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Lobbing Scorchers: Seattle Sounders Technical Director Shares Development Secrets
337 Plays6 days ago
Seattle Sounders Technical Director Henry Brauner talks development and his role in the Seattle Sounders Organization.
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Lobbing Scorchers is a production of Just Once Media.
Lobbing Scorchers is a Seattle Sounders and MLS focused show brought to you by Sounder at Heart. Hosted by Major League Soccer's Ari Liljenwall and Producer Noah Riffe. Join us as we lob our scorching takes on the American soccer landscape, Seattle Sounders, Major League Soccer, USMNT and more.
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:00:00
Speaker
Well sir, we got a scorcher today. Gonna be a real scorcher today. Quite the scorcher today. Well it's gonna be scorcher.
00:00:21
Speaker
Very excited to be joined by our next guest. Folks, this is big time. We have Seattle Sounders technical director, Henry Bronner joining the show right now.
00:00:33
Speaker
Henry, thank you so much for taking the time to ah to join this live show out here at Starfire with us. How are you doing? I'm doing well. That was quite the introduction. So thank you. I mean, I really appreciate that. I mean, superhero, soccer wizard. What else should we add on? Whatever you call it. It's already started pretty well.
Youth Development and Technical Direction
00:00:53
Speaker
but and Henry, really excited to catch up with you about, uh, about the sounders, but also i kind of want to make this the theme of this conversation youth development because that's what ah Tacoma Defiance and MLS Next Pro are all about. And that's what you have a long background in with this organization.
00:01:10
Speaker
ah we've We've talked a couple of times in interviews for stories about some of the the young up and coming players that have broken through to the first team in in recent years.
00:01:21
Speaker
ah But I guess to to start off, How is your role ah kind of changed and what have you had to adapt to going from being, a correct me if I got this title wrong, but a vice president of player development? Yes. So going from that to a technical director, what's that been like for you? What is the what are the changes in your day-to-day as far as that goes? um I think always, again, like the ethos of the club and the identity of the club and where we are as as a club, the Sounders right now, I think ah ah ah massive importance gets placed on the youth and our ability to develop our own. So there wasn't, I wouldn't say there was much of ah necessarily like a change from from titles to different things, but it was more of just making sure that we can align everybody from our oldest player to our youngest player, you know? And so that goes from our first team player all the way down to our 13-year-old in STP.
00:02:14
Speaker
I think the change more or less resulted in, you know, just needing to support maybe a little bit more with scouting within um Tacoma in the first team and couple other responsibilities there.
00:02:26
Speaker
The club has helped helped me grow just like they help a lot of the players grow. So um massive part of my responsibility, though, and the most important part of I think my responsibility will will always be having an eye onto the development side of the club. And, you know, again, it's in really good hands right now with with Wade Webber, as the director of development. He's overseeing everything from Tacoma Defiance down. And then we also have Craig Dalrymple, who's our head of professional player development. You have Brayton, you have the academy coaches, you have all the people in that space, H and Michael doing the work day to day on the field. So I guess to make it short and quick,
00:03:02
Speaker
I guess i I still smell the grass a little bit every day, but i smell it a little bit less now with the roll. And so I just try to support all the departments as as best I can.
Player Development and Club Philosophy
00:03:12
Speaker
What's it been like for you, I guess, in the last couple years in particular, it feels like the, a lot of the fruits of the labor that, uh, you put in are being realized with guys like Obed Vargas breaking through and, uh, generating all kinds of transfer buzz. I mean, we got takes on how much the fee should be. No, it's at 45 at one point. I've been saying 20 or, or hang up the phone, you know, and it all sounds great, but, uh, you know, it's not just Obed, you know, you've had, uh, Josh Tensa Josh Tenseo RBW um just then got guys like Snyder Brunel coming up as well.
00:03:49
Speaker
ah Does it feel like kind of the culmination of just all the hours that you put in scouting these kids up finding them developing them and now they're actually breaking through to the first team they're contributing to the first team and like generating transfer buzz, getting traded for pretty large sums within the league and attention. Case.
00:04:10
Speaker
Um, what's that kind of feeling like for you to see that? I think. Again, i support a lot of the spaces. um The people that are in those spaces are the ones that are driving everything that you're seeing. um But I think where we are right now in regards to, let me put it this way. You can have your Obed Vargas's, you can have your Josh Atencio's, you can have your Danny Levis, you can have your Reed Baker Whiting's.
00:04:37
Speaker
But if they're not surrounded by the right people in the right environment, it they won't ever reach that potential that we see or we hope that they can. And I think a massive amount of credit goes to the people that are working in that space day in and day out that are on the field every single day with these players. And and those are the people that ultimately need to be the ones that are celebrated because those are the ones that have taken these players dreams and like they're making them a reality you know like Obed coming in from Alaska and Danny Leyva coming in from Vegas and you know obviously our local homegrowns as well having that ability to play with our first team and showcase their talents in front of their peers in their community like that's an incredible opportunity for them and an incredible I think honor I think is the best way to put it but
00:05:21
Speaker
For me, the reality is, you know, the Obeds, the Dannys, the Atencios, you know, all the ones coming through, Schneider, Burnell, Seba, all these guys in the second team, Stuart Hawkins, again, like, they are going to be wonderful soccer players. We are just fortunate to be able to kind of surround them with the right people. And because we've surrounded them with the right people in the right environment, I think that is what you're seeing come to fruition.
00:05:44
Speaker
All the numbers and all that stuff, that's great. That's the gravy, right? That's cool. But, yeah. again the people that are doing the work every single day on the field that's those are the ones that really get to deserve the credit what's what makes seattle so different than a lot of other places because i feel like we've talked about this so much that the identity of the sounders they're so easy to root for because you know you you get to follow these stories through the levels whether like for us we love paul rothrock right like a guy who you know comes works works his ass off it
00:06:18
Speaker
you know, defiance finds his moment. You know, he was he was telling me when we were talking that, you know, he was like ready to pitch himself as a as a wing back if he needed and like all of this, whatever he needed to do, you know, what what makes Seattle different than, you know, some of these other MLS clubs in those aspects? Yeah, I think we When we look at, okay, signing a player, and this is this is true for all the clubs maybe in the country or maybe even the world, you know, like usually you're a talented young player with a lot of potential, you're going to get like your first contract. that's that's you Your first contract is based on your potential and your talent. So if you're a talented young player in the United States at an MLS Academy, more or less, you're going to have the opportunity to probably go into a professional pathway.
00:06:59
Speaker
Now, well, I think what makes us different is that we value the character of that player just as much as we value the talent. And if at any point that character drops below the level of talent that we are projecting in that player, then we have to make a decision about this might not be the right space for them right now, or maybe in the future we can bring them back. But I think we have a pretty clear saying, you know, within the development side and and Wade Webber going through his pro course, you know, kind of came up with our values and everything that we believe in is the first most important thing is that we support people, you know, and that's whether that's coaches or players.
00:07:31
Speaker
But the second thing we always try to abide by is that When your best players are your best people, then you have something unique. And I think we have that in your Obeds, in your Atencios, in your Leivas, in your Reeds, in your Cody Bakers, in your Paul Rothrocks.
00:07:47
Speaker
They embody that value and they embody that, I guess, cliche or saying that we have, but it's very true for us that they have to be an incredible human being first and then they can be an incredible soccer player second.
00:07:59
Speaker
And if we can get that right, then we're going to have people that support us. We're going to have fans that share for us. And we're going to have people that want to put some wild numbers out there for some of them. Yeah, I mean, that really shows, though. And, you know, you look at the people who I mean, Jordan, for example, right? Like, I mean, we've had the honor of talking with him many times and it's like his character yeah is just such that like he is a sound like he's he's the type of player where you're like, you are a
Recruitment and Player Projection
00:08:25
Speaker
sounder, right? Like, so that's that's so cool to hear that, like,
00:08:29
Speaker
You can be talented, but if you don't have the character for it, you know, it's in the way it breaks down at the professional level is again, the talented ones, they they will get their first contract, whether that's a second team deal, pro pathway deal, a homegrown contract.
00:08:43
Speaker
But then by the time maybe 2021 comes around there's no second contract no third contract like we want to make sure that the players that are coming through our system and our development side they're going to be hopefully playing into their early 30s mid 30s and and that's important to us we want to we want them to make a career of it but the only way they make a career of it is by having the right character by having the right personality and being the right type of human being first and then the obviously the soccer comes second so When you're doing a character evaluation on a player that you're looking at, what are kind of those things that you're looking for where you talk to a kid and you think and you think to yourself, all right, this this is what we're looking for. This could be a sounder.
00:09:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think, and again, we have a... pretty clear document when we're in regards to when we're bringing in players at a younger age, the secret sauce, the secret sauce, the it's like our key qualities is what we call them. And so our head of recruitment, David Lara, you know, he has a very clear knowledge base of like, these are the positional traits and behaviors that we want to see in young players. And a big part of that is the autonomy, you know, so we have autonomy, cohesion and execution. So those are the overlying kind of ideas and concepts that we want to see in a young player and each of those pillars, then you see behavioral traits. So from the autonomy perspective, we want to see players that have a growth mindset. So their ability to take on information and then execute the information that they're given that clearly shows that they have a growth mindset. They want to be coached. They're they're coachable, I guess. Yeah. term To talk about it.
00:10:12
Speaker
um their ability to take control of their own development, their ability to work on things outside of the training session, outside of our environment. You know, we look at all these things when they're in the classroom with Diane Carney, our head of education for the academy.
00:10:27
Speaker
We look at their academic, you know, how they're doing there. They can't just exude excellence on the field. They have to exude that excellence everywhere else. And there's a clear, clear correlation between the players that have the highest GPAs and the players that are most talented.
00:10:41
Speaker
And those are the ones that usually make it the furthest because they're willing to do everything to the max of their potential. So that growth mindset, that ability to be coachable, that ability to take on information, even when it is extremely, extremely difficult and critical, and then how they process that and then turn that back into the next performance or training session. We can see it from week to week, month to month, but ultimately like that year to year progress we see, those are the ones that are taking the biggest strides, the quickest, best way to put it.
00:11:11
Speaker
ah Why don't we hit this question from ah from Chad here. We got a good one from ah from other Noah, not this Noah. ah Noah is wondering how does the coach and scouting staff contribute to the institutional memory of the Sounders organization in developing and polishing young players?
00:11:27
Speaker
Yeah, I think. Two things have to work very in sync and they have to be very symbiotic. That's our talent identification and our talent development. If we can get those two things working in tandem and working in a very clear parallel, then we're going to have success. Anytime we have you know and we we haven't had this but our talent idea and our talent development have always been so strong and the ability for those people that work in those spaces to continue finding the right player for the right environment there's a clear saying like you can't be the palm tree in minnesota like we find the right players that are going to fit this place here and we make sure that we bring them in so that we can develop them um and then in terms of like the institutional memory or of the histrionics of everything i think we've seen a lot of players this
00:12:14
Speaker
our development staff have seen a lot of players come through. So now we've seen your Danny Laivas, your Jordan Morris, you've seen, you know, Obed coming through. So now we've seen them from age 14 all the way through now to 23, 24, like a Jackson Reagan.
00:12:29
Speaker
And so now there's clear parallels as to, okay, they were doing these things. that they did at a younger age. So if we look at, say, Stuart Hawkins, which you'll see tonight in the game, and we look at Jackson Reagan, okay, what are Stuart's starting points in comparison to where Jackson was when he was that same edge? Is Stuart ahead of him? Is he behind him? Do we need to catch him up?
00:12:47
Speaker
Because now it's clear we have a you know very good first team starting center back in Jackson Reagan. And we believe that, Stuart, if we're doing the right things and evolving every year, we can create a better version of that. And then the next generation coming through, create a better version of that. So you probably saw Gallatin Sandus.
00:13:02
Speaker
You've seen some other of the young center backs coming through. so we're always trying to kind of evolve the process and evolve the methodology and the pedagogy and the system that we're trying to create so that we keep creating a little bit better generationally each time we go because I think the demands of the game are only gonna increase. So we gotta make sure that we're staying ahead of the curve in that sense.
00:13:21
Speaker
And the last part of that is like when we're polishing the young player, We have to look ahead. So let's say we look at Omar Hassan right now. now we we have We had we had it ask my next question were intrigued so we have Omar Hassan, right? So, you know, when he was, you know, coming through up to 24 months ago, we're trying to already project, OK, when Omar is entering professional soccer, which is probably two years down the road or when he's maybe entering the first team, which is maybe like three to four years down the road.
00:13:50
Speaker
What is the game going to look like at that point? Because the game is ever evolving, you know, so we're trying to not just look at a player that's 14 and project, oh, he's going to be a good player at 15. We're going to try to project that player as to how do we make him the best version of himself at 18 through 21 in that formative years when he's first entering professional soccer at the first team level.
00:14:10
Speaker
And then we can then um hopefully project and give him the right pathway moving forward from that point. That's a great segue into what was going to be my next question anyway. I wanted to ah ask a a couple player centric questions, but Omar Hassan, we both pay pretty close attention to who the next young up and coming players are who could break through the first team.
Promising Player Highlights
00:14:32
Speaker
And this is a name. Henry that I keep hearing over and over and over I admittedly have not watched a ton of him myself to know where all this buzz is coming from but from what I'm gathering is this is one of the most Kind of just like electric attacking young players that you guys have had coming up in quite some time.
00:14:55
Speaker
ah How did you find this kid? And then what can you tell us in the audience about why he he's getting a lot of national attention right now? He's scoring crazy goals.
00:15:06
Speaker
um Just what's the what is his story and what are your hopes for his future prospects? Yeah, so Omar came through STP. He was playing at Seattle United. um He came through younger discovery program into the academy full time couple of years ago.
00:15:23
Speaker
What's interesting and exciting about Omar is we've had this ability to kind of always produce your holding midfielders, line to line midfielders, you know, every now and then we've had couple wingers, but more like a pocket winger players that like to come inside, combine obviously center backs and outside backs. We've had a lot of success in producing that player through the academy and through the development side.
00:15:47
Speaker
Omar kind of breaks that mold and that he is a, for lack of a better term, he a exciting dynamic winger that, you know, he gets a lot of international call ups by the United States national team. He's been in every youth national team camp since, uh, think he was with us full time. You 14, you 15, um, he's headed to, I think his, well, he was just in England at the UEFA friendship tournament where he got the player of the tournament. He scored, I think five goals in, i think four games, two against England. um just he's He's had a wonderful kind of meteoric type rise um since being here full time and he's handled a lot of those pressures very well. That's I think what also makes him unique.
00:16:30
Speaker
A lot of the social media attention that the young players get, a lot of those things sometimes can be a little bit of a distraction, but he's a very grounded kid and thanks to his parents as well. um But for us, Omar is exciting because you can see it's very clear what type of positional profiles we like to have within the first team. you know And if we look to a Georgie Monungu, who's come through our development side, has those same acceleration qualities, has those same 1v1 qualities in wide areas.
00:16:58
Speaker
Now we have the next kind of younger version coming through in Omar. So... We're excited to kind of have ah player like Omar who's going to get a lot of opportunities at the international level with the youth national team.
00:17:09
Speaker
And again, he's assigned player to the club. His family is fully supportive. The club is fully supportive. And he's just one of those players that at any moment when he gets the ball, you know, you get a little bit more high in your seat. And it's exciting to watch.
00:17:25
Speaker
So yeah, we're really excited to ah watch his trajectory. because he's He's fun to watch. He's very entertaining player. um Why don't we ah hit ah that last one in chat right there and then Noah, you can bring us home sure and then we'll let you go, Henry. Absolutely. um This one is from AskBio.
Facility and Future Investments
00:17:43
Speaker
What's been the biggest change in development strategy since moving to the Longacres facility? is Something you are looking forward to given the opportunities that presents. Yeah, so I think for us, um we call them like contact hours. So we have x amount of contact hours with players every day. So they come to the...
00:18:07
Speaker
When we were here at Starfire, which is where we are now, they would come in they'd have their training session, they'd go to their online school. But from that point, kind of after that, they would then go back to their home environment, they go home, they finish up their school if they're going to a normal brick and mortar school.
00:18:24
Speaker
But now what Long Acres gives us the opportunity to do is we control their contact hours so much more. so from the time they're in with us in the morning some of the players have like their speed and strength development with our performance coaches they have their own gym in the development side of the club so they have their own space their own everything they have every available resource to become the best version and the best player that they can be there's no excuses anymore like not that there was necessarily I don't want to say excuses when they were here at Starfire, but they have everything they can want. They have every state-of-the-art machine. They have every state-of-the-art equipment from, you know, the gym, the squat machines, the all the stuff the performance staff just absolutely drools over. it They have it all.
00:19:08
Speaker
there. So our ability to now not only create an incredible soccer player, but also an incredible athlete comparative to that as well. And if we go back to for projecting players forward into the future game, what the game going to look like in the future.
00:19:21
Speaker
Well, it's only going to be faster. It's only going be more powerful. And if it's faster, and more powerful, there's only going to be less time for decision making on the ball. So our ability to harness and use all the resources that we have at Long Acres in a very confined private space. It's going to be pretty exciting. So we're excited to kind of see what that evolution looks like over the next couple of years. But we got everything we want. The players have everything they want. The staff have everything they want.
00:19:47
Speaker
Actually have their own locker room. That's nice. There you go. No, that's interesting. We got it all. I think people have been critical of like, oh, the Sounders are are investing in a and an old Boeing like you know facility. Like, what is that? I just go sign Messi 2.0.
00:20:04
Speaker
But I think that you bring up a really interesting point of like sometimes the investment in the long term future of the club is something like like lawmakers where it seems very clear that like this is going to have a direct impact on the outcomes of these players. Yeah, absolutely. I think again, like we are very dependent to produce our own and very dependent on our development side of the club to ensure that we're providing the right depth for our first team roster. And if the players are of the caliber and have the right trajectory and get the right opportunity,
00:20:36
Speaker
You can see what happens with your Obed Vargas' and your Jackson Reagans maybe a little bit down the line. um But again, like,
00:20:46
Speaker
It's an incredible moment, I think for us, you know, and Wade was talking about this probably a month ago where Josh Atencio, he made his move to Colorado. Yeah. And we've had a very high density of talent within those midfield positions.
00:21:01
Speaker
Um, and in the same day that Josh Atencio was starting a game for Colorado, you saw Obed starting a game for Seattle and Danny coming into the end of that
Player Career Pathways
00:21:10
Speaker
game. and then And then following week, you saw JP and Danny starting in the midfield against LAFC.
00:21:16
Speaker
Yeah. If Josh is still here, he's not starting that game or Danny's maybe not starting that game. And so now we have players that are fulfilling their next step in their journey and they're doing it at a new club. But I think they have that Sounders identity that will always carry through with them. And I think because we were able to give everything to Josh, we're now able to hopefully extend his career well into as far as he wants to keep going.
00:21:41
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's like such an exciting step for the club. You know, i think the the biggest probably like star on the hill was Yedlin, right? Like that was kind of the only person you could point to where a player who developed here didn't I don't I don't really know the whole story of his development, but.
00:21:57
Speaker
was technically in Seattle and playing soccer. Um, and now, you know, yeah, you're seeing really talented players go from being, you know, a fringe bench guy to he's, he's starting in matches and playing significant minutes and is a big part of that team. And it's important. And like, yeah that is that is that is amazing to be able to like, see that and experience that, uh, as, as a fan personally. Yeah. And it's a really good feeling for the development side of the club as well, because again, he maybe wasn't getting the necessary opportunities that he deserved. And that's okay because, you know, because there's such a high density of talent in those positions, yeah it's they have to fight for it. And now somebody values him more than they value other players on their team. And that's why they took him. And again, credit to um MLS for creating this internal transfer market, ability to use your funds differently. And again, we've been able to extend the career of Josh and hopefully extend the career of many others as they
00:22:54
Speaker
either transition more fully into our first team or they transition out of the club, maybe into, you know, a new club. But the one thing I guess I miss saying earlier was a massive part of my role when I first came to the club was getting players into the club. Yeah.
00:23:08
Speaker
And now like a big part of my role is like getting players, those same players now like the clubs. Yeah. It's an interesting dynamic, but um you were the pitch guy. You're like, let me sit down. We'll see.
00:23:20
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I'm going to bring it home here with ah what is your favorite Sounders moment or memory? Like just in general, could be working, could be just like physical experience with the club.
Memorable Moments and Future Insights
00:23:32
Speaker
Yeah, I.
00:23:35
Speaker
it's a tough one i know it's a tough one i don't know if you remember this but remember the goal danny scored from like 45 yards out the one that by the way it counted by the way in in our hearts in yes in our in our hearts it counts counted i still will die on the hill that that should have counted i just remember mikey morris texting me just like this is the loudest he's ever heard lumen ever up until that point, obviously, I'm sorry. con gascccc That was pretty loud too.
00:24:05
Speaker
But that moment when I think Danny was 16 at the time. Yeah. And if it wasn't for, I mean, very soft call. Justin Dillon kind of bumped into the. yeah and it But anyway, that moment kind of, I think showed not only the club, people at the club, but it showed that, well, we can create these moments from the development side of the club. And we were able to give a player that needed this environment like Danny. We didn't find Danny like Danny found us. He needed to find a place where he could harness his ability and his talent.
00:24:36
Speaker
and outside of like uh justin dylan stepping on the goalkeeper's foot you know he scored one of the most memorable goals at lumen that didn't count so right i don't know that was a cool moment i felt for everybody at the club just because of the belief everybody had in danny still have that same belief yeah and he's getting good minutes he he's been playing exactly he's been playing well i'm and i'm a big upside on danny leva he's uh he's he embodies that best player best people ethos that we truly believe i gotta to say yeah that's true that's a great shout like he dude in the locker room i've never seen someone so excited to see reporters and just like just ah like a legitimately danny leva is one of my favorite human beings like as a person he's such a good human being yeah we're again i'm excited and again on the development side we have to project players forward so much but
00:25:24
Speaker
You know, hopefully when Danny retires, uh, at the age of 38 and plays for a super long time, 20 more years, uh, excited to see what type coach he's going to become because oh yeah that's going to be interesting.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah. when When Brian retires, he can take over. Cause I think Brian's still got another 20, 30 years. So that's it. he He does. He sure does. So, All right, Henry, yeah I think we're just going to get you out of here on that. Thank you so much for the time. We really appreciate it.
00:25:52
Speaker
You're welcome on anytime. any yeah Anytime you want to come back on. I know our audience loved hearing from you. Appreciate the people in chat who who asked some questions. Sorry we didn't get to all of them, but ah that was fun little interactive aspect of it that I wasn't even expecting. so Thank you, guys Yeah, great stuff. Thank you so much for joining I appreciate it ah so much.
00:26:12
Speaker
We hope see you soon.