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Chasing the Game: Youth Soccer in America is a weekly podcast for soccer parents, coaches, and players who want to understand how youth soccer development really works in the United States.
Hosted by two dads, filmmaker Liron Unreich and investor Matt Tartaglia, the show covers everything from grassroots soccer to elite pathways like MLS NEXT and ECNL. Combining data, real experience, and expert insights from academy directors, college coaches, and former pros, each episode explains what families truly need to know.
Weekly episodes focus on the core aspects of youth soccer: player development, coaching culture, college recruiting, tryouts, travel costs, and the challenges of youth sports parenting in today’s competitive environment.
For families navigating youth soccer’s complex system, Chasing the Game offers practical advice, credible voices, and relatable stories from two dads working to make sense of American player development, one episode at a time.
But Matt, absolute atrocious sound right now is because we're not together in the studio
for the first time.
And Matt, I gotta admit being apart sucks, man.
It's just, you see, just, it's not working for me.
I know, here you are worried about the audio and I'm looking at you and I'm so just
worried about the video.
That cannot be fixed.
ah So today is really about the present and the future.
A cynic might say that we brought younger faces because that is what YouTube wants.
And I'm sure many of our listeners do as well.
But the truth is much simpler than this.
These two adults deserve the platform we're giving them.
Billy Pavlo runs Next Level USA, where he focuses on supplemental training across all
levels, but the true differentiator is the niche he found in scheduling friendlies with
elite clubs in New York, LA and Miami.
And the pull of players is growing and growing,
He's been cultivating it for years.
Brando Babini and the Youth4Youth FC crew run supplemental training, near peer
mentorship program, which I had no idea what it meant until 10 minutes ago, and they all
and set out to streamline the college recruiting process, including college showcase
pathways.
They players navigate trials, get exposure, build highlight tapes, and connect with
colleges.
They players navigate trials, get exposure, build highlight tapes, and connect with
colleges.
And mostly, they help parents.
They saw what was missing.
Then they built a system that they wish they had when they played.
They ask the right questions, they build solutions, and they give young players and
families the guidance that most often we need to scramble to just find it on our own.
They represent the next generation that will shape the sport behind the scene.
in ways most of us are not even thinking about.
Yeah, I mean, this is the part people often overlook.
Everyone talks about the pro pathway, but the ecosystem around it is what keeps players
moving forward, especially those who may not want, who may not go pro, but still love the
Next Level USA has brought something truly unique to the supplemental market, providing
something that many competitive players striving for greatness aren't getting enough of.
You guessed it, match time.
With the ability to play more freely and build their confidence, all while getting
the touches and time that they desperately need.
Youth for Youth FC is focused on truly providing something to players progressing through
the system that is also sorely lacking.
Mentorship from players who have recently or are currently making their way through the
system just a few years ahead.
Lirion, for you, that's in your peer.
Well, thank you.
I've learned so much from you.
What can be more powerful than that?
Their efforts are building real opportunities outside of the traditional Academy to Pro
funnel.
That is why their perspective matters.
They represent a new chapter, one that connects lived experiences with real solutions.
You know, before I continue, I'm just, gotta apologize to our highly demanding listeners
who want nothing but top quality that they've been used to in chasing the game.
ah So today is really about the present and the future.
It's not about the next superstar, but the future of the entire ecosystem.
No pressure, right?
Coaches, mentors, scouts, developers, analysts and support structures.
The people who change the game long after their own cleats are hung up.
Let's get into it.
right, guys, welcome to Chasing the Game.
You are our first episode with two guests.
So bear with us, our audience members as well as our guests.
We are really, really excited to be joined by two guys who bring such a unique perspective
and experience to the youth soccer ecosystem in the US.
First, Brando Babini.
Brando.
uh New York City kid, born and raised, played a bunch of different academies here, has
incredible experience, which I'll let him share in a second.
And then Billy Pavlo from all the way across the world from Australia, found his way to
New York City to play college soccer and has cemented himself in the fabric of New York
City with all that he's offering.
As we jump into this guys, it's great to have you.
Thank you.
Thank you both.
Matt, who's going to make the, the, the jokes about them being young and us being old.
Let's just get each one gets one joke out of the way and then we can move forward.
think combined age, they're still younger than you.
They're definitely younger than me.
So I shaved for this to kind of show, you know, brevity and courage.
I dyed my mustache black, so there'd be no questions, and I did three push-ups.
So I feel like I'm kind of, and I had a lot of coffee, so I think I'm ready to go.
Okay.
let's start with you.
Talk to me a little bit about your background.
I mentioned that you grew up in New York City.
Tell me about what shaped you and your youth, your soccer background, and then what led
you to this today.
I, born and raised in New York City, Italian father, American mother, both of which,
especially the Italian one, had nothing to do with, are we saying soccer, footy, or
football?
I know this is the problem we go back and forth.
Alright.
nothing to do with soccer.
I played recreational when I was very young.
I joined MSC and then I joined Dusk and then I joined Medoval and then I joined Dusk again
and then I joined New Amsterdam which became Two Bridges which became Brooklyn FC and then
finally I was back at MSC.
you know, naturally as a kid growing up here, my whole dream was to play professionally,
right?
But we all come to the realization at some point.
And I came to that realization around 16.
I was playing, I had just finished up playing development academy at Met Oval.
This is pre MLS next.
And at the time, Met Oval is unbelievably competitive today.
And back then it was almost more competitive.
And I started to see teammates and very close friends of mine go play in Europe, right?
Go play for MLS academies.
business partner, Jackson, he went to play for Red Bulls.
I realized, I look at him and I realized like, this isn't going to happen for me, right?
Who's going to tell me?
Or am I going to have to tell myself that the pro game is not going to happen?
So I thought, all right, what's the next best thing I could do?
It's college.
And I thought that'd be a walk in the park.
I did end up getting recruited, but it was probably the most difficult and most stressful
process I had went through my entire life.
Number one, because I didn't know how to recruit.
I didn't know who to reach out to, what to say, what to send.
And number two, more importantly, I had no way to get better off the pitch.
I just started outside of outside of the club on the pitch and I didn't have any private
training.
had no access.
was extremely
way more expensive than it is now just because it was very centralized.
It was like one or two private trainers and I didn't have group trainings.
I had nothing to do over the summers.
It was just me, the wall and the ball.
So fast forward to today, I started Youth for Youth when I was 16 as a very casual idea
and fast forward to today, it's the exact program I wish existed when I was a youth
player.
So we take players who are all the way from 12 years old, even younger and our idea is
that we want them to be in the exact same positions that we're in and beyond.
whether that be playing, I mentioned Jackson, he's the captain of Columbia Men's Soccer.
We have UVA, Syracuse, SMU, and then we also have players in the MLS.
We have players playing abroad.
And the idea is, if we can provide all these supplemental services and mentorship, it's
very possible that we can take a player who has the potential and push them not only into
the positions that we're in, but also beyond.
so it's going strong.
That's where we're at now.
Before we shift to Billy, share with us, so you're in college now, taking a break from
what I understand.
So tell us a little bit about that.
I had a long, long winding recruiting process.
had committed to play at Pomona on the West Coast and then I got hurt.
I, first second was gonna play at MIT, D3 there, and then I got deferred when I applied EA
and then I ended up uh going to Brown academically, starting this, you know, training with
the guys here and there, but I knew this was gonna be the calling and then about two years
in, I...
I kind of had a panic where I was like, this is growing and this is very promising.
And I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice and I'm doing all the players in the program
a disservice by not giving this my full attention.
And so I am on a leave of absence from Brown, but I'll go back soon.
So.
So.
I'm glad you're underachieving in life.
ah Billy, you have an incredible story.
Why don't you share it with our audience and how you started Next Level.
Yeah, so I grew up a little bit different.
I grew up on the other side of the world in Australia, very different kind of soccer
culture over there.
We have rugby, AFL, cricket that kind of takes the limelight.
I saw I played at Olympic FC most of my youth career until I was 17.
And then once COVID came, I decided I wanted to try college and I got recruited to go to
Monroe College, which is a school in New Rochelle.
And I played one season there and then transferred into a Division one school, St.
Francis College.
While I was at St.
Francis, I was sort of just looking.
to start something involving coaching in New York.
And what I thought was the best idea at the time was to like kind of pull my players
together that I was training privately and put them into scrimmage games against like
local academy teams, just like as a way to get them more minutes on the field.
And yeah, that's sort of, uh as I went through college, I tried to grow it as much as I
can.
And then now that I graduated, I just kind of
put my focus into that more full time.
Yeah.
Yeah, just one comment on the St.
Francis piece.
St.
Francis, the school itself is in Brooklyn.
Unfortunately, they shut down their entire athletic program, I think a couple of years
ago.
And I've had the benefit of getting to know you and I don't know, it's gotta be 10 of your
teammates who have worked with my son, who have worked with my daughter, all of you
foreign.
I mean, literally, I don't think anyone is from the US, at least that I've met.
I know there are some kids, some American kids who have played at St.
Francis, but just an incredible, incredible group of kids that not only have I benefited
from, but the whole community of Brooklyn, because you guys are all out training with
kids, you bring an international flavor to it, and it's been a really, really cool thing
for all of us.
uh It's unfortunate that the program got shut down, but maybe from a business perspective
for you guys, it's actually good.
Billy walk me back a little bit.
Okay, because you weren't born here.
a lot of a lot of our guests talk about this idea of soccer culture, okay, football
culture in other countries.
And it's kind of a, think, Brandon you alluded to it, it's almost a gap that's almost
impossible to to kind of make up because you can't invent culture, right?
Training doesn't replace culture.
But you grew in Australia, for example, is the Soccerroo culture strong, even though it's
not the
the main sport or is it different than here?
Because I would say it'd be similar, right?
Because it's a sport that's run on third or fourth in popularity, which would be similar
to what's happening here.
Yeah, I would say it's similar, but I feel like over here, especially in New York, soccer
feels like the most popular sport, at least like, you you go to any field in Brooklyn,
you're going to see them playing soccer.
Like you're not going to see them really play many other sports.
Whereas in Australia, I feel like even at youth level,
that people play other sports.
There is a community obviously for soccer, it's just, don't think it's, doesn't feel like
the energy towards soccer is not as big as is here.
That being said, the level is good.
There is good players there, but with only, I think 10 professional teams in Australia,
it's very difficult to visualize a playing career in Australia.
If you don't go,
those ten teams, you're gonna be in the second division which maybe pay enough to be a
side hustle, but it's not gonna be a full time job, being in the second division in
Australia.
So I feel like a lot of people they try go into Asia, Europe or maybe, yeah, America for
college if it's an option.
an agent that helped me, Dylan Murphy from Wagner and Wolf.
He was great.
Yeah, he told me about the system and he explained like how college teams are offering
scholarships for their tuition.
And even in some cases, they'll pay for your rent and your uh stipend for food, all to
just play for the college soccer team.
I was going to school already in Australia and I was racking up a bit of debt.
was like, if I finish my soccer career now, would I really achieved anything?
Not really, so I thought I'll just try something new.
And I don't think I saw myself staying in America for this long, but as soon as I got
here, I really enjoyed it.
And especially I love New York, so yeah, just decided it's best to stay here.
And luckily I got my degree.
paid for and I've finished now and can focus on working.
Did you see a big difference when you came in between you as a player and how you grew up
uh and the average American player you played with?
come here first?
I swear.
Yeah.
God.
gonna be a perfect segue later on in the show when we talk to Brando about how he's
thinking about or how he's built Y4Y and how it can be really impactful for the kids
coming through his program to work with near peers who are in college or have played in
college to try to help with that process a little bit.
can Americans even go play soccer in college anymore?
I don't know.
I'm asking.
asking.
I don't know.
I mean.
supplemental soccer.
We just had Brian Chun, we interviewed Brian Chun a little while ago.
Brian is kind of a New York City legend, very present from a social media perspective or
anything else, but if you know, know.
I don't necessarily want to go so deep into training methods and stuff like that today.
However, what does supplemental mean to each of you and to your respective programs?
And how do you think it's additive?
Brando, why don't you go first?
Anything that you do outside of your club, any guidance that you have outside of your club
coach for me is supplemental.
So I define that as, we call it training, mentorship, recruiting management, training
obviously, private training, group training, camps, clinics, any time a player is touching
the ball outside of their club.
Supplemental includes,
you know, going to J.J.
Walker or Gansburg and hitting the ball against the wall, they're doing that at Pier 20.
That's supplemental as well, even if it's by yourself.
So anything that is not a replacement, right, but rather like an amplification of what
you're already doing at your club, for me is what defines supplemental.
So you still, believe that playing with a club is really, really important, but
supplemental can help make a huge difference too.
I think the reality is there's not a single player that I've ever met who's playing
professionally or playing at a high Division 1 level who didn't do supplemental.
And some had much more tailored experiences than others.
Some work with coaches, some work by themselves, some work in groups, some work
one-to-one.
the reality is, 0.05 % of players will make it pro.
Right?
So you playing at high level is not enough.
Now there are outliers.
There are people who just are incredible footballers and have the natural talent.
But the truth is even those outliers still need that extra work.
Right?
You see videos of like Marcus Rashford of like Pogba, Memphis to pie training in the
summers.
As soon as they have a day off, Ruben Loftus, Sheik, Felix, and the match.
These guys are all over Instagram.
it's, it's necessary.
Right?
And this is something that I'm also trying to explain to club coaches when I meet them.
I'm like, listen, like,
we can improve your players and increase their opportunity and access to the next level by
handling everything else that's outside of the club.
Billy, is there anything that Brando said that either you disagree with or is there
anything that he may have missed as you think about supplemental?
No, I agree.
I think the club definitely is the focus, but for players that want to get the extra step
on their teammates or competition, they have to be doing more.
And I would compare it to kind of like you go to school, but if you want to get the best
grades, you should have like a tutor, maybe a tutor in math to improve your mathematics or
whatever it is that you need to get better on.
like a supplemental trainer or a private coach is going to help you in the same way a
tutor will help a student.
And I like to challenge that because first of all, the, the, the entry numbers for pros
or, uh, or college athletes is very low, but I would assume the number and the percentage
of kids doing supplemental training is very high.
mean, I know it from, where I see my son, where he is, where most kids do brand or you
described as some sort of supplemental work outside of the enormous amount of hours during
the club.
If you think about the school tutor, a school tutor is a tangible result.
You're trying to get to a certain grade.
Okay.
There's a number you're trying to reach an A or B a hundred.
This is kind of a, a lot of it is emotional and a lot, and some of those kids in most
likely should probably not do supplemental because it's not really going to help.
being, I'm being cynical and I'm challenging, but you do not feel that or is this for you?
Okay.
Everybody's welcome and everybody should have supplemental work.
That's where I think the key distinction is that a supplemental work does not always have
to involve a trainer or a mentor.
It can be on your own time.
And that's the same way when you have a test on a Friday and you have class on Wednesday
for that test, you're gonna do test review for an hour with the class.
On Thursday, are you gonna wake up and play PS4?
No, you're gonna study for that test, even if it's alone, right?
For me, that's where you define supplemental.
It's like even when I was playing for like MSC, I was...
I wasn't doing any supplemental training, but I was going to the gym four days a week.
That was supplementing what I was doing with my club.
I think there's a big distinction we need to make between supplemental training guided by
a coach or mentor versus just supplemental training in general as a bigger idea, a bigger
sort of box.
So a club, a club is a holistic, I mean, especially, but let's say here, the pay for play
system or whatever you're in a club, it really doesn't provide enough.
cannot provide enough.
But you're saying is to, from your experience for you to be a successful kid or maximize
whatever God given talent you've got.
Is that what you're trying to say?
yeah, for many different reasons.
yeah.
And Billy don't, don't take a Lauren's challenge personally.
He just, his family spent so much money on tutors for him and he's sitting in a basement
with me doing a podcast.
Truly so, so, so, so, so, so, so,
one bad decision after the other.
What you guys see as far as the kids and the parents who is seeking The supplemental
training is it driven by parents.
Is it driven by kids?
Does it change?
From when they're seven and eight versus when they're 12 14 16 and how do you balance
that?
Billy you want to answer that first and we'll move over to Brando
I think most of times it might be initiated by the parents but what you'll find is like
the higher level players like that they'll want to keep coming back and Yeah, our job as a
coach is sort of to like light that fire in the player so when you start to see that um
they start feeling motivated themselves to keep working it like I'll say that is the best
situation
you don't want to just come from the parent to be pushing the kid every single time.
You want the kid to want to have to actually get better and not just training with me, but
also taking some of the drills and trying to recreate it in their own time.
Even if it's just going down to the field and imagining the same situation, putting down
some cones and trying to recreate it, the more touches there's always going to be the
better.
Do you take into account what kid, what club they come from, style of club or where the
kid is positioned or it's not really just how it works?
It's basic.
The first, mean, sometimes I like to review game footage if they have it.
A lot of the time they'll have a match video.
That's helpful to have a look at some of weaknesses and their strengths.
And then the first session is trying to identify where the real weaknesses are and set up
a plan where we can improve it.
I think there's like four clubs that come to mind when you ask that question where I guess
it's different for you Billy because obviously you didn't like play for any these clubs or
play against these clubs growing up.
Kickers, Metoval, NYCFC and Red Bulls.
15 years, guess some of the NYCFC hasn't been around that long, like 10, 15 years, the
style of play at those clubs and the type of archetype.
the archetype of kid that they develop is almost identical to when I was 10 years old to
now.
And it's frightening.
It's incredible.
mean, props to those four places, but it's crazy how, you know, when you have someone from
middle, you can tell how many hours they've spent doing build out and possession drills
and playing like third man ball and stuff like that.
When you have someone from kickers, these kids will be like eight years old and have the
ball mastery of a 14 year old, right?
NYCFC, I always associate NYCFC growing up, they used to have oversized jerseys.
They didn't produce youth sizes.
So they would have like all the kids I play against would be like these tiny little
technical kids with really long jerseys versus Red Bull.
Right?
Well, people don't realize, I mean, this is controversial, but Red Bull style of play is
oriented around Red Bull itself, which is an energy drink.
It's high energy pressing chaotic football.
And it's been like that forever.
Used to go play against Red Bull and the center back would look like he was born seven
years before everyone else.
So those are the four clubs and now other clubs now like their identities are changing
because they're growing.
Like, Gatchis change a lot, Dusk has changed a lot, but it's those four clubs I'm like,
okay, I know I'm...
that's an amazing observation.
when you see kids coming from whatever mentioned clubs you just said, do you treat those
kids differently where you go, okay, I know where your gaps are because I know what the
eight hours a week you're getting here is where you're probably lacking or you go, no,
let's double down on what that team needs from you.
I think technically you're going to find different play styles, you're going to find
different traits no matter what.
For me it's a way of looking at the game.
Some players clearly come from an environment where they might be a winger but they're not
encouraged to take players on 1v1.
I say listen, you're not going to be in this environment forever, we're going to instill a
hunger to beat defenders in you.
Because you're not going to get that in your environment.
That's very possession based, which is great in a team setting.
for you as an individual, need to build that up.
So think it's more of an approach and a style of play as opposed to technical gaps that
you find in different players.
So let's say for Billy, do you take input from the parents when the kid first comes in?
Because I know you're working with the younger kids or you just look at the kid and do one
or two training sessions and then you know what needs to be done.
Yeah, know you gives me notes all the time.
He's passing notes right now.
So.
It depends.
I like to ask questions like what's some feedback from their coach, for example.
And many times they'll have coaches' feedback before they book a session with me, advice
from them as to what they think the kids should be working on.
the parent understands the game really well, you can tell just by speaking to them and
If I feel like the advice is fair, then we'll set up the sessions to be based off that.
also, for me, the first session is very important.
Seeing it in front of your face, being able to see the weaknesses and the strengths,
that's where I like to manage the future sessions from.
Billy, mean, both of you guys run training sessions, individual group, clinics, et cetera,
different ages, which now, Brando, you alluded to it, it's kind of everywhere, right?
You can go to the park and see six different people running training sessions.
I what you've both carved out though is fascinating to me for different reasons, right?
So Billy, I'd love for you to talk a little bit about the matches.
that you're now setting up, not only across New York, New Jersey, and now you've grown
into California.
How that came to be, like what are the real drivers and what have you learned through this
process over the last couple of years?
Yeah, what I've learned is that no matter where uh a player is from, whether it's in LA or
if it's in New York or New Jersey, kids want to play more.
And they want to play the actual match.
Of course, training's great too.
I love training a kid and I focus a lot of time on that too.
for me, the game is where I want to focus on because there's a big problem in youth soccer
that players are not getting enough game time.
Like there's huge Ross's wherever you look in the MLS next ECNL elite academy like club
that is bringing in more players, more players like it is very rare that they turn down a
player nowadays.
At least they're going to if they don't make the 18, they'll make the B team.
If they don't make the beating, they make the seating like that.
They're taking in players every single, you know, every single season.
And yeah.
why would they take in so many players?
Wait, don't answer that.
Don't answer that.
mean, it makes total sense to have 24 kids in training and have 18 on a roster and try to
play as many kids.
So Billy.
By the way, just uh what Matt was saying, Louis Robles was here and he said that one of
the reasons uh early on uh teams expand from seven, nine and then to 11 is you basically
have more players on the team.
If you have four teams in a tournament, now you have four times that versus if you had
four times only seven rosters.
So pay to play, amigos, right?
Okay.
there's one thing, there's one thing I texted Billy a couple weeks back where I was like,
if you play 30 games in a season and you play 20 minutes for each of those matches, you're
playing like 600 minutes, right?
And then if you divide that by 90, you're playing six matches, six to seven matches in an
entire year.
So I think if Billy's program had existed as well when I was younger, I would have very
much appreciated that.
You know, in days where I would be like,
playing at Met Oval starting and then some kid from NYCFC would come and there I go into
the dark.
So I think that's good for confidence as well.
So Billy on most weekends, I would say what 10 months a year at this point, you have three
to four matches scheduled across multiple age groups on each day, Saturday and Sunday,
both in New York, which is a lot stronger because you've been around a long time, LA is
growing.
Where are you finding these kids?
How are you forming these rosters?
And then how are you finding clubs to play against?
is that difficult?
Yeah, so to start how it kind of started was like my pool of players was from the kids I
was training like per week.
So I had about maybe 50 to 60 players that were in my sort of rotation of like private
sessions.
And then it was actually my friend, Bother from soccer, he invited me to put a team into a
tournament.
I just pulled six or seven players together and we went to the tournament, did really
well.
And I just started
putting more teams into those tournaments.
then once the winter season was over, had probably now like about 120 players.
This all sort of came from word of mouth.
This was probably the biggest factor, just doing a good job with the current customers
that you have.
And then they'll refer their friends because at the end of the day, as long as you're
giving them good minutes with good players against good teams, they're going to be happy.
At least the kids are going to be happy.
Because of that it grew and it continued to grow and then yeah, I try to put together a
game for each age group from like U 9 to you 14 Yeah, and to find club is sort of just
about You emailing a bunch of clubs and seeing who wants to put a game together.
It's sort of easier now like having the contacts just to sort of reach out to
specific teams that I want to play against.
at the start, was very much just sending out email after email and seeing who wanted to
play.
And for you both, mean, what is your relationship with the established clubs in the let's
we'll start with New York, then Billy, maybe we'll move out out west a little bit.
But yeah, but I'm curious because I mean, I want to know so yeah, I would say ignore math
and let's be specific here.
Yeah, let's be very specific.
So the mean how do clubs react to
programs like yours.
uh Brandon, you start and then I'll move to Billy.
in the beginning you get receptiveness because you're a former player of many of these
clubs who is now like, you know, giving back to the community, helping the youth.
Over time, when you start to work with a ton of players from a ton of different clubs, I
will say like from some clubs the animosity grows and from others the support grows.
And I don't think there's any...
reason for any of that.
think it's just like the personalities behind each club.
Like, you know, who's in charge.
I always, when I, I've reached out to many clubs, I've had many conversations and I always
say, listen, like, we don't mean, we have no intention to build a team.
We have no intention to move players from one place to the next, right?
What we intend to do is help your players get to the next level.
And the truth is there is a next level, right?
Because Academy football ends when you're 18 years old.
And there's so many opportunities that they're not gonna have access to if they're not
working with programs like Billy's Next Level or they're not working with programs like
Youth for Youth.
And I always try to emphasize that when I have the meetings with clubs.
And again, it's really hit or miss just depending on where the club is at and how they
look at supplemental training.
What about for you, Billy, with what you're trying to do?
Because I know your program really well and it's well known here, but uh some of your
participants can't even talk about participating in games where they participate again,
will stay unnamed.
Maybe, know, blurring or whatever.
I mean, so obviously they're not, you're not getting full support.
How does that work?
Yeah, well like that's a thing like most clubs especially the MLS club like they generally
have a policy like no guest playing for other teams Is my team a team?
I mean that's kind of like a bit of a gray area because it's just a scrimmage game but at
the same time Yeah, so like I mean yeah, technically, you know some people some clubs
don't necessarily like it but I mean
their whole model is developing players.
I like if anything, I think I think it helps them.
I mean, if they're going to roster only 15 players out of 25 and then 10 players are not
getting a game on the weekend, they come into me for like, you know, a full 80, 90
minutes, whatever it is.
Like they're getting their match fitness.
They train with you all week and they're, you know, the same fit over the weekend.
I think it helps them.
And like, you know, we're talking about development here.
I mean, the
These clubs don't even have men's teams.
eventually they're gonna go off to leave their academy team going to college.
So our job between the years of 12 to 17 is to develop them.
So that's just my opinion.
Yeah.
justifying why it's good for the player, but my question was about the clubs themselves.
I get why the player would benefit from it.
I mean if it other clubs goal not to develop players
I don't know, then why would some players not be able to talk about playing in these games
or being in these tournaments?
This guy's trying to cause problems.
I think they think that a player will come to my program and maybe get scattered by
another team.
That's what I think they think.
And so that's the.
an MLS next rule.
Some clubs choose to observe it and others don't.
And Billy, are some of the clubs who are playing against you both wanting an extra match
if they have an off week, but also to get a peek at some of the kids who may be playing
for your team.
think it's more actually they just want a game because the thing about my program is like,
I'm always available.
As long as I'm available, like I can put together a team.
know, it's not like, you know, let's say Dusk have an off game on the weekend and they
want to play against a good level team.
Most of the other MLS teams are going to have games on the weekend.
Whereas we, you know, I can just put together a team as long as you give me five days
notice, I'll, you know, put together the team.
So like, I think it's more of a thing of just like,
like we're available.
so they'll come to us for a match and it will always be a good level game.
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've seen them firsthand and you know, it's always an incredible thing
when 13, 14 kids show up to play a match, four or five of them know each other, but these
kids who know how to play walk onto the pitch.
I've seen them play against an MLS Academy, MLS Academy teams, and they look like they've
been playing together for five years, right?
It's just goes to show.
And look, that's a credit to where these kids are coming from.
They may not be getting as much time as they would like.
However, the clubs are doing something right with the kids and the kids just want to play.
And then they get out there and they know how to play the game the right way.
And I think it's always surprising to the other team, right?
Whether like they see these kids shaking hands, introducing themselves, like dapping each
other up, putting their jerseys on, and then they go out there and they look like they've
been playing together for five years.
Yeah, no, it's interesting.
What I find is high level players, especially at this age, they can connect well with
other high level players.
Soccer is a very universal sport.
You don't necessarily need to be best friends with someone, I think, to have good
chemistry on the field.
feel like it's more of a thing of are they communicating on the field?
How's their body language?
you'll see, actually, recently we played
dust and like at the start of the game, everyone was like very shy.
But I think we scored that first goal and then went into a drinks break and you could tell
like everyone's energy was like really high and the boys started like really connecting
and by the end of the game, ended up having a really nice game.
I think we ended up winning 4-3 and then after the game, they're all like getting each
other's Instagram and stuff like that.
So I think it's a good way for like players to connect and meet other players.
oh
the way, that is a perfect segue to Brando and the mentorship.
I I love what you've built.
I think it's so, so incredibly important.
I shared in the first episode that we did here, kind of our personal stories and some of
the challenges my son has gone through in his soccer journey as a now soon to be 14 year
old.
And he's found some mentorship.
actually through some of the St.
Francis players who've kind of taken him under the wing, under his wing.
But there wasn't a program like this, you know, two years ago, at least that we were aware
of, or a year ago.
And I think what you're doing is incredibly impactful.
And I think it's not only impactful for the kids, but for the parents, takes a massive
amount of pressure off.
But then even for the players who are playing in college, to be able to spend time with a
13 or 14 year old kid and help them through the process.
is I'm sure impactful too.
Can you just share a little bit around how you thought about this, how you pulled it
together and what you're learning from it?
So when I was growing up, I knew all of the, when I was a U-13, I knew all the U-15s, but
none of the U-15s knew me.
I knew all the U-17, this guy, plays there, and he's gonna go play here in college.
And once I became a more sentient human being, I realized that that was just me looking
for an older brother who played soccer, which I didn't have, right?
And...
I thought about it and I was like, how do we sort systemize this?
How do we create something where it's not, oh, that's some mystical creature who's two
years older than me and is a little bit better because he's two years older than me, but
hey, let me talk to someone who's a little bit ahead in this journey and can kind of
provide the insight that's real raw insight.
Because who knows the journey better than somebody who's also living it?
And that's why when people say, when you're searching for a mentor, find someone who's two
steps ahead of you, not 10.
Because it's much easier to help someone go from step zero to one to two, as opposed to
zero through 10.
And it's pretty much what it was.
I remember the sensation that I felt being around these older players growing up and being
like, these guys are so cool.
I want to be them.
So how do we systemize that and create a community where it's fully built upon?
hey, you're working with people that are in the exact positions that you wanna be in one
day, right?
And we open those doors for ourselves and with the same exact doorman, right?
With the same people, the same coaches, the same clubs and colleges, right?
So we can kind of hold those doors open and bring the next generation in.
And the second thing you said is also very important to us, which is providing that value
to the players.
They're giving back to the community.
When you get to college soccer,
I had a ton of friends who I thought were always going to play pro and then one season
passes, it's two months, two season passes and you realize this might not happen for me.
What are ways that I can make value out of all this time I've spent and given to football?
It's mentorship.
It's giving back to the community.
It's meeting people who want to know how to get to where you got.
And then you become so invested and you want them to go even further than you ever did.
Can you define more concretely what you mean by mentorship?
Like give me an example of how this actually works.
A couple of examples of what the range is.
number one, all our training is led by players who are either actively playing college or
professional or recently played at one of those levels other than our junior coaches,
right?
And that's like the actual training.
We communicate with the players before and after the training.
We talk to them during, we tell them lessons.
We learn technical lessons, psychological lessons.
But beyond that, we also have an actual mentorship program, right?
Where we will match a player.
with a mentor that's run by Carmine.
Carmine played at NYCFC, then he played at Med Oval, and now he's the other captain of
Columbia.
He just finished his last season there.
And the idea is we match them with someone who is their point person for their footballing
journey.
Right, hey, Carmine, you know, just, got Severus disease, right?
Like, what do do?
Well, I had that too.
Here's what I did, and here's what you should know.
Here's what I wish I knew when I was your age.
Right, or hey, you know, my coach has benched me.
Is this the end of the world?
No, it's not the end of the world.
Let's get up and let's think action.
Let's think how are going to train?
How are we going to convince the coach that we deserve that spot?
These are things that I really wish I had this guidance when I was a youth player, but I
didn't because my club coaches, some of them were great, but they were too far removed
from the journey and my parents never lived it and weren't even from here.
You know, this is, uh I want to say something personal.
I, I was speaking to somebody yesterday about my son and his path, where he's at.
And, um one of the points of criticism I got was about this personality development.
He's, he's got the athletic ability and he's, he's, he's great at his position and he's a
hard worker puts all the extra hours, but there's a, a nervousness or something that
happens during game, whatever it's anyway.
So, uh
The, was saying to that person who was much more knowledgeable than me, that me as a
parent, really, I feel like at this point I've given everything I have.
I don't have any more advice to give Lavie because he's already surpassed me in everything
I've accomplished in soccer.
And obviously I don't have the psychological or kids psychology degree to discuss these
things or sports psychology.
So is this something that your mentorship program deals with?
Okay.
any of it, right?
I think that's what we're running into, right?
Like we have lots of advice, but unfortunately, or fortunately, I think our kids are at
the age where they're gonna succeed or fail to a certain degree on their own, but they're
much more willing to listen to players who are closer to their age who have gone through
it, which honestly makes a lot of sense, right?
And I think that's where we're going with it.
You forget what it's like to be in the pressure of it immediately once you leave.
The moment you stop playing at a competitive level, you become a little bit more distant.
You need the right level of hindsight.
20 years of hindsight from playing youth soccer is too many in my eyes for what we're
trying to provide on the mentorship side.
Four years is perfect because
You have the stories, you're still close to them, and you still understand the ecosystem
that the player is growing up in.
Let's say your dad grew up in Michigan and played ODP.
He's going to tell you about ODP and how to impress coaches and get selected for ODP.
You're like, Dad, what's ODP?
I'm MLS next.
the coolest.
There's no cursing here, I assume.
I caught myself there.
I'm MLS next, what's that?
We know the ecosystem.
We grew up in it.
We're so close to it still.
It's still the same coaches.
I go train at Pier 40 or wherever and I'm like, hey, hey Mauricio, hey Gustavo.
These are guys that coached me like 10 years ago.
They knew me as kids and now it's like time flies and now I'm working with kids who are
the age that I was when I was under them.
ah
And I just think that it's not something you can replicate at your club, it's not
something you can replicate with your parents.
You can get very good training, but what if the person training you can also walk the
talk?
What if they're still technically at the level and are learning how to become better at
football while you are?
That's so much more inspiring versus someone who's kind of done with it.
And now what's plan B?
What do we do after my legs stop working?
right.
in our place so subtly.
just, listen, it's actually just so great that they both can actually communicate verbally
and not through text, honestly.
Like it's a win.
been
okay, I get what you're saying, the big kind of next step is, is college what does does
your program continue through that?
And how does that work?
what we have that you cannot recreate is proximity to the colleges.
Who knows better how to go play for Columbia University or Brown University versus someone
who's playing there, right?
Versus someone who got recruited by the same exact coaching staff and understands what
that coaching staff is looking for, right?
We had our first player that we had committed.
A friend of mine had a family friend from England.
He played for Watford, very smart kid.
He said, listen, I'm going to get cut from Watford.
I want to play college soccer.
So he guided his whole recruiting process.
And it was as easy as, let's see him play.
Let's understand who he is as a person.
And then we directly called our coaches.
And Jackson directly spoke to Tobias and Casper from Columbia and was like, this kid is
the real deal.
Right, and he was recruited there and he was recruited to, I don't know if I can, he was
recruited to Georgetown and you can see Asheville and a bunch of other schools because we
knew people who were at those programs.
And the reason we knew people who were at those programs is because we played academy with
a bunch of different players who now are everywhere.
And that cycle's only gonna continue, right, because we make sure that all the players who
move and sort of matriculate out of our program into college stay involved in what we're
doing.
Right, and kind of, there's this like,
blurred line where it's like you go from being like a player within Youth for Youth to
being a mentor and coach, right?
And there's also somewhere in between.
I love the progression.
We were talking to a college coach a few weeks ago who said that he gets about between 250
and 300 emails a day from recruits, from players who'd like to play at that school.
250 to 300 emails a day.
So there's no way that anybody or anybody's assistant or assistance is going through 250
to 300 emails, right?
So there still is...
a world that very much exists where how you get to these coaches matters a whole lot and
your ability to do it.
And by the way, I'm not saying that that's fair, right?
But life isn't fair, unfortunately.
And I think just with the pure volume of kids that are playing soccer in this country, and
then you look at the global impact, and we were talking about that earlier about the
number of kids like Billy who have come over here and taken American, I'm just kidding,
Billy, you didn't take American scholarship.
Taking all the spots.
We're not getting into that on this podcast.
This is just joyful.
Matt,
Matt, you make a great point.
What I didn't talk about is also like direct exposure, right?
Where these coaches know, hey, the people.
So we do these big showcases where we'll have 300 to 500 applications for 60 spots, right?
And we, many of those spots are players we already work with.
They're part of our training program.
and other ones are we talk to the players, we watch their highlight tapes, we look at full
game tape.
We wanna make sure that if a coach is spending a day watching 60 players, that those
players are tailored, that those players are high level and actually recruitable.
Because everyone thinks they're gonna play college soccer.
And all those guys who think they're gonna play D1 are gonna play D3, and all those that
think they're gonna play D3 are not gonna play.
Right, and all those that think they're gonna play pro are gonna play D1.
That's what I always like to say.
You're always going to strive for a step higher than you actually land.
And we can create an environment where those coaches spend a day and see 60 of the top
players in the tri-state area.
And they know, they trust us and they'll come to our showcases because number one, the
people inviting them are players in their program.
And number two, the players in their program know what a good player is, I hope.
Otherwise the program is a serious problem.
Can we try to figure out how to thread this needle?
We're talking about supplemental training, which is as we defined, in addition to anything
outside of your club, which already is anywhere from three to four days a week.
Most of the MLS academies, would imagine the ECNL academies, EA are four, right?
Maybe some three, and we're talking U12 and up, right?
How much burnout?
know, like.
I don't really see too much burnout, not at the younger age.
I think this more comes when they get a little bit older, maybe at 16, 17 when there
starts to be other avenues that might pull their attention.
Whether it's a part time job, whether it's school work, whether it's applying to colleges,
whether it's a girlfriend, don't know, parties, whatever it is.
There's so many more things that will start to pull your attention once you hit that high
school age.
think that's when
kind of the burnout comes because like they're you know, they're putting all this time
into the sport and they don't feel like they're getting rewarded for it.
But you know, at the younger age, I think, you know, their focus is soccer and I
personally don't see too much burnout.
I always say that it should come from the athlete.
If the athlete wants to play more, then he should be playing more.
But if it's a case where, you know, the kid is like a little bit so and so, but then the
parent is like pushing them so much that I don't think that's a good situation either.
I think that there's a massive misconception about burnout and this applies to life, not
just youth soccer, which is it's not all about quantity.
It's not all about training too much, about spending too much time on the field.
It's about what you're doing in that time.
tell, when I see players who burn out, I've never had a player call me and like, I think
he was doing too much supplemental training and he just kind of burnt out.
He's spending so many hours.
It's like, no.
He's feeling all this pressure at his club.
He's fighting for this spot.
The coach isn't being receptive to what he's saying, to how he's playing.
That's where burnout comes.
Right?
Burnout is not something that's just like, one day you've done too many supplemental
trainings, you've played too many matches with Billy and you went to too many group
sessions with Youth for Youth and it's time that your body, that's like physical burnout,
right?
That's like, you know, you're 42 and you just finished up your last season in Saudi and
like you're done.
Right?
Like that's, that's,
No, no, no, no, we're not being, listen, you guys now like have transcended like old and
football is like, is like 38 and then you retire and then you're young again.
All right.
That's a very important clarification.
Um, but, but that's where I see burnout coming from.
I see burnout coming from pressure and a lot of the pressure comes from the parents.
I have parents of 12 year olds who call me.
This is funny.
I especially see this with a lot of the parents of the girls.
They're so worried about exactly what we're going to do in that one hour of time that
we're together.
Right?
And I'm like, your player needs to come to the session, get better and not realize that
it's like, feel it later, but just be in the flow of things and just be in a low pressure
environment.
Enter that flow state.
You jog a bonito a little bit.
That's how a player improves.
Right?
So I think burnout's more about pressure as opposed to like...
how much a player is playing.
And that's why I think supplemental training does not cause burnout unless it's in a high
pressure environment, which it shouldn't be.
But Billy, do you see that from the parents too?
uh When you have a team, do you give equal minutes or do you see parents that make demands
that are outside of what you see fit or usually in Europe, kids are getting dropped off
and it's up to you to do the rest?
Like 90 % of the time, well, maybe even more, they just drop the kid off and they
understand what it is.
My main job is just to make sure that everyone gets good playing time.
It would be hypocritical of me to be wanting to give these kids more minutes, but then I'm
bringing 20 players to a game.
So I try to keep the roster small.
Sometimes they might ask, hey Billy, my son's been playing.
right back for his club, but he really wants to play wing.
Do you think you can give him some minutes there?
And of course, I'm gonna try accommodate because at the end of the day, it's not really
about whether we win the game or we lose the game.
It's more about providing a good service for these kids so they can be playing at a high
level in a position they wanna play and developing in-
in a game situation that maybe they're not feeling like they're getting with their clubs.
So like I said, it's about supplemental work.
So I try to accommodate wherever I can.
But that being said, getting a lot of demands at once, it might not be possible to please
everyone.
Just gotta do the best job at trying to everyone happy and making sure the kids are happy
at the end of the day.
I think, think, Matt, correctly, if I'm wrong, think Billy's being a little modest, right?
I mean, there's the Billy, you're incredibly popular.
mean, your program is unbelievably popular.
And as Matt alluded to, you're expanding to, to, to West and I don't know if you have
25,000 followers on Instagram or whatever it is you got there.
And that to me, a lot of it sounds like a showcase element to it, to what you do, right?
I mean, not in a negative way, but if
parent comes to a very popular, and I'm saying there's a parent, a very popular kind of
program or supplemental program.
put my kid in there.
There's a reason why I'm going to that very popular program to get eyes on my kids.
Or is that something that you've seen that change or as your program has grown?
Yeah, yeah, definitely actually, because like the thing is, the way I recruited a lot of
the players in the beginning was, you know, from the play Instagram pages.
I mean, this is something that actually is not really a thing in Australia, which is a bit
of a surprise when I moved here was that like, parents make a soccer profile of their kids
and their careers, which was interesting when I first moved, I started to see that I was
like, this is really good.
Like I
You know, I can see like, you know, like all these players in the area, like now I can
just, it's a matter of emailing or DMing and inviting them to play.
Like I imagine in the past, it would have been difficult to find players for games and
this sort of stuff.
So, you know, they make the profile for the player and, you know, they get opportunities
because of that.
And, you know, they try grow their following, I think.
as a way that can also get invited to go to different games and stuff like that.
like, yeah, I'll post a picture or whatever.
And, you know, a lot of times I'll share it and they'll show people that they're playing
for the program.
And yeah, it's interesting.
Yeah.
think, yeah, I think Billy found the only good feature, or the only good element of
parents creating Instagram accounts for their eight year olds, or 10 year olds.
And by the way, just for the record, you're not DMing eight year olds and 10 year olds.
Just wanna make sure, just wanna make sure we cover that.
not what you're doing at all.
uh Yeah.
you're talking to a parent honestly when you when you have like this play profiles
100%.
showcase, mean, Matt, you've discussed this before too about this, this, college pathway
becoming decentralized.
this is why I'm bringing back this idea of showcase again.
And Brando, you might know about this, but do colleges look at these supplemental teams
and outside tournaments as far as recruitment is concerned, or this is just for the
betterment of the player and enjoyment?
In the summer, mean, colleges will look at what we do is we collect all these players and
we basically put them into four teams or six teams for two days and they compete.
In terms of like actual showcase teams, colleges definitely look at, there was one
program, I'm not sure if they're still around.
When I was playing, it was called Tiro Sports and they collected players from like, they
would have a US team, they would have a UK team, they would have like a Spanish team.
West African team and they would basically bring all the teams over and have them compete
in a tournament and there was unbelievable turnout from college coaches.
I think that was because the players that were being selected for that showcase, number
one, couldn't have been seen elsewhere, right?
And that could be because geographically they can't be seen or because they're not getting
play time.
Yeah.
do, see if you get recruited there and then we'll get to work on the pitch.
But I do think there's a lot of...
merit with showcases and getting access and exposure to the next level.
And I've also, I mean, I've also heard that the, and I think what you're talking about,
it's ultimately about the curation, right?
I've heard really, really negative things about a lot of the, the, the cops, the college
camps that kids go to, because the quality isn't great.
You know, every kid thinks that they are going to be able to go play at Duke and they show
up to a camp and there's, you know,
six, I'm making this up by the way, purely, sorry, I don't mean to, this is not a Duke
thing, any college, right?
And they show up and there's not a high quality, there's not a lot of high quality players
there.
Nobody's really paying particular attention.
They're revenue generating camps for a large purpose.
But if you can curate an incredible showcase and you've built a reputation around it and
the quality is consistent, then there's coaches are gonna show up to those things.
Exactly.
This is something that not a lot of people know and if you're a college coach listening to
this, I support your program but a lot of college coaches run ID camps under a separate
LLC or even under like a sole proprietorship and it's money that funds their lives.
It's not money that funds the program.
Yeah, which isn't, I mean, I'm all for.
They should get paid what they're worth if they're not.
And as long as everybody knows how these programs work and that that talent ID may not be
the entry point to a university, right?
Exactly, exactly.
We're about to get hate mail for the first time.
Yeah, uh we walked a fine line and this one for when you look at what you've achieved so
far, you couldn't have done it anywhere else outside of the US youth soccer system, right?
I mean, this seems like a very unique thing in the United States.
what you do see is you see a lot of, like, let's say if Billy or my program were to take a
bunch of players and play in Europe, that's very common for showcase teams of foreigners
to go play in other countries.
It's less common for Americans to Europe.
Well, you will see, no, you will.
Tiro was bringing, there's another club, our guy from Watford, Yanni.
for colleges.
I'm just saying, what Billy's doing, you're 13, 14, forget the colleges now, I'm talking
about 12 to 15.
Yeah, Right.
You're taking a bunch of...
I don't think so.
That's my point.
the strong, and I worked in England, like I worked in football in England, it has the
strongest status quo you can ever imagine.
I tell people about Youth for Youth and they're like, what are you talking about?
You're a kid.
They're like, what you talking about?
It's like the granddad is supposed to run that program, you know?
The guy who used to coach and is now running the program versus the guy who used to be
like.
It's the status quo.
are so strong.
Like the club for a reason, it's a very effective system, but like the club structure, the
levels you've cat one cat two, like it's not, there's really not a lot of space for
innovation.
like to say the worst place to be for a football startup in the entire world is in the UK
and the best place to be for a football startup.
The entire world is in the U S that's because we are building the system.
We are building the status quo as we speak.
Yeah, I mean, guess, I mean, that's kind of what the podcast is for is kind of like to,
you know, trying to stand the system here.
I feel like there's definitely a need for like supplemental like programs over here.
Whereas, yeah, like Brandon said, I don't think I think England has a good have a good
system.
I mean, same with Spain, you know, you know.
Yeah, if this podcast was in Spain, it'd be one episode.
But you say that, but I mean, Billy, I was actually just messaging with one of your former
teammates with David last night.
And he was talking, his dad coaches an academy in Spain.
we were talking about, he saying he was listening to the pod and he loved what Luis Robles
was talking about around how they went from, how they shortened the field, the 9v9 field
after he spent time in different places in Europe.
And David went into the fact that in Catalonia, they don't play,
I'm probably gonna get this wrong, but it was like, some places they play seven v seven
and then they go to 11s, others they play eight by eights.
He's like, ultimately it has to do with who's the commissioner of the region or of this
town and who has the most political clout.
He said to think that it's all standardized across Spain, which everybody seems to think,
isn't actually true, right?
And it made me feel a little bit better, right?
that we're not the only ones where it's inconsistent.
And in some ways it actually sounded more consistent.
If they're doing that on a regional level in Spain, and at least we're trying to work it
out at a league level, it's not a national level here.
You know, it's funny because like there are like a lot of like similar programs to like
what me and Brando are doing in like Spain, but the customers are actually American.
You know what I mean?
Like, I mean, there's like, for example, I know the guys at Malaga City Academy, have
like, uh they bring like players together from different countries, but like the majority
of the players are American.
They take the Americans over to, yeah, they take the Americans and you know, they put, you
know.
But the talent project in Germany, yeah, the talent project is one in Germany.
Right.
American kids, mostly American kids.
I play for Schalke International Academy B-team.
eh
played for Real Madrid, school C.
Yeah, yeah, no, of course.
Guys, why don't we, we're gonna wrap up soon.
Why don't we run ourselves right into rapid fire?
Work for you?
All right.
Why don't we go Billy Brando and keep going in that direction.
One skill youth players have to master to be elite.
I would say bull monster, I think.
I would say first touch.
Like you can tell when someone has a trampoline of a first touch and that's like
immediately you're not going to get a second look.
One thing clubs should stop doing.
Just bringing 30 players on one team.
creating arbitrary laws about when players can play soccer outside of their clubs.
Especially when they're getting paid.
One thing that separates elite youth players from good ones.
I would say the discipline towards training and then also just in all aspects of life.
I would say those I see go the furthest are actually the ones who put the least pressure
on themselves.
Hmm.
one thing parents should stop doing.
Haxting me.
I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
You
just like I think, yeah, putting pressure on kids, know, because like, like kids need to
just learn how to play with freedom, you know, especially for like to, to enhance like
creativity when playing like they just need to be able to play with like without any like
pressure on them.
I think parents who didn't play at a high level should probably stop critiquing their
players' game and trying to give them direct advice on what they should do and instead
find someone like Billy or myself who can help them with that.
It'll make their lives a lot easier as well.
Best advice for a 12 year old with big dreams.
I would say...
To dream as far as you can because just because you're not the best player in your team
now, like it doesn't mean that, you know, when you're 16, 17, you're not going to be the
best player in a team.
every year, like the level is going to change.
Like you got to keep, I say to like parents, it's like you got to keep paying the rent,
keep paying the rent and like you'll see the rewards in the future where like you're going
to have a kid that
Maybe at 12, he wasn't the best player on his team, but at 15, 16, he kept working so
hard, worked so hard, and he had his growth spurt, and now he's ready to take the next
step.
I would say aim for Mars and land on Pluto.
And what I mean by that is, you know, find a really, really far, you know, hard to reach
dream, expect to land somewhere completely different and perhaps even further.
Right?
Like, like I always wanted to play pro and then I thought it was going to be college and
then I always wanted to play college and then look where I'm at now.
Right?
Like doing something where I'm more obsessed with, with the game and having more fun with
it than I've
ever had it in my life.
And you know the best part?
I think I've never been better at playing than I am now because I have all this
perspective and again, I took the pressure off myself and I spent my whole life aiming for
Mars and I maybe haven't landed on Pluto yet, but that's now my direction.
It's further, but it's completely different.
So I think be prepared for that.
I know that's what young life is about.
Amazing guys.
Before we wrap up, where can people find you guys?
Aside from your texts, which seem like they're blowing up.
I mean, Instagram, like next level, under score, under score, USA.
Yeah, for us probably Instagram Y number 4YFC.
You can search for Youth4Youth and our website is the same tag.com and if you want to join
the program y4yfc.com slash join that's a player application and then we will, if we like
your profile, we'll be on the phone with you ASAP.
go ahead.
generally loathe complimenting young people, but I, the two of you really are
extraordinary.
there's a, with all the cynicism aside of pay to play and all the issues in American
soccer or whatever.
then with the euphoria of the United States beating Uruguay five one, have to say that
the, there's an enormous amount of optimism in you and the way you express yourself and
what it is you're trying to do.
And I can't tell you how much we appreciate this as being dads.
It really is uh a giant contribution to the community.
I wish that there were two parents doing this podcast so my parents could listen to it and
figure out how to actually navigate the system for me.
Thank you we go, look at that.
listeners, these Brando is now wearing a an official chase in chasing the game cap and
which will soon be for sale for $130 a cap.
So yeah.
going to stand outside of Kith with six hats, first ones to get there.
And Billy, we got to get you one of those too.
congratulations, guys.
mean, honestly, not only from a soccer perspective and what you're doing, I know you're
both in it for the right reasons, but you've also both started businesses from scratch at
a really young age and have turned these into incredible platforms which are impacting a
ton of people and I think positioning both of you guys to be successful in life, which is
a
which is ultimately all of our goal when our dreams of becoming a pro footballer go south.
I'll take Pluto.
Exactly right.
Yeah, thank you guys.
All right.
Ciao Billy as well, in a bit.
What stood out to me today is how clear their vision already is.
They're not waiting for permission.
They see problems, they understand the pressures and challenges, young players in their family's face.
And clubs, for that matter.
And they're already building tools and communities to make the support healthier
That is what progress looks like.
And in some cases, it's very tangible.
And I'm going to, you know, say my wow trademark,
but, man, I can't tell if I feel much older or
slightly younger, but this was incredibly energizing and inspiring.
And if these minds are what's good going to shape the future of the ecosystem in the United States
then youth soccer in this country is in pretty good hands.
Yeah, and if this conversation gave you a new way to think about
how you may want to approach and navigate the journey that
many of us are on as parents, players, or coaches, or others around the ecosystem
supporting the kids and players.
Please share it with another parent or coach.
These are the voices we want in the room.
Thank you for listening.
New episodes every Wednesday.
See you next week.
And Matt, please don't stay away, man.
I can't.
It's impossible.
I need to be back.
Okay, you're welcome
All right, everybody.
Bye-bye.