Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
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Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
College Soccer Dynamics: Men’s And Women’s College Cups, Roster Constructions and How to Stand Out to Recruiters | Ep. 108
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It’s post-Thanksgiving and the Breaking the Line team are back for a brand-new episode on all things college soccer.
The NCAA Men’s and Women’s College Cups are in full swing and we dive into examining which teams are still alive chasing a trophy. On the women’s side, more than 80 ECNL alumni are competing across four teams, while eight teams made up of more than 35 alumni are alive on the men’s side.
The College Cup sparked an interesting discussion on Breaking the Line about how many international players compete for teams in men’s soccer compared to the women’s side. It’s a back and forth about how to balance providing opportunities to different athletes, development vs. winning and the role of collegiate soccer in the career paths of both coaches and players.
This discussion led to a listener-submitted question regarding how centerbacks can stand out to D1 recruits during games. The team provides their own insights on what good centerbacks do during games and how recruiting for a defender is different than an attacker. The BTL team also discusses how scouts look for different things even between centerbacks and outside backs.
Finally, a tease for the next episode of Breaking the Line. US Club Soccer announced changes to birth year restrictions in 2026, and the crew gives their initial thoughts while looking forward to Episode 109, which will feature a much more in-depth discussion with US Club Soccer and more.
But it's not all serious soccer talk! We lighten the mood with personal stories about Thanksgiving traditions, from unique turkey alternatives to beloved side dishes like mashed potatoes and sweet potato casserole. With gratitude to our listeners and the ECNL community, we invite you to share your thoughts and questions for future episodes. Tune in for a blend of sports insights, heartfelt holiday moments, and an engaging discussion that promises to keep you entertained and informed.
Welcome to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, a bi-weekly look at all things ECNL, covering topics that you care about and topics that make a difference. I am Dean Linke, your behind-the-scenes editor of the show. As always, leading the discussion today is ECNL President and CEO Christian Labors, along with ECNL Vice President and Chief of Staff, doug Bracken. You'll also hear from Ashley Willis, ecnl's Partnership Activation and Alumni Relations Manager, and we proudly welcome back Jacob Bourne to a full-time role with the ECNL, and that will include being the new producer of this show, the ECNL Podcast. And finally, our videographer, reed Sellers, jumps in for a few hot takes as well.
Speaker 1:Today's show will recap the NCAA Women's D1 Final Four, featuring four ACC teams and a bunch of talented ECNL alumni. The show will take a look at the Elite Eight of the Men's D1 NCAA Tournament, which opened up an earnest debate on whether every college team should be required to carry a certain number of American players. As many colleges have teams that are comprised of almost 90% internationals, that discussion is valid and always timely. There's a quick recap of Orlando Pride's 1-0 NWSL championship win over Washington, including another count of the number of ECNL alumni who were rostered on both of those teams. Crew answers the question of how, if you are a center back, you can get noticed by college coaches, particularly at all of the great ECNL events, and that question also eventually includes outside backs as well.
Speaker 1:The crew provides an update on the birth year versus school year debate, and Bracken's brain buster makes us hungry as we all pipe in about our favorite Thanksgiving side dish. Something about that question never gets old, no matter the forum. So well done Doug Bracken with the Bracken Brain Buster. And the December 4 edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, starts after this message from our corporate partner, nike.
Speaker 2:Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL. Nothing can stop what we can do together to bring positive change to our communities. You can't stop sport because hashtag. You can't stop our voices. Follow Nike on Instagram, facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. You just heard about our jam-packed show. In our jam-packed open, my name's Dean Linke, so pleased to have on this show Reed Sellers. It's incredible to have back Jacob Bourne, our three regulars, ashley Willis, doug Bracken, who will throw us a Bracken brain buster to end the show and begin the show with the CEO and president of the ECNL, christian Labors. Take it away, christian.
Speaker 3:Hey, dean, I appreciate that. Welcome to everybody. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy post Thanksgiving.
Speaker 4:Yes, thank you, Christian. How was your Thanksgiving?
Speaker 3:It was very nice. Actually, we didn't do a turkey. We decided that with four kids that don't really like turkey, making a big turkey is a waste of time. So we had a rotisserie chicken, which we called a little turkey.
Speaker 4:Little turkey, overrated I kind of agree.
Speaker 3:And then we had a series of contests in our house of athletic prowess between the boys and the girls, which was a little bit unfair for the girls because they were outnumbered four to two and one of the girls is two. But we had everything from soccer to catch to cart racing.
Speaker 4:Like a Laver's Olympics, if you will.
Speaker 3:It was actually it was. It was actually quite good.
Speaker 4:Dean, how was your Thanksgiving oh?
Speaker 1:it was great First time home in a long, long time. So I don't know if you've heard, but I have a wife 30 years, by the way, it's.
Speaker 4:Leah, right Leah.
Speaker 1:Leah yeah.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've heard that name a couple of times.
Speaker 1:That was Leah Ben and Ben's special friend, and that was it. However, we did extend the leftovers into multiple little get-togethers, so that's all been good, thank you.
Speaker 3:How's Ben's special friend?
Speaker 1:She's fantastic. Yeah, Thank you. How's Ben's special friend?
Speaker 4:She's fantastic. Yeah, thank you, she's special.
Speaker 3:That's good. That's why I feel like there might be other announcements coming down the road. Hopefully Ben's a listener of this podcast.
Speaker 4:Dean, not too fast, ashley, talk to us Thanksgiving, how'd it go?
Speaker 5:It was good I did a friend's giving. I didn't go home Such a quick turnaround between now and Christmas that I just stayed here, did Friendsgiving and then left to go out of town and went and watched college football all weekend back in Tuscaloosa. So I had a great weekend.
Speaker 3:Is this where we talk about college football? We?
Speaker 4:can if we need to, yeah, we should let it go. This is more of a soccer-related podcast.
Speaker 3:I mean, if you live in Ohio, it's not a good time to talk about college football. So I do understand that.
Speaker 4:I don't know what you're talking about. I live close to Kentucky very close to Kentucky. The Bracken Thanksgiving was great Good food. My oldest son is actually a chef and so we're always very excited when he comes and cooks at the Bracken house. So he whipped up some stuffing, which I think is another dish. Normally that, I say, is overrated. He knocked it out of the park. I have a new appreciation for stuffing, thanks to him, jacob and Reid any Thanksgiving updates.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, Thanksgiving was great. We had probably about 18, 19 people over at my mom's house. It was myself.
Speaker 3:You lost track of one of them.
Speaker 6:No, we all kept them there. Thanksgiving was good. We had my and some of my in-laws came over as well, which was nice, and my mom is a big game person. So we played a big game of outbursts, which is where you have a relate, a list of the top 10 things, and you have to name them all in a certain amount of period of time. And, of course, we weren't specific enough, which resulted in the Barry rule and we were yelling at each other across the room for three hours. It's a good time.
Speaker 3:When you said big game, I thought you were going to talk about having some venison or something like that for a game.
Speaker 6:No, just three different turkeys One smoked, one Thai chili and one baked. Very bougie, my brother's also a chef.
Speaker 3:Reed, yeah, just a standard Thanksgiving. Anything special, yeah standard.
Speaker 7:Thanksgiving Anything special? Yeah, no, my Thanksgiving was great. Kept it simple, watched football with the family, helped make a bunch of food and, you know, just enjoyed it. So did you watch the Michigan game? I did. It was a good game, rather low scoring game, but you know that was a very interesting result, surprising.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anyway, back to Doug, our friend in Ohio.
Speaker 4:Yes, thank you. You've heard Reed on here before. Reed is a videographer for ECNL and Jacob this is the first time you've heard him on this podcast. Jacob worked for the league a few years ago, then came back. He's working for us again. He's the new producer of the podcast, so we welcome those guys, as always.
Speaker 3:Still never seen Jacob Bourne and Jason Bourne in the same spot, so I'm not sure what to say about that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, there could be something going on there for sure, all right. Well, christian, let's talk about what's going on out there in the soccer world. I think first on the list today is obviously College Cup NWSL final happened, I think the men's college soccer season down to Elite Eight. So maybe talk about kind of what's going on there, and obviously got lots of ECNL alums participating in all those levels.
Speaker 3:Maybe let's start with the girls' side. As we talked about earlier, it's an all-ACC Final Four, which is slightly hilarious when the Atlantic Coast Conference includes the Pacific Coast, so there might need to be a branding change in that, with Stanford now being in the ACC, we talk a lot about the level of play in the league and the impact it has moving forward 81 ECNL alums and the four College Cup teams more than 20 per team on average, which is pretty awesome. Ashley, you want to call out any clubs that have high numbers, because I think there's a couple that are really well represented in that 81 yeah, michigan hawks have a lot across the four teams.
Speaker 5:Then there was solar was on there. We had socal blues well represented a lot of kids with a lot of national titles. Trying to play for a national title now in college, which is always fun to win one at the youth level with us and then go on to the bigger stage and try to go win an even bigger trophy.
Speaker 3:There is a correlation. I mean if you win and perform as an under 17, under 18 at the highest level of youth soccer, that that's got to help you perform under the pressure of the college cup Right. I mean best prediction of future behaviors, past behavior, as they say. So kids who have performed under pressure, you got to think you're going to do so again this coming weekend for these schools.
Speaker 4:You would say and think that the better or the best players are playing on the best teams and therefore they will be recruited to the best college teams. So I think there's definitely a thread that goes there through there and learning how to win and what that means at the level Certainly mentality wise, it's got to help you when you get to college.
Speaker 3:I would agree. Kudos to those players and those clubs, and maybe we'll talk more about the final four when we have a champion.
Speaker 4:But we have four teams, right? Did you say? Four teams from the ACC, wake Forest, stanford UNC and Duke Duke in a row.
Speaker 3:UNC and Duke. Obviously, it's Robbie Church's last weekend of being a head coach. Obviously, damon Nahas used to coach in the league, interim head coach in North Carolina Huge achievement in his first year to be in the final four. So. But two of the final four teams will have either first year coaches or second year coaches next year. You know, if damon gets the interim tag taken off, which seems to be making a case for that. Yeah, and what they're doing on the men's side. We're in the elite eight, the college cup a week after, and we've got our super cup event going on in conjunction with the college cup on the men's side in two weeks, which will be awesome. We can maybe talk about that later. But 37 alumni from ECNL clubs in the the elite eight on the way to the college cup, which is that's a number that's growing every year. What's really interesting when you well, maybe before we- talk about the internationals.
Speaker 4:Did you hear who? The number one seed was Christian in the men's college tournament?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think normally it's a football school, but now it's a different kind of football school.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's the Ohio State University.
Speaker 3:You know what, when one door closes, another opens, and so I'm happy that Ohio State has that opportunity.
Speaker 4:They're usually just in the mix in so many different sports that it's kind of hard to keep track. I just wanted to make sure you were aware of what was going on 7,000 sports at that school.
Speaker 5:Like, don't you guys have like every sport imaginable?
Speaker 4:I'm not a you guys. My daughter went there. I'm not a you guys.
Speaker 3:So I don't know what you're talking about, Dean.
Speaker 1:You're shaking your head, man Pipe in and props to Brian Mazenoff, who is a true gentleman of the game, played in the Olympics, played in the World Cup. Seven short years has taken a team that has suffered through a ton of adversity, a ton of injuries, number one team in the country and I think if they can somehow knock off Wake Forest who, by the way, in 2007, they played Wake Forest in the national championship game at Wake Med Soccer Park so they get them a little earlier a chance for revenge, so the Buckeyes can win that game one step closer to the College Cup, tied in around the Super Cup. So I guess the question is can I call the Super Cup in Ohio state gear or should I keep bcnl gear on?
Speaker 3:you know, dane, if you're going to call the super cup, I think you can wear whatever gear you want to wear. You're the voice of soccer here, my friend at that ashley yeah, just go with whatever feels right at that moment.
Speaker 5:If it's wake, if it's duke, it's any other school on the planet? Vermont?
Speaker 4:we took a left turn there. That is a left yes, carry so.
Speaker 3:I'll carry on so 37 players across those eight teams. Lone Star Club with three, two playing with Denver, one at SMU. Pittsburgh Riverhounds with three players in that group as well, one at Wake and two at Pitt. What's interesting on the guy side that's so different than the girl's side is the number of international players In the eight teams still alive and the NCAA Division one. There are 78 international players among those eight teams. You know it's a huge number. You have a range. Marshall, which sort of sets sets the tone of basically being almost an entirely international soccer team at this point has 24 internationals. I wonder, if that's the full roster, whether there is any American on the Marshall team. Do we know?
Speaker 6:Four Americans on Marshall's roster and the rest are international players.
Speaker 3:It's really interesting because and I think this has been discussed in coaches circles and probably parents as well in coaches circles and probably parents as well as with that many internationals playing college soccer. Is that sort of the point of college soccer to have international players come over here to play collegiately? I don't know if doug, if you got an opinion on that, or actually it doesn't really happen anywhere near that degree on the women's side, probably more than it used to. But I would be surprised if you could find 100 internationals and in the top 50 women's schools much less. 78 in the eight schools in the men's elite eight it's complicated.
Speaker 4:Probably it's a complicated question in that less programs right on the men's side, yep uh Less programs playing collegiate soccer, playing collegiate soccer there.
Speaker 4:Now here is a mechanism for really really talented young American players to move into professional environments, which wasn't the case 20 years ago, let's say. So maybe you take off kind of that top layer of players because they're just going directly into the pro environment and then there's that pressure, whether it's internal or external, to win, and I also think there are a ton of people from other countries that want to come here. To be honest, and to be able to come here and get an opportunity, get an education. I think is is probably pretty, uh, appealing to international players. So I think there's a lot of factors that go into it.
Speaker 3:But yeah I mean so, to circle back, it's umass that has two players out of the uh max roster, I believe 28. I think I'd agree with you that having players from all over the place is interesting and maybe, jacob, you can find what the percentage is of of uh international players in men's soccer. I guess you could. We could do the math of 78 out of what's 28 times eight. Anyone got that number? We're doing live math, live math here, trying to use my calculator and not working out great, but somebody could do 28 times eight and we could figure out what percentage 78 is.
Speaker 4:That's 224.
Speaker 3:All right, so we just got to do the 78 divided by 224. 35%. All right, so we just got to do the 78 divided by 224. 35% All right. So 35% of players in the Elite Eight International 31% according to the math of Jacob in the Sweet 16 were international. There's a lot of spots in men's college soccer generally just taken up by internationals. I think that overall is probably closer to 50%, if I remember correctly from some previous discussions. And yeah, I guess it's worth at least a thought question of what would happen if there was a cap on internationals in college soccer at 10% and hundreds of these spots went to Americans, american kids growing up in the youth system here to have an opportunity to play college soccer that don't now because of internationals that are coming in. What impact would that have, if any, I suppose? But what impact would that have on the youth system in america just to have more kids that have the opportunity to move on to college soccer? What would that do to the level of the game? Doug, you thought on that?
Speaker 4:I mean there's a trickle-down effect that would have to happen, right. More opportunity for kids here would mean, I would think, a raise of the level at the youth level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you just keep somebody playing at a higher level for a longer period of time and then, in theory, maybe some of those players bubble up later. Uh, like a jade amerit story, you know.
Speaker 4:I mean, I think I think it's absolutely true that there are late bloomers. It happens in every sport. There, you know it's. It's absolutely true. This is where it's complicated. I think we could all agree. We'd love to see our players from here have more opportunities to play the game, longer play at the college level, move on into coaching and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3:Well, it just raises sort of the soccer IQ of the nation when you have more players who continue to play than have kids who play in that.
Speaker 4:It's the same argument as the more coaches you educate at a high level, the better the level is going to be. And you can look at it as a player education right. The more players that go on and play at higher levels right, the better the game's going to be here.
Speaker 3:It's an exercise.
Speaker 3:It's interesting because when you add on top of that all the NIL stuff and the changing of college soccer and the men's side specifically, which is still so much unknown if you don't cap the number of internationals that come on, even if you had a minimum number of American players on a roster which, by the way, is not something that is foreign to the world I mean, you know, we were just looking before the show in Germany you have to have a minimum of 12 German players on your pro roster, and that has been that's done to help promote the development of German players into higher levels of soccer around the world and to support the German national team.
Speaker 3:And then UEFA has a rule in the Champions League that you need a minimum of eight homegrown or locally trained players in a roster of 25. And if you don't have eight, your roster decreases pro rata on that. So I mean, this isn't something that's not done in other places, it's certainly not done everywhere, but I would think there should be some discussion about having a minimum number of American born players in American college soccer in order to support the growth of American youth soccer and support the American level of play, and hopefully you would find some late bloomers there that move on to become pros and go beyond that 100%, absolutely.
Speaker 4:We should have something like that. It's a tough conversation because, again, if you talk about sports as a reflection of the university or as part of a university community, you know how many universities, what's their international population, look like versus the athletic team's international population. This is happening everywhere, like if you, if you look at the Olympics and you watch track and field, which is, you know, my favorite sport, dwight has said I mean, nearly every single athlete went to an American university and are running for different countries and competing for different countries. So that's where it gets kind of complicated. I think, selfishly, we all would like to see our American people have more opportunities to compete at a higher level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and listen, I'm generally a free market guy, as you understand. I just think at some point we have to look at if there's a lot of money public money going into these universities, there should be at least some expectation that American soccer players are going to have the opportunity to play American college soccer, not have programs that have hardly any American soccer players. So that's controversial.
Speaker 4:What do you think that is? So you think that's a minimum number, like, hey, you have to have at least X number of American players.
Speaker 3:Well, I think, if that's simple, if we took a step back and just looked at soccer from the perspective of we want American soccer to be better, whether that's measured by national team success, whether that's measured by more kids growing in and becoming pros or pros moving on out of MLS into foreign leagues, which are generally a higher level. If we talk about the big ones, I think we should look at it as a collective and say that it's in our interest to facilitate pathways for more American players, or at least make it so that they're not completely closed off. And you know, I don't know, and maybe somebody can check on this but if 50% and if that's the wrong number, jacob correct me on it but if 50 would see a greater excitement about soccer because you'd have more kids that see a pathway and you'd have more families that stay involved in the game and you have more people continuing to play the game and all the other stuff we've talked about.
Speaker 4:but well, and further it's an opinion you have more people that then have played at that level. That then when they move into coaching or you know, and obviously not all will, but when they move into coaching or some other area in soccer, it obviously helps that as well.
Speaker 1:It certainly does, and Doug Bracken isn't done making a point off of the last topic of conversation, and he'll do that when we return. Making a point off of the last topic of conversation, and he'll do that when we return.
Speaker 2:Soccercom is proud to partner with the ECNL to support the continued development of soccer in the US at the highest levels. We've been delivering quality soccer equipment and apparel to players, fans and coaches since 1984. Living and breathing the beautiful game ourselves. Our goal at soccercom is to inspire you to play better, cheer louder and have more fun. Visit soccercom today to check out our unmatched selection of gear, expert advice and stories of greatness at every level of the game welcome back to breaking the line, the ecnl.
Speaker 1:As promised, doug Bracken picks up the conversation.
Speaker 4:The one thing we did not talk about, though in that little bit was NWSL final Orlando beat Washington, spirit won nothing. Did you check that out?
Speaker 3:I did see part of that, yeah, and we had a bunch of alums there. Ashley, do you have those numbers?
Speaker 6:Jacob did see part of that. Yeah, and we had a bunch of alums there. Ashley, do you have those numbers? Jacob, we had it looks like eight on orlando, and then for washington we had 14 22 players out of the rosters of those two teams.
Speaker 3:I mean that's a great representation.
Speaker 4:Congrats to those players on both sides, pretty crazy orlando, right coming, right coming out of nowhere. Really, they got a really young coach. I think he's 38, late 30s. Yeah, so pretty amazing, pretty amazing story.
Speaker 3:I did see the goal Marta scored in the semifinal. That was dirty.
Speaker 4:That was a dirty goal, yeah that was throwback, Like making people look really bad. A lot of people left in her wake on that one.
Speaker 1:Throwbacks that are still trying to stand up.
Speaker 3:That's all right, dean, you'd be trying to stand up too. I agree Kudos to all those guys and all the clubs, all those girls and all the clubs and people and teammates and everybody, because it is a lot of people that are involved in any player's development, absolutely.
Speaker 4:I wanted to pivot now to a question we got in and again, we always invite you guys out there to send in questions. You can do so by emailing us at info at BECNLcom. Happy to take your questions and answer as many of them as we can. This one was an interesting one. What are some things that a center back can do to get the attention of division one coaches during your game?
Speaker 3:It's an interesting question because most people think about recruiting and they think about scoring goals, creating chances. You know, on the opposite end of the field, that's obviously the easiest thing to think about, scoring goals, creating chances. You know, on the opposite end of the field, that's obviously the easiest thing to think about. And I think center back is one of those positions that is really, really underrated by most parents or most casual observers of the sport. But I look and say you know, a great team has a great center back. You know, if you don't have a great center back, you're not going to be successful. And ultimately to stand out as a center back and we will Doug, you'll have your opinion, actually your opinion for sure.
Speaker 3:But to me, if a lot, if a back line is organized, that's credit to center back 99% of the time. And you can see that through communication, leadership, awareness, how quick the line steps and drops, how tight the line is, how well they shift. You can see the ability to distribute possession percentages out of the back, the ability to strike a ball, 40, 50 yards, hit those diagonals that open the game up, that you know, if you have a center back who can threaten to get a bigger ball in. You're going to relieve pressure on everybody because it's harder for teams to press you if they're concerned about you getting in behind them directly and quickly. Ability to win head balls dominate in the air. What do you think, ash?
Speaker 5:I think all of those qualities I think the ability to play long balls with both feet, for sure, but I think also just like positioning, because Van Dyke is one of the best center backs in the world and he's not exactly lightning quick, but he has the ability to use his body in a way that makes him probably look faster than he actually is Right, just because he has the situational awareness of how to use his body in certain instances when he's going against somebody who is lightning quick, I think dominant in the air, like you said, but really just being a force back there, being able to good communication, using like you know when to drop your six, when to push up, things like that all the things that you said is what I would love in a center back college level I would always say that a good back line is stepping and dropping and compressing and giving space really quickly and doing it even in little intervals and a average back line is slow to do either to drop or to step and that's usually a reflection of center back leadership and awareness.
Speaker 3:The other thing I always look at in a center back is whether you play with one or two sixes but the center back who's always connected with the six, versus the one who you constantly are reminding to keep your six at home or keep your six close or keep that space in front of the back four protected. I think that's an awareness and understanding piece of a center back.
Speaker 4:Here's a challenge. I think the challenge is you are more than likely not a player that someone's going to sit down and be like wow, look at that, because that's not part of your job description and so it's a little. You're a little bit Until you show up on that corner kick.
Speaker 4:Yeah, fair enough. My experience many times college coaches longer to warm up to a center back than to, let's say, a forward, and so I think the other big thing that has to be said is consistency, and being someone that has a consistency about their performance and shows up with that level game in, game out, and then when mistakes happen, how do you cope or how do you deal with that. You know what's your reaction to that and we'll say a lot about you and your character and your ability to be a leader. But I think a big thing is just consistency, and I would just say, if you're a center back and you know you're one of those center backs that can wow people, then great, but more than likely you're someone who needs to show up with consistency.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, your first job is pitch a shutout, right? I mean, that's your first job. Yeah, 100% yeah, that's your point.
Speaker 4:If your team's not giving up a lot of goals, it probably has a credit to you and what you're doing back there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I'd say in possession, the most common boring, mindless pass in the world is center back to outside back. It's actually a pressing trigger for a lot of teams, right? And if you ask most center backs why'd you play to the outside back, the answer will be allow you to advance or it's going to shift the defense in some way versus a center back who can step into midfield with the ball and break the line themselves or find a more penetrating pass, rather than just the sort of mindless. I get the ball. I give it to the outside back, who is almost always open and against an advanced team defensively is probably open for a reason. There's a understanding of how does the center back create?
Speaker 4:an attack and create an overload in that first buildup phase, A hundred percent, you got to have the ball to do anything you know successfully from an attacking perspective. So being really good with the ball and really good with your decision-making Normally when you're a defender and you make bad decisions with the ball, you can get punished more quickly because you know you're the last one. Being really good there, I think, also is really important. Really secure with the ball. It is a really important characteristic, I think, for a center back. Again, consistency to me is probably the thing that I think about the most when I think about a center back and you know, Ashley obviously brought up Virgil van Dijk from Liverpool. I would argue he's probably pretty quick, but he's a big man, so being in the right position is important for him, but he just does it consistently.
Speaker 4:Obviously he's playing for the best team in the world right now, so you?
Speaker 3:know that's a nice liverpool plug there.
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, you can't really argue that they're the best team. I mean liverpool's kind of like the michigan of college football, right it's so pathetic, it's terrible but yeah, if we expand the question from except except, they've only lost one game of all the games they've played so far this year. So no, they're not like the Michigan at all, sorry.
Speaker 3:Well, you know what? I guess they. Probably they can play a forward pass better than Michigan could, but that didn't matter in the game. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:If you expand the question out further to like outside backs, I mean to sort of riff on that ability to play in the attack, whether that's a dribble into space and break a line or to find a penetrating pass in the midfield, you can look at even outside backs. That's another way because it's easier for an outside back to get up the field. But if you want to stand out as an outside back, you could say a lot of similar things on the defensive side, slightly variation on that, maybe, but also the ability to get yourself involved in the attack and you look at somebody like if you go to the highest levels and I think it's always interesting to look at that like zhenchenko, you know, and his ability to step into midfield from arsenal. That's where you see a big difference maker, because you look at if you're if you're in the back line, it's got to be assumed defend. You have a 1v1 and you can do some of these things.
Speaker 3:Otherwise then you really don't have much to offer. So show that you can defend. I think that's your consistency piece, doug, and there's all the things we talked about on that. But then the way to further step out is show that you actually have the ability to add something to the attack, whether you're a center back or an outside back. Get the ball, demand the ball, find good positions for the ball, make good choices with the ball that sort of stuff yes, you center backs, keep bringing it.
Speaker 4:Let me ask you this I I will tell you that everybody is on the edge of their seat for this question. Christian, the birth year update. I don't know if we can put the drum roll in post-production, but yes, we do have an update we're getting into this a little bit yeah, we're going to get into this a little bit more next podcast, but just to to give us an update, what do you? Yeah, so worst kept secret.
Speaker 3:It's out there as various statements being made by people press releases press releases.
Speaker 3:We always love that votes cut to the bottom line no change for this coming fall of 2025, but for fall of 2026, there will be. Technically, I think what they call it is a relaxing of the mandate or removal of the mandate of birth year. We could argue whether the mandate really had any power anyway or was more influential. But US soccer had a meeting, decided that doing it at this time is a little too short notice. Not going to mandate that it goes to school year, it sounds like Just going to remove a mandate that it goes to birth year, so people can do what they think is best.
Speaker 3:They did a bunch of surveys on this and I think the short answer in the survey is that, you know, shockingly, people don't like change. That's one thing. So, even if they acknowledge the problems with birth year, there are people that just don't want to change because change bad. I guess you take that with a grain of salt. More people preferred school year than birth year. Majority of people say they have players being negatively impacted by the birth year age change.
Speaker 3:One interesting thing that's come out of it is if going back to school year because, again, to make it very, very clear, what we expect is the mandate removed for the fall of 26. At that point most states determine school age by a cutoff of August 31, or September one or later. There's 50 states and there's there's some states that are, I think, as late as even October and how they calculate a school year. But there's more that are in that not 831, 91 cutoff than there are 81. And if the goal is to align more and more kids in grade level, I would think that that will become the more likely cutoff of September 1.
Speaker 4:Not completely unexpected, right? Weren't sure what the timing kind of would be Not completely unexpected, so we will get into that deeper. On our next podcast We'll talk about it and how it may look and how it may be implemented and all those kinds of things.
Speaker 3:One of the interesting parts just to say this and we'll talk about this in more detail, I'll have a guest on, I think, next podcast to talk about this is really kind of an acknowledgement that there is no developmental benefit for one or the other in terms of the cutoff itself. Makes a change in a player's trajectory, a player's ambition.
Speaker 3:The level of play all of that stuff is is hogwash to put it scientifically, and that really this is about what people think is best for the player overall the biggest hurdle is disruption yeah and you know, I think we all understand because we've talked about it ad nauseum, but the disruption of listen the reason I say that is because you still have so many of these people who say, well, if you're, if you're aspiring to be a top level pro or a national team player, you have to play birth year. It's just complete garbage. Um, it has actually nothing to do with that. That's just an attempt to weaponize age groups.
Speaker 1:And we'll end the show by weaponizing Doug Bracken with yet another Bracken's Brain Buster that after this message.
Speaker 2:From athletes just starting to turn heads to some of the best athletes to ever play their games, gatorade shows that they are the proven fuel of the best. For the athletes who give everything, nothing beats Gatorade, the studied, tested and proven fuel of the ECNL.
Speaker 1:And, as promised, we end this edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, with Doug Bracken's Brain Buster.
Speaker 4:I want to put a wrap on the Thanksgiving holiday. I've had some holiday questions. I feel when I venture out though, you kind of get you know like I'm going to go Thanksgiving holiday. What is the one dish, dean? What is the one dish, not two, one one dish that you had to go back for seconds on Thanksgiving dinner.
Speaker 1:Stopping with giblets. By the way, I love the little giblets. Like my wife will chop off the liver and all the other little giblets in there as well. Put a little cranberry on it, done Dusted.
Speaker 4:Wife reference Check. Okay, stuffing. All right, let's go to Ashley Mashed potatoes. Friendsgiving Mashed potatoes.
Speaker 5:Potatoes oh my God, they're so good. I can go an entire episode on mashed potatoes if you guys need me to Wow yeah.
Speaker 4:Somebody out there would be interested in that.
Speaker 3:I'm not sure that's helping our listenership either.
Speaker 5:Oh, you'd be surprised. There's a bunch of potato fans out there.
Speaker 4:We'll see if any questions come in about potatoes.
Speaker 7:Reid, all right, first off I will say Ashley, I fully back you on that statement. Mashed potatoes for sure. But if I had to give my own unique answer, I would say honey baked ham. If you know, you know. Absolutely incredible.
Speaker 4:Honey baked ham. Okay, I'm for it, jacob.
Speaker 6:I am also going to go with mashed potatoes, specifically my wife's mashed potatoes. They are phenomenal. They have a bunch of sour cream.
Speaker 3:A break of cream cheese.
Speaker 6:It is fantastic. But I also want to give a shout out to my friend Megan's Mac and Cheese. She made it for our Friendsgiving last week and we are stealing it for Christmas. It was that good, it's two dishes.
Speaker 4:You've outdone Dean. You're Dean's sycophant because you brought your wife up. This is Christian. We're going to have to talk to Jacob for the next podcast about this misbehavior. I apologize for being a family man Touche, okay, labors, rotisserie chicken.
Speaker 3:You know what I had a chicken pot pie.
Speaker 5:Do you like that? That's nice.
Speaker 3:I mean we just totally gave up on the Thanksgiving traditions. I mean last year family here.
Speaker 4:We spent all day doing the turkey, all right. So let's just go back to last year then, so we can keep this in the traditional manner.
Speaker 3:I think Michigan won that game too.
Speaker 4:Okay, you can't go back for seconds on Michigan, sorry.
Speaker 7:Technically what is?
Speaker 4:the dish that keeps calling you after you've already eaten and you're full, but you just can't stop.
Speaker 3:You know I actually enjoyed the post Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches almost more than I enjoy the Thanksgiving turkey. Okay, Is that a good enough answer for you now?
Speaker 4:It's not. It's not. It's not an answer to the question, but I'll accept it because you're going to fight and not answer. So all right, I just want to.
Speaker 3:I also want to go back before everybody yells, because I think we found we found some more stats on this international issue. So it looks like around 30 to 35 percent of teams in the NCAA Division I men's tournament were international. So we're at 30 to 35 percent, I think 34 percent of non-seeded teams. Total number of international players in the 2023 ncaa tournament was 34, so I might have been a little high at 50 overall. I'm sure somebody can fact check that before we come back, but I want to make that clear okay, that does make it feel weird that I have to answer this thanksgiving question potatoes again, but I, I will.
Speaker 4:I'm going to say sweet potato casserole, crush it. My wife's mother makes it and always phenomenal.
Speaker 3:Most people say mother-in-law.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my mother-in-law. Yeah, okay, I wanted to get the word wife into my answer. My son has a nut allergy, tree nut allergy so for many years she didn't put the pecans on air, which definitely lowers its level. But the kid never touched the stuff, he wouldn't eat it. So we got the pecans back, definitely raised the level, so pecan or pecan I'm gonna go pecan your gut allergy and lives in Ohio. He does.
Speaker 5:We can bring that up again, for like Buckeyes, he does yeah.
Speaker 3:I think our listenership numbers in Ohio are going to decline after this podcast.
Speaker 4:Ohio is a big state. I'm just saying you might want to mind your manners talking about Ohio. All right, that's all we got, christian.
Speaker 3:Thank you all again.
Speaker 4:Send your questions to info at theucnlcom. We'll check them out. We'll do our best to answer all of them. Great to talk to you guys for another week.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's say goodbye, telling you that Michigan leads the Ohio Seed Series in football 62, 52, and 6. So bring back Irvin, bring back Jim Trestle and that'll all be back to normal. Back urban, bring back jim treso and that'll all be back to normal. Obviously, having a little fun, as christian labor is a big michigan fan and deserves to puff out his chest, as michigan did it again. Hope you enjoyed the topics that we covered. We'll be back in two weeks with another edition of breaking the line, the ecno podcast. We thank each and every one of you, all the great members of the ECNL, the amazing staff, my producer, colin Thrash, for each and every one of them and all of you. I'm Dean Linke. We'll see you in two weeks for another edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast and remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, email us at info at the ECNLcom.