Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
The Elite Clubs National League was founded in 2009 and continues to lead by daring to do things differently, embedded with grit, collaboration and tenacity – all things learned from the beautiful game. The ECNL protects and propels the integrity of the game and everyone it impacts by facilitating the perfect symmetry of excellence and humility, exclusivity and accessibility, freedom and community. We believe that challenging everyone to rise to their best creates game-changers that live well, long after cleats are unlaced. Born out of the belief in a better way. Continued in the ever-evolving pursuit of excellence.
Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Breaking the Line Live at the ECNL Boys National Playoffs: A Winning Mentality | Ep. 121
Let us know the topics of interest to you!
Filmed LIVE on Day 1 of the ECNL Boys National Playoffs in Redmond, Washington, the Breaking the Line team sits down right on the fields to discuss all things ECNL Playoffs.
ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken are joined by ECNL Boys Commissioner Jason Kutney to give insights about everything surrounding the ECNL Boys Playoffs: how many teams get in, the formatting, why there's only Champions League for most age groups, how college scouts fit into the equation, and much more.
The BTL Crew also has a conversation about how you cannot decouple winning from player development, and how that concept translates across all levels of soccer, not just youth soccer.
Breaking the Line producer Jacob Born dives into the mailbag and the team answers questions submitted from listeners and the Bracken Brain Buster has the guys remembering their favorite ECNL moments.
It's a jam-packed episode from the best event on the youth soccer calendar.
As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels.
This is Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast featuring ECNL CEO and President Christian Lavers, ecnl Vice President and Chief of Staff, doug Bracken, and a special guest today, ecnl Boys Commissioner Jason Kutney. This week's podcast comes to you live from the ECNL Boys playoffs out in Redmond Washington and we'll get to Christian Doug and Jason. After this message from Nike and Quick Go.
Speaker 2:Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL. Nothing can stop what we 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. The ECNL is pleased to announce Quick Goal as the official goal provider and partner for ECNL girls and ECNL boys. A new partnership created to support the growth and development of the country's top players, clubs and coaches at all national events, including national playoffs and national finals. The Quick Goal Coaches Corner will provide hospitality and social space for ECNL girls, ecnl boys and collegiate coaches. Quick Goal will also be the presenting sponsor of the national championship-winning ECNL girls and ECNL boys coaches of the year and the ECNL girls and ECNL boys coaches of the year and the ECNL girls and ECNL boys goals of the year. Quick Goal looks forward to helping the ECNL continue to elevate the standards of youth soccer and provide more opportunities to players on and off the field in the coming years.
Speaker 1:We are live today as part of the ECNL playoffs, so I turn it over to Christian Labors.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the 2025 ECNL boys playoffs here in beautiful Redmond Washington. Happy to be back here. Last year we were here for the girls playoffs, as we swap back and forth boys and girls every year. Doug Bracken.
Speaker 4:Nice to be here, christian Love coming here, great, great facility, weather, great for playing, obviously, which is what we care about. Happy to be here, happy to get into this. We have a very special guest.
Speaker 3:Very special Speaking of great.
Speaker 4:Our specialist guest Most special, most special.
Speaker 3:Jason Kutney boys, commissioner.
Speaker 5:Until that special guest arrives, I'm here. But I am super excited to be here. I love Seattle. I was here in, I think, 2018. Blaine and I were talking about this earlier, I think it was 2018. I was here coaching on the girls' side in playoffs and had a really amazing experience here in Seattle and I'm super happy to be back. I mean, the fields are unbelievable, the weather is unbelievable. So it's good stuff. The weather was unbelievable.
Speaker 4:So good stuff. Fun fact, christian as you know, we held our first ever playoff ECNL playoffs here back in 2010.
Speaker 3:That is true, I do.
Speaker 4:And the funny story that I have to say about that I tell everybody is the first team that won the national championship was headed up to the stage. We had gotten these really nice trophies.
Speaker 3:You were tying ribbons on the trophies.
Speaker 4:I believe I was tying ribbons on the trophies and I was like Christian, somebody's going to have to do the trophy presentation. And you were like who's doing that? I said I think you are First and last time.
Speaker 3:First and last time. Trophy presentation brought to you by Christian Lavers 16 years ago, that's a long time ago, 16 years ago, we also ran out of shirts to sell on midday of day one.
Speaker 4:Yes, we did.
Speaker 3:In 2010 playoffs.
Speaker 4:We've come a long way. We've grown up a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah here, and we'd be remiss not to do a shout-out to Crossfire this unbelievable facility. They put a lot of work into this. Shut it down, put a lot of TLC into the grass and it is an unbelievable place to play.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they've been a great partner, just both from the league perspective and just home of this event, being able to be here year in, year out, hopefully for many, many more years.
Speaker 3:A playoff special episode. We're coming towards the end of the regional league playoffs. So we've had three regional league playoffs around the country south, west, midwest, and we got the east coast rl playoff going on, actually coming up this weekend. So each of those events was 176 teams, awesome events. We got teams moving on from each one of them going to the regional league finals in Richmond. And now today we kick off the boys ECNL playoffs 330 something boys teams here. Tomorrow kick off the girls playoffs down in San Diego 330 girls teams there. It's an unbelievable month. I mean some people watch the FIFA world cup or the CONCACAF Gold Cup or whatever else. We're going to watch the ECNL playoffs and the RL playoffs and it's a really cool time of year for the players, the clubs, the teams and for the league.
Speaker 5:I can see why you didn't have enough t-shirts years ago. It's 336 teams, yeah, so I've got to do the math on that. That's how these things happen, doug. Yes, detail-oriented.
Speaker 4:Yes, we are. I think, always an important thing to point out about our playoff structure and what we're doing here is we want to give that experience, that qualification experience, to as many teams as we can. It makes sense, right, and there's obviously a limit to that, but we want to get as many teams here as possible because we think that helps that being in this environment, this competitive environment which we're going to talk about you know, and this winning environment really helps kids, both from an experience standpoint but also just from the standpoint of their development.
Speaker 4:and the more you're in that, you know kind of pressure situation. We realize it's youth sports, but to the players it's pressure. My son is here so he's feeling it Said he couldn't sleep last night that good because he's got a big game today. So I think that's what's really great about this event to me, and from the beginning we wanted that. We wanted to give as many teams as possible the experience of being here and feeling that well, I'm really.
Speaker 3:I mean, we'll talk about this as well, but you know we're gonna make soccer win again see what I did with that.
Speaker 3:I'm gonna make soccer win again. We believe in the importance of winning these events. Teams fight all year to get here. They fight here to advance out of their group to an elimination game. They fight in the elimination game to move on to the finals in Richmond in a month or so, three weeks, whatever it is. And you know there's a lot of back and forth over the years about what role winning plays in youth soccer and how do you make youth soccer and coaching, education and everything better. But what fundamentally makes this the most special event all year is the excitement to compete and to win, and I'm sure your thoughts are similar to ours, but we haven't had you on here in a while to talk about it.
Speaker 5:In soccer in general. One of the main reasons the UCL has been successful over the years was meaningful games. When my club previously was not in the UCL, trying to get into the UCL, we always commented about how it felt like one out of every five or six games was meaningful, in the sense that it was highly competitive and had scouts attending and things like that. When you get into the league, you realize all of a sudden that every one of these games matters because you're trying to get here right and you need to win to get here right. When you get here, then it's all about winning right. This is playoffs, this is about winning. So at the end of the day you want to raise a really nice trophy on stage. Then you need to win your games and that is what you feel when you arrive at playoffs. So the energy at these fields right now, this celebration, the club-wide celebration to the corners of the fields on teams who are scoring that doesn't happen unless something big is on the line.
Speaker 3:And that big thing is a trophy and that means something to players and it ramps up like what's interesting, like here today we're just kicking off, so so let's, let's talk about that. The way the competition is set up, so we're here at the boys. So u13 to u18 okay, 14 to 17 is the same format, right, 64 teams here in group play, and I think that's what you're going to lead to is the difference from probably today?
Speaker 3:to day three yeah, so let's talk about that. At U13 also, group play, just a smaller number, u18 is different. U18 is pure knockout. They started 100 miles an hour in terms of drama, attention, excitement.
Speaker 4:Let's talk about how teams got here well, they played all season in their conference to qualify right, and you know certain numbers of teams from each conference qualified to get here, and then they're seated and put into groups and then they go, except for the Uniteds, to your point which the reason we're there in knockout is because we finish here.
Speaker 3:Yep, because a lot of those kids are moving on to college.
Speaker 4:Correct, as opposed to going to that second stage. So that's what I was going to allude to is how the energy will build as we go through. So today I wouldn't say it's muted, but it's not what it will be in two or three days from now, right where things are really heating up.
Speaker 3:Most of the huge yells today are probably U18 because that is a knockout. The other ages they're excited but they got three games to get through and I got the percentages here about how hard it is to get here right. And we find a balance between you want teams playing meaningful games late in the season, because that's what makes soccer fun. So if teams get eliminated too early in the season and they don't see a postseason opportunity, then soccer becomes less fun and less inspiring and they sort of dwindle off. So we have the balance of keep it relevant and competitive for as many people as long as possible during the regular season, but also make sure that when we get to the playoffs it is only the best of the best. And there's a difference between the boys and the girls on that too, because the boys it's one field of 64 when you're in those primary age groups. There's a difference between the boys and the girls on that too, because the boys it's one field of 64 when you're in those primary age groups. There's not multiple levels. Girls, there is multiple levels. We can maybe talk about the differences on that but the boys it's one field of 64 in those age groups U14 to U17, 43 percent of the ECNL boys teams in each age group make it to the playoffs. So less than half of the teams in the league are here playing today. At U18, we also do it smaller because it's one stage 22% I think we have.
Speaker 3:What is it? 32? 32. 32 boys teams out of 148. So I mean that's really hard to get here. And at U13 and 14, because they're sort of ramping up. Sorry, just U13, 32%, so pretty hard to get here at U13. And part of that's also, you see, a wider range of competition at U13, I think, because of physical development mostly, than you do at 15, 16, 17, as that narrows down. So the field gets a little bit bigger.
Speaker 4:And that feels right like right, where again we can achieve our goal of giving as many teams experience but also getting the best teams here. I think that's kind of what we're trying to achieve. And then there's you know the logistics of the whole thing, which is we have this many fields and you know how many teams. Can you realistically have an event here?
Speaker 3:we've obviously done some things logistically within our, our structure to make sure it can happen, by burying the rest day or whatever to make sure the teams get here, but uh, it feels right so on that note, I mean generally you play game one day one, game two day two, rest day game. Last group game comes after a rest day. Then there's another rest day after game three and only the advancing teams play game four, which is the knockout game to get to the round of eight and go to the playoffs.
Speaker 4:We will vary the rest day age group-wise. So sometimes you know, like I know, the U15s have a play the first day, then they rest. The second game, then they rest the second game, then they go game to game, and then again we always rest before the elimination game.
Speaker 5:We think that's the right thing to do and we've changed I mean, if you rewind three or four years we also changed the format for certain ages, like the U13s. Years ago had a smaller field and they did it at NACA and that was when we spoke to the club directors coming out of playoffs. I remember being in North Carolina coming out of COVID and that was the setup at that time for the U13s. More teams wanted to be in the event. There was a high appetite for teams to get into the event. We didn't want to expand and double, for instance, and go to 64th. But one of the other issues was just that there was also a concern over having a knockout format right that we wanted to instead have group play. So we expanded from 32 to 48, made it a group play situation for the U13s and since then everyone's been.
Speaker 3:The reason right is because if you work all year and then you come and it's one and done and you have a bad day and you're the number one team, that's tough right, and so there's realities with that at 18. But maybe talk about, because I think, the u18 change yeah, that you made and I hate to give credit to jason as a matter of course but that you suggested and we made found a way to make the u18s relevant, even though you have to do knockout, because we've got to get it all done in one time frame so these kids can move on and go to school.
Speaker 5:So maybe talk about the u18 structure, because that is different and unique the initial view of the u18 19s was that it was going to be two fields of 16 and that we were going to have 16 playing for the champions league, 16 playing for the north american cup. We kind of recalibrated after that first year of doing it and I give teddy, teddy Chronopoulos from Pati Doris a lot of respect for this, because his team won the North American Cup that first year. I coined it the Teddy Cup. He didn't like that. But coming out of that the conversation was that wouldn't it be better if all 32 teams started in a competition for the Champions League and then divided after day one? And so we looked at that.
Speaker 5:So it's like a second bite of the apple. So you know, basically that way it kind of mitigates what you said before, that risk of having that number one seed lose on day one and then not having that title to play for. So after day one, when these games all take place, we'll then split into two groups of 16 and those 16 will then each play for either a champion.
Speaker 3:So one field of 32, then it breaks. Winners go into the Champions League, knock out of 16, and then knock out of 16 for the North American Cup, which is the second level. But that is a difference between the boys and the girls, because that's a mailbag.
Speaker 5:Question that we have is why is the boys just Champions League, or why do the girls have North American Cup?
Speaker 3:Showcase Cup A, showcase Cup B and Showcase Cup A, showcase Cup B and that's intrepid podcast producer Jacob coming in with that. And so what we found and I'll invite you to go deeper on this is on the girls' side we have multiple levels of cups in those sort of middle-aged groups, which is the predominant majority of the event. We have Champions League, then we have North American Cup and then on the girls' side we have two Showcase Cups that go deeper than that and that's great. The girls side loves that. On the boys side, it is one very big champions league and that's it. So talk about that why we did that on the boys, versus having the different levels of competition.
Speaker 5:There's a few different viewpoints on that, one being a collegiate scouting piece. When you look at the numbers and the volume of programs in this country for women's soccer versus men's soccer, it's almost double. I think it's actually a little bit over double of women's programs versus men's, and the budgets for those programs are also probably more than double. So you just have more college scouts on the women's side that are at these events. For the girls' side that means that more games will be scouted in that event. Right on the boys side, we understand that we have to taper that down to just the games where the teams that are playing for the champions league are going to be scouted, because there's fewer scouts now.
Speaker 3:Granted, we have well, let's, let's talk about that. So last year and the numbers here look like they're going to be the same or above, but last year we had over 500 scouts from college soccer here on the boys' side and the girls'. Last year we were over 1,000, right, and you just mentioned there's about twice as many programs on the girls' side than the boys' side, to begin with. So that number of scouts makes sense and what that tells you is that this is the place to scout college soccer players, because we have exact ratio and nobody can argue on the girls side where the top level scouts are going.
Speaker 5:The same thing is now happening in the asl boys so if you're, you know if your team falls just short of qualifying on the girls side for the champions league, you're still enticed to be at that playoff event because you're gonna have one of the best scouting opportunities of your career at that event. On On the boys' side, we know that the numbers don't have that same allowance. We need to be sure that the teams that are here are competing for a championship and they're also being scouted. We don't have the multiple layers.
Speaker 3:Now I would also say that I think the girls are happy competing for a championship at different levels, and maybe that's male ego, maybe what it is.
Speaker 4:I think we talked about different levels and maybe that's male ego, maybe what it is. I think we've talked about this before and this is my opinion, so take it for what it is, and I think I've said this on this podcast before. I think generally the feeling is that boys' soccer in this country is deeper as it relates to it's more competitive farther down the ladder.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the gap from 1 to 64 is smaller. On the boys.
Speaker 4:And so you know there's a realistic. You know, if you come here as the 64th team, you're not, I mean you could. You know we've seen clubs that are smaller.
Speaker 3:Well, we did the data last year. I mean there were some four seeds right the bottom pot that did move on. On the U15s last year I mean there were some four seeds right the bottom pot, that did move on.
Speaker 4:You know I won the U15s last year from a small market like that.
Speaker 4:You just don't see that on the girls' side Not very often, and that's just a reality, and the other part of it is, you know, I think winning anything is really hard. Our view on the girls' side is that there aren't that many teams that are going to win the champ, you know, and a lot of it is geographical and and other factors, and so we've just put other layers in to give people a chance to win win different things, which I think is the right decision on the girls side. So it's a little bit of a apples and oranges comparison and what we've tried to do is look at each individually and say what is the best situation for each.
Speaker 3:The boys and the girls. Yeah, and a cool thing, and I think this shows over time, for a long time, the girls' Champions League was 32 teams, right, boys 64, and that reflects that depth issue. Last year, we expanded the girls' Champions League to 44, I believe, and the fact that we were able to do that and then we tracked the scores, because it was again, you don't want to come here and play a game that's not competitive and, as you would say, it's not showcaseable, you know, or not meaningful.
Speaker 5:For the record, I didn't use the word showcase. What did you say? Recruitable? If you did, you invented a word. I was brought into this by Chris.
Speaker 3:Chris just invented a word. Well, that's how the vocabulary expands.
Speaker 5:It's very lawyer-ish.
Speaker 3:But the cool part about that is that with that expansion to 44, we did not see a significant increase in games that were not competitive and we saw a very similar, because every now and then there's always going to be a team that has a bad day, right. But generally the fact that we could put 44 girls teams now in the top level and expect all of those games to be meaningful we couldn't say that 10 years ago and I think that is a really positive statement about just the level of play in the country and how the top there's more teams and more clubs that are starting to bubble up. The group is not so small at the top anymore, it's getting bigger.
Speaker 4:Yeah, jason, I guess I would ask this from your perspective Like, as you come here, how do you balance the winning aspect of this and the recruiting aspect of this, because this is the culmination of the whole season? Like, as you look out there and go around and talk to these directors and whatnot, like how is that and what are they saying about how to balance that and the importance of development? There's always this argument about development versus winning. I don't know how you decouple those things because you can't. I don't think you can, because I think one has to do with the other and vice versa. But as you talk to people and and see everything as you through your lens, what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 5:I mean, the beauty of it is that the college coaches love being at playoffs because it's about winning. Right, college coaches want to keep their jobs, they want to stay in their jobs and in order for that to happen, they need winners. And so when you look out on the field, you know that clubs, club coaches, are going to make decisions that need to be made in types of games like this. Right, that's on the club director to have that conversation with their club, with their players, with those families, to be transparent, to say, look, this is a, this is playoffs. Right, this is not a show quiz, this is a, this is a playoff, and so that will impact.
Speaker 5:I felt that, as a pro player, right, there was. As a pro player, you know that once you're subbed off, you're off. Different here at the youth level, where you can get back on the field in the next half. But those decisions have to be made in tough moments, and I think what the college coaches have said resoundingly here is that the reason they love these games is because they clearly matter. They are about winning and when they want to select a player that's going to help them win a conference championship at the collegiate level, to select a player that's going to help them win a conference championship at the collegiate level. They're going to want the kid that's going to put his you know, put his four his forehead on a ball, even though someone else is winning, they're put at that same ball to get it over the end line.
Speaker 5:You know that those types of moments you see in playoffs all over the place and I think that's the atmosphere that we've tried to create here in the league is that, you know, winning is important, right? Why? Why do so many people in this country get mad at the us men's national team? Because they're not winning. It's not because of their style of play, it's because of their winning right. And so if pochettino puts the roster out there, that wins. No one the next day is like, yeah, we won, but I really didn't like the way we played out of the back. No, we're gonna say we won and that's, that's a bar of success. So I think when clubs come here and they're playing for a title, they're trying to win. And when you make decisions based upon winning, will that sacrifice certain positions? Will that sacrifice certain styles?
Speaker 4:Yes, but winning is a style, yeah, and the reality as a player is, and part of your development is an understanding that I need to be that guy that helps my team win and what do I need to do to be that guy that helps my team win and what do I need to do to be that guy. And you know, as players get older I'm sure both of you guys would agree with this as players get older, it's you know you probably develop the things soccer-wise that you need, but it's between the ears and your ability to dig down or have to be brave enough to put your forehead on the ball when a foot's coming up at your head to score that goal or whatever. That's where I just think it's hard, these conversations where we decouple development from winning. Is it really tough? Because I think a lot of the mentality and the things that you need to develop, the intangible things that help you win, are really important to development. You do that by being at places like this.
Speaker 3:And, as you said before, it's a false choice. It's a false choice to say it's either one or the other. You can sense a theme here that we're leaning into and we're going to be leaning into more the importance of competing to win. And that doesn't mean that nobody's being taught soccer, that there's no tactical sophistication. It means that I think and I'd be curious your opinions on this over the last 20 years there's been a great increase in soccer IQ, in the average soccer player, the average youth soccer coach, the average fan in this country. There's more people now who know something about soccer than they used to.
Speaker 3:Sure, but the other change that's happened in this and you think back to early in your coaching career or even in playing, when you used to come to postseason and at that point it was usually USYS regionals yeah, it wasn't for recruiting, it wasn't for exposure.
Speaker 3:It wasn't for exposure, it was to win a championship, that's it. It was the most exciting part of the year and the most drama-filled and emotion thing and it was the thing that drove people. That's why people I mean if you've ever tried to run a training when there's no game on the horizon, the training is not very good, right? I mean as soon as players know there's not a game to play. Motivation to train drops right, sure, 100, no matter how aspirational the kids are, there is a difference and so what you know, while these events in postseason have become an unbelievable recruiting opportunity and we went through the numbers on both sides what this really should be about ultimately in the postseason is competing to win, and I think we need to lean back into that and maybe that's a cultural thing. You know the individual, you know, look at me and what do I get?
Speaker 4:but the focus back on the collective moving on is really important I think maybe what happened and you guys tell me this is kind of my like hypothesis, I think about this, especially on the men's side is everybody said like, if you remember us back in 2002, let's say when we made the quarterfinal, and you know like, oh, the US, they had just this fighting mentality and this fighting spirit, by the way, and did it entertainingly so.
Speaker 4:They don't play good enough soccer, they're not good enough, they don't have world-class players. I think that was the narrative. And so then, you know, we take this like kind of right turn maybe to okay, now we have to create these world-class players by just thinking only about development, development, development. And then over the course of time, probably the unintended consequence of that is we kind of lose maybe our mentality that made us successful as a fighting, you know, spirit. And so now I think if you watch us, maybe people would. The criticism is that we don't fight hard enough. It looks like we don't care. I've heard that a lot.
Speaker 3:Of course they care. We know they care.
Speaker 4:Of course they care, but so I think that's kind of what I think is. We know, maybe we lean so hard into it that we forgot. Well, this is something that's really great about our team and our culture.
Speaker 3:Well, and you know what I'd say, because I think I read this and maybe Jacob or Reed can fact check me on this but wasn't there a quote from Pochettino recently about the difference of playing in america and playing somewhere else? And and playing in a lot of other countries? Soccer is a is a fight to be won, and playing soccer in the united states it's, it's a game being played. And he was trying to sort of highlighting the difference in that mentality of just going out there to compete, to win.
Speaker 4:And and what was it about those earlier? You know, when we look at the highest level, they were fighting for respect, because people maybe said, hey, those are the Americans that don't, and so there's a fight for respect. And then I felt like we got some respect. And then, you know, and I don't know, I can't say you know, but then it seems like we kind of steered away from that fighting for respect.
Speaker 3:Well, we got more players playing in places around the world than we've ever had, but at the same time then there's been a sort of questionable arc for the national team performance for a while. That you know. Anyone who says this stuff is easy is lying, and anyone who says that we haven't advanced tremendously as a country is lying. Anyone who said that youth soccer has gone backwards is lying. All of that stuff is moving forward, but none of it happens in terms of observable results overnight or even quickly. In terms of observable results overnight or even quickly, it takes time. Some of it's cultural, some of it's long-term development, some of it's generational, and each generation becomes a little bit more intelligent about the game. I mean, jason, what do you think about that?
Speaker 5:The game has definitely evolved. There's no doubt about that. I think everyone continues. Look at track, track and field. Right Records continue to be broken. Right Are people. Are humans just getting faster and faster and faster? Is there a tipping point there? Soccer players are getting better. Our soccer players now on the national team level are more skillful and they play at a faster speed at that skill level than the generations before. But what they're lacking is what we're talking about, except for you.
Speaker 3:I'm sure you can step out there.
Speaker 5:What we're talking about, though, is what Bocanegra, what Dempsey, what McBride brought to the table is what we're lacking right now, where someone has a heart and passion and perseverance, courage whatever you want to call it that they would go into a fight in order to win the game.
Speaker 3:Oh, you see a little bit of that with Diego Luna, or a lot of that, it's just breath of fresh air and we do have these players that can perform.
Speaker 5:There's no doubt Like. Tyler Adams is a fantastic player. He is a ball winner at the highest level in the English League. He's a fantastic type of player to have in there. We need more of those. I think the issue is that we and I said this on you know you guys have me on the podcast like once a year, so I remember this.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sort of like it's the cross we bear.
Speaker 5:But I do believe that our country devalued winnings. You got a big goal, got a big goal somewhere. The Development Academy, right. The Development Academy brought a lot of good to this country, for sure, in terms of emphasizing standards and styles of play and things like that. It it brought accountability to the game that it never had before. But it devalued winning because all of a sudden, it wasn't about winning, it was about playing a certain style, and what that created over time was that players were more interested in winning contracts than winning trophies.
Speaker 5:And when you're interested in winning a contract, you're going to take a day off, you're going to rest, you're going to worry about load management, which is a big concern right now. Right, I'm going to talk about load management. You think about load management, which is a big concern right now. Right, I'm going to talk about load management. You think about load management when you're trying to preserve your body in order to showcase your body, to get a better contract, and that happens all the time in the game.
Speaker 5:So I think we have to be careful that we don't de-emphasize winning at the expense of development. Right, when you go to pre-season whether you're a youth coach, college coach, pro coach you go into pre-season to work on styles and systems, right, you work on those systems in order to break down an opposition. Why are you trying to break down the opposition? To score less goals at them? No, you're trying to beat them so that you can get here into playoffs. So when we coach to develop players, we're trying to develop winners, and then, if you don't win the game, you can't be like yeah, but it's because of development.
Speaker 5:No, it's not because of development, it's because of maybe the athletic pool, the two cannot be decoupled.
Speaker 3:I mean, I think we got to stop People got to stop talking about that decoupling, got to stop.
Speaker 5:You're out to win, everyone's out to win. No one, I don't play. It's a card game. You know, I'm against my daughters. I don't want to lose, I want to compete. The bracken house rule is no free lunches. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't play them. That'll lose, because then my daughters will rip on me for losing them. So I there's it. It means something to you.
Speaker 4:Yes, wonderful, every car game is me as you look at and think about us moving forward here and again. This is unbelievable atmosphere. Uh, by the way, just just looked over my shoulder and op is playing surf in the United teams and OP just scored on penalty Panenka. So that's gutsy, a little gutsy. So I mean obviously unbelievable experience, and being at these great facilities is so important. What do you like? Did you look through into your crystal? You know? What do you want to see? You know for the boys?
Speaker 3:in the C&L. Hey, before you say that, jacob found us this quote and I think this is actually really good because I think it'll lead into what you're going to say this is Pochettino and this quote. He said it's not just about showing up in your home country and trying to play nice soccer. No, you must be proud. You must fight for the people that would love to be in your position, for the millions of kids that are going to see us and dream to be one day where we are. This is type of responsibility and commitment we need to show. I mean, that's what we're talking about. I mean he very explicitly just said it's not just about showing up and trying to play nice soccer, and I think that that's the decoupling that we say has to stop.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, yeah and it's not. I think in some ways I'm not going to go down this rabbit hole right now, but it's the same thing with high school soccer, right, you play high school soccer to represent your community and win, because you want to have that bus ride home where your whole town is out there clapping as your bus arrives back into town. That's about win, that's pride and I think we need that. Doug to your question.
Speaker 5:I mean to see where we've come with this league and to see, to be honest, to see the regional league and the transformation of that league over time and I give Chris Leahy a lot of credit for all the work that's been done there. But to see the number of events that we're operating, to see the social media teams, creative teams, to see the event operations, to see everything run so smoothly across multiple major events in the same exact 30-day window is amazing to me. So to just be here and to see the level, to see the level of facility that we have there's only so many facilities in the country where you can do what we're doing right now this type of weather, this type of surface, this type of everything, and that's another piece to it.
Speaker 3:There's no point in bringing all the best teams together to play on a field that's poor, to play in weather conditions that make it very difficult to run or whether that is likely to occur throughout the event that makes it even impossible to play.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you've got to give yourself the best chance to have a successful event.
Speaker 3:Which is why we are in Seattle and San Diego and that's where we're going to be in the postseason for the ECNL. Then they move all to Virginia and the Regional League moves all to Virginia. So we have the finals of both the Regional League Final Eight and the ECNL Final Eight in unbelievable facilities in Virginia.
Speaker 4:Ultimately, you want the games to be determined by the players. Yeah, not by the weather or the field conditions or whatever. To the degree that you can control it, which we all know we can't, but you do the best you can to put it into places where you can.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and to balance that cost and travel issue right. And that is a reality because some events we do try and make. The regional league is more geographically located right to do that Now. The positive of the regional league is a little earlier for those playoffs right now, so there's a longer planning time for the finals teams. Teams that win here turn around real quick and have to go.
Speaker 4:So go back to it, tell me what you would like. I know I'm putting you on the spot a little bit here, but you're only on one time a year, so you've got to take advantage of it. What do you hope like? The future looks like.
Speaker 5:Credibly. I think what we've done over the last couple of years has gotten you better, you know. So the ECNL level here we've shaped it, we've gotten better, we've gotten stronger. To Crystal's point earlier about the depth of player pool on the boys' side, we know that the boys shape the next few years. Just continuing to look at our competitive level to make sure we have the right clubs in here, that we're finding the right clubs, that they're in the regional league right now I was really happy to see the clubs that have done well in the regional league postseason are ones that we're promoting into the UCL next year. So you know it's a big kudos to a lot of those clubs that have done well there, because we certainly monitor that.
Speaker 5:I personally want to see our ability to do this at younger ages. I coach in the pre-ECL so I'm in that mindset right now with these young. But I see the love of the game and the passion for these families, how much they're investing. I'm not saying financially, financially, yes, there's every sport, no matter what you're playing, if you're dancing, if you're playing soccer, you're investing a lot of money as families. I get that. But what we've seen, what I've seen personally in coaching at those young ages. As a dad, is that my daughters love the game and they want more of it. They want more from it. They want to go compete and play against the best. They want to win a trophy, you know. I mean, I think that that passion is something that we have to not control. We have to celebrate. We have to give those kids more opportunities to go out and win something that means something to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Time for a quick break and a couple messages from ECNL corporate partners. When we return, jacob Bourne leans into the mailbag with Christian, doug and Jason.
Speaker 2:Did you know? Ecnl provides free recovery sessions. Ecnl has partnered with MarkPro, a staple for recovery in professional sports. Markpro is a unique, safe, portable e-stim device that feeds sore muscles and removes metabolic waste. Stop by the recovery zone during your next event. Soar muscles and removes metabolic waste.
Speaker 1:Stop by the recovery zone during your next event. Drive into summer with Continental Tire, whether you're planning a road trip or heading to a soccer match. Purchase a set of four qualifying Continental tires now, through August 31, and get a $110 Continental tire, prepaid MasterCard by mail. Visit ContinentalTirecom to learn more Continental Tire, the smart choice in tires. Speaking of smart choices, it was smart to bring Jacob Bourne back in to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, and he reaches into the mailbag with Christian, doug and Jason live at the ECNL playoffs just outside of Seattle.
Speaker 5:Mailbag question submitted through Buzzsprout was how have the teams being promoted from the regional league up to ECNL and the teams who are leaving ECNL? How has that affected the talent pool overall of the ECNL?
Speaker 3:especially here at playoffs. Yeah, let's talk about that. First of all, just an interesting comment on some research you did so. We talked about the percentage of teams that make the playoffs. On the boys side it was 43 percent of the teams from u14 to u17 make these, you know, playoffs. For girls it's a little bit different at u15, 37 percent make the champions league, 50 percent overall, because there's a second division there. For the girls I use 16 and 17. For the girls it's 37, so lower in the champions league but 74 make the playoffs and that reflects that there's more college opportunity on the girls side in general.
Speaker 3:But if you compare that to pro sports and not to say youth and pro are the same. But when you talk about the metric of where, where do you draw the line in advancing from the regular season to the postseason? Interesting, because we're in similar ranges MLB 40%. Advance to the postseason. Nfl 44%. Nhl 50%. Nba 67%, so that's pretty high. They added those play-in games. Yeah. Mls 60%, so pretty high. They added those playing games. Yeah, mls 60%, so pretty high. Nwsl 57%. So our number is a little smaller than a lot of those pro leagues, but you get a sense there just about how other leagues and other sports balance that.
Speaker 3:And then, specifically, when we're talking about okay, every year there's changes in the league. We promote some clubs, there are some clubs that are moved out or moved down. How does that look? We'll start with the regional league teams that are being promoted, that are currently playing in the regional league but next year we'll be playing in the ECNL. And how have they done to date? And we've had three RL playoffs so far.
Speaker 3:The East is not done yet. It's starting this weekend. So we're talking about teams in the South, teams in the West, teams in the Midwest. So Greater Toledo has advanced three age groups into the RL finals. That's pretty strong showing out of the Midwest. Missouri Rush, another promoted club, has advanced one. Westside Alliance has advanced one. On the ECNL boys side, chicago Inter has advanced their U16s. Colorado Rapids Youth, adding a second program, has gone and advanced their 17s. Kansas Rush has advanced one. Los Gatos out of California has advanced two and Three Rivers in Seattle has also advanced one. So you're seeing promoted clubs that are performing today in the RL very, very well, because that's very hard to get out of Similar structure in the RL Group stages and then a knockout, so it's harder because, it is a bigger by number cap.
Speaker 3:And then you also look at okay, so every year there's teams that move out all right or no longer in the East, and I think this is really telling. Especially we've talked about sort of the chaos of the last four months or so but when you look at this on the boys side, so we have 48 teams at U13 that are here, 64 at 14, 15, 16, 17, 32 at U18. Teams that will not be in the league next year account for, on average, less than 5% of those teams that have qualified here, and that's a strong statement. So you're talking about generally between one and four teams out of 64 in general that are not going to be in the ECNL that are here, so that it tells you that the talent in the ECNL is continuing to get better.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so any narrative that people have left for other platforms and will really hurt our level or whatever, is a false.
Speaker 3:No, because most of those teams are not here, Correct, most of those clubs are not here in very many teams. Now, on the girls' side, it's very, very similar Again, in 13 and 14 and girls, we're talking about 44 teams, two, two teams in each age group that are not going to be in the league next year, and at U15, 16, and 17, where we're talking about 48 teams. In the Champions League, we have one across three age groups. So, again, the metrics are very clear of where is the quality in the country and where are they playing, and that's a credit.
Speaker 3:And this is another cool part about being here is, you know, they talk about one of the problems in government being people make decisions that are not accountable for the outcomes of those decisions because they're not operating the things that are impacted by new law or regulation, whatever it may be. You look out here, the people out there coaching are the people that give us the information to make this league better. They tell us what they want, they tell us what's working, they inform when we make decisions, say, hey, let's lean a little more into winning. We think it's important. Well, that's based on feedback and discussion. Right, and when you look at this event. It's a. It's a beyond the fact of the quality of the players. This is an event people will remember in their soccer memory forever.
Speaker 5:The college coaches too. It's lunchtime so you can tell the volume Chick-fil-A on the menu today, but we get a lot of feedback from those coaches too. Walking around and talking to college coaches is important. We do our best. Ecnl has always done a great job of bending over backwards for college coaches. Us National Team scouts Look, every MLS club is here scouting this event as well. So we know that we're providing food and beverage and snacks and you know schedules and you name it chairs, sunscreen. But they also offer us major value in terms of their bodies being on the sideline right, because the players love to see that. The players respond to that. I knew as a young player, if there was college coaches on the sideline, I was definitely going to ramp it up even more.
Speaker 3:See, you hate it when that happens, If you're coaching and you see that kid work harder. Now come on, Jason.
Speaker 5:But that atmosphere is created by college coaches, so we have to speak with them, we have to get their feedback. What can we do differently? They actually were very impactful in how we set the schedule Scott Letts, who has done a great job at this event, but Scott built.
Speaker 3:Scott's the event manager, running all administration previous college Division I college coach.
Speaker 5:He built the schedule for this boys' event on what college coaches want right in terms of staggering the starts of those games, making sure that the age groups were spread out across the full day so that you can show up at 8 am and show up at 2 pm and still scout college games, college athletes. So I think you don't want to be remiss in not mentioning that the college coaches are a big part of why we do what we do as well and it not mentioning that the college coaches are a big part of why we do what we do as well and it's a big part of the why for the players.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, we would be brought up to staff and be remiss if we didn't say you know, big thank you to them. We have a ton of people on our staff and it's obviously not everybody, but who played the game played in the league. Coached in the league.
Speaker 3:That's the crazy part now. We got people working a lot now that played in the league, coached in the league. That's the crazy part now. We've got people working a lot now that played in the league, and that's different. It's different when you played somewhere and then you go and work there, whether it's a club or a league. It just is a different level 100%.
Speaker 4:I was talking to Colin Klein yesterday, who's on our events team, a young guy we were talking about. I was telling him, you know, 16 years ago we we were talking about I was telling him, you know, 16 years ago we had our first thing and I'm like how old were you 16 years ago? He's like I was five and I was like. That makes us feel a little Christian.
Speaker 4:A little more gray, but I do think that having people involved in the game and running the game and obviously the people on the staff at the UCNL are highly involved in running the youth game in this country that they've got that experience, whether it be playing in the league, coaching in the league or whatever I think is a really important part. And you know, we've always said, hey, we want to give people careers in the game and help them, you know, because that's that's ultimately how we continue to. So I do want to say thank you. I know Scott Letts and Blaine, our director of events, is here.
Speaker 3:Blaine's going to be in both places flying back and forth, yeah as will we.
Speaker 4:We'll take off and head to the girls in a couple days, but they kind of make all this happen and it's great, and obviously we've got to give a special thanks to Crossfire and everybody involved with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll just comment on the scouting because we talked about it. I mean, we're going to be over 500 college scouts here, we're going to be over 1,000 college scouts in the girls' side and again those numbers in perspective are almost exactly correlated to the number of programs, mls scouts all over the place here. Most of the NWSL teams, if not all of them, are going to be down in San Diego, which is another thing. This is a platform for these players to go everywhere. And also kind of under the radar and I think it's going to get bigger and bigger is Pat McStay's work with the Heritage Project.
Speaker 3:So last year we had five or six scouts from international federations that came to the playoffs boys and girls and wash, and that's growing every year. So we're having more national teams and representatives of national teams from outside of America looking for kids with dual heritage and that's our job as well. All of this stuff we talk. We talk about the importance of moving on and winning, and that is a big piece of it. And the other piece is this is a launching platform for these kids to move on to college soccer, pro soccer, for some of them to have national team domestically or foreign, and that's a really cool thing. As well, dreams come out of there.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, that's what you want. I mean, that's why we do it right, to give those opportunities and then just balancing you know, not everybody's obviously going to go play on a national team or be a professional player, and a lot of people won't but also just giving the experience so that when you know, when the players out here are moving on to whatever they move on to in their lives, they look back at this and they're like man, that was unbelievable. I laughed because and I'm sure you guys would agree like I think about my youth soccer experience, my youth sports experience, and I was like there's nothing like this I wouldn't even have been able to fathom. Well, they didn't have automobiles yet. Right, that's true, we did have to walk all the way across.
Speaker 3:You've seen the Flintstones. He was actually running.
Speaker 4:This is why you only get brought on for so so I get the zenners in.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you do. Well, you got to say, you got to make the you know. You know the other thing and I think you've talked about this and it last last week we talked about that big fish, small pond question. Yeah, when you win here, you win at the top level. Yeah, you're big, like it means something to win here, and I think that's another really cool fact because you there, it's really hard to win at any level in this league, conference, playoffs, whatever. So when they do it and it's especially cool to me when a club from sort of outside the norm does it, because you just you see how much it means to compete and when, when you know it is the top level and this is what happens at a podcast is we have people coming on?
Speaker 4:It is great. It is great. So my son's about to play. I know You've got a time limit.
Speaker 3:So we've got any questions from mail back. We tried to bring them into the conversation, Jacob, but is there any big one we missed that we should touch before we shut this down? I think the only other one.
Speaker 5:We had that, if you guys want to talk about it. Just what is your favorite event every year and why is it playoffs?
Speaker 3:And why is it playoffs? Well, I think I'll take the first answer on that, because of everything we talked about, it's the biggest, it's the most exciting. The facility, the city, the location is unbelievable. I mean all of our events are have unique, cool parts to it. This is the ice, the icing on the cake. Yeah, it's a simple question, totally ditto. Yeah, I love jason probably gonna have some nuanced answers so many games.
Speaker 5:Where something is on, this is on the line like you just hear the cheers everywhere all the time and I think that that's that's so cool, I think the, the social media posts that our team put out with the bag.
Speaker 3:There was a bag going through the airport screener.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that was cool stickers from all the different events that were you've had this year. Like to me, playoffs is like as a staff, as an organization, we've made it to another playoff.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it's a long year there's a lot going on between ecnl, regionally free, c Free ECNL Showcase events, regular season qualification, nsgs. There's just so many things that when you get to this point it's like a celebration of getting here and I think when you look around and see that it's just again another very well done event. Yes, the weather is uncontrollable, but we know we pick places that have great weather, we know we have awesome facilities and work with great people. But when you get to this level and you can just sit back and say, wow, this was another really successful year.
Speaker 3:That's why I enjoy the hikes it sounds silly at some level, but it's kind of playoffs for the staff too, because the creative team tries to make things special and different at the playoffs. The events team tries to make the playoffs stand out more. And it's like you just look I don't know if you can see this on the recording or not but when you look out at the zone and you look out at the branding there, I don't know how if you're not excited to play here based on everything that's put on, then you're just not excited to play soccer.
Speaker 4:I mean if I, if I gauge it on how my son always feels to be able to come here, this is his third year. He's like so hyped about it. He loves it. That's good stuff. We're going to find out about Legends Out of SoCal.
Speaker 3:That's a tough first draw.
Speaker 4:It's a tough first game, but if you don't believe you can win, you won't Get after it, and we'll get after it with Bracken's Brain Buster.
Speaker 1:after two more messages from EC&L corporate partners.
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Speaker 5:Expert advice and stories of greatness at every level of the game. Are we ready for a brain bluster?
Speaker 4:I think so. This might be I don't know, this might be just three of us today, because these guys aren't mic'd up, but you know you're here in spirit, are to mic'd up, but you know you're here in spirit. So my brain buster today is give me your most memorable winning moment in the ACNL Most memorable winning moment in the ACNL. It's a tough one. I mean I'll go first because you have to really think. Christian Ruiz.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, that's been a long time, yeah, so so 2019 was that was the year I was hired by usml. Um, so I was finishing my coaching term with pittsburgh riverhounds at that point, um, we were in the san diego uh playoffs. Now, granted, I was, we were competing in in the showcase division, showcase a. It's all right, we, we were competing in the Showcase Division, showcase A. Sorry, we were not in the Champions League that year, but that last run because I knew that was my last run with that particular team, it was a very super special team to me. I knew that they were emotional because they knew it was my last run with them as well as a team, but they just went through the entire event and didn't lose a single game. We ended up winning that championship, and for me to be able to spend that time with those players and those families and this being my like final, my last hurrah before I joined ECNL was something that I'll never forget. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Christian? Yeah well, I'll answer it two ways, so one, I'll say my best memory of winning. Few ways so one. I'll say my, my best memory of winning and I'll go back all the way to 2011, which is the last year. In 2011 was last year all the ecno clubs played in usys, so it's the last one. I'll say really top level, meaningful championship in in us youth soccer and, uh, I was fortunate, blessed to have a team that won that national championship and that was an unbelievable experience, you know, and that speaks back to just the power of winning and the fun and the memories that comes out of it. So a shout-out to that team because that was fantastic.
Speaker 3:Played Mr Jason Dewhurst in Stars of Massachusetts in the Final Four there. But if we talk specifically East Nile, it was actually here Many years ago. We had a group in the. We ultimately lost in the North American Final in a shootout. But to get to the final, because that's knockout competition and I remember it was one of those two fields down there and it was one of those games that was 1-1, 2-1, 2-2, 3-2, 3-3, might have ended up 4-3.
Speaker 3:Here, playing in this environment, and the North American Cup again, it wasn't the Champions League, but the cool part of it. As we've said before, it's hard to win anything here and we're providing brackets that are appropriate for the teams that are there and you see teams that move from North American up and down and showcase and all that, but it means something to all of them and the lessons that they can take out of that are the same. Whether it's the top division trophy and the win and loss there or the showcase, it's the same lessons and so I think you see those things coming out and those memories coming out at all of these fields within the context of the team and the club uh, mine would be.
Speaker 4:Um had a group. Um, we started the season poorly. Uh, you 18 19 group um had it had a kid on the team. That was tough, you know, just not a good mix. She left and the team came to me and said and actually one of our, a couple of our staff coaches, a couple of our staff members for ECNL played on that team, so Paige Noren and Michaela Hampton and Olivia Brown they came to me and they said what do we have to do to make it to the playoffs, which you rarely hear from a girls U18-19 team.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, any boys U18-19 too stuff.
Speaker 4:I said, well, we're going to have to probably win every game we have left. And we had 15 games left and we won 14 games in a row. We came to the last game of the season. And we came to the last game of the season and we had to tie Indy Fire and they brought all their college kids back and all this stuff and so we ended up tying that game and we won the conference and we got to go to the playoffs. We went 2-0, and then we played top in the last game and we ended up losing that game. But I always felt like that team was a little bit of underachievers in a way. We were always good but just we couldn't get over the top. And to just see them get to where, to still their full potential it was a group that I was with for many, many years and then then, obviously, to have some of those guys working in the league now is pretty special. But that would be probably my favorite, favorite ECL moment.
Speaker 3:Well, the volume's getting higher here. You can tell already on day one it's going to keep escalating through day four, five six.
Speaker 4:Lots of cheers from the Ohio crowd over on field floor.
Speaker 3:Well, we're going to cheer for Shavi. I think you hear through all of our stories how much, how exciting this event is, even to us looking back now as the adults coaching or running the league, and hopefully the memories and the experience of the players here are going to be just as good as we remember them. Again, thanks to our team Unbelievable event, creative league services, administration, the amount of shipping that comes out here I mean we should own stock in FedEx or UPS. So shout out to all the staff in doing this and obviously our podcast team and putting this on live the new challenge. We got some background noise that we normally don't have. And then, doug, I think, a shout out to all the different sponsors that we have here Gatorade, nike, huddle, continental, tire, discount Tire, salt, quick Goal you know it's a long, long list Athlete One, athlete Travel, who support us in logistics. It takes an army here to make this work and we appreciate everybody who contributes to it.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely indeed. And remember, if you have a question we want to hear from you, so submit it to info at theecnlcom. On behalf of Jacob Bourne and all the great people at the ECNL, I'm Dean Linke. We'll see you in a couple 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.