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
New Pyramids, Postseasons and Pathways: A Look Inside The Collaboration Between US Club Soccer, ECNL and NPL | Ep. 131
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It's 2026 and Breaking the Line is back for a brand new episode following the holiday break, and it's a meaty one as ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken sit down with US Club Soccer President Mike Cullina to discuss a major announcement in the youth soccer world.
On Dec. 18, US Club Soccer, ECNL and NPL announced a new postseason integration for the 2026-27 season, along with a new competition pyramid placing ECNL at the top, ECNL Regional League in the middle, followed by NPL and then local leagues at the bottom. The new postseason structure creates a new pathway for NPL teams to directly compete with ECNL RL teams, and creates opportunities for team and club movement between levels.
With such a major announcement right before the holidays, the powers that be sat down to discuss why now, what does this mean for players, coaches, parents and clubs, what does the future hold, and ultimately, how does this change the youth soccer landscape?
It's a riveting discussion, one that gives listeners an inside look at the thought process of these organizations, the pathway that led us here, and the road map for the future.
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.
Special holiday edition of the East TNL Podcast featuring ECNL President and CEO Christian Labers, ETNL Vice President and Chief of Staff Doug Bracken, and the CEO for U.S. Club Soccer, Mike Kollanoff. They have a deep conversation and you will enjoy it. Before we get to that, a new segment is part of the East TNL Podcast. As let's take a look around the league.
Speaker:The ECNL is proud to introduce a new segment to the Breaking the Line podcast. It's called Around the League. Each podcast, Veteran Sports Broadcaster Team Linky, will take you around the ECNL, highlighting achievements and news about current players, alumni, teams, coaches, clubs, and more to give our loyal listeners everything they want to know about the state of the ECNL in less than two minutes. So let's get rolling.
Speaker 1:College Doctor wrapped up its postseason play, and you cannot miss the impact ECNL alumni have made on this college season. Congrats are in order for the Florida State Seminoles and Washington Huskies for capturing their national titles, and both rosters featured ECNL alumni prominently. Florida State had 20 ECNL alumni on the roster, while Washington had 22 former ECNL players lifting the trophy. The 42 alumni winning the Division I title is the most ever in league history. This year, more than 770 alumni were named to NCAA women's all-conference teams with another 90 individual end-of-season awards going to former ECNL players. Just some of those players include former ECNL standouts Camden Fuller from Solar SC, Caroline Burkle from St. Louis Scott Gallagher, Izzy Engel from Minnesota Thunder Academy, and two-time ECNL Player of the Year Mayor Bell Flores from Slammers FC. On the boys' side, more than 120 players were named to NCAA men's all conference teams. Former Richmond United standout and ECNL national champion Nick Simmons from Richmond United captured the ACC Freshman of the Year Award for Virginia. Former ECNL All-American and 2023 Mid-Atlantic Conference Player of the Year with Charlotte Soccer Academy. Drew Hansen helped the UCF Knights claim the Sunbelt Conference Championship and a spot in the NCAA tournament. Hansen scored the winner in the Knights' double overtime win over Georgia Southern before scoring another game winner in UCF's upset over top seated Kentucky. While these are just some of the names, we are incredibly proud of all of our alumni succeeding on college soccer's biggest stage. ECL alumni are shining on the professional stage as well. Robbie Vincent and Luke Spencer, the head coaches in last month's USL Championship between the Pittsburgh Riverhounds and FC Tulsa, both started as coaches and directors in the ECL with Riverhounds and Louisville City Academy. While on the field, former Florida Premier standout Santiago Castaneda was recently called into the U.S. 21 camp and has also helped his club squad to the second spot in the Bundesliga 2. PDA alum Riley Tiernan starred for Angel City FC this season. Tiernan went from an unsigned free agent to scoring eight goals in 26 appearances for Angel City FC, making her a nominee for the NWSL Rookie of the Year Award. Also around the league, the ECNL hosted the first recruitable events of the 25-26 season last month in Phoenix. More than 500 scouts were on hand to watch more than 200 ECNL girls' teams compete in Phoenix, while more than 250 scouts were on hand for the ECNL boys event. The league also crowned its East Coast, Central, and West Coast Super Cup champions as Concord Fire, Dallas Texans, and XF Academy booked their spot in the ECNL Super Cup National Championship in April. The ECNL also held three new pre-ECNL Cups this fall that crowned dozens of champions in an incredibly fun environment for young players with the pre-ECNL Northern Cal Cup still to come in March and all of the pre-ECNL program culminating with the first ever Pre-CNL Champions Cup this May in Provo, Utah to celebrate soccer at the end of the season. So happy New Year to each and every one of you, and we'll get breaking the line, the ECNL podcast started with Christian, Doug, and Mike after this quick message from Nike.
Speaker: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 sports because hashtag you can't stop our voices. Follow Nike on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Speaker 1:All right, time to get the 2026 season of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast rolling. And to do that, we turn it over to Christian Labors.
Speaker 5:Thank you very much, Dean, for that introduction. And here we are, Mr. Brocken. As we prepare to turn the page to the new year and new lots of things. And we're joined again by Mr. Mike Cullen. So I welcome to you both.
Speaker 6:Thank you. Nice to be here again, Christian, with you, as always. Mike, welcome.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, gentlemen.
Speaker 6:How was everybody's Christmas? Mike, you're the guest. What do you think?
Speaker 2:First Christmas in which neither child woke up in our house. So this is new. Was still very good. Obviously, both kids were there by noon. We grow, we evolve, and it is a new world for us. But it was wonderful. Still got the wreath on the on the door, I see. Last one, there's two left. By noon on the 26th, all there was no recognition of Christmas at our house. Christmas goes up on the day after Thanksgiving and comes down the day after Christmas. Those are our rules. I don't make them, I follow them, and I'm happy to do it.
Speaker 6:Ours is a little different. We go up early. Soon as Halloween's over, it's free game on Christmas Up. But after that, day after Christmas, let's start, let's start getting it down. Let's start getting it down. I will say this was the first year that my youngest son, who's now 13 years old, about to turn 14, uh, didn't wake up at five o'clock in the morning and blare crazy trained by Ozzy Osborne to wake everybody up. So he actually we had to wake him up, which is a sure sign of teenagerhood, I think. So pretty excited about that. That was good. How about you, Lavers?
Speaker 5:Uh, it was great. You know, I got kids that are right in the middle of all the Christmas wonder at 8653. A lot of soccer presents, chief of which was a replica World Cup trophy demanded by my middle son. So uh I've got a wonderfully real-looking World Cup trophy that is paraded around anytime somebody wins the 1v1 or 2v2 or whatever game they play, and everybody sings Olay, and then they go on to fight about something else.
Speaker 6:Love it. Those are fun years because the excitement and the like build up to Christmas is there's a lot of hype.
Speaker 5:A lot of hype. If it was as easy to get a ticket to a game in the World Cup as it is to get a replica trophy, I think I could buy about a hundred replica trophies for the price of the latest tickets I'm seeing.
Speaker 6:So I will just drop that here as we however, FIFA president did remind us that without those ticket prices, 150 countries in this world wouldn't be able to play soccer at all.
Speaker 5:Christianity with that statement or the factual basis behind it, so I will have to content myself with a gruff.
Speaker 6:That was his defense of the prices of the tickets. Mike, did you hear that? See that quote?
Speaker 3:I did see that quote on X. I thought this was the cheapest sport to play.
Speaker 6:Probably true, but it's not, yeah, it's not obviously cheap to go see the World Cup. We'll see. We'll see what happens. I'm holding out. Holding out, and I'm gonna wait and see.
Speaker 5:All right. Well, you know, we finished right before Christmas with a flurry of activity, much of it behind the scenes. We'll call this podcast part B. Announcing the pyramid under U.S. Club Soccer in our space, our little corner of the youth soccer world. And it came out, what, a couple of days before Christmas? It came out after a lot of work and discussion, some of it going back years.
Speaker 6:You know what I think it would be important for you to do, Christian, right now, though, before you start, is to explain the relationship between U.S. club soccer and ECNL. People may not totally understand that.
Speaker 5:That's fair. And this is also why we have uh esteemed guest Mike Collina here. U.S. Club Soccer is the sanctioning body of the ECNL, which means they are the actual direct member of the Federation. Do uh the background checks, player registration, coach registration, risk management, those types of backroom services for all of the leagues that they sanction. Also do coach education all the way from grassroots up to bees, I think, Mike. Is that right? Correct. The B license. And then also do player identification through the ID2 program, which we obviously had uh partnered with even closer this year with respect to the spotlight games and the expansion of ID2 that we've talked about on this podcast. So we got coach education, player identification, league sanctioning, risk management. Mike, am I missing anything in the US club umbrella?
Speaker 2:We probably provide a few more services related to marketing for some of the other leagues. Obviously, ECNL has its own department and and a very good one. But, you know, as we're about to talk about with the NPL, we provide, you know, a little bit more there. But no, I think for the most part, you got it. Where, you know, I I think our relationship works so well because we can focus on all of the things that have to be done that to to allow our sport to be safe, to allow us to understand who's on the field, who shouldn't be on the field, all of those things, making sure that that our relationship with the Federation is proper in terms of policies and bylaws, so that ECNL can go out and put the product on the field that you guys do in terms of managing the league and the events and the postseason and and and all of the kind of more technical aspects, if you will, of the sport, which I think is important. So it's a it's a really good balance where you don't have you can focus on the things that you and your team do extremely well and they're are critical and much more tangible to the players and their families. And we handle all of the things that are just necessary morally, ethically, legally, to get done so you can go do that work.
Speaker 5:So we've got a nice uh hand-in-glove relationship, I would say, with the appropriate boundaries and checks and balances and all that sort of stuff. You know, I should say, because it's most relevant to this podcast, is uh the NPL, the National Premier Leagues, is a set of leagues that among many that U.S. Club sanctioned. I mean, US Club sanctioned dozens of leagues from recreational all the way up to the ECNL. And the National Premier Leagues were started in around 2011, 2012. 2011 was the first time that the brand NPL showed up on a league. And over the last five, seven years, we've had lots of discussions behind the scenes with U.S. Club Soccer and ECNL with respect to clubs and pathways and where teams qualify for or clubs go to within U.S. club soccer. None of it was formalized, none of it was real public in terms of what that looked like and what a pathway was and what a pyramid was within U.S. Club Soccer that was sort of left up to the user, the local people to create. And so I guess the first question is when this announcement came out jointly from the ECN on US Club Soccer about the competition pathway, kind of begs the question to you, Mike, and speaking on behalf of the NPLs, and I know the NPLs, uh, most of them are independently operated, but as the person and one of the people that uh coordinates how they work together, why now was this the time to put out for the first time uh unified U.S. club soccer pyramid of competition?
Speaker 2:So let's kind of go back when I was the interim, uh, still, you know, Kevin was Kevin Payne was still the CEO, but there was that six-month between July of 2021 and January of 2022 where where you know he he was acting and I was next in line. You know, we had received a letter from a number of our leagues, a co-authored letter that said, hey, we got some questions. What is this? What are you doing about it? The world is changing rapidly with new leagues. External forces are a real threat to our business, to our leagues, and to our club's ability to manage the leagues because or to manage their teams within the league. And so, you you know, we'd like some more attention put to the NPL. And I think the NPL is probably the most unique competition structure that we have because they are independent operators that manage at a very local level within the framework of the postseason, but but they manage who's in their league, uh how they progress through the to the postseason, and then once they come to the postseason, uh the NPL finals in in Colorado, then our team manages that in July. But you have uh anywhere between 18 and 21 over the last couple of years of NPLs that uh every one of them has unique challenges. Uh you know, the East Coast is definitely different than the West Coast in terms of the challenges. You have climate, you've got all the things that that go into it, and where other uh external forces exist that more directly impact those leagues. So here in Virginia, you know, we have a variety of external leagues uh that are not within U.S. Club and how they operate, but that's different than what it is, let's call it California. So we started this in, you know, that came in in November of 2021. And we for the first time brought our leagues together in Las Vegas at the ECNL Coach Symposium that February, late January, early February, whichever it was that particular year. And from that time, we've been doing the work to get here. And I think it's important that folks understand we just didn't wake up around Halloween and said, oh, by the way, let's put together this pyramid. This was multiple years of in-person meetings with our leagues. And Doug, I know you've been to uh one or two of those, and Christian obviously comes to all of them, of trying to work through, okay, what is this relationship like? And I think it's also not a secret that there was a period of time when ECNL's relationship with U.S. club soccer maybe wasn't optimal. And we'll just leave it there. But that that was probably true. And so that not just with US club soccer, but within U.S. club soccer creates conflict. And routinely, I have I've had conversations over the last couple of years, not so much recently, but but more when I started here, about, you know, sometimes it's better to just say, okay, everybody on the outside and this, you know, everybody on the inside has to play by the same set of rules. Well, yes. However, when you have one national competition, the conflict with the localized competitions is going to be very real. And so we've been working through that, as Christian knows very well, for the last, I don't know, three or four years now. We made some significant progress and answered many of the questions that they had. We addressed them. And it's like a game of whack-a-mole. Okay, well, you solved this riddle. Well, what about that one? And now here's a new league, and now here's this, and here's that. And so what we decided in the last year is it let's just clean things up internally. What does it look like inside of U.S. club soccer? At the same time, we're having all of these conversations with US soccer and a variety of other organization members about how we might work together in a more productive way in the future. So that's happening in a parallel. And so I think it's it's it's also important to recognize that that we're totally invested in those and we we will collectively show up and uh to those for sure. Just the timing is what it is. It's you know, after three or four years, here's where we got. And so at this last meeting in October, our league said to us, We're done talking about it. We're now putting this in your hands, tell us where we're going. And so that's what we did. We took all of that information over the last three or four years, and then Christian and I and team, uh Alex Reben, the GMs, the leagues. This was the end result of that.
Speaker 6:And I would say part of this process of four years or more has included like a lot of uh the ECNL partnering with a lot of these MPLs on the regionally. And so there has been this integration along the way. A lot of that is through the work that you guys have done, of course. That I think probably broke down a lot of the some of the barriers that existed before, where there may have may have been, I I wouldn't call it adversarial because it wasn't openly adversarial, but maybe broke down some of those barriers to help us get here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think somewhere around a third of the NPLs also have are managing regional leagues on behalf of the ECNL. It's somewhere in that range, and and more have been involved in a variety of conversations. And that was to your point, Doug, that was all part of this, is that it isn't just always about us trying to pull levers. Sometimes we just need to make the meeting and get the right people in the rooms and get out of the way. And I and we've tried to do that sometimes more successfully than others, because it's a balance of when do you stand in front of the room and lead and say this is where we're gonna go, and when do you get out of the way and let the forces take us where it needs to go. And that's that's been a struggle. Uh, I think we've gotten it right more often than not, but but we haven't gotten it right every time for sure. But we now hopefully have developed a relationship of trust where somebody can raise a legitimate question or concern and we go, okay, let's dig into that a little bit. Let's understand it a little bit more because your challenges are different than another league's challenges and how we manage that. So, yeah, I think that's absolutely true, is those relationships have helped us get to this point.
Speaker 5:Yeah, let's put that in the context a little bit, you know, and I don't want to spend much time going back in history, but I think it's helpful to some degree of again in 2006, just about every competitive club in the country all played within one national pyramid, which was the U.S. Youth Soccer National Championships, regional leagues, and state leagues. 2007, that broke when the Development Academy took the best 40 clubs or 40 of the best four boys' clubs out of that pyramid at a couple of A troops. And from 2000 and 2009, the ECNL started to do that on the girls' side. And from 2007 to 2012, what you had was a rapid deconstruction of what was the single pyramid of youth club soccer. As clubs went into the ECNL, they went into the development academy, and they started joining and creating new US club soccer leagues. That escalated dramatically in the last 10 years, where that pyramid has dramatically shrunk in size, certainly in quality, in terms of the top, top teams. And what has happened on the US club side, and if if we look at US club and the NPLs and the ECNL together, you've had a different pyramid now being rebuilt, as this previous one was sort of deconstructed. And the challenges in that, and I think some of the reasons why this took a while, is as the ECNL grew, those clubs came from somewhere. Initially it was mostly U.S. youth soccer. Then it came from other leagues and other sanctioning bodies. Then Doug's first regional league was what 2019?
Speaker 6:A little before that.
Speaker 5:A little before that.
Speaker 6:It was right, yeah, right, right before we started the boys.
Speaker 5:So so the so that well, then the ECNL starts the boys, which and the U.S. Soccer Development Academy and the girls start. So the deconstruction kind of goes into ludicrous speed, as they would say in uh spaceballs, the movie, great movie. But that sort of accelerates the deconstruction and reconstruction. The regional league then is is added into that. And then you have a situation where clubs are now trying to find where do I want to go? What is the appropriate level of competition for me? What is the appropriate league for me? Why would I go there? What is my pathway? Obviously, that in a country as big as ours, we've talked about this in so many podcasts. It's never exactly the same from one region to another. You have different opinions, you're in the middle of all this tumultuous change. And uh, I think as you said, it was it wasn't openly adversarial, but there were challenges as clubs decide what to do. One of the things, Mike, I think that you did really positively uh early on in your uh when you took over US Club Soccer, is bring these leagues together into a room and say, let's talk about this and let's get everybody into one conversation about what we're thinking and why we're thinking it and what we have concerns with. And that included ECNL in those rooms a lot of the time, not all the time. Um, but before that, that wasn't happening a lot. And once that started to happen, you had people able to talk directly for the first time about where they see the market going, where they want it to go, identify where there's changes from one area to another. And all along while that's happening, you know, we've had the the ECNL and the regionally growing, the NPLs growing, US Club Soccer growing over time. I think we're getting more and more clubs into the right level of competition based on their performance. And it seemed that finally people said, hey, this is the reality generally of the market and the competitions. And I and we say that because there's net there's always exceptions. There's always going to be a team that is not at a certain level that is playing above that level or below that level because you can't you can't speak in absolutes on this. But generally the levels of play have been established across the country. Would you would you say that, Mike?
Speaker 2:Well, generally, but the number of new leagues that seemingly are announced makes that murkier and murkier in terms of what is the level. You know, when you're in something you may not exactly understand, I was probably a better ball player in my head than I was in reality. You know, and so I think this is probably true of the leagues and where a team sits. The the other piece of this, uh, Christian and Doug, that that personally I think is really important is there's been so much time and energy over the last 10 plus years, 20 years, whatever, focused on the top and building out new club-based leagues. Personally, I just think there's too many teams and clubs playing in club-based leagues because they think that's what you're supposed to do to be a proper club. And to me, what you're supposed to do is put the teams and the players in the best environment for one, them to enjoy the sport and two to develop appropriately.
Speaker 5:Where they have the most competitive games.
Speaker 2:For sure. And so by the work that's been done here, you know, a lot of the teams that are now in the regional league were NPL teams and clubs, right? The expansion of that second division of a club-based competition, whereas the NPL, you know, the NPL 2012-2013 was the top of the U.S. Club Soccer pyramid. At some point, you can't hold on to what the past was. You have to look at what the current realities are. And to me, this was a perfect opportunity to recommit to the masses, to the most players possible, to create an opportunity to play in or play out of a given competition. So the connection now of this of the NPLs and the team-based competition into the club-based is a huge step forward for clubs who aspire to be there to understand what it is you're exactly going to. I can remember when I first got to Prince William back in 2013, and the first first meeting I had was, you know, you're we brought you here to help us get into the DA. And I said, Well, are you sure? Are you sure that's what you really want to do? I don't think you understand what you're signing up for. So we went and did that, and then they went, Oh, God, this is this is really hard. Yes, it's really hard. And so today, you know, that club, which is, you know, half of VDA, is what it is. You know, top 10 Boys and Girls Club is a wonderful environment for Prince William County, led by wonderful people. But but you still have this layer beneath the ECNL and beneath the regional league where players are not being taken care of and not there, they're they're being put in a league that looks good on a chat in a chat room or looks good on X, but it isn't actually the best environment for all of these players. So the ability to recommit into team-based competition, and it won't exclusively be, we we will still have NPLs that are club-based, and you know, we still have some regional leagues that are team-based, and that that's all well and good because local decisions made locally that needs to happen in a country our size. But generally speaking, there are too many clubs and teams aspiring for a level of which they're not currently prepared, and giving them clarity on how do I get from where I am today to where I want to be was a huge part of this. And also, if you are in a place where you recognize, and maybe this isn't where we should be, there's a softer landing spot so that when you do either opt out or get demoted, if you will, whatever you want to call that, it isn't completely damaging to your organization and club. It doesn't result in just a scattering and now you've got to rebuild the thing. So all of this was was part of what we were trying to do. And it started with trying to solve the NPL riddle on, okay, is ECNL is growing and expanding, both in terms of the number of clubs, but the levels of competition, where does the NPL fit and how does it how does it ultimately prov help provide a more connected environment for all of these clubs and teams that currently didn't exist in our mind? So that's kind of how we got to where we are today with this most recent announcement.
Speaker 5:U.S. club soccer is now uh, I think you'll say north of 800,000 players that are within the leagues it sanctions and the clubs that uh participate in them. And there are other sanctioning bodies out there, U.S. Youth being one, MLS GA, and there are a bunch of other leagues out there, but U.S. Club is the biggest in terms of the competitive numbers. And while we can't speak on behalf of other sanctioning bodies or federation members, there was an opportunity here within the 800,000, approaching, and I'm gonna say approaching a million in the next year or two players of US club to provide some clarity and to provide some stability within that and transparency as to what is what is the competition frameworks look like, what is different from one level to the next, why would you be in one level or another? That I think is is a baseline to potentially reach out to do that across American soccer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a couple of things there. So US club soccer has grown by double digit percentage each of the last four years. So 800,000 to a million, sure. Maybe that's where we're headed. I I don't we don't really focus on that. We let the numbers and registrations happen as a result of doing all the other things that you talked about earlier. Well, but yes, uh, you know, I I think that that you know our ability now to at least clarify, we're large enough that clarifying in in US club land, what it looks like seemed appropriate. Whereas even a few years ago, when we were, you know, 450,000, 500,000 players in a much smaller footprint, it it really wouldn't have had the same impact. But now you're you're talking of a decent number of players that now have clarity, at least within our framework. And this is a template for how we might. Not saying we're, you know, we just pick it up and move it and it's gonna work everywhere, but but you you know, I don't think it's any secret that that you know our relationship with US youth soccer in particular is becoming better and better every day. And that that we are very interested in in solving riddles together. And so might this be something that that helps in that regard, not just in terms of of leagues and competitions, but also in terms of talent ID, whether it's ID2 or ODP or the State Cups, coach education, all of those types of things that maybe can happen. But but it's I I think it's a challenge, as you and I talk about all the time, Christian. It's a little bit of a challenge to be in those rooms talking about how we might work together when we don't have a firm understanding of who we are and how we function or operate. So to be able to clean that up internally, I think gives us a better starting point for some of these conversations that we hope we get to have, or at least hope we can get across the line. And because it, you know, at least we we do have that starting point. And and by the way, it's it's it's whether it's another organization member or another league that has ideas about how you know things we might consider doing differently or better, we of course are very open to that because that's how we got here. We started with a listening tour, uh, largely just getting yelled at, quite frankly. And then as you draw on the information that's coming, not necessarily how it's delivered, but what's delivered, you start to hear the themes. Okay, these are the challenges that our leagues are facing, let's go address them. And we expect that will be true of leagues and organizations that we're not currently working with, that they'll be bring other ideas or better ideas to what we're doing, and we will to them as well, hopefully. That's the goal. But now I think we have clarity. At least within U.S. Club Soccer, we understand how these things are connected, how a player, how a coach, how a team, how a club can progress through the pathways. The pyramid itself, I guess, is the diagram, but it really is that pathway. And by the way, we want referees to be a part of this soon as well, is what is their pathway, you know, to ensure that we have more of them, more of them for longer, and that they're developed even stronger, which is an area US Club Soccer admittedly isn't overly engaged in yet, just simply because of the way the Federation bylaws are or excuse me, the policies are written.
Speaker 6:You touched on the pyramid and you know, the clarity and all that. How will like let's be kind of dig into how a player will feel this? Because I think that's what does it look like for them? And maybe something that's been a little bit more disconnected in certain ways now that it's connected, how will the players, the families and clubs and teams feel it?
Speaker 2:Well, the immediate impact will probably just be more in the postseason and the way that those post that the postseason will be integrated and connected. Longer term, what we're hoping is that it it results in more games closer to home, more competitive games closer to home, where we're not having to travel past because we're chasing some status by saying that this league is whatever you want to call it. And I think the other the other area that uh hopefully folks feel it is I do think there are teams and clubs, maybe even in the regional league, that are there because, well, I need to be there. But it's not the best environment for them. And so, you know, once you get a sense of not doing well, changing that's really hard.
Speaker 5:I want to touch on that a little bit about the the not doing well or the the environment, because and all of us have coached really good teams, and we've coached teams that are not in that definition. And it where we've all been parents of kids who play. And really what you want when you're talking about a soccer experience is you want competitive games. You want games where there is a reasonable chance to be successful, where you're gonna lose some games. And occasionally it's not a bad thing occasionally to get thumped, and it's not a bad thing to occasionally thump somebody else, but you certainly don't want to be in an environment where you're on a regular basis thumping or or being thumped. That's not conducive to a generally pleasant experience. And it does make development, it may make development slow down or go faster, depending on which end you're on in some of those things, but it certainly raises some challenges. So one of the things I think that when you talk about making uh eliminating teams that uh drive by other teams and making a better environment, it's trying to streamline the ability for performance to more quickly put people in the right spot. Because the other part to this is as a soccer parent or a soccer player, there are certain types of traveling in soccer that are really fun and exciting and positive and necessary. And then there are things times when you soccer travel is not fun and you don't want to do it, and we want to make it unnecessary to do that in order to do both of those things. You need more density, you need more collaboration, um, and you need better pathways. Doug, do you do you see that in the same way?
Speaker 6:Yeah, it probably would be uh, and this is not to throw shade, I guess, um, at any of the comments that were made, but there is a need for high-level competition for high-level players, right? Like for like. And then as naturally, as you go up the pyramid, it gets smaller, right? And so that necessitates travel or that necessitates the appropriate resistance, as you like to say. And so it's striking that that balance between some of the kind of insanity. I think to just blanketly say, well, we should all just play local games and everything would be fine, is probably an oversimplification of it. We would we would like to have the opportunity to do that when and where appropriate, but but here is what this what US Clip Talker has done, has it has created the access for us uh in the in that ecosystem to plug the right teams into the right places, right? And and also by connecting it, what it will do is it will sort itself out, right? So it will kind of sort itself out where the teams will get where they need to be and therefore have access to the appropriate level, whatever.
Speaker 5:So let's let's talk about that, and and and I'm sure Mike has some comments on it. And whenever we talk in more bright lines, you let's always put the caveat in there that you know, right nothing's nothing's gonna be perfect. But in general, what we're talking about is that the NPL is the top team-based competitive league in US club soccer. When you have multiple teams performing at a high level in the NPL, that is where you start to look into a club-based competition. When a club by a club-based competition, we mean teams playing at the same league level, common opponents uh at each age group, U13 and above. That is the regional league. When you have multiple teams performing really well in the regional league, then you are starting to look at the next club-based level, which is the ECNL. And within each of those leagues and levels, you have the annual start your season in August with the goal of trying to win a championship in June or July at the end of the season at each one of those age groups. And we can talk about the postseason here in a minute. But that also goes back to uh Mike, I think your point that as obvious as it sounds, not all clubs are created equal. It is hard to have high performing teams at every single age group. And there's got to be a recognition that for some communities, some clubs, having one or two really good teams playing at a good level uh doesn't mean you need to drag four other teams into a competition where they are not going to have a great experience. And so that also is part of this. When Doug, you say it'll sort itself out, that includes rising up and rising down to ultimately there'll probably be a metric on this where you can look at goal difference over the course of time and say, is that is that number of the average goal difference of a team in a league, is that different in 2027 or 2028 compared to what it was in 22, 24, 25. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2:Uh obviously the teams are gonna fly to Florida here this weekend and the next weekend, it's completely appropriate. It's necessary. It's it's required for those teams to go and get better competition in a showcase environment. Hundreds of colleges, hundreds of colleges, and weather that generally is going to be conducive to playing soccer in January. And by the way, the NPL teams who have a chance to go to Denver in July and combine it in with some sort of soccer tourism, if you will, and it you know, you take the family, they love those experiences. And that's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is a random weekend in September. You know, and if you think about the NPL level, generally speaking, in US club soccer, that's going to be something. Somebody's first team, second team, third team, or maybe even fourth or fifth team, depending upon you know a mega club that has multiple entries in ECNL or ECNL regionally. That competition level, the further you get away from your top team, I don't care what club you are, the bigger the dispersion of talents is. And the harder it is to have competitive games, club v club. Even if you take the best ECNL clubs in the country and take 13 to 19 boys and girls, their third teams, and match them up, that may or may not be a very good fixture. And so at this level, now you allow the individual team, and again, some of these are going to be more boutique, smaller club, you know, where you don't even have a full rec program, recreational program. You don't have three and four teams in an age group. It's just a couple of random teams and let those teams find their appropriate level. That's what I'm more like what I'm talking about is the random weekend where instead of getting on a bus to go stay in a hotel to play a game that is not any better than you can get generally in town. And there's parts of the country where you know population and density is a real thing, and you're just gonna have to travel. I lived in the Midwest, you know, for many years. I understand that. How we manage that competition has been, you know, has been a challenge because everybody wants to go and compete, if you will, against we're gonna form a new league that competes against the ECNL. And what we're saying is, no, that that's sorted. We understand that. Within U.S. club soccer, ECNL is ECNL. One of the things that that you know I was somewhat involved in at the very beginning of the form of the regional leagues was, you know, it did provide very real opportunities for clubs to earn their way in. You know, we had Beach here in in Virginia, came into the regional league, won like 80% of the age groups. I mean, I think like three of the four older girls' state cups in the whole thing. And the next year they're in the ECNL.
Speaker 5:And by the way, just to add on that, Mike, in the last four years, 58 clubs have been promoted from the Regional League to the ECNL. Not quite 50-50 boys and girls, but not too different that supports that pathway that you're talking about.
Speaker 2:And so now what we're talking about is okay, what's the layer beneath the how do I even get into the regional league versus an application and decisions, some of which ECNL may get right, and some of which ECNL maybe didn't have all the data. But when you're now in like for like competition, and in the postseason, when the best NPL teams are going to be competing against regional league teams in the postseason, now you it's merit. Much more merit-based decisions on what that pathway looks like. And to us, that clarification it was really important because we we we wanted to make sure that if a club was saying, I want to be in the ECNL, but I'm currently not even in a regional league. I'm currently maybe in an NPL or maybe even not. How do I get there? This is how you do it, at least within U.S. Club Soccer. And that doesn't lock ECNL to not being able to make the decisions it needs to make. But it it clearly provides a much more transparent process for these decisions to make it more objective competition, more objective data.
Speaker 5:Yeah. You know, and and I think that competition is one of our uh six league values, right? Is that there has to be competition embedded into everything. And what that fundamentally means at in this point is that clubs need to have pathways. And that pathway has to reward merit and performance and improvement. And to the opposite end, if if clubs are not performing consistently, to your point earlier, we don't want to keep clubs in positions that are not positive for players and teams. And again, this doesn't mean that there's the annual mathematical equation of promotion and relegation that you know people think of in English and European soccer or whatever it may be. What it means is that there's going to be more data, more connectivity, and more ability to move based on that performance, which is good for the sport. It is good for the future of the sport and the development of better and better players, coaches, and clubs.
Speaker 6:Yeah, the sheer size and breadth of the our country is in and of itself inherently challenging challenging in this regard, right? When what do we say when we were over in London recently, Kristen? Didn't they say 78 UKs would fit into the United States?
Speaker 5:Yeah, I think it was uh so the England was like the size of Iowa or something like that.
Speaker 6:Yeah, yeah. So uh so there's geographical challenges that go with it. Let me ask you this, Mike, because I know what you know we see, but how what's the feedback been like since this has gone out from your perspective?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's obviously the Christmas break. So feedback to me is trickling in. I don't go hunting on socials for the nonsense that exists sometimes there. But generally, um our understanding is the feedback has been good, uh, where it's understood, what we're trying to accomplish. Uh, I think uh folks appreciate at least the work that's being done at this level of the game because it hasn't there hasn't been a ton of focus, maybe, or as much focus as is as maybe it deserves for these players and and clubs and teams. Yeah, I I think it's been what we expected and what we had hoped for. I don't know, Christian or Doug, if you're hearing any different, but but those are the reports I'm getting, you know, from our team at U.S. Club Soccer, is it's in a good way fairly predictable response.
Speaker 5:I think it's yogi bear. If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. And so for us to now have a road and say, listen, if the if you want to know where where you're going or why within the season, in terms of of performance and winning championships, which we've talked about this before, it's it's it's really important that kids and teams at all levels fight to win, want to win. Um, and then uh uh over the course of multiple seasons as we talk about moving up levels. The other issue to this is, and you know, everything's got pros and cons, and we try and make the best decisions we can internally, and then also when we're interfacing with with the broader youth soccer space in US club soccer, and then and then even outside of it at times. But right now, you know, you reference the NPL, so 18 to 21 leagues, depending on boys, girls, one year to the next. Currently, those teams go straight to the NPL finals in Colorado, which which means it's a smaller number of teams that get to a postseason that requires for most of them a flight. And there's positives to that in terms of the soccer tourism and the beauty of Colorado in the summer and the excitement there. And my club has had multiple teams being Colorado with U.S. club competitions in the national cup. And I'm sure we've all had teams uh and in clubs going to the NPL finals. But one of the positives of the integration now is that we're going to take Regional League and NPL teams and put them into regionalized postseason competitions so that more teams will get a postseason experience. Many of it, I I I want to say most, will be drivable in that stage. So there's lower cost for those teams to extend the season. And extending the season has developmental positives to it in terms of meaningful training training and meaningful games. We're starting in 27 with four of these regionalized playoffs with the 26.
Speaker 2:Fall of 26, summer of 27, right?
Speaker 5:Correct. Sorry. So I'm talking about the 26, 27 season. Yeah, you're right. So summer of 27. Um, when we get to the postseason, that's you know, the season starts August 1, 26, and we when we get to the postseason in the summer of 27, four regionalized events that will bring regional league teams and NPL teams into a postseason with the understanding that we will expand that for the summer of 28, likely to six, maybe more. And so what we will see in the postseason is you'll have the ECNL playoffs, you'll have the regional league playoffs, and you'll have these integrated playoffs. And it'll provide more teams, driveable competition, apples to apples competition, really good competition, all of which we think is positive for the player experience, positive for the development in terms of extending the season for more teams a little longer for improvement and growth, and positive for the opportunity then to measure, compare, and ultimately move clubs along the pathway.
Speaker 2:I think it's a really important point, one that you and I have talked about, and other club directors have brought to my attention over the last couple of years, is regardless of what level of competition you are, if you are the first team out, the first team who didn't make a playoff, you're losing three to four weeks of development and competition that the team just above you is getting. And by having more teams with the opportunity to play into the third, second, third, fourth week of June, whatever that's going to be, more teams and more kids will be playing longer, more coaches will be coaching longer, more referees will be officiating higher-level matches longer. And we think that that can raise the bar. Now, at the same time, the challenges that now exist that didn't exist when you laid out the timeline of pre-DA, Christian, where there was never a time before DA where a team didn't earn a pathway to regionals or nationals and opted out. That never happened. And now across all competitions, the percentage of teams that are opting out of postseason is greater than zero. And so it maybe not at the ECNL level, but certainly below that it is. And so that's also going to be part of this is how do we figure out where is that right level? But offering more chances for teams to train and play longer is a good thing.
Speaker 5:Well, and Mike, that's a great feedback point because if you have high opt-outs, what the market is telling you is that the structure isn't working for one reason or another. And we look at that every year when we look at playoffs at all levels. And I know, I know the NPL has and others do as well. But you can do two things with that. You can just ignore it, or you can look and say, well, the market's telling me something about what the player, the family, the coach wants. And so again, do it doing this the way that we envision it, of providing longer seasons that are drivable and unique experiences, ultimately we hope will result in an improved level of all sorts of parts of the game.
Speaker 2:And experiences that more kids and families and clubs, teams, coaches, referees getting experiences that they might not otherwise get. And another important piece of this is one of the reasons you know it's important, the integration is important, is because the look and the feel of the postseason, you know, ECNL will manage the postseasons on the collaboratives' behalf. And so the look and feel of those experiences should be eerily similar to the regional league and to the ECNL competitions, so that these families get those experiences. For me, I think it's hugely beneficial.
Speaker 6:So, Mike, as we kind of wrap here, look in your crystal ball about, you know, over the next.
Speaker 3:I was just about to say that.
Speaker 6:Over the next, you know, uh 12 to 18 to 24 months. Where where could this where could this go in your mind?
Speaker 2:I'm incredibly not a leading question at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I will just say what I said to our to our geeks in in October, and I feel it more today than I even did then. I I I think that I I've not been more encouraged about the work that is being done. And I understand, you know, Twitter's gonna explode over this. If, you know, when are we gonna see what's going on? But but the work that's being done behind the scenes to address so many of these friction points and issues that that that are very prevalent in our sport is happening. We are very active participants and are strongly uh supporting that work. What we have done here is the culmination of multiple years within U.S. club soccer. I'm extremely hopeful. That's a dangerous place to be, is hope, but I'm extremely hopeful that this uh expands to incorporating more teams, more clubs, more organizations in a way that is meaningful and positive, and without maybe some of the conflict that has existed in recent memory, because I think regardless of of what organization you're a part of, I don't think anybody thinks the way that the sport is functioning right now is maximizing our potential. I would say that. But I I do think, Doug, that we are absolutely very open and want to work with others. And I have a strong feeling that we will be working with others in a very meaningful and positive way shortly.
Speaker 5:I think Mike's saying 2026 is going to be an exciting year potentially.
Speaker 6:Well, don't spoil my bracken brainbuster, Christian, by doing that.
Speaker 5:Before you pivot to the bracken brainbuster, I I wanna I wanna comment because I think it's important to address you know both ends of the continuum in some way. We're talking about pathways, collaboration, consolidation, integration, all that stuff on this on this podcast. At the same time, I think it's important to highlight that we're also looking at what do the top players need and how do we reward and challenge and provide the appropriate resistance for those players. And so those are two different things. Some of it, a lot of it can be the same in terms of concept, some of it is different, right? And so we we are also simultaneously solving uh that riddle and continually looking to improve that side of the sport. You've seen that, you know, with the announcement also that just came out uh a couple days ago, is the teams going to Everton for the ECL International Tournament in association with Coach's voice, where they'll be playing Chelsea, Everton, Welsh national team on the girls' side, leads, where it's going to be an incredible challenge for boys and girls to do that. We're we're about to announce another major international competition here, not uh a couple days down the road, which is also geared towards trying to provide increased resistance, increased exposure, increased challenge for the top. And I think that's that's the ongoing balance that we're gonna have to do here at ECNL, US Club Soccer, and everybody else is make sure that we're creating pathways that bring people in and reward performance and at the same time providing additional experiences, opportunities, and challenges for the very, very best.
Speaker 2:I'll add to that because I think, you know, just a little bit of behind the scenes work is the the way that we've collectively looked at this in terms of the competitions that Christian just laid out is you know, US Club Soccer has doubled its investment into ID2. You know, we're we're investing well over a million dollars a year in ID2. And so, you know, there used to be a variety of different projects that ECNL ran that were player-centric uh in terms of identifying, selecting, and going and and competing, etc. And so, you know, j just a little bit more about the strength of the relationship is that ECNL, and and you guys correct me if I have this wrong, is now focused on the team pathway. Yeah, you know, the teams perform during the course of the year, they'll have an opportunity to go compete internationally. Our focus in ID2, working with ECNL and all of our NPLs, and we're you don't have to be a US club player. If we identify it, we'll bring it in, is about the player, is about the coach. It's about the individual pathway. And so, you know, we'll be announcing later this spring what we're doing with our international trip. We're very excited about where that is going, but but you can see how all of the integration, the relationships are complementing one another. So ECNL can go focused on the competitions, go focused on the the clubs, the teams, and U.S. Club Soccer from a talent, US Club Soccer from a talent identification and and individual player development will do that work. And I think it's another hand-in-glove example of ways that we have worked over the last four plus years to make more sense of a fairly complicated world.
Speaker 5:Well, and and the growth of both of our organizations has helped provide more resources to those things. Correct. And then the more clear separation of which organization is doing what has allowed more to be invested in each of those appropriately over the last couple of years, which is another benefit of having this type of consolidation, integration, and uh efficiency.
Speaker 6:Quickly hear from our partners and we'll come back from the Break and Brainbuster.
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Speaker 2:That's a dangerous question for me. I think by the by the end of the World Cup, American youth soccer will make a whole lot more sense.
Speaker 6:Prediction.
Speaker 2:It's a prediction.
Speaker 6:It's a prediction.
Speaker 2:It's not a fact, it's not a it's not a It's just a prediction. I I think that that you know, with uh the work that's being done by US Soccer and others and the desire uh by multiple different organizations uh to have a world that makes more sense, I think we get there.
Speaker 6:Okay. I love this optimism.
Speaker 2:Let's go to Jacob. That's not normal for me, but but we'll be optimistic today because it's a good idea.
Speaker 6:That's good.
unknown:That's good.
Speaker 4:Uh Jacob Orton, what do you got? I'm I'm I'm gonna give a few predictions here. Um one is I'm gonna say the ECNL is gonna crown its first ever pre-ECNL champion. I'm confident in that prediction. Okay. I think the US men's national team is going to advance out of its group and it's going to win its group in the World Cup. I think St. Louis City SC is going to make the MLS playoffs, but they're not going to win a game.
Speaker 6:That would be a miracle.
Speaker 4:And I think Tottenham is going to finish 10th in the Premier League.
Speaker 6:That would be very predictable. Yes. I guess so you could say uh you're a Tottenham fan, I guess. I am. I am a Spurs fan. Tom Thomas Frank, yes, or Thomas Frank, no?
Speaker 4:I think he has done well with the team that he has. I think he's been a little hindered by Sun leaving. I think he it was I think Pascaglu had to go, even though he won Europa League, which is just a hilarious sentence. But overall, you know, we talked about it on a few podcasts ago. The coaching turnover in the EPL is just so massive, and Tottenham has just been rudderless since Ponch left. So I don't think Frank is the long-term. It's true. I mean, and ownership's gone too. So we'll we'll see how the team does. But yeah, ever since the Champions League lost to Liverpool, it has been a steady slope downward until the Europa win last year.
Speaker 6:It's a good day for me. That was his partner and Mike Cullen, though, Tim Waziak was at that game. He went to that game. Uh that's a good game to be at. Well, he was very disappointed because he's a Barcelona fan, and they lost obviously on the miracle Liverpool uh semifinal comeback. Yeah. And Ajax was on the other side, and he was really hoping for a Barcelona Ajax. So yeah.
Speaker 4:I was I was sprinting up and down the Iowa Wild press box when uh Lucas Moore scored the third goal because it was like an hour before uh a wild playoff game. I was in a full suit sprinting up and down because we had won. That was a great get great day, great game.
Speaker 6:All right, Christian Labers. Soccer prediction for 2026.
Speaker 5:A prediction of 26. I don't know if I can predict that I'll go to a World Cup game because I'm gonna go back to the ticket ticket issues. But what I what I hope I'll get you to a game.
unknown:Uh there we go.
Speaker 5:What I hope.
Speaker 2:Yeah, wait, Jacob and Doug, I got nothing for it.
Speaker 5:The irony is do you know the number of people that ask me if I have connections for tickets? And I'm like, I've been told by everybody to use whatever tool you can get to get your own tickets. Yeah, but uh my hope is gonna be that by the end of 2026, college soccer makes more sense than college football does today. Because college football is in a crazy, unsustainable disaster.
Speaker 6:Get rid of the conferences, break away, get a commissioner, run it like you're trying to not run it. I'm hoping.
Speaker 2:Well, except college football is 99.9% American. Well, there's part of the logic, right?
Speaker 4:So look at college basketball. They just signed a uh European pro to Baylor.
Speaker 2:Well, did I read a stat the last five NVPs in the NBA are European or foreign?
Speaker 6:That is correct. Maybe they need a pathways committee. What I will say then is that we start losing gold medals, by the way, in basketball, and you watch how quick that turns.
Speaker 5:What I will say will stand for that. Hopefully, you know, if Mike is right that youth soccer makes more sense in 2026, I think then that shifts a big focus to making college soccer make more sense in terms of structure and opportunity and length of season for the American player.
Speaker 6:Yeah. I I mean, we've talked about this before, and I I don't know not to get off on a tangent, but I don't know what Mike thinks about this, but it's to me like our biggest gap in development, especially on the men's side, because of the way boys develop and can develop later, but don't really have there's this kind of dead period because there's not the same opportunity to move on to the college game and you know be a late developer or whatever, right? I think it's huge if we can get that connected in into our system. All right, Doug, what about you? My prediction is gonna be two things. I'm gonna go U.S. men's national team quarterfinalists. Quarterfinalists, I'm calling it, at home. I want to say semifinals, but I'm not there yet. So I'm gonna go quarterfinals, and then I'm gonna say Cincinnati, Ohio gets an NWSL franchise. Cincinnati, Ohio, and Rose Lavelle comes to play in Cincinnati. That's my since my soccer prediction.
Speaker 5:Pretty specific, getting pretty granular.
Speaker 6:Yes, soccer prediction. Like Rose Lavelle has uh this deep, deep, deep love for Cincinnati.
Speaker 2:It's kind of weird, but she's Doug Bracken, the head coach.
Speaker 6:Nope. Oh, no, that will that be wondering how deep we were going on these predictions. I can confirm that that will never happen.
Speaker 5:He'll be watching the game eating some chili with noodles, which makes no sense.
Speaker 6:That's right. Never skyline chili is delicious. It's so gross. It is Mike, where you at on Skyline Chili for it.
Speaker 2:Completely in.
Speaker 6:Completely in, completely in, completely in. Yeah, kind of a love, hate, hate kind of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were just in Cincinnati a couple of weeks ago and had to make a couple of stops. My daughter's there now, actually, with the kids she grew up with and sent us a picture from from Skyline last night. Yeah, we're in. We're in on Skyline.
Speaker 6:At my Skyline in Milford, I don't even have to order.
unknown:Right.
Speaker 6:Me and my kids sit down and they bring us what they always bring us.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Three-way and two cheese conies. Done. That's that's the order. So it's gone off the rails right now.
Speaker 5:Off the rails.
Speaker 6:All right. Well, that's a wrap to 2025. Christian.
Speaker 5:A good year.
Speaker 6:It's been a good year.
Speaker 5:It was a very good year.
Speaker 6:Good year.
Speaker 5:Years to 26 and all sorts of excitement. I I I sense that January is going to be exciting.
Speaker 6:I'll be serious. I will just like to say this before we close to Mike, because Mike, I've known Mike for many, many, many, many years. And just appreciate your partnership with ECNL and all your support. It's been great. We can do a lot more together than we can when we're not. So thank you for your support for coming on the podcast and listening to Christian go on and on for an hour. Now you know what I do every two weeks.
Speaker 2:Well, likewise, I I I greatly appreciate you guys and the entire team at ECNL. I think Christian and I have talked about many a time when you take like-minded, well-run organizations and work together, the multiplying impact is significant. And I and I think that's what we're seeing currently within U.S. Club Soccer is we're we're more aligned in the way that we're thinking, not just ECNL and U.S. Club Soccer, but all of our NPLs who are are critically important to our success as well. So thank you to everybody. Certainly appreciate you, Doug, and the entire ETL team.
Speaker 6:Amen to that.
Speaker 1:Happy New Year, everybody. 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 eTNL.com.