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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 parenting in youth sports 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.
Matt, I'm going to ask you a question.
When was the last time your kid just played soccer?
Like, just follow me for a minute?
No training, not a game with a ref or schedule, just played,
a couple friends, nobody coaching.
If you have to think about it even for a second.
I think that's the answer.
And we all know this, we're all experiencing this.
Every parent listening has heard this to nauseum.
The kids need to play.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We nod, then we book another session.
It's just what we do.
Matt, you know that lecture we get from our wives, which we talk about all the time.
I've told you this a 100 times, and then we go and channel that to our boys.
Well, I think we're getting lectured today.
This time, it's Ted Kroeten.
Yeah, and Ted earned the right to give this lecture,
although I really didn't think it was a lecture.
I think it was just a discussion.
He ran a big club in Minnesota and he
built the whole deliberate practice machine, assessments,
progress reports, the 10,000 hours to get to excellence,
his own words on how that went.
Kids hated it.
Parents loved it.
So we walked away.
And he started Joy of the People.
a play-based soccer and football program in a rec center in St.
Paul, Minnesota.
16 years of letting kids play.
His book, The Talent Thief, came out in June and
hit number one new release in soccer coaching and youth sports.
So today, overloading and underloading,
and why Ted thinks even the best academy kids in
the country are doing way too much of one and almost none of the other.
Why a kid who nails every move in training can't find it in a match?
What Ted's first group of Joy kids turned into with numbers.
This is Chasing the Game, Youth Soccer in America,
the learned edition.
Liron: Welcome to Chasing the Game.
here's how we're gonna do this.
we're gonna start this
interview by quoting your book.
and I'll show our listeners that I
can actually read, so here we go.
So, uh, "I thought talent was manufactured
through deliberate practice, more
hours, more intensity, more structure,
early specialization." But you
obviously, Ted, changed your mind.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Ted: Sure.
I, um, kind of go through it in
the book, but basically, running
a big club in Minnesota, having a
great time and just using, putting
every tool that we possibly could.
everything I could to, developing players.
How did players get good?
A friend of mine, uh, was coaching
one of our teams, and we, and,
uh, we just picked a team, and
it was an amazing group of U10s.
Amazing.
Gonna be the best group.
And I think in that group, maybe
seven kids went D1 out of 10.
But, they, they p- got up on the wall,
and they were drinking a water break,
and the coach, uh, went down the line
and asked, " What do you wanna be
when you grow up?" And every single
kid said, "Pro soccer player, pro
soccer player, pro soccer player."
The last kid said, "Futbolista,"
because he didn't speak any English.
The, uh-- And it's like we sat back
and we go, " What would be the best
education system possible if we wanted
to bring up 10-year-olds to kind of
reach their dreams?" If a kid said,
"I want to be a rocket scientist,"
we wouldn't say, "Well, only 1% of
1% gets to be a rocket scientist."
We would put together the best education
program we possibly could for our kid.
And that was kind of my calling,
what I thought was my calling.
And so I got into all of it, including,
meeting, a direct line to deliberate
practice people in Malmo, Sweden, and,
uh, seeing young Zlatan Ibrahimovic
before he was, anything formed.
But the coaches said he's
put in his 10,000 hours.
So as a club leader, I put
together everything I could to
get kids to play more hours.
we did the deliberate practice, a 12
assessment skill and physical test
system that they could go through and
be assessed and then given a, a, a
progress report and then put on a path,
And, um Kids hated it, parents loved it.
We got a rec center in St. Paul with
the idea of creating a play center for
kids, and it was a massive failure.
But I still wanted to find out
what was happening with play, and
that's kind of the story of the book
Matt: Ted, we hear a familiar promise.
More training, a stronger team,
more travel and tournaments, and you
provide a better chance for your kid.
So we spend thousands of
dollars, we give up our weekends.
We're still anxious we're not doing
enough, and I think the social media
world we live in has only made-- has only
heightened that and made it increasingly
worse f- for everybody involved in it,
except for the people advertising maybe.
Uh, what, what do you believe
we're getting wrong from a
development perspective, and
what is it taking away from kids?
And when I say kids, I mean truly kids,
like as they, as they develop and mature
Ted: Well, first of all, I, feel for you.
I do.
I had to go through all those steps When
we started we started in 2009 with a group
of eight-year-olds and nine-year-olds
that we tried to get everybody to come,
but that was our oldest age group.
So we had nothing as those kids grew up.
What we did was we just threw kids
in together and said, "Let's play."
And those kids grew up in play.
So I think, from the highest
perspective, MLS NEXT Pro and ECNL
Boys, no doubt, these are the best
athletes, the best, most coachable kids.
I don't think they're playing enough.
And I divide play into two
categories in the book.
Basically work, which is
explicit, going uphill, and, play,
which is implicit, going down.
And the idea is to get to Mount Everest.
the explicit work they're doing all
week is overload, and what they're
missing out is, is in a chance to
underload, which is basically play with
each other, build up, for lack of a
better term, a language of movement,
and learn to use that movement to
control, manipulate others on the field.
And I use Panenka as the example
of someone who, was faced off
against a physically stronger
opponent and got that opponent's
muscles to work against themselves.
And the, the question I ask is,
if a Martian came to Belgrade
to watch that classic game that
Panenka scored, what would he say?
And that was his first soccer game.
He would say, " What team is
Panenka playing for?" Or, "What
team is Maier playing for?"
'Cause he look like, he looks like
he's playing for the other team.
He just jumps out of the goal.
Panenka tells a story to Maier,
who, who then, is fluent in that
movement language and then jumps out
of the way and, allows him to score
Liron: you talk about a kid hitting
the hardest, the switch between hitting
the hardest shot to score and then
turning it into the slowest goal.
So Can you explain that a little bit more
of this, this, this concept of overloading
and underloading in that sense?
Ted: You have basically, if you
wanna get good at something, say it's
push-ups, you overload to get better.
So today I do, as many as I can.
I do 18, and, uh, my arms get
sore, and I can't do any more.
48 hours later, after rest and
relaxation, I'm able to do 21.
It takes work, which is the, uh, push-ups,
and then, recovery, where you rest and
your muscles recover, and then the next
time you do push-ups, you're just a little
better, so it's like a linear line up.
It's, it's called overload.
It's used in every periodization
program that, coaches do.
But the, uh, but,
underloading is the idea.
I never really bought onto
this idea of best of the best.
I thought if you keep doing that,
you would just eliminate people,
one at a time that it really
needs to be about everybody.
And what is, what is the
advantage of, of playing down?
And what do the best players in
the world do every day that you
or I could do, but we don't?
And that's, and that's every
time they play, they play down.
They play peop- against
people they are better than.
And guess what?
They, they tend to get better anyways.
Liron: You know, I, I… I heard a, um,
in a podcast I listened to, I heard a
football analyst talk about, Messi's last
performance in the World Cup, which was
absolutely legendary and extraordinary.
And he said maybe Messi's secret, one of
his secret for longevity and who he was,
is because he's never had to play Messi
Ted: Uh-huh.
yeah.
Matt: I, I
to try to simplify your last answer,
I mean, is the ultimate challenge
that you're seeing around development
is that there's too much overloading
and not enough underloading?
is it that simple?
Ted: Yep.
It's, it's, it's that simple.
And what I use is, second language
learning theory, which says that when we
pick up a second language, sometimes, we
pick it up fluently, perfectly, right?
Without accent, and sometimes we pick
it up, but we always have an accent
and we always struggle here and there.
and the difference is if you want
to speak a language fluently, you,
have to go through two periods.
First is acquisition, the fun, the joy,
the love, the play of the language.
The mom in the kitchen with the Excuse
me, speaking Italian with the opera on.
and, and you're just
absorbing the Italian.
The other is the rules, laws,
skills, and techniques of speaking
and comprehending Italian.
We tend, we tend to teach youth
sports with just the rules,
laws, skills, and techniques.
Go kick the ball 300 times against
the wall." if you look at things
like Hispanic leagues around the
country, you see this sort of
really cool acquisition environment.
There are kids who underload
every day and get it.
if you look at backyard play with a
lot of families, they have a goal up
and ev- the atmosphere is really fun.
That's a great acquisition environment.
We're, we're explicitly telling
three-year-olds not to kick the ball
and to, uh, instead do a, you know,
toe taps with it rather than actually
playing with those three-year-olds.
the three-year-old has nothing to do with,
" I wanna get better at soccer." What they
want is they want, to play with you.
Matt: Yeah.
for the listeners who do not know
Joy of the People, which I believe
has informed "The Talent Thief" quite
a bit, why don't you share a little
bit with us about Joy of the People,
Ted: Joy of the People is when
I was running this big club, I
was like, " I gotta see if play
works still." And so with some
friends, we started a, a nonprofit.
We were able to get a rec center in St.
Paul and, and convert it into sort of a, a
center of play, and that was 16 years ago.
we focused on how much
can we just let kids play.
Not perfect, not perfect street
ball, but as close as we could get.
And at the same time, we saw kids--
advancing so quickly and doing things
that I knew that nobody taught them,
that I thought, "Okay, th- we gotta
figure out what's happening in play."
'cause everybody we talked to in Brazil
was, " Yeah, that's all I did was play
in the streets, cobblestone, barefoot."
And Zico said, "Hey, if we lose our free
play culture, we'll lose our World Cup
And, and so we were like, " Okay, who
around the world is doing this? Who's
putting this into the curriculum? Who's,
who's really researching play with kids
at a, at the academy level?" Nobody.
And so, we had to be the first.
And, so it was like that was 16 years,
and then I think the first cohort between,
the age of 2000 and 2004, 44 kids.
12 played D1, three MLS NEXT
Pros, one-- two current pros.
Matt: Ted, I'm curious, there is far less,
unstructured play in places like Brazil
and France and Spain than there were 10
years ago, 20 years ago, 30 years ago.
Is that true in what you're seeing?
Is this not just an American issue?
Is this a, a global issue,
but maybe more so here?
Ted: It's global But a sport that
really shows this in case is hockey.
I live in Minnesota, center of
hockey in the United States.
the outdoor ponds, uh, where, where
I grew up playing are all empty.
Kids-- kids are… All the best 13,
12-year-olds, 11-year-olds are sucked
away to the indoor, ice arenas where
they're paying $225 an hour to do what
we did on the shoveled ice for free.
the, the draw of, of getting
better has led to this.
Now, a good example of that I use
is Brazil in '58, '62 and '70.
if you look at the relative age
effect on those teams, like who was
selected on the, uh, the whole '62
World Cup, no relative age effect.
and, and what that means for your
listeners is if you see heavy relative
age effect, it means, tell-tell
signs of selection from, a team.
That most of the kids will be
January, February, March, April, May.
but '62 World Cup, no relative age effect.
It means that there was no
youth sports before that.
Kids just played together.
And then at 16 they had kind of
an open trial, And guess what?
Brazil, you know, ruled the
world, light years ahead.
But in the last World Cup, we see
that, there's still relative age
effect in the US national team.
That's the sign Of an underperforming
talent system that's like, high blood
pressure, really high blood pressure.
it, it tends to be in overall development
from bottom to top, what kids can get
in enough play as when they're young,
and then when they're older, use that
play to sort of make things happen.
and it's very difficult without
that play portion, and it's
hard to backfill it later
Liron: I, I would call myself
an overload parent as, uh, as
you've described very well.
So another overload parent, DM'd me
before this show and said, um, the…
Kid is doing great in training,
does the right moves, everything
is check, check, check.
Kid is obviously, academy kid,
plus a lot of, um, supplementary.
But in game, the kid seems to not
be able to do these or replicate
what is seen in practice.
Would you attribute that
to the theory of free play?
Ted: Yeah.
W-- I would treat that to fluency.
For instance, if he's isolated
training and he's doing the step
overs, can do really great Robinho
step overs and keep his body still
and like control the defender.
but he does it against a cone.
he doesn't get much information
to the coach sometimes.
You can say, "Wow, he's really
got that move down," but he
doesn't do it in the game.
Um, what's going on here?
It's like, what is the
defender saying to me?
What can I say back to the defender so
when we move, we give off information.
When the defender moves,
he gives off information.
The goalie's in the background,
he's giving off information.
Whoever can use that information to their
own advantage, right, will dominate.
And, and we, we talk about this vaguely,
read the game, be high soccer IQ,
but we don't really know what it is.
To me, it lives in a language, and
that ability to sort of that we can't
describe is what I call underloading,
which is basically using the muscles
of others in your own behalf.
I fake, I drop my shoulder, the
defender moves out of the way.
For some reason, he moves out of
the way and allows me direct path to
the goal, and I have just told him
a story in my fluent soccer play.
A kid like, Lamine Yamal when I watch
him play, I say, "Okay, somehow he
got in enough play to become fluent."
Uh, meanwhile, Gavi, who grows
up in the academy and is a
fighter, is, is struggling.
Pedri, who grows up at the Canary
Islands just playing with his
friends, at 19 he comes to Barcelona,
and he is able to express himself.
but the idea is in a perfect system
is Pelé-esque, where he didn't even
touch a regular soccer ball till 13.
He just played with his friends.
And at 15, he's, you know, pro.
Matt: I, I mean, I think the examples are
incredible and, and make a ton of sense.
I think w- where my mind is going
around some of this is, I mean, I
grew up in this country where parents
essentially coached just about all
sports up until, I don't know, 14, right?
15,
And it feels like to me that it's like
this massive correction in that we looked
at this and said, "Oh, we're so far
behind in soccer because parents have been
coaching and we haven't had real coaches."
Liron: Matt.
Wow.
Yeah
Matt: so here's what we're gonna do.
You know, we're gonna create
this incredibly extensive
licensing process for coaches.
And then you show up for training
or even ahead of training and you
create these elaborate session plans
for 10-year-olds and 11-year-olds.
But what happens is that
everything is scripted.
And you get into a game and it's
not scripted, and you've gotta,
you've gotta solve problems.
And look, the Lamine Yamal example,
he clearly has something like
Messi has, where you could--
anybody can identify that talent.
Where another-- where other kids don't
have that, they can be great players.
They don't show that type of creativity,
so they be-- they get moved into a channel
Ted: And I would say all players.
Every one of us has the opportunity
to be as good as we can be.
if we can make that functional within the
play, you can find a place for yourself.
That's kind of what neighborhood play is.
Matt: Can I, can I just, um, just
s-say something else from a, a
personal observation the other day,
and I caught myself, and I'm wondering
how do we ultimately fix this?
So my situation was my daughter,
who's soon to be nine, playing, I
think U10 or something like that.
and the coach sent out an email
saying, for the 90-minute trainings,
they're gonna do 30 minutes.
He believes in the 30/30/30 rule.
I think it was something like that.
It was like 30 minutes of play,
30 minutes of, of instruction,
and then 30 minutes of play.
And my first reaction to this, and
I caught myself, was, What "Well,
what are we paying for?" Right?
Because, because we do.
We all, we all pay money, we think
we wanna see our kids coached.
We wanna be in organized session.
And I had this moment, and I was
like, "Gosh, actually, one, I really
appreciated the communication of how
he's structuring training and why.
And two, I, I thought this is
exactly what they need, actually.
They need to solve problems
for their own, for themselves.
They need to figure out how to play
amongst each other without somebody
telling them what to do." And I was
able to observe one session, and I was
like, "This is brilliant." Like, well,
this doesn't exist anymore nearly as
much as it should, and it was so simple.
But three years ago me, four
years ago, would have said,
"Why are they just playing?"
Liron: think six, six months
ago you, not three years ago.
Ted: That's beautiful.
A couple things pop out.
you watch kids play and
it's really enjoyable.
Now it, if you, if you like
zoom in on each individual, it
do- it doesn't look like much.
He's not, he's running around.
He's never even touching the ball.
he's not getting those touches
like, and the weak players
are falling further behind.
All those things that you worry about
are right there in front of you.
But for some reason, you enjoy it.
He's smiling.
They're, they're balancing, they're
controlling, they're running, they're
jumping, they're touching the ball.
They're, everything's within a function,
and it becomes a language of their--
And that language, it's important to
note that, uh, Wittgenstein (Ludwig
Wittgenstein) said that there's no
such thing as a private language.
So the skill doesn't live in me or you.
It lives only when I take on Liron with
a ball, and I, I'm able to, uh, move
him, and then I go, "That's the skill."
And then maybe I have to take on Matt.
So the, the, the skill lives between us.
And when we get back to the question
of best with the best 17-year-old
academies, every practice will be perfect.
I think this is not the
fault of the coaches.
Uh, everybody has good intentions.
these 90 minutes are the most
important of your life this week.
Everything is 100%." Not only that,
when you have the ball, all the
pressure comes at the same speed
because these are all super athletes.
Not only are they super athletes,
they're already probably January,
February, March birth dates.
They're all the same size
and athletic ability.
They're coming at you quick, hard, fast.
you never get the one who just stops.
or the kid who just refuses to play
defense, just sits in the middle
like some, like some sand crab.
We have a kid He's actually developed this
skill, I see it in futsal, where he goes
and stands in the middle of the court and
acts like he doesn't want to be there.
But the other team would just dribble
right at him, almost like he wasn't
there, like he was a lamppost.
And he would-- It was like a sand crab
technique where they hide in the sand and
the ants come by and he just grabs it.
He would steal ball after ball.
The kids learn the weirdest things.
So, so kids in play did the Maradona,
but they did it backwards, for instance.
They did it with an inverse motion.
But the, the biggest thing is,
like, if the kids get used to
explicit, feedback, they're always
gonna be looking for the coach.
They're always gonna look, be l--
instead of looking for themselves.
it's a difficult problem, and that's
kind of why I wrote the book, to show
that, hey, people, play is best practice.
You need to play first, and
you probably don't need much
structure at all till 15, 16.
Liron: So Ted, okay, I, I
bought into your system.
I'm ready to underload my kid.
Here's the problem I have, man.
School, four days a week
practice, travel, homework.
Uh, I for- forget I, I cannot
squeeze another thing in here.
I, of course I would love for him to be in
the park running around with other kids.
Are we saying that he should give
up some of the more established
things that he is doing for this?
where does it all fit?
And maybe you don't
have the answer for that
Matt: A- and just, and just one, one
thing to think about, Ted, as part
of-- as you answer this is how do you
think about it from an age perspective?
So if, if Liron's kid is 14, that
may be different than an eight or
Liron: Yes, correct.
Yeah, very good.
Yeah
Ted: So anybody can underload.
We can underload.
Kids in play, they could be on the very
top academy team and still underload.
But in order to do that, they would have
to like let go of, "I'm not concerned
about the performance. I just wanna
enjoy myself with my friends." the coach
can also help with that environment.
these are not impossible, If you're in an
academy, you don't have much time to play.
if you are 14, 15, you are getting ready
for a big, big, big selection period
at 15, 16, where s-studies show that
the best players in the world kind of
come into the academies at that time.
It, it's really a mindset.
Zidane playing at 2000 World Cup was
underloading against every single
player that he played against.
He would just, you know, people would
come up and like, "I'm gonna get you,"
and their hands would be extended,
and you could see them like tearing
up the turf, and he's just skipping.
So he's in play mode, and
they're in sort of work mode.
And the, the key seems to
be, am I reviewing myself?
Am I monitoring myself?
Or am I just letting it be?
good coaches know how to sort of
get this out of, of their players.
Good coaches at a high level, know this
intuitively, that if they can create
environments where the k- where the best
players are able to express themselves.
Liron: almost an impossible ask,
in the environment that, that,
that have been set up for them.
I just, I… It's not something
that I can even understand how
Matt: But, but Liron, I think you
have to start with the-- You have
to understand the concept, and it's
not, it's not like you flip the
switch and you're underloading,
Liron: It's not,
"Here's my system from
$19.99"
Matt: Like, everybody has to understand
the concepts of underloading and
overloading, and once you understand
it, can you incorporate 15 minutes
of underloading into a session?
Or, or 10 minutes to begin with, or
whatever it may be, and then individually
or as parents, I'm saying individually
to kids, helping them understand what
that concept is and what it means, and
then how to apply it in certain elements
Liron: When, when my kid was younger,
I think we instinctively all understand
this concept you're bringing in, that
unstructured play has enormous benefits.
So what we did was, as a bunch of
parents, we'd try to get these kinda
mini tournaments for the kids together
"Okay, let them just play each other."
But what it actually turned out to
be was even a more intense tournament
style, parents yelling at each other.
It became such a hotbed of, of, o- o-
uber-loading of, of parents and kids that
we, we couldn't … It, it completely
backfired, and, and all the joy out of it.
out of it
Matt: L-Liron, you know, you know how,
you know how I knew it backfired when,
when you asked, my son to participate
in one of them at the Coliseum, and
three parents showed up with Veos
Liron: Yes.
That's
Matt: for a
Ted: my God
Matt: And I thought, I thought, "Oh, oh,
wow. this is, this has gotten so extreme
that it's like a pickup tournament."
Ted: beat that, I can beat that one.
we, we had a, a-- So we had this,
we bought these inflatables, and
they were, like, amazingly fun.
But we go, "Let's have a Halloween
tournament," and everybody dresses
up as a fun team, and a lot of teams
entered, including adult teams.
And it was-- If you look back, it looked
like, wow, this is gonna be perfect.
Uh, but, but what happened was on the
inflatable, uh, the parents stood right
outside the inflatable, and we-- It
was a tournament, so we wanted to keep
score But the parents got so into it,
they were standing on the outside of
the inflatable, is they would say, "No,
that was a foul. The score is eight
to four." And they started to push in.
So this-- The inflatable became like an
hourglass with the parents in the middle
yelling at each other across ten feet.
Liron: God.
Oh my… What have we done, Matt?
Ted: W- So we quickly realized
that, look, competition or this sort
of false idea of competition gets
in the way of player development.
We, we did a giant tournament,
and we said, "Okay, pizza for
the winner." And we-- At that
time, we had club kids coming in.
Everybody was there.
It was like 100 kids playing on
seven courts, and all the j- regular
joy kids are on the bottom courts.
Meanwhile, all the kids on
the top courts were club kids.
And maybe they were better at the
time, maybe they were bigger, but
what I really noticed was they
manipulated the sort of fun game.
they would, like, score the goal,
then they'd sit themselves in goal.
They would complain about every foul,
to sort of manipulate the score.
"Isn't that time yet?" They would
get the ref to call time, and then
they would move up the ladder.
They were better at manipulating the
game over trying to win, rather than the
kids-- The joy kids are at the bottom.
They're doing rainbows, Maradonas,
trying to nutmeg each other
and, like, losing every game.
And, we realized quickly that
perhaps that sort of fake competition
got in the way of the learning.
So we immediately cut that out.
We try to remove ourselves.
let the kids be in charge as
much as we can, of course.
Liron: In the book you have a sentence,
and, uh, I shared it with Matt.
He said, " Your son said about you,
'My dad, was never disappointed in
me.'" Your kid actually says that.
Now, obviously this is
definitely not quoted by my kid.
what… I mean, it was important
for you to put in the book.
Can you talk about that just a little bit,
what that sentence means to you, why you
put it in the book, and how did you get
your son to even be on record to say that?
Ted: he was, a very much a, a dandelion
picker, a kind of a, more quiet kid,
And, he would see me running these big
sessions with 60 kids, and I think he
felt a little bit-- When he was four
or five, I always brought him and my
daughter to every training session.
I think he felt more, like, jealous,
like, "Look at Dad has these other kids."
And he, he, uh, when he played at
the Blackhawks in that age group
that was so good, he would never have
made the first or second team at all.
he would run around the field
15 yards behind the ball, Or
he'd be picking up dandelions.
He'd s- hear that we scored,
he would, like, celebrate.
And people They knew how obsessed I was
with improvement, and they're like, "Too
bad he's not gonna be a player." And
then when he was, and then when he was,
like, 14, he had this, pretty serious
knee thing where his, he, he-- when he
was growing, the blood to cartilage went
away, and a piece fell off in his knee.
And, the doctor said, "Hey, we can try to
screw it on there." They screwed it on.
It didn't work.
It got really bad.
He couldn't walk.
We went to a d- doctor in Mayo who
took-- couldn't fix the problem,
but took out the cartilage.
And as he matured into 15, 16, he
was growing into a, a young man.
He, like, he started to use
all the things he had gotten
in play in a really cool way.
And he was never a big high school
player, but he was a very good one.
in his very first game, he, like,
dribbled through the defense and
did a beautiful Maradona to score.
And, when he was a senior, he became a
Mr. Soccer candidate, like, and he, and
they inter-- they came out to interview
him, and they came to Joy of the People.
And, we, they took pictures there
and interviewed him, and I didn't
know what he said, but later when
I read it in the paper, it was the
first time I had heard it, where he
said that, he wasn't at all concerned
that my dad was disappointed in me.
I don't think I, I wasn't
a hard-driving, dad at all.
So it was really a leap of faith,
and Z knew that the chance I was
take… His name is Zinedine.
that's another story, that how
I talked my, how I talked my
wife into, naming him that.
But, b-but he, I think one thing I'm
proud of is the, the way I brought up not
just my kids, but all the kids at Joy.
I think Z still loves soccer, still
plays a lot, but that little comment
that he made, like, "People said
you weren't gonna be a good player,
but my dad had his own thought
process." as a dad, it really hits you
Matt: Yeah, it's great
Liron: This is tr- tremendous.
Matt: I guess why don't we
wrap with this question?
for, for us parents who recognize this
in the family conversation, what would
you suggest that we talk about with
our child, whether it's about adding
more training sessions or removing
them, or changing teams or remaining?
Like, what is a really simple,
practical way to think about this
and try to help solve for it?
Ted: I think kids gotta
see their role models.
and when it's very early in
their lives, that's you, that's
the parents enjoying themselves.
Enjoying themselves at something,
whether it's sport, whether it's
physical, fitness, whether it's, uh,
reading, whether it's, uh, life itself.
They have to, they have
to see that enjoyment.
Kids in the Hispanic League seeing their
parents who can barely run anymore, play.
The, model enjoyment for your
kids, I think is a big thing.
once they're in their sport,
their peers become their friends.
and the friends are really influential to
s- help their friends set up environments
where they can enjoy the sport in a
very casual setting, face to face.
in the book, I, I think I pull out the
line of play is cleverer than you are.
it's never wrong.
and so-- and it always
delivers what you need.
so play with your kids.
Play with your kids.
Show them that it's all about the play.
In the end, the kids wanna
have their own feedback.
And that's the thing I
notice about the Joy kids.
They don't ask me, "Did I have a
good game? Do you think I played
well or do you…" They know.
And, um, I think I make the point in
the book, the play itself is, really
important to overall character building,
because if I'm mean to you in the game,
you're not gonna show up the next day.
at Joy, the kids have the right to quit
I can push it in these areas, but I
have to give in these areas as well.
and this is why soccer
grows as friendships first.
That's why Pelé and his friends created
a super collider of environment.
Friends, competencies, their own choice.
These are the three things that, that
we have to give our kids, to enjoy play.
And we should try to separate
play from, from work.
for your kids in this highest
level, you know, that it's
really an enjoyment contest,
Liron: it's called play soccer, not
work soccer, I guess, so, I get it.
Matt, we need to have more fun.
Matt: Yeah,
Liron: Why so serious, man?
Why so serious?
Matt: I took like a 10-year break
after playing in college where I
literally didn't touch a ball, where
I felt like it had become a job for
me for too long, and I didn't have
the love and passion to keep playing.
and I sometimes I wonder
about that with my son.
Like when it all comes to an end, will the
joy and the passion and the love be there
to keep showing up and playing and loving
this game, I have, I have like legitimate
concerns about that because, uh, for
how long it's kind of felt like a job
Ted: Actions speak louder than words.
In a big metro area, I can't
even imagine, the pressures.
But the, the kids will see in your
actions, how much you support them.
And this is, this is positive.
This is always positive.
I know where you're at.
I know the, the incredible intensity,
that you guys must, uh, and all parents
that have kids in these ages must be in.
And, and I would also say hang in
there because, late development is
very difficult, but also, has big
rewards, if you can hang in there.
So continuing the love
of the game, who knows?
The coaches out there are
doing the best they can.
Eventually everybody will, will do it
this way because it's just too powerful
Liron: Oh, what, what
a, what a way to end.
Fantastic.
Ted, thank you so much for your
time, this, this wake-up call.
Matt: It was, what a, what a
fun, enlightening, conversation.
That's, that's for sure.
So thank you very much
Wow.
Bravo.
It felt so good.
Here's what I hope we all took away from this.
The problem isn't that our kids aren't working hard enough.
It's that almost everything on the schedule is
or can feel like work.
I asked Ted if it's really that simple.
Too much overloading and not enough underloading.
And he said, yep.
It's that simple.
And his definition of underloading is the one worth writing down.
The use of movement to do less and less and
still achieve more and more.
That's the thing everybody recognizes in a great player
and nobody can teach with a cone.
So now, I know how to categorize you, Liron.
An overload parent.
All right, I'm guilty and I, I, you know, I've big
enough to admit it on the air.
And I was thinking about that DM we read
and I told you about is the kid who does everything right in
training and can't find it in him in a game.
Ted didn't call it confidence problem, like we always hear or a coaching problem.
He called it fluency.
The kid learned the words, but never learned the language.
And you only learn the language by playing it with your friends
over and over and over, where a mistake costs you nothing.
Uh, put it in 6 words.
Play is cleverer than you are.
I have no comeback for that.
I'm just depressed you said the word cleverer.
Liron, here are the numbers because Ted has them.
His first group at Joy of the People, 44 kids
born 2000 to 2004.
By this count, 22 went on to play.
12 of them, division one, 3 reached MLS
NEXT Pro, and two pros right now, out of a rec center in St.
Paul, where the adults were trying to stay out of the way.
His line on all of it.
Play always beats coaching, always.
You don't have to buy it completely to admit the outcomes are hard to argue with.
And it's not just soccer.
Ted lives in the middle of hockey country, and the ponds
he grew up on are empty.
The best 11 and 12 year olds are inside paying
$225 an hour to do what he did on shoveled ice for free.
We're doing the same thing with a soccer ball.
And then he talked about his son, and that's what we're all here for about
our kids, Zinedine.
So shows you what his commitment is.
And he called him the dandelion picker.
The kid who ran around 15 yards behind the ball.
The kid, everyone told Coach Ted that he was never going to be a player.
And guess what?
He ends up being Mr. Soccer candidate in Minnesota.
Ted found out what his son thought of him by reading it in a newspaper.
And he said, my dad was never disappointed in me.
What Ted said kids need was friends,
competencies, their own choices.
And then play with your kids, play with your kids.
He said it twice, not me.
So I got to do the same.
So the question for the drive home isn't what your kid needs more of.
It's what you'd have to take off the schedule to give them
back an hour of play a week.
And whether you could stand on the side of that hour
and not say a word.
Liron and I already failed that test once.
Only once.
We set up pickup for our boys and 3 parents showed up with Veo cameras.
Oh my god.
What a moment of shame.
Why am I so open with our audience?
I have no idea.
That was a long time.
I'm a different person now.
Thank you, Ted.
The book is The Talent Thief.
Underloading, the Language of Movement, and the Search for the Perfect Game.
It's out on Amazon, Barnes & Noble bookstore,
and bookshop.org.
When I say read it, read it.
If I could do it, you could do it.
Listen, this is another useful CTG episode that you must
share with others.
Like, subscribe.
We actually need it to keep going.
Then after all that, you can go play with your kids.