Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
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Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Playing Formats in American Soccer: Smaller Sides = Bigger Gains | Ep. 130
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Breaking the Line returns to the airwaves for Episode 130 with a Thanksgiving flair.
ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken tackle a hot topic within soccer circles, one that will be moving to the forefront ahead of the World Cup and beyond: playing formats and player development.
Bracken asks a simple question: how much does playing format dictate player development? The answer: a great deal.
The BTL crew dives into the topic, examining what the current playing formats are in US Soccer, and how that compares to countries such as England, Spain and Germany. They ask how the US can improve, and what they think is the right way to move forward. Lavers also brings to the table a study that examined this very issue, and how smaller sided games lead to more development across the board.
The episode closes out with a very special Bracken Brain Buster, where the whole team shares what they're thankful for this Thanksgiving season. And Breaking the Line would like to thank all of our loyal listeners, because without you, we wouldn't be able to do any of this!
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 a special Thanksgiving edition of Breaking the Line in the East DNL podcast featuring East L President and CTO Kristen Labers and EastTNL Vice President and CO staff Doug Brackett. Like so many of you, I am thankful to be working with the East DNL and on the special holiday show. Well, at different ages, there are different formats, including working up from 3v3 to 5v5 and 7v7 at younger ages to 9v9 and 1111 at older ages. They even talk about how in England they do some 2v2 teams at the really young ages. Pretty interesting topic. And with that, I turn it over to Mr. Labers, wishing him and all of you a very happy Thanksgiving. Take it away, Christian.
Speaker 3:All right. Well, thank you very much, Dean. Doug, good to see you. You have a foreign environment around you.
Speaker 4:I have a new background. I have a new background. Uh yeah, no scarves. I am actually in Florida. We decided kind of last minute we found out that our kids uh are off school over the entire Thanksgiving week. We threw curveball and came down to Florida, got here today. So uh, but would never ever miss the podcast for such things. Here I am. You live in San Diego, so you don't have to go to places like Florida.
Speaker 3:Are you in North Florida or South Florida?
Speaker 4:We are in Palm Coast, which is about an hour, I think, south of Jacksonville. 85 right now. Oh, that's wonderful. There's a pool out there somewhere that I'm not at currently.
Speaker 3:But we know 85 is significantly warmer than I'm enjoying right now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was it was chilly uh back back at the home front. So um, yeah, just look forward like any uh anybody, try to spend time with family, especially during this uh this time. So it should be a good time.
Speaker 3:Well, let's get some spicy topics for the Thanksgiving week podcast.
Speaker 4:Today we're gonna talk about playing formats, and people say, Well, what does that mean? Um, and what we mean is uh you know, at different age groups, there are different formats, meaning different numbers of players on the field start at 5v5, work our way up to eventually playing 11v11. We're just gonna talk about what the pros and cons of when those things need to happen, and um you know, kind of just try to get some conversation around that. And I know you've done a lot of work and think thought about this, and I think it's really um in your wheelhouse now, right? Because you've you've gotten to zone one and coached there now, uh, which you hadn't done previously. So it'll be it should be an interesting conversation, one that uh some may agree with, some not. Some hot opinions, man, some hot takes an issue. I don't I I don't think I don't think we're gonna I think our opinions will probably be similar, I would think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but I think we'll unpack some things because it is there is a lot of push. I mean, after you go back when we were youth players and in the dinosaur ages of soccer in this country, to to be fair, we were probably playing 11 aside when we were under 10s on big fields, you know.
Speaker 4:I yes, I do not remember ever in an organized way playing anything less than 11v11.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so if you think about it, you know, we go from really naive structure in this country where the the game was just sort of applied to younger kids regardless of constraint and format and size and all that thing, to the recognition that smaller-sided games are positive and helpful in development and player experience. And those are two different things to the Federation, maybe eight, nine years ago, maybe a little earlier than that. Putting in some recommendations or mandates, maybe for small-sided games of certain numbers. To now, there is seems to be a lot of people in places, or maybe I shouldn't say a lot, there are some noisy places that are trying to go back to bigger numbers in the US, anyway, at some of these age groups. And to be clear, what we're talking about is at U12 and down, and what the playing format is. There is a lot of change happening in this topic even internationally, uh, relatively recently. So I guess to set the stage right now, according to US soccer's player development perspective as of six, seven years ago, at U11 and U12, the game format here is 9v9, eight field players and a goalkeeper. At U10 and U9, it is 7v7. Okay. And at U8 and down, it is 5v5. Right. That's all pretty good. To be clear, that is not a universal standard. There's a lot of different ways it's done around the world. What I would say from my understanding and the research we've done and the conversations we've had with people, and this may be a topic that we can bring some people on here in the future, there are very few places that are playing 11 aside in these age groups at all. And if you had to say anything, I would say that there are multiple high-performing countries in terms of development of young players that are playing actually smaller than what the United States recommendations are of 9v9, 77, and then 5v5. So we'll start there.
Speaker 4:Well, let me ask you a question. I don't want to get too far ahead of us, but I'm gonna ask this question how much does applying format play into player development?
Speaker 3:I think it is a huge impact. And there's two reasons for that, as we hinted before. One is a development perspective in terms of touches and involvement in what you would call game actions. Obviously, this the fewer the people on the field, the more frequently each player will be involved with the ball. The smaller the field to a point, the more frequently the player will be on or near the ball. So that means there is more opportunity for the player to make decisions and to manipulate the ball with dribbling, shooting, passing, whatever it may be. But then there's also the player experience perspective, which I think is correlated with development to some degree, but it's a lot more fun for kids to be around the ball. It's not fun to be on a field where you never touch the ball because it's 50 yards away and there's 16 other people that get in the way when you try and actually play with, as I used to say in the Y license back in the day, there's one toy on the field, right? Right. So I think playing structure has a huge impact on the on the enjoyment of the player in terms of their participation. And then also from a developmental perspective, in terms of the number of times they actually get to do something. And that's something also we shouldn't we should not exclude defending from that. So tackling and getting the ball is an action as well. So I think it's significant. I I assume you agree with that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I do. I do uh think it's significant. Uh obviously, all the things you said, and I just think the enjoyment of the game is so important at the young ages, because uh anytime you enjoy something or really enjoy something, you're gonna put more into it, do it more. And I think that's something we can touch on later, too, is just how much players should play. You know, not in a specific game, but just you know, overall. And um, but I I I think you're right. I think when players enjoy something, love something, or get a passion for something, they're gonna they're gonna spend more time on it, which can't can't do anything but help.
Speaker 3:So yeah, so so if if all of that seems pretty c uh pretty intuitive, right? Small fields, small numbers, more involvement, what's the argument, right? And there, you know, there is an argument, probably not as much at at uh the U7, 8, 9, but as you get into U10, U11, there are people who want the game to be bigger and played 9v9 early or 11v11 early, who make arguments like it's preparation for the 11-aside game, which I think is a fundamentally flawed statement. Yeah. When people say that. Um you see that a lot.
Speaker 4:You see that a lot right now. You see that a lot. What what that you know, season, half season, half a year right before the trend the transition to a different playing format. People want to start playing that format.
Speaker 3:Well, and yeah, let's explain. I'll explain why I think that is a fundamentally flawed statement because let's use the 9v9 to 11 v11 and the statement that hey, I want the team to play 11 aside as a U12 so they're better prepared, quote unquote, for U13, 11 aside soccer. And again, this is my opinion, so I'll preface it with that. But to me, that sort of statement implies that preparation for 11 aside soccer is predominantly done with respect to spacing and positioning and patterns of play that change when you add two more players per team. And the counter to that, that I would argue, is that if we're really preparing players to be successful at soccer, that's about them being better with the ball, better at their decision making and how to how to solve problems in 1v1s, 2v2s, 3v2s. Because as most soccer educators would say, the game is a series of small-sided games, right? So the the left back and left midfielder 2v1 against an opponent, you know, right back. How do you solve that? It's a small-sided game within an 11 aside. But when a statement is made that I am preparing players for 11 aside by putting them into 11 aside, I think what is not being said is that the opinion of preparing players does not involve getting them more touches, more decisions, and more actions in the game that the smaller-sided format provides, which I would argue, and again, it's an opinion, I would argue I would take a player who is more technically competent, who is better in understanding how to solve small-sided problems, and then be able to teach them how to play a position in an 11-aside game later, because they will just due to their individual ability and understanding be in a better position to be successful from the beginning. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4:Well, I think you can, yeah. I mean, I think you can, we've talked about this. This has been a while since we talked about this. I mean, I think you could teach players how to do things that relate to positions.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm I'm in an 11 aside.
Speaker 4:While still, yeah, while still looking after their individual, yeah, because I think we we agree that at the end of the day, you know, you and you and I, and all coaches have coached enough games to understand that generally speaking, the team with the best players are the most successful teams. So how do you regardless of how they play? Yeah, and you might be able to, you know, paper over that at 13 or at 11 when these transitions happen because you have a little bit more understanding of the bigger numbers, a little bit more collective organization. Correct.
Speaker 3:But so you said it better, Doug, because you said the the team with the best players generally wins. And so what I was trying to say is that if the team with the best players generally wins, then we should do the things that develop the best individual players, which, by my argument anyway, is keep them in smaller sided games with more opportunity for actions and decisions for as long as possible before we put them into the biggest game.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no question. Right, because uh, you know, as you rightly noted at the beginning, not only does it is it about their repetition and their their involvement in the game and the frequency of that, but it's also about their enjoyment. And you think about what kids at that age are doing, they're playing because they enjoy it, right? To come at them with some tactic or some idea about something big that involves them, you know, one third the time they would be involved in in a smaller number just makes sense that is going to affect what you said, their their experience.
Speaker 3:Well, and and let's also add the fact that the bigger the space that you play in, the more speed is impacted, right? Because faster players do better in bigger spaces. So in ages where there is broader physical discrepancies between players because of puberty and the timing of that, putting them in bigger spaces earlier is going to further disadvantage the slower or late developing kids, and it's going to further advantage the early developing kids. And again, there is not going to be a correlation between early or late development and who is the best long-term, generally. So we're doing things that take away touches, take away decisions, emphasize physical traits that are at their maximum sort of discrepancy from individual to individual. To me, there is really no reason to do this. It does beg the question why people want to do it. And I don't know if that is driven by confusion in development, whether that's driven by some uh argument that we have not articulated, whether it's driven by some economic thing, whether it's driven by infrastructure and saying, hey, it's just it's just hard to find nine aside fields or seven aside fields or five aside fields. So if you know it's easier just to put them all on the same size field, whatever the argument is. I just don't particularly like the other side of that argument. I'm gonna shed some light on this because I found uh a study here, and I don't normally like to be the guy who cites a bunch of studies, but this is a good one. Come on, you're a lawyer. This is the International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching from 2022. And the study was the influence of different game formats on technical actions and playing time parameters, a study with under seven and under nine soccer players. All right, and the beginning is anyone who's read academic studies will tell you the beginning is sort of a whole bunch of background. And again, as as we've said earlier, the U.S. does nine aside, seven aside, five aside. Other countries, you know, we can just use some examples and maybe unpack later. Most or much of Spain plays seven aside all the way until U13, where they play eleven aside. Belgium a few years ago, I'm not sure what they're doing now, but Belgium a few years ago did basically 2v2.
Speaker 4:Yeah, they started the 2v2.
Speaker 3:Yeah, where you were either a goalkeeper or a field player. And the reason they did that is because what do kids want to do when they're playing soccer? They want to have the ball. So you either get to shoot the ball or save the ball. It's like it's the most fun thing you can possibly do as a player. And then they built from 2v2 on. England is announcing and maybe has announced a change for next year that is delaying the start of 11 aside soccer until under 14. So they're going even smaller. So it's a basic question if all these other countries are playing smaller and US is is is in that area, why do coaches or why are there people who are pushing going to bigger sizes earlier? And I'm going to read this this state, the this some of the detail from this study. So, first part is like a review of what's been out there before. The vast majority of studies reveal an increase in the number of technical actions by a decrease of field dimensions and team sizes. So that's what we've said before, right? You reduce the size of field and numbers, and you get more. Here's a perfect example. Uh, this is from Spain in a study that they summarized before. The reduction of team, field, and goal sizes of the traditional Spanish competitive form 8v8 and the U12A troop in comparison to 5v5 showed a greater number and variability of technical tactical interactions in team play. Okay, that sounds good. So this study, what it did is at U7 and U9, they looked at two different types of games, the traditional form, as we've talked about, and then a smaller sided form. So I'll start at U9. So they compared 7v7, that's what we play at U9 currently, with a 5v5 game. So they took groups of players and had them play 7v7 and 5v5, 40-minute games, all right, in this study. And they said, so what is the difference? All right, and there's a whole lot of statistics and you know, things like standard deviations and all that sort of stuff, what I I'm not an expert in, but I'm gonna read some of the important things here. So when they looked at uh U9, the players executed, quote, significantly more actions in small-sided games, significantly more successful passes, dribbles, goal shots, and goals were performed in 5v5. So they say, again, the comparison there is 7v7 and 5v5. Now I'm gonna give you some of the data that they just stated in that sentence. So they they took uh something called technical actions uh per individual playing minute. All right, so these were 40-minute games in a 7v7 versus a 5v5, and at U9, total actions averaging 1.42 actions per minute per player in 7v7 and 2.1 actions per minute in 5v5. So that's that's that's like a 30% increase in involvement with the ball by going from 7v7 to 5v5. If you looked at things like successful passes, went from 0.23 to 0.33, that's another significant increase. You look at dribbles, went from 0.17 to 0.24, and this is individual actions per minute. That's what the point is it means here a dribble was a per player once every four minutes, basically, with a 0.24 goal shots on goal went from 0.08 to 0.18. So all of these things, and the same similar things were found in in the U7 where they compared 7v7 to 3v3. Okay, so at nine, at U9, they compared 7v7 to 5v5, and at U7, they compared 77 to 3v3. And ultimately, the conclusion being that the kids are involved a lot more, they get a lot more touches on the ball, they get a lot more decision, uh, decisions and opportunities to make. And that also within that, it's in theory more enjoyable for the kids. Read some other statements here. In both age groups, significantly more technical actions were executed in the small-sided game. In both age groups, noticeable higher numbers of goal shots and goals were found in the small-sided games. Both successful and unsuccessful 1v1 situations were more frequently performed in 3v3 games than in 7v7 format. And so ultimately the conclusion here is that scaling down the field in team sizes during competition leads to greater involvement of kids. And so when you say all that, and why why do I why do I look at the side, the study there? And again, that's from the International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching from 2022. It's because we can always have opinions and say it sounds, yeah, that sounds like it would happen, but this is actual data where people took the time to count it, film it, and say, well, how much more? And the answer is significantly more. And if we want to develop more players of a higher quality, we want them touching the ball more. Let me ask you this.
Speaker 4:Because you've functioned in club and youth clubs for whatever 20 plus years. Tell me the hurdles to us doing this.
Speaker 3:Well, you'll have an opinion on these answers too. I will. And so we can probably come up with a list because there is a lot. You know, number one, as simple as it is, infrastructure. Having fields with different lines and different size goals is complicated. Now, should infrastructure and whether the line is painted or coned out or whether the goal is exactly the right size, should that drive this equation? I would think not. But infrastructure is a concern that you have to address. Probably more to the point is it's hard. You need somebody who is is uh I'll put it this way. It's easier to put one field of 7v7 out or 9v9 than it is to lay out four fields of 3v3 or 2v2 or whatever the equivalent would be. Uh, because if you have one coach or two one coach per team, they are probably most people are going to be more comfortable saying, well, let's just put one game out there and let them all play. We kind of got all eyes on it, rather than set out a bunch of fields where not everybody can be monitoring every every field. There's a there's a concern with operation in that perspective. Again.
Speaker 4:And you you you hit on something that we could list next, which was do you need more coaches? Yep. Because you have more teams, and that's that's hurdle.
Speaker 3:Another one is parents or other perspective that this is not the quote real game, right? Yeah, another is status quo. Well, this is just what we do. But I think this is the way we've always done it. The way we've always yeah, that's the great answer, right? And everything. There's so many bad ideas started with. This is the way we've always done it. I shouldn't say bad ideas started with, bad ideas continued with. The uh this is the way we've always done it.
Speaker 4:I I would say this. Tell me if you agree with this. The splitting of teams and how you assign players to teams, and having bigger numbers allows you to keep more good players, air quotes together, which makes it competitive factory. If you will.
Speaker 3:Yep. Yep.
Speaker 4:And when you split them up, people are like, well, how do you just split them up, right? There's that kind of perception, like who's the top team and who's the next team, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent. A focus, I think whether it's a short-term or a long-term focus. So are we really measuring our success by where these guys are in six, seven, eight years, or are we success of our scores today?
Speaker 4:Well, we talked about this, right? The reality of youth soccer here is that your younger, more experienced coaches are coaching these younger teams.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 4:That is a fact. It's not necessarily happen, it doesn't happen everywhere, but that's a fact. And so, therefore, what were you like when you were a young coach trying to make your name? There's only one way to do it. It's not to say, hey, eight years ago I started training Susie and or Johnny, and now they're a great player. And I'd like to think that I had a great part in their you know, initial acquisition of skill and understanding of the game. No, it's about wins and losses, periods.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and we have to change that dynamic. And part of that goes back to what we've talked about before about the importance of making zone one coaching a really highly valued career and uh or a profession that people really respect the unique skill set that it takes. And and I look listen, we're we're talking, and right now you and I are giving our opinion that these small-sided structures are really important to uh underline that that you know we're not at we're not totally out on left field by saying we should be playing even smaller. What England, who's done a lot of research on this, uh, is launching starting next year into the 2026-27 season.
Speaker 4:By the way, by the way, when before you say this, I will say I just I just read something the other day that in the World Cup 2026, England will have the most valuable by dollar team in the world at the World Cup. So their player value, their transfer value is the most expensive, if you will, the most valued player squad of any country.
Speaker 3:I mean, and that says a lot based on how uh dramatically different that was probably 15 years ago. I mean, the English Academies have a have a better reputation for development now than they did 15, 20 years ago in general. That's a very broad situation. I think yeah, there's more, yeah.
Speaker 4:They're in a I I don't know. I mean, I think people would probably say they've always had really good players and they just have never kind of gotten it together. I mean, in at a major tournament recently. Well, let's say this.
Speaker 3:The FA, but the the FA 10, 15 years ago really put new emphasis on looking at youth development and what was happening in the clubs and youth development. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair, totally. So for yeah, and and they continue to do so. And so now their recommendations moving forward at U7, 3v3. At U8 and U9, 5v5. So that's two players less than we play at U9. U10 and U11, 7v7. So U12 and U13, 9v9, and U14, the first time they play 11 aside. They're not alone in this. In Germany, Germany has a little bit more. Uh ironically, the Germans seem to the at least the information we've sound indicate a little more flexibility here. But at U6 and U7, 2v2 or 3v3, U8 and U9, 3v3 or 5v5, U10 and U11, 5v5 or 7v7, U12, 9v9, and then the Germans uh going to U13 and 11 aside. As we said before, in Spain, generally 7v7 until U13. So you look at, you know, and we don't need to get into an argument about whether Spain or Germany or England or anybody else is, you know, the best at developing players. All three of them have many, many of the top hundred players in the world. All three of them have a long history of really high-level pros.
Speaker 4:And all of them. That plays into their ability to keep producing them. I mean, there's some cultural.
Speaker 3:Oh, there's culture for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But what I'm saying, and again, causation, correlation, you know, they're they're different, but all three of them are playing game formats smaller than we are playing. And I would argue that again, and we I think we've said this in the past, every nine-year-old is not the same. There are probably nine-year-olds that are ready to play a bigger format game than others, right?
Speaker 4:I don't know what that means.
Speaker 3:Well, what I'm saying is that there are kids with more skill, more technical ability, more understanding that are both nine. There's two kids that can be very, very different. One may be ready to do different things than others. Okay. And you could make an argument that hey, if this nine-year-old is exceptionally uh good with the ball and is very uh good in his understanding, maybe he's ready to go play 9v9 before this other nine-year-old. He's ready for a different challenge of size. But Doug, to you, I think what you're you're saying is if the argument of touches and decisions and whatever is the same, then he's still better off in a smaller-sided format. You just got to you know put him maybe against older players in a smaller-sided format. Increase the resistance, yeah. Increase the resistance, but keep the number of touches and decision making. So, you know, I I would make the argument that if we're looking at zone one and saying, what can we do in this country to improve zone one? What we should be saying is we should shrink the game format even more than it is today. And we certainly should be pushing back against this desire by some to play 11v11 at U12 because they got to prepare for U13, which is now creeping into this desire to play 9v9 at U10 because they got to prepare for U11. I mean, yeah, it's sort of a uh it reduces itself down to absurdity at some point if we just keep saying, well, just keep adding players to prepare for the next, as opposed to what is it that's going to help these individual players get better at these individual actions and these small numbered actions, which is really what the 11 aside game comes. Down to so Christian Labors is the czar. No, no, no, don't don't don't don't don't give me that czar of soccer in this country. What should we be doing? I kind of like what England's doing, to be honest. Or I could say maybe I can understand an argument to do 11 aside at U13, maybe, especially for I think not.
Speaker 4:I think 14 is is when we should start playing 11 to 11.
Speaker 3:Well, and that's what England's doing. So I kind of like what they're doing. I mean, I've made this statement before, and again, I'm still in my early learning of being in zone one. That's another thing that's interesting, by the way, is that most DOCs spend most of their time in the 11 aside game with the older age groups. That's right. Right. And there is probably some sort of feedback loop that is missing from getting the opinion of people. And I'm not saying myself, I'm saying zone one directors, right? Guys who have spent their career in zone one or who are responsible for multiple age groups in zone one. Having their opinion and voice heard in these discussions is really important because they're the ones there. And we talk a lot about the value of our organization and governance structure being that you have club directors who are making the decisions. Well, as we get down into younger age groups, you know, it's not the club director, it's the zone one director, or it's the you know, academy director, or whatever you want to call them. That same uh logic applies that if we want to do good things in zone one, we should probably need to talk to people in zone one. Just like if we want to do good things in club soccer, you got to talk to people in club soccer. You agree with that?
Speaker 4:Oh, yeah, no doubt about it. That's essentially why the UCNL started is because that that wasn't really happening. I mean, I'll give you this. We wanted to create an environment where it did happen, right? Not only, you know, to you you always say this youth soccer should be governed by youth soccer experts. Those are the people that are doing it every day. So absolutely, like we should be talking to zone one directors. And and and the other thing is I I would guess that zone one directors around this country at youth amateur youth clubs are few and far between. I bet there's not a lot of them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's that's a good point. That's a good point. And and you know, listen, before somebody says, well, we're very European-centric on this. I mean, if you if you go to South America or Brazil and you look, what is what is one of the biggest factors that that people uh credit for development of South American Brazilian person?
Speaker 4:Street soccer.
Speaker 3:Street soccer, which is small-sided, and then futsal. Yeah, and what is futsal? Football de sale, right? Football in the room, it's small-sided games.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:And so if you and I would challenge you on this as well, is if you go and find your son or daughter and just said, Hey, let's go. I'm gonna take you to play indoor soccer, right? 5v5. They love it. Why do they love it? They're always around the ball. The walls make it even more so that the game is fast and they're always around the ball because the ball doesn't go out of play.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 3:That was another thing they looked at, by the way, in this study is time out of play, which was an interesting side note that was reduced. It was actually, even though there was more out of play with some of the small-sided games by allowing dribble ins and kick-ins, the actual lost time wasn't that different, which is interesting because the dribble in and kick-in is a lot quicker and easier than a throw-in. So, you know, again, something you don't think about unless you actually get out there and do this stuff. So, I guess our argument on this is that if we want to improve, you asked one of your brain busters a few weeks ago. Like, what do we need to do for a US player to win the Ballon d'Or on the men's side? Yeah. And one of the things we talked about is improving what's happening in zone one. And I would make an argument that part of what we should be doing in zone one is reducing the number of players and the game format at least some of the time. Even if we don't want to be revolutionary here and say that we're gonna make everything at U11 go from 9v9 to 77 and at U9 go from 77 to 5v5. Even we don't want to make blanket statements because there's differences in infrastructure and all the other variables we talked about at the beginning. I would argue we should find more opportunities for smaller-sided competitions, whether that is tournaments, whether that is unique competition days within a league. Here's an idea. If you're doing U10 and it's a 7v7 league, why not have a 5v5 competition day? Why not have a 5v5 tournament as part of the league? What does that hurt to do that? You know, I've made the argument, what if you took a day and said, you know, typically a 7v7 team has 11 players, maybe 12. So play 4v4 on each half of the field for 20 minutes and then play 7v7 for 40 minutes. Just change it up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, here's a crazy question. We've seen this uh in American football. A lot of the there's a lot of these 77 leagues out there now. Right? Where they've reduced the number. It's a lot of receivers and quarterbacks throwing and catching, and a lot of these big time receiver receivers that are moving on to college level have come from these seven to seven. Oh, really? I'm not really. So yeah, it's it's it's it's wild. It's been huge, huge um, and I don't I don't know enough about it to be completely intelligent, but I know it's it's out there. And then another thing we've seen in the summer, and we've just seen it out there, uh, which I think is it's gonna grow, is are the 77, like the TST in this in the summer. Do you think that that will have legs at the youth level?
Speaker 3:What specifically?
Speaker 4:Playing a smaller number, like having events that are not 11v11. I now I know uh and I'm sure you you probably experienced this where you always had these younger kids that did 3v3 and then they went down to Florida and played at 3v3 nationals and all that kind of stuff. That was a huge thing where we're at. So I just wonder, do you ever think that that might be something?
Speaker 3:Yeah, and listen, I think the example, I remember that, you know, the 3v3 down in Florida, national champions. And listen, you don't have to go to that degree, right? You having a 3v3 tournament, you know, in your neighborhood, in your city, in your state, whatever. Why is that so popular? It's not because you get to go to Florida, it's because what's happening in 3v3 is the kids are always involved with the ball. And if they're always involved with the ball, they're gonna get better with the ball. And when they're always involved with the ball, it's fun. You get to try things, you get to to experiment, you get you make a mistake, you get a chance to go again. I mean, all the things that you would want the youth game to include are impact are are encapsulated in these things. So I I think this is an area, you know, as we're talking here, almost stream of consciousness, that we as a league can lean into in this space and create these types of opportunities and these types of formats in some way or another, because it's that you don't have to go from zero to a hundred, or you don't have to go black or white. You can mix and match these formats. And it seems pretty inarguable about the data in terms of the value. And now, you know, somebody can make the the statement that when you add numbers and you add more moving pieces, and there's perception issues and understanding issues there that are important too. I get that. Um, but I I think it would be a mistake. It's it to me, it's certainly a mistake to be pushing entire groups of leagues into 11 aside early and nine aside early. To me, that there they're somebody needs to ask why.
Speaker 4:And part of this, I think the answer, the answer can't be, well, we're we're getting ready.
Speaker 3:It can't be we're getting ready.
Speaker 4:There's gotta be a better answer than that. Yeah. Because then what stops it? Oh, well, we'll do it a year early, or we just want to be ready, you know. No, what you want is you want the players to continue to get better, and so putting them in the format that that facilitates that is what you should do for as long as you can, right?
Speaker 3:It's it's just shocking to me what a what a hot button issue this is and is becoming. And it seems that these things go in waves, right? Where it starts one place and then it sort of rolls across the country or it starts to pop up in other places.
Speaker 4:And I think this is a this is one of those things where I will I do want to bring up this reality too, to just to talk about because I don't know, I don't know that anybody has the answer. I do think again, there's some viability issues here at the club level, and those viability issues are when you make those transitions, do you have enough players to do it? You know what I'm saying? So so like when you go from 9v9 to 11v11, what's your roster got to change from you know probably what 12 players to 15 or 16? Yeah, and normal, and if you're in the E small and the RL, you have you have to get two teams worth of players. So if you're at a small club and you just think about the viability of your teams and how does doing it early help facilitate making sure you have rosters that are, you know what I'm saying? Like I think there's some nuance things to this that we all feel as club operators. I and that doesn't make it right, right?
Speaker 3:It doesn't mean that we shouldn't be but let's let's talk about those things and and see if we can find solutions for them. It's the same argument about a 77 field versus a 9v9 field in terms of size, right? Or goal size, right? Because kids grow and so a bigger goal is appropriate as as you get into older, older ages. If there are challenges with infrastructure because of finances or ability to get the right size goal or the right lined field, what are ways to work around on that? At least, at least sometimes. You know, I could understand, for example, if if we said, hey, most of the fields our U-10s play on are 9v9 with nine aside goals, so we want to put two more players on the field because it's too big. Yeah, okay, well, what else could we do? Maybe we can't address the goal size. But we can address the size, bring the field shorter, right? And okay, what does that mean? There's more goals because the goalkeepers are small. Okay, that's not a bad thing. What do kids love to do? Yeah, it's a bad thing if you're the goalkeeper. Yeah, that's true. You know, but you know, uh what every kid in the every kid in the country right now, when they score a goal, does the Ronaldo Sue, right? Every kid, it's unbelievable.
Speaker 4:I did not. Oh my god, look it up. Dude's 40 years old. It's it's sick, it's sickening. And I and I also did watch Messi completely annihilate my hometown team this weekend, too. So sorry. I I digress.
Speaker 3:You know what I watched? I mean, if we're if we're gonna diverge, I went to the uh college men's game. Uh went to USD, University of San Diego versus Grand Canyon in the round of 32 last night. I would say the quality of the men's college game, at least at that level, was really good. How many players on each roster were foreign? I looked at them and I would say it was pretty close to the average of about 40 to 50 percent, maybe a little less than maybe 40, somewhere in that 35.
Speaker 4:I just I don't think that's that's not good for the that's not good for the American players.
Speaker 3:No, no, and and by the way, there were the when I say the level was really good, it wasn't just foreign players. I mean, the level was really good. I looked and and there were a bunch of uh ECNL alums on the USD team who dominated, had some defensive challenges and heartbreak, got heartbreak at the end. But you know, just watching the game with my wife and kids, I was really impressed with the with the standard, uh the technical standard and and the the quality of the game, you know, which I say that because there's a lot of good things happening in this country. There's a lot of good people doing good things.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I I think I mean we we come across people every day, and I think people are really trying to do what's in the best interest of the players by and large. They they really are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and and sometimes I think you need to provide sort of the forum for these discussions because some of these, you know, these this push. So so we go back to yes, there's a lot of people doing a lot of good things. That that doesn't mean we stop trying to do good things, it means we keep trying to do good things. So if we look and say, hey, maybe should there be more seven aside instead of nine aside, or five aside instead of seven aside, let's talk about that and let's equip equip people to have this discussion. And we all can agree to you know, change our minds. Um, and we all can uh understand that we all make mistakes and we don't pretend to have all the answers, or there are inherent challenges that we don't know about, correct?
Speaker 4:Or we haven't but let's talk about it. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So if if if it if we are playing bigger than maybe utopia would say we should or would say is best, well, let's at least acknowledge that. It's the old uh, you know, when when people talk about unopposed training, there's not a problem with unopposed training as long as you acknowledge what you're taking away from the game, right? When you take away defenders and you take away the resistance of an opponent in time and space, well, okay, that takes away a lot of the game, but it doesn't mean that it's not important to do some repetition of things. It just means know what you're doing and why you're doing it. Yeah, no, totally totally. I think that needs to be that needs to be set in zone one. We're there's a lot we're gonna talk about over the next months in zone one. We got a lot of really exciting things, I think, that we're gonna announce here between now and February that are aimed at trying to do what we think will help continue to raise the standard and the level of the American player that's coming out of the ECNL and the ECNL Regional League through the previous certainly a couple things to say, not gonna be the people that just complain about things without trying to change it or improve it or make it better.
Speaker 4:So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is I think the great thing about what we have with this lead is just the connection between the clubs and the club leaders so that that you have the capacity to go and do something because you are not because you're with them, right? And that's I think different than having somebody, you know, from an ivory tower tell you what they think you should be doing, even though they don't experience your daily existence, right? So so I think those are those are good things. I'm excited about this. I'm actually it's been like a a little bit of a blessing in disguise. You got into zone one and now you're you're hyped about it, but I think it's it's a good thing for us because I think in some ways in some ways we at times are have been backwards about where we start this. We've kind of started with a focus on the older kids, right? And maybe now we're coming with a little bit more focus to the younger kids, it probably could and could have been the other way around. But we we're getting there, so that's I think that's a good thing. Definitely go check out uh Ronaldo's bicycle kick.
Speaker 3:I will I will do that. I will do that. You were 40, not that long ago. I mean, I I could a little bit longer fathom trying to do a bicycle kick at uh at age 49. 40 is a long time ago. I don't know. I don't think I could have fathomed it at age 40 either, to be honest.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah. Once you you're gonna find out once you once you're over 50, 50 and over, the the idea of falling in any way, shape, or form is uh not appealing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I understand that.
unknown:All right.
Speaker 4:Well, this is a good talk. I I think this is gonna be something we're gonna continue to talk about and try to tackle as we move forward. Let's take a quick break, hear about our partners, and we'll come back for this week's Brainbuster.
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Speaker 4:QuickGold 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.com. Continental Tire is smart choice in tires. All right. Jacob is with us. It's just the three of us. It is. Just the three of us. Uh, you know, it's cozy. Thanksgiving, pretty simple, open-ended. What are you thankful for? What are you thankful for? Jacob, you go first.
Speaker 2:I am always thankful for having good health, for having family in my life. But really, I'm thankful for really this past year. It's been a lot of personal and professional growth that I'm really happy with. My wife and I, we bought a house. I've been working with the ECNL for just over a year now, and I've really enjoyed my time here. So it really feels like life is going really good. I'm just really happy and thankful for what I've been doing.
Speaker 4:Love that. Great answer. Christian, what are you thankful for? I won't make you say me because that's I already know. That's true.
Speaker 3:So present company, present company aside, I would say that uh, you know, I think about this actually every day. I am very, very blessed with family, with health, which, you know, as you get older becomes more and more of something that sticks in your head, especially as you see people around you that are that are not so blessed. But as Jacob said, we also have a fantastic organization to work with and to make change and something to believe in. And so, you know, start with God, family, work, life is good, my friend. Life is good.
Speaker 4:Love that. I think we're all kind of be on the same vein. Obviously, very thankful for family and get to come down here and spend time with with them, which is great. So always very thankful for them and all that all that they bring to it. Very thankful for my health getting up there, you know, a little more gray in the in the beard uh these days. And then yeah, very thankful, Christian. I you you and I talk about a lot a lot, you know, who'd have thought 17, 18 years ago that we would be here. So thankful for all the people and the organizations, the clubs, the people that work for the SNL that made it, made it possible and make it, make it what it is. It's makes it really enjoyable thing to do. You know, I'd say the same thing about my club here in Cincinnati. You get to work with great people. And so uh yes, like you guys, very thankful for for all that.
Speaker 3:So yeah, thank I I'll I'd add to that, Doug, you know, if we speak specifically on the ECNL now, thankful for over the last 16, 17 years, the number of coaches and directors that we've been able to work with and build with, you know, because this is always a with thing. Um have the support of through ups and downs and through some choppy waters, but ultimately have people that, as we've said so many times, aligned on vision and aligned on values that stay together with a commitment to try and make the sport better, which is kind of what we're talking about all today in zone one on this one specific issue that some people may say is, you know, golly, that's getting down in the weeds when you talk about the sport overall. But it's the ability to have these discussions to identify solutions or potential solutions to problems, and then the ability for so many clubs to go out and try and attack them together. That was what was missing, really, prior to our organization. I hope we can keep that as spear decor, as they say, for a very long time.
Speaker 4:I think you would agree that you and I are better because we've been able to interact with all those people. So it's great. Last thing I'll say is uh also thankful for Dean and Reed, obviously, and Jacob for making the podcast great. So that's all we got today. Everybody have a very, very happy Thanksgiving. Enjoy the time with families. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody.
Speaker 1:Happy Thanksgiving indeed. And want to thank everybody at the ECL, especially Christian, Doug, Jacob, and Reed. Also want to thank our producer, Colin Fraz, for each and every one of them. I'm Dean. 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 ETNL podcast. And remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line, the ETNL podcast, email us at info at the ectnl.com.