what I mean by that is the kids who are going to be funneled into that really elite area, that starts happening. If you're a 15 year old in Spain, you know, it's not that hard to tell if there's still a legal potential there, right? But if you're a 15 year old here, you're not that pro potential because there's all these colleges. So when a coach comes up to you, a club comes up to you and says, it's worth $3,000, $5,000 or $10,000 for your kid to play, who we can tell us and never going to be a pro because it's going to get the kid into college. So that means you still have these big numbers and these households that can be convinced to be in that part of the pathway that, you know, really is unnecessary if it wasn't for the fact that, hey, if you go to two showcases a year, there's going to be a bunch of college coaches. So it's worth paying that money. So that complicates trying to, you know, navigate balance that these pathways. Whereas if you were in Sevilla and your kid was 15 and somebody came up to you, some grifter came up to you and said, hey, come pay a lot of money for your kid to play in a club. I know there's like, there's 20 kids, there's 20 kids better than him in the playground right now. So parents overestimate the talent of their kids, but even there is a limit, a limit to it, right? And then you have the soccer culture. So it's more likely that people will have a sense of what talent is. And then when you have, you know, four or five organizations who are trying to get your kids to be in that pathway, that gets even more complicated. And here's the other issue is, so you take the EC now. If you want to join the EC now, you have to have a team at every age, pure level. If you're a club and you have every, you know, every year, you might have two age groups that are really strong. You can't just have those two play in the EC now. You have to have every age group play. And let's call the rosters 20 players, 25 players. So one of those teams might have five players or 10 players, maybe 15, let's call that, okay, this is worth paying all this money and all this travel, but they need more than 10 or 15 players. So you're going to have on a lot of these teams, 10 players who were, you know, roster fillers. So it just makes it possible to have, you know, to just have so many kids who are paying so much money. And then you have, you know, when you start looking at these numbers, you know, one of my, I started off in my article with the uniforms, you know, I even looked back to see what cost my daughter's, you know, forms and back 10 years ago was like 350 bucks, you know, Nike uniforms, home and away and everything, okay, and it lasts for too long. Which is kind of a lot of money to some people, but yeah, yeah, think about when you start adding this all up and you add up the trips for the national championships, how many people are getting, you know, shut out by that, right? Like those numbers have to be giant. Now you have players who get scholarshiped and, and with MLS next, if you're with a pro team, then they'll take care of that because they're hoping to get that back. But that still leaves, you know, and also people could get shut out really early on because you come out, you come home and you say, you know, it's going to cost $3,000. And with a scholarship at the, you know, non-professional level, how's that paid for? That's paid for by the other parents, right? So you don't have a ceiling on that. So, you know, that, that is a really big, you know, when it comes to national team talent, you know, that, you know, we could be, you know, obviously shutting out kids that we have a, we're a giant country, so we don't have to make sure we find every single kid. But it's also just wrong, right, that you're shut out because of the, of how much it costs to play. It's just so much, it just feels like so much wasted money and effort for, for something that doesn't, isn't necessary. Yeah, I mean, the 12 national championships for 12-year-olds, I mean, you know, under 13 national championships, not just with one organization, but with, with many of them, you know, now there's a lot of, you know, there's a positive aspect that you soccer travel. But 12-year-olds getting on airplanes to play soccer, I, you know, nuts. If you take, if you look at all the travel in the United States for you soccer, the majority of that is, is revenue driven and it's, or, or, let's see, and the majority of that is not about competition, it's not about getting better, getting your players to be better right. You know, one of the, one of the examples is, you, you, let's say you're the fantastic under 12 team in, in your city, and let's say you're kind of an isolated city. So you don't have as much, like, in the Bay Area, New York, LA, you're going to find teams that are under 12 that are really competitive, right? But let's say you're in a place that isn't, well, play under 14 or something, you know, or, you know, you can, you can manufacture local competition, but you can't, if there's, if that team's playing for a different organization, you know, you can, like, so you could have two teams in San Diego that are the best two boys teams, but they don't play each other because one of them's MLS next and one of them's, you know, ECNL, so, or US, YS, whatever. So instead of playing each other, they go fly somewhere else, and play a team that might not even be as good as a team that's their neighbor. Well, so that, so this, all of this talk brings up like the kind of the elephant in the room of this announcement, which is, does not include US club soccer. It does not include MLS next. These are, these, the situation for them remains largely unchanged. What are they, what are they going to do about this? And what maybe is the, what are the potential outcomes for taming those beasts? Yeah, that is, that's, that's exactly the most important question. So you've got ECNL that isn't part of this. You have MLS next, you have A-way, so which I wouldn't be that concerned about because that's a, you know, volunteer model, right? You know, they really do with their best to keep it at low cost. Everybody I spoke to, you know, Federation and every organization, the Girls Academy, if we didn't mention them, which kind of, which kind of stepped in when the US Soccer Development Academy ended. Everybody said, we're all at the table. We're all at the table. We're talking all the time. This has never happened before where we're so, you know, working for the same, you know, in the same direction, but there's no, there's no guarantee, you know, the ECNL is not going to say in a few months, hey, we're joining you guys and we're going to let the Federation, you know, I mean, there, there has been more cooperation for sure between US Soccer, US Club, US Soccer is handling some of the operations of US Club. I don't know the exact background of that, the financial reasons for that or anything. So there has been some, you know, there is cooperation, but there's still, you know, those organizations are the real travel intensive ones. So what, I mean, one thing that that's possible is that when US Club came in and basically competed with the US YS for the, you know, for US Soccer players, US YS didn't have a chance, you know, US Club was very, you know, very smart, very efficient. They did things that were very attractive for clubs to come and the state associations, you know, they're all individual. Now competing against US, the US Soccer Federation might be a little bit more difficult, right? So most parents don't understand, unless it's MLS next, most parents don't understand what the difference is, right? They'll understand what US Soc, what the US Soccer Federation is. They understand the national teams, they understand the Olympic teams, they understand this is, you know, the organization. So they do have more power to attract players toward their, you know, organization than the US YS would have had. And, you know, trying to build, so, you know, it's for better or for worse, it's not like in another country where the Federation can say, everybody has to do what we do. You know, they have to, for free market, they have to convince people, this is the way to go, theoretically, US Soccer is in the position to, you know, just to succeed in trying to, you know, weaken the other organizations or at least, you know, try and change the way things are going, but that's the big question, you know, these national championships and the useless travel isn't going to go away. And even if we're not talking about national champions or anything, championships and stuff, you have all these tournaments, all these showcases. And, you know, it's fascinating when you, if you Google US Soccer Economic Impact, you'll see all these stories from newspapers and chambers of commerce and tourism thing about $15 million economic impact in so and so city because of this tournament, right? So you've got these venues that want these tournaments to come. So they incentivize the leagues to have them come there. The leagues make you book your hotels, if they, you know, this is called state of play. Yeah. I've seen this, I've seen this myself experience that, you know, you can't say your friend, you can't say, oh, we know a bunch of people in San Diego, we're going to stay at their houses. No, you can't. I just are for the tournament, you have to stay in the selected hotel. So you've got the commission for that. People don't give up their, you know, that revenue over, you know, that, that, that's not going to change overnight. It's going to be a more of a case of US Soccer convincing parents and kids to go through their path instead of the other one. Now, MLS next, I think we need to kind of, kind of put in a different area because that's run by professionals. Now they have amateur clubs in it, which is, we can get to that. But, you know, for decades, when we would talk to youth coaches and, you know, you always hear, oh, the pro should handle player development. And there's a reason for that that doesn't make sense if you're a professional team, especially the team pays for the kids to play handles their expenses. But also, if you're coaching at a, if you're coaching a U12 team, U14 team, U16 team and a professional team, they're going to judge you on how many players from, that you coach end up going far, end up going into the pros. So they're not going to judge you by, did you beat this team by, you know, they're not judging you by wins and losses as much as you, so you, so you can tackle that issue of, you know, the problem with development of trying to win too early at a, at a young age. So one key part of this working is that, is that players funnel into MLS next clubs at the right time, the ones that, that should be there, and then you have to talk about the places where you don't have, you know, an MLS academy or another pro academy, you know, how do you get those kids to get into that very competitive area that they need to? And, and they're possible, you know, there's ways to sort of, hopefully come up with that without moving them somewhere. Well, you mentioned that there's some, there's some MLS next programs at amateur clubs. Yeah. I've seen, I've noticed this too. And I, I mean, I don't know all the kids are what their future looks like, but the idea that these kids are going to be the next ones who play an MLS is, uh, not reality. I don't think the, I think Chattanooga FC here in, in Chattanooga halfway between Atlanta and Nashville has a MLS next team. And, um, I don't know, that, that doesn't seem like a real thing. This started coming up with the US soccer development academy when you had, there are, our country is too big for, and, and they're, you know, there are too few pro youth academies for a country this big for them not to rely on the amateur youth clubs to be part of their league. Right. So, what that means is you have these amateur clubs part of MLS next and they have huge expenses. Um, it's hard for them to compete in that league and to keep up with, uh, you know, these, you know, hugely funded MLS teams, um, how good is that for the majority of the players and parents who are, you know, playing in that is a tough question. Now, you'll have a lot of, uh, players who go to the MLS next teams from these other clubs, you know, early on, like, at, you know, 12 or 14, they might not, you know, someone stays, um, don't, um, you know, it's a matter of when they funnel in there, but it's a, that's a, that's a real tricky one. And the irony of it is that before the US soccer development academy folded, uh, right when COVID hit, the MLS clubs weren't really happy with it and the federation was already sort of appeasing them by having them play each other more than the playing the other teams and stuff. Everybody thought that, okay, they're going to just do their own thing. And then overnight, MLS says, okay, we'll come in and take and do what the development academy is, um, and, and I think that a lot of the things and their approach has been, you know, admirable and stuff, but you're still talking about these huge numbers of clubs and parents that are paying so much money, you know, to, to be there and, and to basically be there to, because MLS, you know, needs in there. Um, well, yeah, what, what were they upset about with the DA? Was it because, like, Pada Doris was beating the Galaxy team sometimes and, uh, the solar and Dallas were beating the Dallas teams? Was that, because I feel like the MLS teams were not just, like, rolling over everybody, um, yeah, there was, there were a lot of teams, what, they, especially at the old age, I mean, I, I don't think they, they, they, they're, they wanted to make sure that every game they played was against really, you know, strong team now. You brought up Texas and L.A., which would have been, you know, different, more likely, perhaps for the non, uh, soccer's FC in Chicago, it seemed like they did pretty well, but yeah, I guess it is. I think it was basically because they wanted to, they didn't, you know, they, they, they, they wanted to just make sure they dictate exactly who they play. They are also a lot of complications on outside play, this and that. And, um, you know, I would give the Federation credit for launching the DA, because I think it was very important, um, and, and did sort of a purpose and then it kind of veered away from, you know, it got too structured, got too scripted and, um, you know, there's so many issues in American soccer and like, the one that I think is when you talk about the DA and, uh, in MLS next, I don't know, is that they were so restrictive on like things like outside play, well, you know, we both probably know players, there's so many, you know, you look at national team players and stuff and what they would do to play you soccer on a Saturday, they go play an adult league on a Sunday, right? Um, you know, a lot of kids that would play a good class like Clint Dempsey, um, but you would get in trouble for doing that. MLS net, it'll be interesting to see how things unfold with, with MLS next. For now, nothing's going to change there. But the one thing you keep hearing, um, is that they want to be part of the solution. That's the phrase every, and I do think there's some truth to that, you know, you know, Alec Curtis at MLS is, is very, is very, uh, concerned about accessibility, um, you know, so I think that, uh, I think there's sincerity and all this talk about everybody being at the same table and looking for the solution, um, but it, but we still don't know whether, you know, how far this is going to go when so much money is involved. I was calling around this morning just to try to, try to give myself some co-hooks, you know, to hang the conversation on stuff that I really understood. And, um, the, I mean, one thing I came up with is it seems like, and I obviously, I'm going to ask you about it, but, um, it seems like Georgia is one of the few state where I live. It's one of the few states where the ODP is still, the Olympic development program is still kind of an important thing. Anyway, Georgia takes that seriously. I don't know that every state does. ODP is a US-YS day, right? So is there, and, and just for the listener, the, I guess one of the arguments for the Olympic development program as an alternative to like, you know, traveling across the country for a U-12 championship is that it is much more democratic. Ideally, I, maybe it's not always how it worked out, but it's democratic in that if the ODP is run well by the state association, it is finding talent everywhere in the state and elevating that talent, whether that kid is playing for an expensive club or not. And not, I, obviously, it doesn't always work out that way, but that is the idea. And I wonder if, um, if, I know you, you brought up Olympic development program in your article, which I will link to in the show notes, but I wonder if you think that's an important part of this. Like, it may be the return of the ODP as a sort of a major force in development or something like it. I think what's going to happen is the, you know, so what's going, what's happening right now is the federation is going to every single state association, because they're going to turn those into US soccer offices. Um, and I think it's, and wait, wait, so the, so the state associations are US-YS. The state associations are 54, autonomous, uh, state associations that are, that are part of US-YS, but they are directly, uh, sanctioned by US soccer. So, okay. This thing actually hasn't been finished yet. All they did was vote on that the federation can go now and go to each one and say, hey, can we be your office from now on? Um, chances are that they all, most of them are all going to say yes, because the vote was 99 to 1. Um, so they could go to Georgia and see what you see and say, okay, this is valuable. We're, we're going to, you know, our talent ID department is going to work with you guys. We, we like this, because, you know, this, this is working well. Um, there might be another state where ODP has been handed off to some private company, and they're just getting the kids that don't go that, that didn't get invited to, um, you know, uh, US, US soccer, I mean, I'm sorry, uh, US soccer, sort of, uh, pathway thing. And they'll say, well, you know, that ODP's not that really, doesn't seem to be that important here. Then you've got US club has its own ID, uh, you know, PDP, I think they call it, um, so I think they're going to, um, you know, integrate. That's a big word in this, everything that's going on and trying to get it in there. So in the best case scenario, you're going to have, I mean, I, I give the US soccer credit for how they built their talent ID, um, you know, the Tony LePore has been there forever. I think he does a very good job. Now, our country's giant, and they've, you know, they don't, they have way more scouts, a proteam scouts and full-time scouts than they ever had, but it's still, you know, probably fewer than, you know, per capita. It's, it's nothing if you compare it to Spain or somewhere. Sean, but if they combine that with everything you have locally, um, then that would be a big improvement. And, you know, you have all these organizations will, will, you know, we'll say that, like, you know, we'll say, you know, they're not scouting our kids. How can it be that it's only on less next kids, you know, um, and so they get a sense that only, you know, and you don't know, is that you, the US soccer needs to ensure that they're scouting everybody, no matter what, what badge they're playing under, um, one, because you want to see every kid and two, you don't want organizations to think that you're not even looking at kids. By being linked closer locally, having more US soccer, having these offices actually be US soccer offices in every state, theoretically, would mean that, that, that, you know, the scouting department would also be involved at that, at the state level. Um, and back to the Georgia example, okay, this ODP thing's pretty, it's good here, it's valuable. Let's keep this the way it is and integrate it into what we do. Um, I think that's kind of what the way they're looking at it. Okay, so it's not like that it becomes a, an alternate like the model that destroys the US club system. Um, because isn't that the idea of the US club system is your kids need this showcase so that they can get noticed, whether that's by a national team scouts or by college coaches, and if you had, if you had a robust ODP system, and I understand that the ODP system was definitely not perfect, and it had a lot of problems as time went on. But if we had a robust ODP system across the country where the best 16 players in an age group in a state are chosen to play together against other states, and then the best teams from that region are put together and then you kind of just have a very obvious funnel up to the national team. Yeah, I mean, the regionalization, I think, is the best solution there would be, I mean, if I were, and I think US soccer is looking at to some extent where you have, you know, you focus on the regional area up until a certain age, and then you start looking at it, it's kind of, you know, now we have a U15 national team, how in the world do we know it with the top 20 U15 players are, right? But if you had, you know, a US map, yeah, U15 teams regionally, and you know, instead of flying them all over, you let them develop until then, and then you start doing that. So whatever it's, what is called ODP or something else, but, but what you meant, but the way you described ODP, I think it's important is that, you know, in some places, it weren't, some other places that basically became, you know, pretty irrelevant, but it depended very much on the area who was running it, the geographic area, you know, where it was, right? Like, if you didn't have, you know, when you have two pro teams in the LA area, you're, you've got more people looking for the talent, right? And so, but you also brought up showcases, I think, when the word showcase, I think more of college coaches, right? Yeah, and then we'll just back to the travel thing. People like travel. I mean, I don't think the college coaches mind getting free trips to San Diego or somewhere to scout players. The youth coaches love it, right? You get free trips all over the country. And coaches and players, and parents like it, just, you know, some extent, it's just that it doesn't have to be the way it is, you know, there's just too much, the resources are, you know, are misguided in so many ways. Okay, well, what do you think? I mean, we've talked a lot about the elite pathway. What do you think the implications of this are for grassroots soccer? Like, you six to you ten? So, the example I use sometimes is that about a few years ago, I went to referee under seven game. It was under, it was like under seven slash eight. I was, I was recovering from a hip replacement. So I wanted to start repping in on a small field. So I get there and I see these kids warming up. And I remember the, you know, the player, the game card saying comp. But I watched them play and I go, I get, I must be wrong. It's has to be like, you know, wreck or something. These kids, you know, they couldn't kick the ball accurately, whatever. So I double check it because, you know, there's different rules for wreck and comp. And sure enough, it was comp. And then when I get closer, they're wearing like English Premier League jerseys. They're, they weren't, you know, $200 jerseys. They could barely kick the ball. They're calling it comp. And I'm like, this is crazy, right? Why are they paying so much money? Why do they need a ref? Why do they pay me? They don't need a ref. It's like, this is crazy. Now, in this new model where US soccer is involved at the grassroots level, what I'm hoping and what I think they're imagining is that those parents that signed their kids up for this comp thing, with these expensive uniforms and even travel, not major travel, but, you know, I've left under 10 games where a team traveled an hour on Saturday morning, which I think is even, that's unnecessary for nine-year-olds, in most cases. In this new model, you're about to sign up your kid and there's still an organization that wants to have their under seven under eight comp team. So they're coming up to you and they're saying, you should play with us. We got these British coaches and these EPL jerseys and, you know, blah, blah, blah. But because US soccer is, you know, has a gravitas and is in there, they've got what they're going to have with these guidelines and they're going to, you know, send the message going, your kid is seven. And this is what a seven-year-old should be doing. And here's what we're going to be doing. And the parents are going to understand that. And they say, okay, well, we're not going to pay all that money. And the people that run the national teams are telling us, this is better than that. Then that could work, right? Because how would the mechanism of that work? Well, there would be somebody from US Soccer there or well, yeah, like the US Soccer is running the offices now. Yeah. So within the community, they can send the message of the basics of what US Soccer should be at certain ages. And parents right now, if three, if two organizations are courting you, how would a parent know which one is, which one you can trust, right? Now, see, but if it's a one that says, you know, this is the organization that runs a women's Olympic team that won the gold medal, I think I'm going to trust them. So that could possibly work, right? And they have, you know, and they'll have, you know, by by absorbing US youth, they're there with the numbers. So, you know, that could make a difference. Just a quick story on that. I had a, I took my daughter to a tryout at a club I will not name last spring, just for fun. She's nine. And she did fine. She did well, I think. And I didn't have any, I had no intention of signing her up. But at the end of the tryout, the coach gathered the parents and coaches. And he said, I remember this very clearly, he said, I don't believe in cuts. If you want to play, we'll find a team for you. And I was like, I mean, he actually, the guy did an incredible job running the session. It was excellent. But I was like, ah, man, that is, I guess if you want to pay, you can be on this club, you know, basically. That's why you have the 18B team, C team, D team, D team, right? But I didn't think I was going to have five teams, they have one. So yeah, you can be, you know, I remember years ago talking to Maddie Shelfside, you know, the New Jersey coaching legend about this industry. This is decades ago. And he was saying, you know, at registration day, if you go there with a club and you make your club twice as expensive as the other club, they're going to come to you. You think I think the more expensive one is going to be the better one, right? So if you have a soccer federation saying, no, you don't need to pay this money at this age for your kid. You don't have to worry. If your kid has a potential to be a fantastic college player, they don't have to pay that money right now. Well, then how to, so one thing people will ask is then how do you ensure that the coaching, if you don't pay, if they're not paying money, then how do you pay the coaches? And if you can't pay the coaches, how do you ensure that you get good coaches? Well, I mean, I think that's a whole other issue, but I think as those early ages, I think you need less coaching, you know, I think that there's a lot of talks, you know, a lot of talk about coaching, you know, good coaches and all that. But just let them play, let them play small things. Yeah, the early ages, I don't think that, I think, you know, I think overcoaching is a much bigger problem than bad coaching, about bad coaching to use overcoaching. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think it matters more. If you look at the guide, if you, you know, but the thing is, but the thing is, Mike, yeah, I think I totally agree with that, but the thing is, you're going to get volunteer coaches who don't know the game, who are also overcoaching. And that, I would say, yeah. No, I mean, the federation grassroots, you know, they did something a few years ago that I did that I did that I advocated for a long time ago, which is when kids show up to practice, you start by playing soccer, you know, you set up two goals and you haven't played instead of waiting for everybody to get their shoes on and everything, you show up, you start playing. So, you know, I think there's a good amount of that, you know, free play importance that is already that the, you know, you know, a soccer federation makes, you know, it's part of it. The, you know, the, the idea is to convince the parents that that's the right thing to do. So, you know, if you had the, you know, you could have had the best coaches in America coach, like under eight soccer, and they would let the kids play and the parents would show up and say, why are we paying these coaches? All they're doing is let the kids play. I want to go over the guy that's got all the cones and all the drills because I want to get my money's worth, right? So the federation sends the messages, no, this is how it works. Do you think Messi played a coach just telling him what to do all the time? He wouldn't be messy if he did. Yeah, you're right. What age, what age do you, what age do you start putting the cones out there? And, you know, what I would like, I would put a moratorium on cones for like a year. So yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, doing drills with little kids is just, you know, it's just awful. But, you know, the pay coaching thing is, I mean, I pay coaching thing is tricky because there's a lot of people that make living on it, right? And, and, and, um, um, the, you know, it's, it's, I think the federation can do a lot of good things. I think you can, at the lower levels, you can pretty easily tell, you know, teach coaches how to run a good session. And then as they get older, then you, you know, but the licensing is a big issue too, because that, I mean, there's a federation, you know, they need to make sure that they don't do what they did before, which is, you know, require B licenses. Licenses are expensive. And, uh, back in the development academy days, you had to get a B license to coach like 13-year-olds. And, um, that made, that made it, that, if you had a B license, you could sell yourself on the market because everybody needed them to compete, right? They need to be less about things like that costing money. And, um, you know, just ensuring that so in the perfect world, they're going to have some down with the grassroots at their US, at their US soccer office, state office going around and going to clubs and saying, hey, you know, you don't have to do this with these kids, you know, you, here's the simple thing to do with these younger kids. And then as they get older, obviously, you know, you need a little bit more sophistication, but, you know, a lot of things just got way too complicated. It's, um, uh, C license, just to your point, I was looking at a C license recently because I just finished the D license, which was 500 bucks and two weekends away from my family. Um, then 48, you know, some 40 hours, I did enjoy it, but that I looking at the C license, $2,000. If I want to take a C license class, I'm like $2,000. Are you kidding me? I'm not going to take that anytime soon. What's the point, you know? Yeah, there's a lot of, you know, there's so many costs involved at so many levels, um, you know, coaching education is, you know, on my docket to see how that's going that, you know, that's always been a big issue and, um, you know, and it's a big department. Um, and like it, and like you said, the C license is, you know, um, maybe, you know, again, if you have a US soccer office in every state that you're medically, it should make those licenses less expensive because, um, you know, you can do things from a local, from a, from a local standpoint, um, you know, less travel for the coach, you have to do that. So, um, you know, I think there's a lot of promising possibilities in what they're doing right now. Um, and, um, you know, I will see how long this, we keep hearing, you know, everybody's at the table, uh, want to be part of the solution, um, and see if that's the sort of, you know, vibe that, that that keeps happening, but there's a lot of turf out there that people are still going to be protecting. Yeah. And so the devil will be in the details of how the federation exerts its influence in the states. Um, yeah, and who's doing it, right? So they just advertise for two, for two, for male and female, you know, directors, but, um, you know, do we have soccer people that really get our landscape, uh, at the federation who they say who go down there? Are they going to, are they going to find people that really do understand the grassroots? We have a male men's national team coach and, and staff that don't know anything about our new soccer. Pochitino and his staff, you know, they don't know how what our soccer's like. Um, we don't have a sporting director, which, uh, you know, like I said, they're, they're advertise for them. What I would like to see is you as soccer, not completely reinvent the wheel all the time. There are so many, you know, there's, you know, I, when I interview tabra almost, or Bob Bradley, um, they don't, they, they've not heard a word from the federation last time I talked to them, you know, I, I, I just worry about Norway and how they, uh, you know, how they got to be where they are. And one of the, one of the interesting things there was that they evolved to where they got. They didn't keep, you know, they, they kept national team coaches involved, former players involved. And, um, the United States has, has, has a lot of smart people who really get things. They, they should be involved as well. Instead of having, you know, you have, hiring someone from abroad and saying, we want you to tell us how to play as ridiculous, right? So they have to make sure that, that, that, that they employ the people that really get, you know, our soccer. So, uh, hopefully they do that because, you know, rehiring Port Latino, uh, to not, to, so right now the men's national team is completely separate of everything else we do because, you know, there's no connection between Port Latino and, and everything else. They hired him to, to do well at the World Cup, which, in my opinion, he didn't, except for the exciting part of the, at the beginning of the tournament, that was wonderful. You'd be, and then you got, you know, got crushed in the most important game that he was paid $6 million a year to win. Um, we, we don't even have to go to the Balcon thing, which stained it, you would stain it in the, in the sad way. Um, so how are they going to have this system that feeds into the national team? You know, who, who's going to guide that, you know, are they going to come in and hire someone from Belgium again or Holland again and tell us how to do stuff? We need to evolve, you know, from what we've already done. Yeah. And just trying to make that better and better instead of, um, you know, forgetting everything we did before and the people that did good stuff. And, um, you know, hire someone that, they, they're fascinated with because they used to coach in the Premier League or something. Right. No, that seems, it seems like Bob Bradley and Tavra almost would love to be involved, you know, like they're, it's, they're, they're both passionate about the subject and, yeah, they should be, they should be consulted regularly. I guess I just wonder, does it have to be the work that needs to be done, like to tell a parent, no, you don't have to pay $2,000 a year, $3,000 a year, you can just, your seven-year-old can just play 5v5, five aside games on this 40 by 30-yard field against other seven-year-olds in their, in your community. That work is very, it's not very glamorous, right? It just needs to kind of be, kind of going on behind the scenes and it needs to be, somebody needs to be faithfully committed to that work. Right. I mean, in perfect scenario, you'd have a national team coach that communicated something like that, you know, is that, right? So, you know, you could use, um, you know, you could use players, you could use, um, you know, people that have staff, you bring someone in from the women's national team, you want to go to the metal and they go and they talk to the parents and they, you know, there's a lot of potential the federation has with this, of convincing parents and stuff. And, and I would look to the, to who we've had involved in the past, whether that's former players, and then also people with the grassroots who've been around for a long time. You know, these, a lot of these clubs, you know, some of which are part of this industrial sports complex that, you know, we're unhappy with, but there's also very smart, very, you know, sincere people all over this country. And you as a soccer has to be able to connect, know who that is, um, and take advantage of all the things that we're doing well. Okay. All right. Well, we'll see. Won't we? Yeah. I mean, it, um, you know, it's going to take a little, they want to accomplish this in two years as far as, you know, all these offices becoming US soccer offices. Um, and then you're going to see how the other leagues, you know, react because we have four or five national championships, you know, everybody's state, state cups. And so I brought that up. Okay. What's going to happen? And they said they're working together to come up with a way where there's, you know, one, just one. Yeah. Right. It won. Um, now MLS next isn't going to say, oh, we're not, you know, we're, but, but there, there's some possibilities there. Now I don't think national championships, I would get rid of all of them except maybe you 19 and maybe I would even go lower because by then you're talking pros, right? So not too far lower, but have like a U 17, and Germany and France, I believe it's, uh, they have two, they have like a U 19 and U 16, right? You get rid of all national championships except maybe two age groups, right? It's just ridiculous. It doesn't make any sense. Yeah. It's a waste of time to travel, to do all that travel. And then, and now how many people can say their national championships at, you know, there's, there's, there's, there's tons of them that can claim their national champions because they, they did it in other, other areas. And, um, and the same goes for state cups and things like that, you know, I, uh, you know, I, I, I want to stay cup with my like U 13's in California. It wasn't, we weren't the state champions because we were like the third tier thing. And it was fantastic and everybody enjoyed it. We didn't have to travel too far. So that was sort of like a US club thing. They changed state cups from being a real elimination thing. So everybody could play a state cup. Now some of that is fun. It's not too damaging if you don't have to travel too far. But once you start getting to all these national championships and stuff, it's just a, it's just really not necessary. Um, but it'll be interesting to see whether they do combine, um, these competitions because if you have a club and parents and kids who can't play, you know, who, who, who aren't going to do well in this and some other organization comes up and say, hey, come to our state cup, you can play in our state cup, then, you know, they might do that. So you have to deemphasize that kind of, you know, that, that kind of thing. Yeah. Well, and I even notice like in, in my own town, there's so many in Chattanooga, there's so many different, and there's not that many different, but there's a few different like clubs. And why don't we all just, why doesn't everybody just play in the same league? I don't get it. Like, no, no, that's, that's a good point. When I first started coaching in Oakland, there were three, three different clubs. And, uh, wait, wait, what do you mean three clubs? There'd be kids from the same elementary school. You take a, in the same class who played for three different clubs. And they were competing with each other. The clubs were like, you know, I've got, and there, there is some of that, you know, I think that's like a great point. Why are clubs in the same city, you know, competing in leagues and all that competing against each other? Well, they're all going different places on the weekend. Like, one's going to Atlanta, one's going to Knoxville, one's going to Nashville, one's going to Birmingham. And then, like, you know, they're all pretty good. Why not? They just play locally. No, yeah. And that's what, and they need to emphasize that, you know, a federation, use that stay local as long as possible. Yeah. It's, that's a great point. That's exactly what it should be. It shouldn't be, you know, people going in all these different directions. All right. Well, we better, we better wrap it up. I appreciate your help a lot, Mike. It's a, it's a thorny subject and a difficult one to sort of way through. So thank you very much. Thanks everybody for listening. We'll see you.