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Rory O’Neill: Inside the Matrix of American Youth Soccer
27 Plays17 hours ago
In this episode of The Unfolding Thought Podcast, Eric Pratum speaks with Rory O’Neill—emergency physician, coach, and creator of the Coach Rory Soccer YouTube channel (with more than 50,000 subscribers). Rory blends the discipline of medicine with the craft of player development, offering a rare dual perspective on learning, leadership, and what’s broken in U.S. youth soccer.
They discuss how early habits from baseball shaped Rory’s approach to medicine and coaching, why building from the back isn’t just a tactic but a philosophy of learning, and how systemic incentives—money, structure, and culture—are distorting development in the U.S. game.
From the economics of clubs to the myths of burnout and multi-sport participation, Rory unpacks what he calls “the matrix” of American soccer and why true progress may depend less on talent than on how—and why—we teach.
Topics Explored
- How baseball and discipline shaped Rory’s medical and coaching philosophies
- Why player development in the U.S. is structurally misaligned
- The hidden incentives driving youth clubs and closed-league systems
- What “promotion and relegation” actually mean for development
- Objective vs. subjective measures of progress in coaching
- The myth of burnout and the debate over single-sport specialization
- How cultural context (Argentina, Iceland, England) changes the meaning of “fun” and “work” in youth sports
- What it really means to “wake up and see the matrix” of American soccer
Links
- Rory O’Neill’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@CoachRorySoccer
- Rory’s club Keystone FC: https://www.keystonefc.com
- Rory’s corners video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EWg8v6PUp8
- Rory’s 3Four3 podcast appearances: https://343coaching.com/podcast/soccer-by-3four3/ep-344-rory-oneill-how-to-discern-well-coached-teams-from-the-rest/ & https://343coaching.com/podcast/soccer-by-3four3/ep-367-us-coaching-licenses-another-credentialism-scam-or-education/
- How UEFA is funded: https://www.uefa.com/running-competitions/financial-distribution/our-business-model/
- Rory’s video “The Do’s and Don’ts of Soccer Parenting”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLRkOW-v-ck
For more episodes: https://unfoldingthought.com
Questions or guest ideas: eric@inboundandagile.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Rory's Arrival
00:00:03
Speaker
Rory, thank you for joining me. I have really been looking forward to this. It might seem odd to you, but this was sort of a date on my calendar that I've been looking forward to for a few weeks now. So I suppose let's start with where does today's recording find you?
Life Transition: Family and Soccer Coaching
00:00:19
Speaker
That's an interesting question. um i know you don't know me personally, but I've actually been doing a lot of thought about this ah the last probably three to four months. So where where the podcast finds me today is in a bit of transition.
00:00:32
Speaker
So and I don't know if it's because I'm in my mid-40s, but I've been thinking a lot about you know when you're when you're younger, when I was in my one is you know my my focus was achievement, I think.
00:00:45
Speaker
um you know personal and Not personal, professional achievement. you know you You go through these these phases and that becomes like where you get your satisfaction and your joy. and now that I'm in you on my mid-40s, the professional things in my life don't really mean that much to me. So I'm actually i'm actually transitioning to a different job. um And then we we can get into that if you really want to. But the the crux of it is that I'm probably taking a position that that I'm dramatically overqualified for um to make my soccer schedule better.
00:01:19
Speaker
Which, um you know, like like the things that matter to me are my family and my kids and and these and the interactions with the soccer team. And I really don't have that same level of of interest in being, being you know, wherever you wherever you are in the organizational chart of, you know, you're your particular company. so um So that's where I am today. I don't know if that that helps you or not. Yeah.
00:01:43
Speaker
Can you tell me a little bit about your journey from wherever you want to start through medicine and then where coaching and soccer comes in?
Baseball Beginnings and Medical Career Shift
00:01:52
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, as I as i mentioned, when first started, I was a very driven teenager um and I, you know, was very much into baseball.
00:02:04
Speaker
I thought for sure I was going to be a professional baseball player. i i woke up at five in the morning every day for two or three years and and did things. And the reality of that was I was, ah I don't how familiar you are with baseball, but I was a right-handed pitcher and my fastball maxed out at about 84 miles an hour.
00:02:21
Speaker
And so if you know anything about baseball, your ceiling in that particular setting um is pretty set. I mean, i i was ah i was a fairly decent college pitcher. um I pitched initially at a community college.
00:02:35
Speaker
I got two years of college paid for, so I really can't complain. And then I did have some offers to go to D3 and D2 schools after that. But um at that point, the writing was sort of on the wall.
00:02:45
Speaker
And I had started to focus on what was I going to do with the rest of my life.
Medical School and Family Life
00:02:50
Speaker
And I volunteered at some hospitals, um made some friends who are who are working there. And I kind of thought, hey, maybe this is something I want to do.
00:02:58
Speaker
So i went to the University of Michigan, i got my undergrad degree, and then I went to Michigan State for for medical school. Uh, you know, that sort of took me, um, into my personal life. I met my wife in medical school.
00:03:12
Speaker
Um, she's a physician as well. And then we, we actually moved out to Pennsylvania where we are now, you know, in terms of the, the soccer sort of metamorphosis, I, I always loved soccer and, um, I never, I've never really played it to any high level, but it was more of um,
00:03:31
Speaker
you know When the World Cup would come around, I'd watch every game. would get really into it. And then things would sort of taper off. you know And then four years later, the World Cup would come again. And I think now as you know we get more access to the Premier League and you get more access to the Euros, um you know it's easier than it was in the 80s and the 90s when I grew up.
00:03:51
Speaker
So I got into coaching though, when my youngest son started.
Coaching Soccer: From Family to High-Level Teams
00:03:56
Speaker
So that would have been, gosh, you know, 12 or 13 years ago. And, um, anybody who goes through coaching journey, especially in soccer, you know you start very sort of new, you're not really sure what to do. You're kind of, you know, trying different things out.
00:04:14
Speaker
And then kind of as, as that progressed and as my, my son sort of moved on, I started to really enjoy it, coaching other teams. Um, I got, I got some licenses ah yeah I ended up coaching, uh, for the Philadelphia unions, um, youth program.
00:04:30
Speaker
So I got a lot of experiences in that regard. And, um, and that sort of just took me to where I am now, uh, which is, which is, you know, like I coached two pretty high level teams sort locally here in, in central Pennsylvania.
00:04:44
Speaker
Is it fair for me to assume that you picked up habits and behaviors from your what you learned in baseball that then have translated to life generally or your ability to perform at your job, at school, any number of other things?
Lessons from Baseball: Discipline and Perseverance
00:05:03
Speaker
No doubt. I think that baseball, I tell people this all the time, and I i ah was involved in residency education for a long time. I don't think I'd be a doctor if who wasn't for baseball. um You know, going back to me a little bit, you know, people, i think people always assume that if you're a physician, you're you're some incredibly intelligent person. and And I do think that I'm i'm a i' a smart person, but I had to study two or three times more than, i mean, I went to school with some absolutely brilliant people.
00:05:32
Speaker
Um, and, and there's no way I would have been able to sit in a coffee shop for 10 hours to get ready for an anatomy final. If I hadn't woken up at five o'clock in the morning to do baseball, you know, training, uh, to do, you know, physical activity to get ready for baseball. So, and I, you know, I tell, i do, I do a meeting, big meeting. I just did it, um, before the season, um, for, for my, my parents,
00:05:56
Speaker
And I always tell them, you know, we're but're really just getting them ready for life. You know, there's a lot of things that i'm I'm going to teach them that'll be related to us trying to win ah game or or play better. But at the end of the day, the lessons that I'm going to teach them, you know, wow i do coach a pretty high level team, but I don't know how many of them are going to be pros. and If any, it'd be very, very, very small.
00:06:19
Speaker
And maybe some of them will play in college. But, you know, the vast majority of them are are going to stop playing soccer at some point. um i do want I do want to go back to one thing that you said, if you don't mind. um So I get, you know, and I'm sure we'll talk about the YouTube channel at some point, but I can't believe that the spectrum of people who reach out to me, ah you know, I get people like like like you you you described who are, this is their first season coaching.
00:06:42
Speaker
They have almost no background in soccer whatsoever. ah they They don't even know the rules maybe. And then i was I was just in England, which we talked about before, and I played it. ah we we My team, we scrimmaged, had a friendly with this team from Manchester. And this is a team that's in the first division um of whatever league they play in Manchester. So it's they don't play like Manchester United's academy team, but it's like one step down. So it was a very high level team that we played.
00:07:10
Speaker
um So I get there and I introduce myself, hey, I'm Rory. And he goes, I know you. I'm like, what? He's like, I know you. He's like, we watch all your videos. This is a guy I never met in Manchester.
00:07:21
Speaker
You know, no idea. um i had one of the biggest moments of that YouTube page I've ever had was I had a Division I Big East college coach reach out to me.
00:07:33
Speaker
And I just... At that point, I mean, because again, like, I don't know, and it's kind of one of those things until you, until you actually do something, I guess you don't know, you you said the the product speaks for itself.
00:07:45
Speaker
um You don't know, you know, because part of it is, you know, you're, you're your coach kind of starting from, from nothing, which is what I started from. And you're trying to build this. portfolio of how you're going to train your teams and all that. And you don't know, like, how do you know what's good until a division one Big East college coach says, Hey, I mean, he literally said, Hey, can I reach out and pick your brain for an hour? And I was like, this guy's got like way more experience than I do. And he wants to pick my brain. So, um, I found that really, really crazy how, like from, you know,
00:08:15
Speaker
And, and some of the things that I do, I think are applicable to all levels. I mean, you don't have to have some incredibly um gifted team to do a four V one Rondo. I mean, you you can modify it.
00:08:29
Speaker
So, um but, but getting back to what you said before, i mean, there's, I would not have, I would not have had anywhere near the level of professional success if it wasn't for baseball. No way.
YouTube Channel and Social Media Recognition
00:08:39
Speaker
on the YouTube channel.
00:08:40
Speaker
I was thinking about this before we started recording. You might very well be aware of this already, or you know you could be coming to this realization now or soon. but So you have 50-something thousand subscribers on YouTube, if I recall correctly. And yeah I don't know what your metrics look like, and it probably really doesn't matter, except for the fact that there are probably times when you get challenged by other coaches or parents.
00:09:14
Speaker
And, you know, i hope that we will get into, are there objective measures for some of the things that you want players to do or you want teams to do that other people might challenge you on?
00:09:29
Speaker
But even before that, like if you're able to point to a video and say, hey, I don't know that everybody likes this, but, you know, I have a video on you know, attacking in the final third or whatever it is.
00:09:43
Speaker
And it has 50,000 views and, you know, 13,000 people have liked it on YouTube. Like that it sure appears to me that the things that I'm saying are popular, if not that they are proving to be, you know, well-received or, or well-executed.
Coaching Challenges and Parental Pressures
00:10:05
Speaker
in the real world. And now, in addition to that, I will, the ah the realization sort of piece. So back in the early days of social media, I was one of the top 10 most followed accounts on Twitter.
00:10:22
Speaker
And I would have people come up to me and say, you're just out in the middle of nowhere. ah Hey, I follow you on Twitter and the stuff you post is fascinating.
00:10:34
Speaker
And i was really just basically a kid. I mean, I was in my late twenties. I was going on Reddit, finding really just juvenile stuff and reposting it on Twitter.
00:10:44
Speaker
I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I just had a lot of free time and, i But people would come up to me and they they would have some sort of familiarity or appreciation for what I was doing. Now, what I was doing was quite different from what you're doing. But to go somewhere and have that sort of celebrity thing, even at the, you know, not A level, not B level, like D level celebrity level.
00:11:08
Speaker
is still quite an odd thing. But when you are doing something like I think you're doing, where you are providing some education or some guidance, you know, it's not purely entertainment, then i would hope that there is greater validation or a feeling of fulfillment than, you know, me posting some silly tweets, let's say.
00:11:31
Speaker
But I suspect you have, you've had that experience, right? People walk up to you you're like, who am I? i Yeah, the first time that happened was absolutely, i just couldn't believe it.
00:11:43
Speaker
I couldn't believe it. I told my wife and she was like, no, nobody came up to you. Nobody. i said Yeah. Like they came up to me and um it's gotten. yeah I mean, it almost like the more time goes on, the more it gets bigger and bigger. I mean,
00:11:57
Speaker
I had ah a local ah coach, not a local coach, had a club that was um ah we were playing against and he came up to me and he said, and this is a really big club in Maryland. And he said, we use all of your videos for our seven b seven stuff.
00:12:12
Speaker
I'm just like, mean, this is a massive, massive club in Baltimore. mean, it's like, really, he's my stuff. um You know, and and and now it's getting to the point where um ah not just getting recognized at tournaments.
00:12:25
Speaker
I was at a tournament in in the spring and um we played a really good team. And and that the teams that that that I play, and so I coach at, it's a club called Keystone FC in ah in central Pennsylvania.
00:12:37
Speaker
So we we um we we play in ah ah the top league in the eastern part of the country. So we're kind of like um a smaller fish in, like we have to play Philadelphia Union's top team, New York Red Bulls.
00:12:50
Speaker
ah You might have heard of SC Delco. So ah really, really big clubs. ah and And we we know we go toe-to-toe and whatever. But for some of these big clubs to be using my stuff was um was kind of eye-opening. And then i was at a tournament. We played this really big club from New York, not not the Red Bulls.
00:13:06
Speaker
But he was kind of like, and they beat us three, nothing. And they kind of controlled the game. And he, he was kind of, um he goes, Hey, I think I saw that on YouTube. Like kind of like giving me shit, so so which was nuts. um You know, like he, he knew me, but he he didn't say he knew me.
00:13:22
Speaker
It was just after they were like beating us up little He's Hey, I think I saw that on YouTube. I'm like, Oh my gosh. But it's getting to a point where I have to be careful because i mentioned the man, the Manchester ah coach knew what we were going to do on corners.
00:13:35
Speaker
He's like, oh, I saw your corner video. I know what you're doing. I'm like, oh my gosh. like It's getting too a big where maybe it's like even hurting my teams to a certain degree. you know but ah But at the end of the day, like even if they know what we're doing, like i mean i can I can change up the runs and do a bunch of stuff. and And I'd much rather, like if if i could tell you, if if anything that I'm doing on YouTube is actually like moving the needle forward ah for development in this country, I'm i'm all for it.
00:13:59
Speaker
I'm all for it. You talked about on the 343 podcast that it's hard to defend yeah some of your coaching choices. You know, like why is it best to build out from the back?
00:14:12
Speaker
And I forget exactly what you're saying, but I think the implication, if not the exact statement, was that, well, you'll have not just coaches, but I think in particular parents, maybe, who will say, why are you coaching like this? why are you having Why don't you just have the goalie drill the ball down the field?
00:14:32
Speaker
And then we'll be in their final third, right? and
00:14:38
Speaker
you know, I think that you were sort of affirmed in that, yeah, it is really difficult to defend that this is a best practice. And the differentiation that was made is well, in medicine, things are very empirical, right? Like you don't get to teach residents a certain procedure unless it has borne out, i don't know thousands of times to be, this is just generally the best way to do things.
00:15:05
Speaker
So when you went up against that coach and he said, you know, I saw it on YouTube or whatever, and he knew the plays, you change the play, you don't change the best practices, right?
00:15:16
Speaker
Yeah, and specifically ah so what you're speaking about with pattern choreography, you know that actually kind of transitions or or gets to a really interesting um point when it comes to teaching the game of soccer versus just just education in general, whether it be medical education or or or otherwise.
00:15:34
Speaker
um you know Pattern choreography, whether it be building on the back, whether it be throws, whether it be, you know, you can actually, i mean, choreograph how you're going to defend things. It's really just to give the basics of what you're going to do. So, you know, in pretty much every other form of education, that's what you do.
00:15:53
Speaker
You get building blocks, right? So if you're going to teach algebra, you have to start with multiplication and division and and stuff like that. um You know, thatness that isn't necessarily how a lot of coaches do it. um There's sort of this...
00:16:09
Speaker
This thought of let the kids play, let the game be the teacher, some of these other forms of of kind of just saying, know, the kids will figure it out. And and that couldn't be any any further from the truth in in my experience.
00:16:22
Speaker
um But getting to what, you know, you were talking about with, you know, objective measures and and parents, it it's been sort of a metamorphosis for me because, you know, when I started ah coaching, i was coaching more of a rec team, I would say.
00:16:38
Speaker
We had a couple of higher level players, but we went quickly from the wreck to travel. I'm sort of like your kids. And I don't think I know while our team was okay, I don't think necessarily that team in particular really needed to go to travel.
00:16:54
Speaker
um We did. And, and, and, you know, And the problem or or one of the issues with a team like that is oftentimes the parents are very uneducated when it comes to the game.
00:17:05
Speaker
So when you have an uneducated group of parents, it can be very difficult ah it's for and for a coach to say, well, this is why we're building out of the back and trying to go through our center backs.
00:17:17
Speaker
Because to your point, they don't see they don't see that way. What would be the value in that? Let's get the ball closer to the goal. Um, and I mean, I even had to have meetings where I was like, listen, you know, don't tell the kids to boot it or send it or, or, you know, these, these comments on the sidelines or not in the middle, not in the middle where i'm like, no, I, I want them to play the ball in the middle.
00:17:36
Speaker
Um, so, so that was really hard. Um, as my coaching journey sort of evolved, it became easier on a number of fronts. Um, when you coach a team And and this isn't you know this isn't everybody, but when you coach a team that's a little bit higher level, um a lot of times you either have parents who understand the game a little better, maybe have played in the past, or they've just, by osmosis, seen higher level team play.
00:18:03
Speaker
um But even on a team like the one, i you know when my ah my young this is my youngest son when he first started out. The more that we played and the more that they saw the team playing together and the success that we had, the more that they they would buy in.
Building Skills vs. Immediate Results
00:18:17
Speaker
um But it is it is tough because you you know if you're going to play like that, especially from a young age, you have to expect mistakes and you have to expect to lose games that maybe you wouldn't have lost or give up goals maybe you wouldn't have.
00:18:31
Speaker
um And again, do you have a group of parents who are seeing this is what we're trying to do, but we're trying to do it because in three years we want to play a certain way? um and that it's it's It's a challenge. And I think you mentioned it. Every single team um is is contextually different.
00:18:48
Speaker
So, you know, what is the group? What is the level? You know, what what are the the parents like? um You know, and and stuff like that. And I think actually when I was on the 3403 podcast with Gary, I mean, you really kind of compared it to you know, um the hard sciences, like science and math versus more of or of the, the the you know, softer, you know, studies, so to say, like things like psychology and philosophy and and things that maybe are a little bit harder to define.
00:19:14
Speaker
Um, but, you know, at the end of the day, my, you know, in terms of explaining things to parents, it, it always, it always is dependent upon, you know, what the relationship of the coaches with the parents from the start.
00:19:26
Speaker
When, uh, a mother coach or parent challenges me on why are you doing things like that? At the end of the day, I think it with a large enough data set, which a season or a year is a pretty big data set, you know, to say, coached the boys this way.
00:19:44
Speaker
mine is a boys team. And they executed or they didn't. If they didn't execute, maybe it's about my coaching. You know, maybe it's not about the pattern choreography or the fundamentals, but let's just say they followed my direction and it turned out that they improved.
00:20:03
Speaker
And I have a 12 player team and six of my players got selected by higher teams. I think that that's a pretty high success rate.
00:20:15
Speaker
And so now that parent, you've given me a year, I think that I can demonstrate that building out from the back or, you know, whatever else it is, is actually objectively better.
00:20:29
Speaker
But I think one of the places that we run into problems is, i wrote this down before we started recording. I don't know if you're familiar with the phrase, front I think it comes from golf, drive for show, putt for dough.
00:20:42
Speaker
But i think about that a lot because You know, i I do this less and less over time, but, you know, very early on, ah I was only watching the player with the ball.
00:20:56
Speaker
You know, I wasn't looking at off ball movement. I wasn't looking for assists or, you know, maybe I see a great stop, but I don't see the yeah on defense that is, but I don't see the players who were covering the potential assisting players on the opposing team. You know, all of the, everything else that's going on is not flashy.
00:21:17
Speaker
And so for an uneducated parent, you know, it's hard to notice those things. And if I can't have a long enough and generous enough conversation on both sides with you as a parent, then I have no chance of saying, well, let's just wait until the end of the season.
00:21:37
Speaker
Let's wait until the end of the year. I suppose if you'll permit me, I'll also throw in here that there's a lot of pressure from some parents to say, if we're paying the fees to travel, the club fees, whatever, then i don't want my kid to lose, or I don't want my kid sitting on the bench or whatever else. When maybe you're saying, I need your patience.
00:22:02
Speaker
You know, we're going to get there and maybe they're pushing for results right now.
Issues in U.S. Youth Soccer Development
00:22:08
Speaker
So it's say yeah, that that that's really interesting what you said about, you know, and and i don't I don't know, i know that your understanding a little bit of the game and the ecosystem maybe not be, that might be more of a ah beginner's level, let's say.
00:22:22
Speaker
But what you just described saying that it would be successful for you as a coach to have six of your players potentially be selected for a higher level team, um that that opens up a Pandora's box in my mind from when you were talking.
00:22:38
Speaker
So number one, most clubs in this country don't think like that at all. Um, most clubs don't want to lose players cause they're there. That would be losing customers and me losing money.
00:22:50
Speaker
Um, and what you're describing having, you know, having developed players and they move on, ah is, is kind of how almost every other ecosystem, uh, in the world works.
00:23:03
Speaker
And so, you know, again, I, it does this will open up a pandora's box of discussion here but um the system isn't really uh not isn't really it's not it's not set up to develop players and that's just the sad reality and that's at all levels that's at the rec level that's at you intermediate level it's even at academy levels you know where um you know the the problem becomes i mean there's There's so many ways this could go, but just just to just to give you a broad brush, um I think I've described this before on other podcasts, as you kind of have to wake up and find out you're in the matrix to go through something like this.
00:23:44
Speaker
But um in general, the main issue becomes there's no motivation for most of these clubs to develop a player. So this even goes back to the building out of the back thing.
00:23:55
Speaker
So if as a club you're building out of the back and you develop great players, there's no financial um motivation for that. There's no incentives. So if your club ah develops a bunch of great players, they one, can't move them on for any monetara monetary gain.
00:24:14
Speaker
But two, they couldn't even just keep them for their own first team because there is no first team. So there's no, the only clubs that have first teams are 30 clubs that play in MLS, but they're not fighting with anybody. So, so again, you don't have that um just pure motivation to make a player better.
00:24:33
Speaker
um Now there's, there's pockets of great coaches who are doing that. ah But at the end of the day, the entire system really hampers player development all the way down to what you're describing.
00:24:44
Speaker
let's say that I have a rec team that is really pretty talented and families get along well and all that. And I say, you know what? I think we could put together a club level team. we're yeah And let's imagine this fantasy scenario, which it does happen.
00:25:03
Speaker
It's just not all that common in, you know, bigger cities. I live outside of St. Louis, so it's a big soccer area. And, you know, we're going to put together a club team. Well,
00:25:15
Speaker
at some point, maybe we get a couple of teams and then we really need some administration. And if we are only playing one season, then, you know, how is it that we have enough fees, enough money to warrant employing the right person, paying the right person to do our administration our our league registration or whatever else. So I'm really kind of incentivized to get over some minimum hurdle where we can employ the right person.
00:25:48
Speaker
It's pretty simple. I go from one season to two seasons. And then maybe I do something else, like I add yet another team. Or I bring on players that maybe, you know, they're really going to struggle at the existing club level.
00:26:04
Speaker
But if every other club out there brings on another lower level developmental team, then they have people to play against. And, you know, like these immediate incentives, a slippery slope or however it is that we want to describe it, all seem to combine.
00:26:23
Speaker
to the, you know, what is it that the road to hell is paved with good intentions or whatever it is, right? Like you just love soccer. You just want the kids to have fun or whatever. But the, is it Marshall McLuhan or I can't remember who said, you know, first we define our systems and then our systems define us or something of that nature.
Global vs. U.S. Soccer Systems
00:26:42
Speaker
And like, what are we ultimately trying to accomplish here? And I'm going shut up here in a second, but I think one of the things that I heard you say is the incentives are different in other places. Your wife is, if I recall correctly, from Argentina. You've had some videos about that. and there there are systems, I don't know if it's Argentina, but other places where, for example, we are incentivized to develop a player because we can then kind of sell them to another place.
00:27:12
Speaker
And we can, you know, we have that revenue or any number of other things. but here it's that's not i'm not trying to say necessarily that we you know a parents clubs whatever have bad motivations just there's like a tragedy of the commons where the kids get sacrificed Yeah, so you're asking the right questions, no doubt.
00:27:34
Speaker
the The issue becomes how clubs generate revenue. And if you compare and contrast, let's just say, um you you could say Argentina, it's it's pretty much any country in the world that's not Australia or the United States.
00:27:50
Speaker
um yeah this is sort of a ah ah term that causes a lot of people's hair to go on fire, but it really boils down to what what they call promotion and relegation.
00:28:00
Speaker
And so what what you have is At the club level, um the way that a club in England, and you have to define, so the other the other the other piece of this is most other countries clearly define, you know, what we would call recreational versus academy, let's say, or a club.
00:28:21
Speaker
um With a large percentage of players playing rec, where they pay a very small fee. um i actually did some did some coaching in Iceland, as an aside. In Iceland, they give each family $300 per year, the government, to play some sport, some recreational sport.
00:28:41
Speaker
So a lot of them just use it on soccer. But um that's one piece. There's government subsidies that will fund clubs, um some local clubs. the The other pieces are um if you get into, again, what we would call maybe a club level or an academy level and And again, i want to be really careful because whenever, whenever you start talking about this, people think the highest levels. I think Manchester United's Academy.
00:29:07
Speaker
think of like a very small club that plays competitively. That's not a club you've ever heard of, you know? Um, they will have a first team. Now that first team might be amateur. It might be in the fifth division, the fourth division.
00:29:19
Speaker
i mean, I think most people are familiar with Wrexham because of the documentary ah with Ryan Reynolds and Rod McElhinney. ah That club was almost on the brink of becoming, they were in the very lowest division of professional soccer in England or in the UK.
00:29:35
Speaker
ah and And so if they would have gotten relegated, they would have gone to amateur. But the the point is that they're developing players for that first team. So that's number one. In terms of how revenue is different, the players can be sold other clubs.
00:29:52
Speaker
and There's something called training compensation and solidarity payments. So ah from the time a player is 12 to when they're 21, It is documented ah in in the FIFA database what club they were at.
00:30:05
Speaker
So um probably the the example most people know, least in this country, is Christian Pulisic. So Christian Pulisic played at actually a club very close to me, something called Pennsylvania Classics, PA Classics, for two years, I believe.
00:30:20
Speaker
So anytime over the course of his career, he's bought and sold. So he was bought by Chelsea for $70 million. dollars AC Milan bought him for 40. Anytime that happens, there is a percentage of that money. It's not a big percentage, but again, a percentage of $40 million dollars is a decent amount that that that should go to all the youth clubs he's ever been with.
00:30:41
Speaker
So, Dortmund, from the time he was 14 to 18 or 14 to 21 or wherever it was, will get a percentage of that sign-on bonus. And it goes on and on and on like that. um so So, you have that piece.
00:30:52
Speaker
You have government subsidies. You have first-team revenue. So, a club will have matches and they will have attendance and concessions and they will have advertisements for their first-team.
00:31:03
Speaker
So all of these things are just alternative revenue streams that fund youth clubs in other countries. And there's there's a lot of variety of how that that works. But in general, um i can speak at least to ah the UEFA, the European. um there was a There's a really good kind of statistics report. that Now at ah it's 2020.
00:31:24
Speaker
And it shows how youth clubs in UEFA and in Europe were funded. Parent payments were about 14% of that. So if you were to look at that in this country, I don't have actual data, but I got to believe it would be dramatically more.
00:31:41
Speaker
I mean, there there certainly are other forms of revenue that that you know United States clubs have, like maybe some... you know sponsorships and stuff like that. But the reasons the payments are so high is because and the why the focus would be on parents and maybe keeping them happy and maybe not worrying about youth development is because your your money and your income are coming from tuition, from parent payments.
00:32:02
Speaker
And, you know, the reality is in most other countries, um you know, we're ah in general, very rich country comparatively. most um Most other countries wouldn't be able to pay the amount of money that we have to pay for youth soccer or even travel.
00:32:16
Speaker
When I was in England, it was really funny. he but the The Manchester United coaches were really curious about how long we had to travel. He's like, how far do you guys have to travel for your matches? I'm like, ah you know, sometimes it's a couple hours. There's a couple of games where I have to have to go to Delaware. it could be a three hour drive. But, you know, we try to maybe meet in the middle sometimes. And and they were shocked. They were like, oh, that our parents would never, never tolerate that.
00:32:36
Speaker
Like the Manchester United parents wouldn't tolerate that. Really? They're like, no, they he's like, we will go. We'll go play Norwich. And it's like two hours away or three hours. And he's like, they they hate it. They they complain. don't like it. So it's um it's kind of interesting what what what would happen, but I know i know we're a bigger country and there's other other issues, but um just to just kind of wrap all this up, I know I'm kind of going in circles, but um the the system and how it's set up for a regular youth club, it just isn't there.
00:33:03
Speaker
ah In this country, there's no way for ah club outside of St. Louis ah who develops a bunch of good players and maybe has, you know, a team that's now competing in the seventh division of, you know, USL or whatever it might be, if I'm just making it up.
00:33:18
Speaker
And now they go to the sixth division and they have increased revenue and increased advertisements and they're just not set up to to facilitate that, which which goes into development. I think you were sort of alluding to one of the same things that I was with the, you know, a lot of the revenue comes from basically tuition and, you know, me saying, well, we, we started out as one team.
00:33:46
Speaker
Now we have two teams. Now we have 30 teams, whatever. Do you feel like a lot of just the ah economics of clubs or the soccer ecosystem here, if I can call it that that, that is a big contributing factor to a push towards year-round single sport specialization for kids. Yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
That's an interesting one. i guess the easy answer is I don't know. um But I will say, and I say this all the time to people who complain about clubs in this country, it's really not the club's fault.
Financing Youth Soccer in the U.S.
00:34:21
Speaker
um you know A lot of people want to say, oh, these clubs, they're they're they're trying to make more money. um There's nothing wrong if you're trying to make more money. um it The problem is that it's the system and the fact that they only really have one revenue stream.
00:34:36
Speaker
um If they were incentivized to have a system where they could, if they did everything right, eventually play in MLS, um that would be totally different and the incentives would be completely different. And there's stories like that, that I'm sure like Wrexham is a very good example.
00:34:53
Speaker
mean, they were on the verge of basically going into amateur football in the UK and now they're in the championship. um And so in terms of, you know, where, know,
00:35:04
Speaker
where we might be or where we could be, it it it really becomes the issue of, you know, and and I don't know how much you or your or your listeners maybe understand why the system is the system.
00:35:15
Speaker
ah So just just briefly, you know, MLS was started 1994, 1993, in that range, right, to to coincide with the World Cup being in the United States.
00:35:28
Speaker
And it comes off the backbone of the NASL, which was a league um that was started in the late 70s, but kind of folded in the mid eighty s from for for multiple reasons, economic reasons, bad business decisions.
00:35:43
Speaker
Maybe the country wasn't ready to support um you know a professional soccer league, whatever the case. It folded. And um so when... FIFA started, you know, well one of the reasons why we had to basically start a professional soccer league, it was one of the requirements FIFA gave them to give them the World Cup.
00:36:03
Speaker
So they wanted to anyway, but it was a requirement to say, okay, you will we'll do the the World Cup in it in the United States. so So when they when they decided to have that league, they they somehow politically got FIFA to allow them to have a closed league, which totally is against the bylaws of FIFA.
00:36:22
Speaker
um There was a lot of money exchange behind the scenes and and a lot of corruption, as as you might know. But basically soccer in this country is run like the NFL where you have a closed system, no one's allowed in.
00:36:35
Speaker
um And that's you know completely different in pretty much every other country in the world. so So that trickles down. And that's what most people don't understand is it trickles down to the kids, to the youth game at every single level.
00:36:47
Speaker
So every club operates under that pretense where there is no promotion relegation. There's no financial incentive to do better to, to you know, the incentives are to make parents happy and to to make payments.
00:37:02
Speaker
I'm thinking about the club that I coach with and two of my children play with. They did some amount of work. I don't know what it involved to get into, is it called E64?
00:37:18
Speaker
And then also the, is it the Development Player League? These leagues, whatever the names are, and i'll I'll get them correct and I'll, you know, for the video, I'll drop them on here. I'll put them in the show notes or whatever.
00:37:32
Speaker
I'm thinking about, okay, they did some amount of work. I assume that it had to do with. performance win-loss records, maybe there are financial arrangements, I don't know what, but there's some value for the individual players, I assume, in being involved at a higher level.
00:37:54
Speaker
What the value is for the rest of the club, I have no idea, but probably there is some value, not just in recruiting, but also, you know, I don't know, for my players at a lower level, maybe. But thinking about you know, where the incentives lie and maybe where they aren't.
00:38:13
Speaker
And, you know, there's clearly some effort, not just by the club that I'm a member of, but also other clubs to have higher level teams to get into some of these higher, you know, more competitive leagues. They're probably traveling longer distances and all that.
00:38:33
Speaker
But
00:38:35
Speaker
there's, you know, whatever effort that it is that they're having to put in to get into, if I'm using the right terminology here, the next closed league without any opportunity really for promotion or relegation.
00:38:52
Speaker
It seems to me like the potential for lower level players like mine to benefit from that seems really pretty small unless I happen to have recruited a player that turns out to become a rock star over the next one to three years.
00:39:09
Speaker
And he just lucks out like, you know, by virtue of amazing genes. And he is really diligent with his work ethic or he ends up with the right, you know, private lessons.
00:39:24
Speaker
He ends up on one of those teams. But otherwise, is yeah i'm I'm thinking about really what is the value if if it's not a constant churn from one league to another, as you're describing.
00:39:38
Speaker
Yeah, so now you're really getting into the good stuff now. And i I don't know if you've thought about this before, or maybe you're just really good with kind of thinking out loud when new information comes to you. But um this is what I'm talking about with kind of having to wake up and and realize the matrix is there. So they now now now we're taking these concepts we've talked about and we we're now going down to the youth game.
00:39:58
Speaker
So on the boys' side, the two, quote, biggest leagues in the country are MLS Next and EC&L. And on the girls' side, it's EC&L and Girls' Academy. um Now, those leagues fight with each other for clubs, for players, for you know ah prestige, for all of that stuff.
00:40:16
Speaker
But but you you really asked a great question there. um There's no criteria by which clubs get allowed to be in these leagues other than They are allowed. they They apply and somebody nebulously decides.
00:40:30
Speaker
So there's no what we would call sporting merit. There's nothing that happened on a field that was a result of a game that actually determined...
00:40:41
Speaker
that your team is now this good to play in this league. And it really, is so confusing for parents because they don't know, well, which club would be best for my, my kid, because there's no objective criteria.
00:40:56
Speaker
You know, I mean, you, you can think that this team is doing great and and they're, they're in this league, but, But unfortunately, at the end of the day, and and I do want to preface because I don't want to be just no negative Nelly here.
00:41:08
Speaker
There are a lot of good clubs and good coaches and good people who are really trying to do the right thing, who are in these big leagues. Don't get me wrong. But if I'm being completely honest with you, The real draw to be in these leagues is to be able to put the badge on the jersey to attract more parents and more customers. And that's that is really unfortunate. and And there's no guarantee that you get into this league and your team is any better or or the play is any better or the level is any better. I mean, I've seen teams and in either league that are the same.
00:41:40
Speaker
um you know, if you play in MLS Next, you will go up against, you know, some of the MLS Next Academy teams. So those are obviously very good. But at the end of the day, there's just no system in place for parents to you know to have any understanding of where is the best place for my my my son or daughter.
00:41:59
Speaker
And then you get into like, you know, it it's sort of like the perfect storm in this country. You have a fairly uneducated group of customers.
00:42:11
Speaker
um You have a system that really doesn't help those customers. And then unfortunately, you have, you know, billionaires who really don't want any type of a system that would be open.
00:42:24
Speaker
And you have people at U.S. soccer who aren't interested in and maybe making some changes that could help. So it's like this perfect storm of because I i could tell you, I don't think this would be tolerated in Argentina or or other countries. They wouldn't stand for it.
00:42:39
Speaker
Is it fair for me to assume that with a lot of the players, a large majority of the players that you deal with, that they are, you know, psychologically predisposed to the sport or they came up in a family that maybe really values soccer and that's their thing, that's the environment, or they've just shown, they've gravitated towards this. And so maybe they It's fair for me to be less concerned that they play soccer year round and they're not getting other experiences. They're not getting experiences where maybe they're really terrible at basketball, but they learn from that and they don't get overuse injuries or they don't burn out versus maybe you've experienced younger, I'm sorry, lower skilled kids, you know, that they're
00:43:31
Speaker
they have a different mentality or I don't know, there's something that's different. And, and is it, do you think it's fair for me to be more concerned about kids who soccer ain't going to be their thing?
00:43:44
Speaker
And so maybe it would be nice to have a system more broadly than even soccer, but like but our youth sports system where it was more manageable to play at a Low but high level of low, you know, low club level in multiple sports.
00:44:05
Speaker
Yeah, ka a couple couple of thoughts on this. um I think the lower skilled teams that I've coached in the past, the more um we haven't gone all year and the more that they played multiple sports.
00:44:20
Speaker
And so um I think that it depends a little bit. we always yeah This is kind of a cop out on the context and the level of the of that particular team. Right. So, I mean, if you have a team that's, you know, and this does get back to the fact that, you know, part of the problem, too, is that there's less and less recreational opportunities. Right.
00:44:39
Speaker
So you have a team who maybe they're maybe maybe they're travel level, but a low travel level and they'd be perfectly fine just just playing in rec.
00:44:50
Speaker
um There's really not a ton of opportunities. I mean, at least in the clubs around here, almost everybody, um you know, even the lower on that lower edge kids will go to travel at some point.
Cost and Pressure of Youth Travel Soccer
00:45:03
Speaker
And so they're playing in, you know, the lowest division of whatever, whatever you're in. um but there's still, i mean, at least around here, think it's still five, $600, you know, and then, then they're playing year round and they're playing in the fall and they're playing in the spring.
00:45:16
Speaker
um and so i think in that situation, you should be concerned. I mean, if, And I think that sometimes um parents maybe are reluctant to step in and say, you know what, he's going to play basketball today or he's going to do this today.
00:45:30
Speaker
um i think that multiple sports in that setting is great. And then I think you have kind of this other end of the spectrum. And that's kind of where I am now coaching pretty much in the ah highest division in the eastern part of the country.
00:45:43
Speaker
Um, I, what I see a lot, uh, at least, I don't know why this pops up on my Instagram feed all the time is the, the, these conversations that they'll have with like former professional athletes, whether be baseball players or or soccer player, not soccer, football players. And they're talking about their kids. They're like, I, I will not have my kid play one sport. They will play multiple sports. And, and I always, I always kind of cringe at that a little bit because, um I have a lot of experiences outside the country And like, um and this is this is a a Gary Kleibin quote, burnout is bullshit and other in other other countries.
00:46:18
Speaker
like Like you go to Argentina, there's no kids burning out playing soccer every single day of the year. um and and And it really becomes almost a cultural thing where there's some some overriding principle that ah that ah that a parent thinks, no, they have to play three sports in order to be good in the future, which I don't agree with.
00:46:38
Speaker
I think that, you know, just to take my my own kids, my i I really didn't push my kids to only play soccer. In fact, my youngest son, I tried signing him up for basketball and he didn't want to go So, um you know, they've always dictated what we do. And so the the way the schedule looks now um for my my youngest son, we have the fall season, winter we play futsal, then we have the spring season.
00:47:03
Speaker
And you have a couple weeks off in December and a couple weeks off in the summer, and that's it. I mean, it's year round. But I don't really feel that there's a big, i'm that I'm losing anything or that he, you know, he's getting a bad experience because he's not playing flag football.
00:47:16
Speaker
um Now, if he came to me and you said, Dad, I really want to play baseball. That's all right. Let's figure out how to do that. And then as you get kind of up into like, you know, the older age groups, I think it's the same thing. I mean, my son plays on this MLS next team.
00:47:33
Speaker
He's going to be in Phoenix in December. He's going to be in Florida in February, going to be in Nashville in June. I mean, like they're all over the country. So it it becomes more of a semi-professional thing.
00:47:45
Speaker
Whereas, now um Now, if you're 15 and you don't play MLS next, you you pretty much can play high school.
00:47:56
Speaker
So the high school experience is is completely going away. But you play high school, you probably play soccer in the fall, maybe basketball in the winter. And I think it's a little bit more traditional, um or I think it should be in that case.
00:48:07
Speaker
um so So it really depends a little bit on the context and the level. But I do i do find that... Like this, this creates a big hot button issue where, where people say, no, they have to play multiple sports. And I, I just don't know that I've, I've experienced that in other countries where kids are, they're doing nothing but soccer.
00:48:23
Speaker
I think though, that there is a difference. Like I will so I have said to my parents and I would love your opinion on this parents, some of the parents on my team that we only have three hours a week and that creates immense pressure where, you know, the boys do not come into practice generally feeling pressure, you know, unless their parents are creating some pressure around soccer on the way to practice or something like that. But
00:48:57
Speaker
They might get amped up because, you know, I am thinking about, well, we did a really terrible job defending against a team that just switched constantly on us.
00:49:12
Speaker
Switched, you know, the point of attack and this last weekend. And now we gotta work on that. We gotta work on that. And so I have my game plan, my training plan in my head. I come into practice. It's not working.
00:49:26
Speaker
And now I start to get riled up. And then, you know, one way or another, they they start to feel it. Well, maybe that doesn't happen. Maybe I handle practice well.
00:49:38
Speaker
But... If they only have three hours a week and they're not already choosing, dad, I'm a soccer player. You know, that's what I want to do.
00:49:50
Speaker
I have said, you got to be the goal scorer, you know, that kind of pressure or you, you got to be serious. There's no point in me paying all of this money.
00:50:00
Speaker
If you're not going to take it seriously, you know, we can pick out sort of what stereotypical phrases here. if, if they're getting any version of that, even if it's in the environment and it's not from, let's say the parents, then it seems to me like that's more likely to happen when we only have three hours a week versus when, know, I've spent some time in Brazil, though granted it was a long time ago, but I, I'm going to guess that there are some similarities to Argentina, though don't tell people from there that, right?
00:50:34
Speaker
But, um,
00:50:37
Speaker
if I'm going out and I'm kicking a soccer ball or, you know, I remember friend of mine, his mom saying when we were kids, the reason we played soccer was because you could ball up a bunch of socks and make a soccer ball, you know?
00:50:54
Speaker
So I'm guessing there a lot of places that are like that anymore, but it doesn't really matter. Like if the thing that you do is you go out and you're playing seven days a week, then you're,
00:51:08
Speaker
There are so many more opportunities to learn from experience. And when we crush it down into three hours a week, then that's where I start to get more concerned about are we putting all this pressure to learn to be a good person, to learn the value of hard work, to just succeed in when you simply do not get the reps in to learn in the way that kids learn, which kids learn from playing?
00:51:40
Speaker
And then my my son, for example, or my daughter, if they were more mentally developed, be able to say, you know what, I, that thing that has been wrong, like me having a bad attitude or whatever, I think it's the fact that there's too much pressure on me.
00:52:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think kind of what you're getting at is maybe like how, how so many just end up quitting the game, you know, they get to a certain age and they're like, you know, this is, this is now too much, you know, getting back to your multiple sports, you Um, yeah, the, I think teams that are, again, you only have three hours.
00:52:22
Speaker
It should really be, you know, more of a recreational environment. And i think that that word's been kind of bastardized. So if you're, you're recreational player, you're a quote, low level player. And it's like,
00:52:35
Speaker
Well, maybe there are some technical differences, but, you know, I have seen, cause I have coached rec teams before. I have seen rec teams train at high levels. I mean, the, the, maybe the touch isn't as good and, but, but the,
00:52:51
Speaker
The question becomes, what's the mindset? and And it goes back to the fact that there's just not a lot of recreational opportunities, especially as the kids kind of age up this you know the the age group. So you so if you're 13, you pretty much have to play club at some level, i mean at least in the area that I'm familiar with.
00:53:08
Speaker
Um, now, you know, if it's only an hour and a half, you know, two times a week, you know, what is the actual expectations of the parents? And is it, is it wrapped around the fact that they've paid so much money to have these kids there?
00:53:23
Speaker
And then maybe you're not getting a results and that, that pressure comes down. Um, So, yeah, I think as ah as a coach, you know, this this actually gets, there's a there's ah fairly big debate within the ah coaching community, or at least there there has been traditionally about kind of what you should focus on, um you know, as a coach, especially at younger age groups. And a lot of the, I'll say, criticism on my channel ah is that I don't particularly think teams that are training three hours a week should do a ton of individual skill stuff.
00:53:58
Speaker
um And that's a little bit controversial, I think, especially in the old school sort of Korver style where you set up cones and a line and you drilled these kids for 30, 40 minutes and then maybe you did something else. um But I just think, and and i i I always preface it with the fact that I think individual technical training is 100% valuable.
00:54:17
Speaker
um valuable I think that, yeah you know, but it's, it's not something as a coach that you can realistically do. If you actually want to teach your team to play, if you only have three hours a week, you just can't do it. So you could certainly send home homework and you, you can give them ideas about, about skills they can do at home to improve. But for me, it's got to be on that player and their own intrinsic motivation,
00:54:39
Speaker
um Now, I will say that the team I have now, I do do some of the individual technical stuff during practice, but I mean, we we train six hours a week. So, um you know, it's it's a different, I have a different metric here. you know, I can spend 30 minutes a week doing some isolated technical stuff or if I want to work on a particular cut or a particular turn.
00:55:01
Speaker
um I can do that. um But it's all, you know, gets back to what the context and the level is of the team. So if you have a team that's training three hours a week, I think it should be more fun. It should be more recreational. It should be more about development and having a good time. And and that pressure really, you know, shouldn't be there. But I don't know how much of that is related to to the costs, the culture, you know, the parents. it's it's It's all related, I think.
00:55:28
Speaker
I lack so much coaching experience of, you know, youth sports that I cannot put forth more than, guess, my beliefs here.
00:55:41
Speaker
But I appreciated when i came across couple of your videos when but where you talked about, you know, you, think you have one or more videos where you're like,
00:55:54
Speaker
I almost always start with battle boxes and then rondos and then what, you know, and there are variations and all this stuff. But, you know, my session planning looks like this. And I appreciated that you said two things stuck out to me that you don't typically do.
00:56:10
Speaker
and that is individual technical drills and you know there are a lot of definitions here that are important because you even say it in some of your videos you would argue that there are certain of these team activities that are technical right they're just not technical in the sense of push pull the ball this way you know or move around a cone in that way And you generally, it may be it's different now, but in some of your videos, you generally don't scrimmage.
00:56:41
Speaker
And I, ah one, I really appreciated that. But also, I think both what you're saying there and also some of what is in those videos spoke to some of my belief about education generally.
00:56:58
Speaker
And yeah it not just education as much as the intrinsic drive to learn. And, you know, I don't know about you for your medical career, for example, but it sure sounds like it with your coaching career that
00:57:21
Speaker
there are certain things that you have to spend time on that maybe you would not otherwise care to do. Or you could have done it earlier in your career or your life, but nobody forced you to do it.
00:57:36
Speaker
And now that you have some goal for which these activities, like getting D license, a C license, a B license, whatever it is in U.S. soccer,
00:57:48
Speaker
Now that you have some goal for which you need to take that step, you are probably much more motivated to go through that process. And I believe generally that if I have a player who is highly motivated to you know, get picked up by a higher team or just play in a higher division, you know, higher in one manner or another, that They will either have it built into them or their parents and their environment will be supporting them putting in whatever work that they might otherwise find boring or hard.
00:58:30
Speaker
But they know that it's worth putting in the effort like you getting up at I think it was 5 a.m. m and, you know, ah working on your pitching or whatever it was. Otherwise, you might not choose to do it, but you do it in the service of some greater goal.
00:58:44
Speaker
And so i have, you know, I have to sort of negotiate with some of the other coaches that I talked to. And I have an assistant coach who's a great support, all that. But I think.
00:58:58
Speaker
I'll ask him after this, but I think that it was a little bit surprising to him when I said, I'm not interested in scrimmaging. We just don't get enough repeat experience with the things that they have, they have to be able to not think at all in a certain situation in certain respects, you know, like, you know, when I see this, it's just instinctual.
00:59:21
Speaker
I respond in this way. And you're not going to get that from scrimmaging when we only have three hours a week. But if you play seven days a week, it's a different story.
00:59:32
Speaker
And so you you talked a little bit about, you know, like, well, okay, so you have six hours a week now and you do do some technical drills, but I suspect that those players are either just the kind of kids that it they don't even, they're not even conscious of it. They just find that it's worth putting in the time on things like that on their own, or they have developed into being like that.
01:00:01
Speaker
But when you have the lower level kids like me, their parents don't know anything about soccer. Well, I know almost nothing about soccer. And so, you know, my child my children aren't in an environment where They know that they need to work on certain things away from practice. And that forces all of the technical drills and it forces all of the decision-making and everything into a three-hour window every week, which seems like,
01:00:33
Speaker
how do you get what you can get out of sports when it's not part of your everyday life? one of One of the things I had to learn, and it took me years as a coach, is the value of consistency.
01:00:49
Speaker
And, you know, it parents are, i i don't I don't, not anymore really, but um I used to get a lot of criticism from parents that you're doing the same thing over and over and over again.
01:01:01
Speaker
And they would even go to my DOC and say, hey, he runs the same practice. And it wasn't really the same practice. therere There are a ton of theme and variations you can do, but it was fairly structured in a manner that pretty much the kids, and they all knew what we were doing and where we would go and what we would do next. And Uh, the value in that is one to your point, the the repetitiveness of it. So they're getting, you know, very good at a few different things very quickly.
01:01:33
Speaker
You know, it, one of the big things that, that I, I'll get emails almost every week, um, from coaches, but one, one big theme is they'll say, oh, this didn't work. Like, oh, I tried your four you on Rondos. It didn't work.
01:01:44
Speaker
And I said, well, listen, like, you know, some of those kids on the videos, we've been doing 4v1 rondos for three years. So like, if you're going to look at, you know, my group of high level 11 year olds do a 4v1 rondo, I can tell you when they were six, seven, eight years old, it didn't look like that.
01:02:00
Speaker
um you know And and you people, are they oftentimes underestimate the time that it will take. and And I've seen this even at at recreational levels or lower levels, but but just the value of being consistent And then as they get older, um in many respects, there are times where the practice runs itself.
01:02:22
Speaker
Like I don't have to necessarily say, ah we're doing this, we're doing that. Like they know what we're doing or they'll say, oh, what battle box are we doing? Or are we going to do this? Or and they might even request, hey, hey, let's instead instead of doing two v one back to pressure, let's let's do 2v1 throws back to pressure. I'm OK, fine.
01:02:39
Speaker
um And and they they just get a lot more sure of themselves and more confident ah because they they have this pretext of what's happening and what's you know what we're doing.
01:02:50
Speaker
um And I do think that that translates into this idea of how do you know prepare prepare them for life? you know That they're they're understanding that you know we as a team are doing this.
01:03:03
Speaker
Um, but I get, yeah, the, the no scrimmaging thing, I'll, I'll get feedback from that where coaches are just like last 30 minutes has got to be a scrimmage. And, and I, you know, some, some of the things you say, you know, it's all contextual, like, like we'll scrimmage, but we'll play nine versus six building out of the back for 30 minutes.
01:03:22
Speaker
And that's a very different setup. from a scrimmage, like to your point, the ball's always rolling from the goalkeeper out. So you are, you're literally getting, you know, and, and you can even, as as as I don't know if you've seen, you you can even break that down into specific parts of the buildup if you want to.
01:03:39
Speaker
So if you really want to work on building up from, from the wide area or, or maybe building up through your six or, ah There's so many different things you can do with it. um But it really goes back, for me, it goes back to how you would structure education for whatever topic you're you're talking about, whether it be soccer or something else. Like you need repetition.
01:03:58
Speaker
You need some sort of base for how you're going to teach that. And then when you get into, you know, a particular math problem, like they may they may never have seen this, you know,
01:04:09
Speaker
ah algebra question in their life, but they have building blocks to be able to solve it. And that's literally what you're trying to do on this on the field. Yeah, I mean, I totally agree with you. And let's just say that you are having to deal with algebra today and you have zero interest in algebra, but you want to do something. You want to be a, you know, a rocket scientist or whatever it is.
01:04:40
Speaker
Well, you didn't learn algebra when you were, I don't know what age you learned algebra. Let's just say 12 or 13, something like that. but you are now 14 or 16 or 18 and you really want to be that rocket scientist, then you will be motivated to start working on your algebra.
01:05:01
Speaker
And now there's repetition and there's fundamentals, which is, I think, really the point that you were making about algebra, but just taking the topic of algebra as an example,
01:05:13
Speaker
If I have to force all of my education into three hours a week and you are not the kind of player or you don't come from the kind of home where it's like, hey, you really want to be the great player? You want to be that rocket scientist?
01:05:28
Speaker
Then you're going to have to choose to spend time on algebra. you're going to have to choose to spend time on your technical drills. Why? Because only have three hours a week to coach you and we need to focus on certain fundamentals.
01:05:44
Speaker
And those fundamentals, it's not just fundamentals, it's repetition as well.
Coaching Critiques and Personal Growth
01:05:50
Speaker
Yeah. and And I think what I see, at least on my end, is coaches kind of blaming the kids for their own ineptitude.
01:06:01
Speaker
So you have you know a coach who's saying, oh, these kids, they you know they they can't build out of the back. I'm like, well, how ah how much you been working on it? like How often have you do you do it? ah you know or Or again, this this sort of overriding concept of you know, the game is the teacher and the kids will figure it out. And it's just, it's just not how it works.
01:06:18
Speaker
um And so you kind of, end up setting them, setting them up for, sick you know, for failure really. um And it becomes sort of this ah sort of dangerous sort of vicious cycle of, you know, the coaches are blaming kids for doing something, but they're not preparing them for that specific environment.
01:06:37
Speaker
And then it's just, you know, I see that all the time. And part of it gets back to, you know, which is, kind of, I think, surprising or did surprise me initially that that some of the things i was I was doing kind of caught on and people really enjoyed it is and we really don't have the leadership um that other countries do.
01:06:57
Speaker
So if you look at, for example, the English FA or even Argentinian FA, like there's set criterion curriculum for recreational players.
01:07:08
Speaker
like ah and And some of it, you know, maybe I agree with, maybe I don't, but Um, we really don't have that in this country. We don't really have S soccer saying, Hey, at, you know, you ate, this is kind of what, what a good lesson plan would look like. And this is what we should do. And, um, so, so it really leaves coaches in an, in a void, like you just don't know what to do.
01:07:30
Speaker
so you go to YouTube and you search and I guess I come up. I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's, it's just, it's a whole system issue, you know? Isn't that a weird feeling getting back to some of what we talked about at the beginning where, you know, people look at you with stars in their eyes or however I might put it.
01:07:50
Speaker
And you're like, I'm just me, really me. But I suppose that does remind me, you said at the beginning, I realized where this is shifting gears a little bit, but You said at the beginning about being in a transition and you talked about on one podcast or another but going through different licensing steps and you need certain kinds of licenses to coach.
01:08:16
Speaker
i don't know if it's D1 or and MLS Next or whatever it is, but it sounds like you're trying to make space for that. In five or 10 years, that might be your career.
01:08:29
Speaker
is that Is that where you're going? that's a good question. i um my So my background is emergency medicine. I did my residency there. And right when my my oldest son was born, his his first two, three years of life was probably the height of my just working like a crazy person. um So I started my own urgent care with three other physicians.
01:08:55
Speaker
And I was working in the emergency room in three or four different emergency rooms. And then i kind of transitioned to working a little bit more urgent care. We ended up selling the practice to a larger hospital in this area.
01:09:08
Speaker
um And i I was managing kind of 12 urgent care centers for them, plus working in the emergency department. And so my, um, my time, you know, I worked a lot of nights. I worked a lot, I worked a lot of weekends and obviously nights and weekends for a soccer coach are fairly coveted.
01:09:27
Speaker
so for, for some professional reasons, um, you know, sort of last year, the but position I had, um, sort of became a little bit expendable and I, I didn't want to stay on.
01:09:41
Speaker
so it was kind of a good transition for me. And so I've, I've taken a job that's really more like eight to five. It's more of more of an urgent care type job. um But in general, like, I mean, I, I,
01:09:53
Speaker
I don't do well talking about myself like in any in that respect. But I mean, have a ton of experience. I mean, i'm umm i'm an yeah ER doc who's owned a three practice urgent care center. I have an MBA from from University of Texas. Like I have a lot of qualifications. I've been a medical director, a quality director. i was in residency education, blah, blah, blah.
01:10:12
Speaker
but The job that I took is fairly below my pay grade, if I'm being completely honest. like i i I could have easily tried to go up the you know a corporate ladder in a hospital or or run an emergency room or whatever.
01:10:27
Speaker
um But the value to me in my life... it my I get something out of my profession. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to say that. But what I get personally from my wife, my kids, and the soccer team, it's just like everything to me at this point in my life.
01:10:46
Speaker
So I'm comfortable sort of just taking ah professional step back and kind of transitioning into... A position that'll give me a lot more time. I mean, you know, like I'm probably going to be spending my weekends scouting games and and doing things that I would never have had time to do um before.
01:11:04
Speaker
Where it will go. So um kind of getting back to your licensing question. um When I took my United States license, you had to put like what your goal was. What's your 10 year goal? And I think it's been about 10 years since I took my D license.
01:11:19
Speaker
um, 20, 2016, maybe, uh, I put, I want to coach in what was then called the development Academy. So we, they don't have the development Academy anymore. That kind of went, um, for, for many reasons to just went, went, went up in flames. But the, um, the new part of that is MLS next.
01:11:37
Speaker
That's kind of like the, the new development Academy, And so I'm kind of on track to do that. like I currently coach what would be what be what would be considered a pre-MLS U-12 team.
01:11:49
Speaker
um And so next year, when they go to U-13, they will be in and MLS next. And I've already been sort of given the green light by the club that I'll that i'll coach that team. so I sort of um sort of made that goal, you know, and I, in terms of licenses, I i have my U.S. up to my USC and then I have um a UEFA European B license.
01:12:10
Speaker
um But, you know, ah where where where I want it to go, i don't know. I mean, it's it's kind of where where I wanted it to go 10 years ago. So um at this point, I would love to just continue doing what I'm doing. And if, and if a fantastic opportunity came about, I would, I would certainly look at it.
01:12:29
Speaker
Um, but from, from where I am now, I mean, the, I'm definitely going to see as long as the club will allow me this current group, I'd like to see them through to, to when they finish high school, when they're in college. And then, um, then kind of figure it out. My, it's funny, my assistant coach, his, his wife is about ready to give birth.
01:12:45
Speaker
Um, and so that'll be around the time when, uh, it's like six, seven years from now when we'll be letting but the the current boys go that I have. So maybe I'll pick up his, his daughter's team and we'll, uh, we'll coach on the girl's side, which I, I will say I have, I have a little experience assisting on the girl's side, but I don't, that's a whole other realm that I don't have. Um, I don't have out as much experience and I would sort of like to maybe, maybe experience that a little bit.
01:13:11
Speaker
So we, we talked about it. I think it's like, uh, i mean Maybe in six or seven years, we'll start coaching the U7 girls team for him. Who knows? By then, you maybe you'll be D1 coach and you'll be reaching out to someone else to say, hey, can you and I pick your brain for an hour?
01:13:29
Speaker
I, yeah, no, I mean, I would love, love the opportunity to, to, to even, like I said, you know, i I, I wish I was a little closer to Philadelphia because I would have loved to keep coaching with the union. They do a fantastic job and a lot of my personal growth as a coach, I can actually put to certain, um certain bosses. I had it at the Philadelphia union who are fantastic.
01:13:50
Speaker
um So I would, I would have loved to keep that going, but, but yeah, any opportunity that I would have, I mean, um I would certainly look at. That's awesome. And actually, and as you say that about, you know, bosses that you had and all that, that were great. Like I do find I'm experiencing it more now in my coaching experience than I've experienced, you know, in my career in a while, though I certainly experienced it in my career and you get this as you just mature as well, that There are things that I experienced with coaches of my kids, you know, as I'm a parent on the other sidelines, on the sidelines, or, you know, even as I've seen, you know, being a manager or whatever. And like, why do they do it like that?
01:14:34
Speaker
And you just get enough experience. And some of those people who are really, you know, you come to feel like in some cases, they were actually doing the right thing. I shouldn't have judged so early.
01:14:47
Speaker
And I'm not saying that you were doing that, but, you know, I even look back at my career and the... One of the people that i um at the time, found to be just such a jerk and I hated working with is the person that I think was most instrumental in my own professional development.
01:15:14
Speaker
And again, I'm not saying that you're saying that that you experienced it with those people, but I appreciate you expressing that, you know, some of those bosses or other coaches or whatever, that that was a good experience.
01:15:26
Speaker
I want to ask you about, you know, before we we come to a close, I want to ask you about what you hope your players experience and, you know, what they take with them.
01:15:42
Speaker
Because as a as a child, you know, um whenever it was that you got into baseball and then you were an athlete up through college, I don't know what things look like afterwards.
01:15:56
Speaker
You, I mean, you're on the field and you're performing and you are, when you're out on that mound, you're being judged by everybody or certainly feels like it, ah whether it's happening or not and whatever's going on in their heads.
01:16:13
Speaker
And, Almost none of these players, whether it's your team or so my team, are going to go on to play D1 in college, professional, whatever it is.
01:16:24
Speaker
I hope that some of them get that if that's what they really want. But the likelihood is just extremely small. So for you as a coach,
01:16:37
Speaker
one, two, five things. What do you hope you your players carry with them after they stop playing for you?
Instilling Core Values: Beyond Soccer Skills
01:16:44
Speaker
it's It's interesting that you mentioned influences, any good or bad, in your life.
01:16:51
Speaker
Our residency director was one of the hardest guys I've ever had to work for. And um I would say he was not particularly friends with anybody. um But i yeah this is just a total aside. Then i'll ill so I'll totally get to where I want my players to get from me. But I, uh, I did ah a four year emergency medicine residency and my, my last year I was a chief resident there.
01:17:14
Speaker
So I had a lot of interaction with him and, and he's, he was just very, very hard. Like, um, you know, and in, in, not in a, over the line way, but just, um, and,
01:17:27
Speaker
I didn't really appreciate it until the first job that I took out of residency was at a university medical center. um And i did all all I did was pediatric emergency medicine.
01:17:42
Speaker
And um it was and it was it was interesting that they hired me for that role because um I didn't have what they call a pediatric fellowship.
01:17:53
Speaker
So I did, I'd done four years of emergency medicine, um but that you can do further training to like, even, you know, make yourself even more knowledgeable. i mean, you, you don't have to, but it's helpful. And if you're going to, you want to get hired at, you know, this particular university medical center, you typically, like I would have been interviewing for that job with guys who are probably a little more qualified than me, but Regardless of why they gave me the job, um they did.
01:18:17
Speaker
And um within the first couple months, it was pretty clear that I had been trained really well. Like, I mean, it was um it was just really amazing to go into ah setting like that and ah and right away feel like,
01:18:30
Speaker
wow, I kind of know what I'm doing here. Like I kind of, I've kind of been well-trained, like, cause you know, you're, you're kind of intimidated and and there's a lot of big personalities and, um, you know, I didn't really appreciate that person, until, until then.
01:18:44
Speaker
Um, And I think one of the things that, um and I will get to the question you answered, but the but the way you were talking and a lot of things in my head. um One of the things that I think, my my wife hates it when I say this, that I'm i'm really good at, um because...
01:19:00
Speaker
she She always thinks I'm like self-deprecating, but I don't think I'm like a particularly like if you were to scale it out, I'm not like a super bright person. Like I'm i'm intelligent, but there are just so many people smarter than me. I don't say that in any context that that is, you know, but I've just I've just experienced a lot of lot of brilliant people.
01:19:17
Speaker
The one thing that I do, and and this goes back to coaching, that I think I do really, really well. is I'm really good at identifying when somebody is doing something that works and copying it or making it my own.
01:19:31
Speaker
And I've been like that in every part of my life, whether it be emergency medicine, whether it be coaching, whatever. like I'm very good at at quickly seeing, hey, I like that, or hey, that works, that's good. And then either doing the exact same thing with, you know, there's this there's this quote, the best coaches are the best thieves, um you know, because you you take what what works and Or, or maybe just tweaking a little bit to where, where I think it'll work for me or my team or my situation.
01:19:56
Speaker
Um, and I think if, if you can do that, you don't have to be particularly brilliant or particularly great at anything. If you can just recognize what works, make it your own. um you're like, you know, a step ahead of the game anyway.
01:20:09
Speaker
um As far as what I hope my my players get from from me, we've the to give you some context, um I told you I coach a U12 team. I coached two U12 teams um and they couldn't be any more different.
01:20:26
Speaker
So that the the it's basically the the first and the second team in the club that I'm at. I coach both of them. And so the the first team is extremely talented, as you might expect. they've They're very technical, um just incredible athletes, some of them. Some of them do things with the ball that just make your eyes like just bug out. You're like, geez, so Louise.
01:20:46
Speaker
um And then the second team is not a huge step below. They're very good. um They're not anywhere near as athletic or as technical. But where the split becomes, um and I don't exactly know why this is, is in the mentality.
01:21:02
Speaker
So the first team is very weak when it comes to a mentality standpoint. They get very easily rattled. um Now, part of it is they're not as successful just because of the level of talent and competition they have to play.
01:21:14
Speaker
so um But the second team, um they don't get... they don't get ah Nothing seems to bother them. They go down a goal. Somebody gets a bad tackle. ref misses a call. They don't get rattled. And and The big message for the first team this year is all about mentality.
01:21:35
Speaker
um Because, you know, we we have really, um and I don't know if you guys do this, but we have um team values. And so it's grit, heart, joy, and no excuses. Those are our four core values.
01:21:48
Speaker
um and And really trying to develop some reactions to adversity this year ah for the first team. The second team, they don't need that right now. They they have other things. But I guess what I'm what i'm getting at is um the things that I hope the team gets, because to your point, and In six or seven years, these kids will either, maybe that maybe some of them will play in college, but they'll they'll be playing recreational or doing whatever and you know in school to be an engineer or whatever.
01:22:15
Speaker
um i hope that those are the messages that really get through and and you know ah whether they can you know get wide when the center back has the ball or whether they can you know um defend and in a side on position or stuff like that is obviously to me to me a little ah bit less important.
01:22:32
Speaker
In high school, I was a swimmer. I was very good for not being a year-round swimmer. I swam with kids who swam year-round. That was their only sport.
01:22:44
Speaker
And I just happened to be talented at it, but it's probably like a lot of things. I mean, I don't know about you, Rory, but whether you go out and run three times a week or whatever it is that you do, like that there might very well be something that you do. You play guitar or something.
01:23:03
Speaker
And, you know, some of us have that thing where ah Compared to a lot of people who do it recreationally, we're pretty good. But compared to people who really do it, no, we're terrible. you know And that's me as a runner, for example.
01:23:18
Speaker
That is me, was me as a swimmer. I remember my coach, one of my coaches in high school who also coached the club here around swimming and all that.
Character Development Through Sports
01:23:31
Speaker
He said something like this at one point. He was a, think he was, maybe division one national champion in 100 or 200 meter breaststroke, something like that.
01:23:46
Speaker
And he said, You know, I'm a high school teacher. And when I went to interview for my job, no one cared, not not a bit. They did not care at all that I'm a really fast swimmer.
01:24:06
Speaker
You know, what they wanted to know was, could I do the job first and foremost? Was I technically qualified? And then did I seem to have the other characteristics? Like, are you one of us?
01:24:17
Speaker
Are you a good person? And all of that. And you remind me of that in part because as well, like the the mentality of the kids. I was just talking to one of my parents, my player's parents yesterday, and he said what I would hope to hear you hear from a lot of parents that he really hopes that what his kids get out of the sport and what they get out of the experience on this team this year, but whatever happens next is that they're a good person.
01:24:52
Speaker
And we can make not just a bad experience, you know because we're very influential, right? Like we are the, we when, when the coach steps out on that field, yeah you have all the power in the world as far as the kid is concerned, right? You can shame the kids.
01:25:10
Speaker
You can make it the worst thing ever. They'll hate soccer, or you can, you know, lift them up in any number of ways. And they might not walk onto the field with the mentality to deal with adversity or whatever, but you have the opportunity to to give them those repeat experiences so that they get better at it.
01:25:33
Speaker
And, you know, then they can take that into anything so that when they are, like I was saying, being a swimmer, a runner, a guitar player, and you're really not that awesome.
01:25:46
Speaker
And somebody tells you, hey, Rory, you suck at guitar. You can, I can deal with that. You know, I can deal with adversity in my medical practice, in my whatever. And, and you know, ah little bit of where I got that from, it was from working with coach Rory.
01:26:03
Speaker
Yeah, you you bring up, ah it took me years to realize how much of an influence that I had on the kids. um And it it's it's a lot bigger than than I think most people kind of even realize. Sometimes if you say something, um you know, the kids really take it to heart, you know? And so I've had to, you know, I know at one point, um you know, I was probably too hard on certain kids and um you know, it's just the nature of of growing and maturing, I think, as a coach. But one of the things I've been doing lately at the end of practice is um I take one or two of them aside as we're kind of cleaning up. And I sit down on the grass and I
01:26:48
Speaker
I say something um that, that I've, you know, about their performance that day or, or something that I want them to work on or, Hey, I really like how you did this. um And it's made a big difference. I mean, it's, it's made a really big difference that they, they can see that I actually care potentially about maybe something that they're doing or, or, or something is individual to them. Because I think, you know, i know that we probably do it more than, more than anybody just because of the level that we're at, but,
01:27:15
Speaker
I really only meet with the kid three times a year. So we have an and a meeting at the start of the year. We have one at at the beginning and one at the end. um Other than that, I don't really have any one-on-one time with anybody. I mean, especially the way that that that my teams are structured.
01:27:32
Speaker
Monday and Thursday, we train together. So it's 28 both teams. And then Tuesday is one team and Wednesday is the other. So those are those are just, you know the the first team, and the second team on different days. But either way, you've got 12 to 14 kids there.
01:27:46
Speaker
You know, it's very difficult to focus on one in particular. So to give some individual feedback a little bit more frequently, I think i think has helped. Rory, I'm going to ask you two questions to sort of wrap up because I've kept you for a long time. You've been very generous and even, you know, you're very generous in how you responded to me when I sent you an email and then even getting the setup and all that. There's construction going on in your house and, you know, yeah you're very generous with working around that. so
01:28:19
Speaker
ah First question, we've mentioned to the YouTube channel. I'll put a link in the show notes. And, you know, when I post clips and all that, probably link over there. But whether it's the YouTube channel or other places, where do you want to direct people? whether it's connecting with you, so to speak, or just, hey, go and check this out, or do you want to direct people?
01:28:40
Speaker
And you have anything that you would want to leave people with or other topics to hit on, things to think about if you remember nothing else, remember this, anything of that nature? Yeah, the YouTube channel is where where I would direct people. I have ah an email address on there, which I've actually, i respond pretty quickly to people on email. Sometimes people are like, I didn't think you were even going to respond.
01:29:01
Speaker
I'm like, yeah, long as it's not, you know, like a real hateful email, even some of the ones that are fairly critical, I usually respond to. um The one thing about the YouTube channel that I will say is nice um that maybe other social media platforms don't have, if there's a really bad comment, I can just delete the comment off my site because it's my channel.
01:29:20
Speaker
um So that, unfortunately, I have to use from time to time, but that's just the nature of doing business.
Challenges of Being a Coach
01:29:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think in terms of, you know, what I would leave people with would just be, just be as simple as, um, you know, trying to understand, I mean, if you're coming at this as a parent of a player, trying to understand the ecosystem that they're in, um and really maybe trying to understand the position that the coach is in, you know, this is a, ah very unique job. there's a, there's a viral, uh, clip of, uh, Jose Mourinho talking about being a coach, um,
01:29:56
Speaker
it's It's got to be 15 years old because he he looks much younger than he is now, but it it it goes down to every single level, no matter every single sport. It's like one of the only jobs in the world where everybody thinks they can do it better than you.
01:30:09
Speaker
i don't think anybody is going to discuss ah rocket science with the guys from NASA, but everybody around the world, they think they can discuss football with ah one of the...
01:30:25
Speaker
the most important ah matters is in the game. I mean, in my medical practice, I might have patients come in who think they know what's wrong, but they're not usually, um you know, so defiant on the fact that they know better than me what's happening or or what what's going on. I mean, it happens from time to time, but I've had that multiple times in my coaching career where even unsolicited parents will come up and say, uh, you know, why are you doing this?
01:30:49
Speaker
Like, why don't, why don't you think about doing that? And, you know, take it all in, but I also think to myself, you know, like I, I do have some experience in this. I'm not just making it up as I go, you know, and then there is a ah reason. And, um, yeah,
01:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, the the other, i guess the other plug I would make, and and we didn't really talk about this at all, is, um you know, really trying to be the best you can be on the sidelines as a parent um and and really trying trying to facilitate the growth of your kid. i guess we did touch on it a little bit earlier, but the joy sticking from parents is just, it's just crazy.
01:31:24
Speaker
um And even... You would think it would get better maybe at the level I'm coaching at. It doesn't. i mean, you just get parents screaming from the sidelines um and and and really um just not letting their son or daughter make decisions.
01:31:38
Speaker
So that would be the maybe the one thing if if you have a lot of soccer parents on this podcast, that i would say is um really try to let them. you know It's one of the things that I actually do in my coaching. I don't do a lot of specific in-the-moment instructions. So when you're in a game or or even even at training, I don't like to to say um something like, play the ball to you know the fullback or or play the ball to Jack, give it to Jack. like I tend to use more leading terms like, get your head up or or what do you see or where's your support, where's your help, like like things like that.
01:32:14
Speaker
Uh, because to your point, they're just never going to be able to make that decision in the moment when it comes, if you don't allow them to fail a bit. I appreciate you coming back around to that because i don't know how much I myself joystick, but if I don't, then, you know, as a, like a standard practice, let's say, they of course things can come in and out, but just on average, if I don't on average, then things that i say,
01:32:45
Speaker
verge on that, certainly. And so that's a growth area. Thankfully, I've recognized it for a long time. appreciated in one of your videos, you talked about you know how to identify whether you have a good coach or something like that.
01:32:58
Speaker
think you had a video that was something about parenting. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I remember one of the things that you talked about was, know, one of the things that you, in your opinion, you definitely should not do is don't examine the game on the drive home.
01:33:15
Speaker
And you know, that's separate from joy sticking, but Nonetheless, point being that there are a lot of areas for me to improve. And I think that's one area that if, even if I'm not doing it, like verging on it, then it just, it makes it so easy to go from, you know, get your head up or whatever. Cause I, I am a yeller.
01:33:38
Speaker
Um, and I, the boys will hear my voice. I'm not, I hope generally saying pass it to Bob, but it's so easy to get right from get your head up to pass it to Bob.
Encouraging Decision-Making in Players
01:33:51
Speaker
Yeah, and I think as a point of clarification, because um it's you know you get into these discussions and then people kind of take it where they want to go. um i definitely give specific instructions. um at And there's a difference between it's really when you give that message. So when the player has the ball at his feet, I really don't try to say a lot other than some guidance.
01:34:12
Speaker
But if the ball goes out, I might say, I'd say, Finn, your center back is wide open. Like, like you can't play that ball there. You have to like, i I'll give the specific instruction. It's just not in the moment. You know what I mean? um Because again, the the the other side of that is there's, there's really kind of like two extremes you have, which I don't think I don't have a problem with people yelling at all coaches. I mean, animation, that's that's one of the things that um I definitely seen different about the States versus other countries. um I can speak to Argentina in particular, like argentine Argentine coaches are typically very animated.
01:34:46
Speaker
um maybe Maybe even like to where you'd be like, this guy is really going kind over the top, um but it's but it's sort of a cultural thing. Like like they they're just, that that's looked at as maybe passionate,
01:34:58
Speaker
Whereas here, like a lot of times we look at animated coaches as being, you know, kind of angry or, or it's, it's, it's, it's not well-placed. And then you have the other side of the the equation where, i mean, I've coached against teams where the coach doesn't say a word, just sits there and watches, you know?
01:35:13
Speaker
So, so what, you know, there is definitely specific instruction that needs to be given. It's just the timing of when it's done. Yeah, no, I agree with you because I, So I have a performance coaching certification, which is easy for me to exercise at work. i recognize that at least as far as coaching goes, I do very well with adults.
01:35:37
Speaker
I do very well one-on-one. It translates much easier to one-on-one with kids. I really struggle with a group of kids and Yet I still, I have i am completely bought in on this philosophy that the the the realizations, you know, the insights have to come from inside them.
01:36:02
Speaker
the The things that I try and put on them just almost never stick. And so the, you know, even when the ball goes out or if it's in practice or whatever else,
01:36:16
Speaker
A growth area for me is to ask the question, you know, like I think it's perfectly fine. Right. And I do the same thing to say, um was over there. He was open.
01:36:27
Speaker
You know, next time I need you to look up or think about this, but then even other aspects of this or things that are related, I think saying, for example,
01:36:39
Speaker
it's it's monday we had a game on saturday and okay can somebody give me something we did well or didn't do well or whatever and let it come out of them and see what they're carrying with them rather than me telling them something and granted their kids so their minds are very simple but you know basically i say something that this was the issue and inside their heads they go it was Yeah. And I, I, I always tell the players, I can't, I can't step on the field and play for you. Um, so I definitely search as, like I said, my, my team's getting older now. I'm trying to search for some leaders, search for some people to have their own voices and their own thoughts their own opinions.
01:37:20
Speaker
And that's a tough, that's a tough thing to do in the setting of trying to guide a group because you you have different, obviously voices and opinions. Um, some voices you want louder than others in your team. So it, it's a balancing act.
01:37:31
Speaker
Yeah.
Conclusion and Future Conversations
01:37:32
Speaker
Okay. Well, Rory, I am going to link to YouTube channel. We mentioned some things like your 343 podcast episodes, and I can't remember what else, but I have notes that I've written down.
01:37:44
Speaker
So I'll have those in the show notes. And i want to say, again, i really looked forward to this and you totally delivered upon my excitement and interest. So I thank you for being here and I hope that not just your soccer seasons and all of that go well, but also with this transition that's going on, that it really serves that next stage in your life that it sounds like you're looking for.
01:38:11
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you. I really enjoy these conversations. So this is fun for me, um you know, and especially a podcast like this that kind of, you know, i'm I'm used to being on very soccer specific conversations.
01:38:25
Speaker
And so this this is a nice um a nice alternative, you know, where I'm not necessarily maybe talking about a specific activity or, um you know, it just adds to ah the conversation that,
01:38:37
Speaker
I hope that conversations like this really move the needle when it comes to the youth game in this country, because the more you can do that, that that really the more that people can get educated. And I now keep saying get through the matrix, so to speak. But the more people can kind of wake up to what's happening, the more possibly at some point effective change will be made. So, yeah, I mean, it was a great conversation. I'd love to come on again.
01:39:00
Speaker
Hopefully your your season goes well.