July 10, 2025 • 42 mins
Right to Dream has landed in Southern California with a bold plan to revolutionize youth development. But is everyone happy to see them?
San Diego is known as a hotbed of soccer talent — home to some of the nation's top youth clubs, each with their own way of doing things.
We meet the SDFC staff who are out in the community, working to win hearts and minds, preparing the ground for the club’s first academy program.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
It's eight am on August seventh, twenty twenty four. The
morning sun is beaming down on the Olympic Training Center
in Chula Vista. Gathered on the concourse out front, waiting
for the doors to open, our hundreds of young boys
aged ten to fourteen, along with their families.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now it's a sea.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Of clashing kids, Barcelona, Manchester United, PSG wait where's Reell Madrida?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But all of them hope to one.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Day we're the Asul and Chrome of San Diego FC.
The kids are nervous, but they're excited. Some juggle football,
some jump in stretch, but some just quietly clutch their
boots in anticipation. Each of them has been told that
their chances are small, just to give it their best,
and most importantly, to go out there and have fun.
(00:50):
But all of them know that today could change their
lives forever. A couple hours later, and families are still
streaming in. Kids are being registered and organized into small games.
On the sidelines, proud parents watching cheer. But they're not
(01:11):
the only observers. Beside each game is a man or
woman in dark blue SDFC training gear, watching closely and
taking notes. Today is the first of San Diego FC's
free open tryouts. They're also the first in MLS history.
(01:35):
Over two days right here in the heart of San Diego,
South Bay, Scouts from sdfc's Right to Dream Academy will
assess hundreds of local boys. None of them have paid
a penny for the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Oh it's unreal.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Everybody's heard a story or two about going on a
trial but having to pay.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Families saying, oh, I.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Got offered a trial at this club and I just
have to pay whatever it is, four hundred dollars and
and through my personal experience, my mom ended up taking
out a loan for my brother and I to go
on tryouts, So I know the financial training can put
on families and it's not easy. So again, the fact
that these open tryouts and events are free is pretty.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Special to me. This is s DFC scout gave for fun.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
As a Mexican American and native son of San Diego,
he's no stranger to the talent that's on display.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
There's several players that are strong, but again it's just
tracking just due to physical maturation. Due to their age,
a lot can change in the matter of months, so
sometimes we'll see some magical moments, and we know a
player has high potential, but can they continue to be
consistent with that? Yeah, there's there's definitely some some high
(02:53):
potential players out here.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
In a few days time, s DFC, we'll head over
the border to the one to do it all over again.
In total, they'll see over three thousand kids, and these
tryouts are just the beginning.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The lucky few who.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Make the cut will be recalled and reassessed again and
again over the next twelve months. They'll attend invitationals, talent camps,
and play exhibition matches in their journey to join San
Diego FC's Rank to Dream Academy.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
But nobody gets cut at all.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
We won't make decisions for months and months, so again
part of the processes us continuing to track them, to
monitor them in our environment and their environments, and those
decisions will come down the road.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
The talent on show today has come from all corners
of Southern California society. Some kids traveled together from their
prestigious youth teams. Others had parents who drove for hours
on the interstate for them to take part. Some kids
simply rode the bus. For those who don't make the cut.
They'll go away with a clear message never stop dreaming
(04:03):
the right to dream. Scouts like former Ghana international and
Premier League player Derek Boatan will be keeping tabs on
them now.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
All of them will make it, you know. And he's
no min and he doesn't mean that he ends there.
We keep on money training them, We keep on watching them.
You know, some of them, you know, en regetering will
give opportunities.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
To everyone, not just one or two or three times.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
You know, some of them will be coming now they
are not ready the mesto or next six months or
masts they might be ready. So we keep on money
training them. Then you know we follow keep following them. Yeah,
and we keep on searching. You know we're gonna stop.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Today is the first step in the club's master plan
to scout further and deeper than any MLS club before.
Out Here, playing on these sun drenched fields could be
the US his first global superstar, the country's first Pela
or Maradona. Who knows one thing certain as DFC will
(05:01):
leave no stone unturned in their quest to find out.
In February twenty twenty five, San Diego e FC became
the thirtieth team to enter Major League Soccer, now the
largest professional league on the planet. But this is more
than just another football club. At least that's the hope
of the club's co owners. Under the leadership of Sir
(05:24):
Mohammed Montsour, Right to Dream is an organization promising to
rock American soccer to its foundations with a revolutionary approach
to coaching and youth development. Anchoring the project in the
local community is the Sequan Band of the Kumiya Nation,
the first ever Native American owners in men's professional sports,
(05:44):
and as the only MLS club officially sanctioned to recruit
out of Mexico. I mean, this thing could really fly,
that is, if everything goes to plan. In this episode,
we wade into an age old sporting. Why is the
US yet to produce truly world class soccer talent? Well,
(06:06):
Right to Dream are here and they've got a plan
to turn that around. Captured in the final months before
the twenty twenty five season kicks off, this series follows
sdfc's race to field their first ever team. I'm Adrian
gotta say I'm Outicus and this is behind the flow
the origin story of San Diego FC. There is no
(06:34):
doubt that US men's soccer is on the up. Many
(06:59):
even leave the US men's national team has never been
so strong, and with an average age of twenty.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Five, it seems that time is on their side.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Team USA boast an array of bright young talents, many
of whom play in Europe's top leagues.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
Here is Policy brilliant, absolutely brilliant on his debut, the
American star shining so brightly for Mela.
Speaker 8 (07:26):
Mcconnie West McCartney, render anything to go, rent the.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Proposer and back.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
In the summer of twenty twenty four, during the build
up to Go Bay American, the first hosted on home soil,
the scene was sent for those talents to shine, and yet,
despite being drawn in a very kind looking group, twenty
twenty four turned out to beget another chapter of glorious
failure for the Stars and Stripes.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We can't we can't sugarcoat this.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
The US bounced don of Okpaminica.
Speaker 9 (08:06):
They got grouped, and it's embarrassing for the players, just
embarrassing for their federation.
Speaker 10 (08:11):
It's embarrassing for US as a footballing country.
Speaker 9 (08:14):
Whether it's the coaching staff or whether it's the players
potential themselves. Not being able to meet what we thought
they could do. There's an embarrassment there and there should be.
There should be if we're going to take ourselves serious
as a footballing nation.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It cost national team coach Greg Berhalter his job. Well,
you can't easily change the players, can you? Underperforming or not?
It's an age old story. Whenever the US men's team stumbles,
the first thing pundits and fans debate is the lack
of quality in the team. The players aren't good enough,
the talent point isn't deep enough.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The system is broken.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But some think times are changing, people like soccer writer
Charles Bowen.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
And when you see Christian pool Sick arguably ac Milan's
best player, you know one of the great founding club hubs,
iconic clubs of Syria as an American as the face
of them. Now there's multiple Americans on the squad at
Juventus making significant contributions, Western McKenny and Timuea and there's
other examples.
Speaker 11 (09:13):
So the question is was that.
Speaker 10 (09:15):
A golden generation and there'll be an EBB from there
or is that just the first wave and maybe the
ceiling is higher than we think.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
There's good reason for optimism Although many of these players
moved to Europe to fine tune their football education, they
learned the fundamentals here at home, either through US Soccer
Federation youth programs or within the new wave of professional
MLS academies.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So maybe we are heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Maybe it is only a matter of time until we
see a US global superstar emerge, a Montana Messi or
a Rhode Island Ronaldo. Looking down the age groups, things
look promising.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
If you look at how US youth national teams form
against their global counterparts at the earlier ages. When you
talk about U fourteen, U fifteen, U sixteen, U seventeen ages,
the massive talent that we have here in the United
States is such that those teams can compete with almost anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
However, dig a little deeper, and maybe things aren't so
rosy after all. As those kids progress, they seem to
lose their way.
Speaker 10 (10:25):
As you get into the latter teams and move into
U twenty one or U twenty three competition, the level
is not quite as high. And so the question is
what's happening there? Why does the competitiveness fade a bit?
And it's it's not massive, but it's significant enough to
where you see that there's fine tuning that needs to happen,
(10:45):
and a lot of it comes down to what environments
those players are in.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Not surprisingly, before the age of nineteen, the likes of
Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKenney and plenty of others
had all moved abroad to European academy. Time will tell
if this Golden Generation is an anomaly or the first
of a new breed. But there's one thing everyone agrees on.
(11:10):
The talent is out there. We just need to find
it and nurture it. As a former US men's national
team youth coach himself, Mikey Bonis is hopeful, but he's
also realistic. We're playing ketchup and there's still a long
way to go before we're at the level of other
top nations.
Speaker 12 (11:32):
We're an emerging football country, but we're not there yet.
Right when you talk about Chile, uru Way, Croatia, you
talk about countries that don't have huge populations but that
are just massive have massive amounts of talent.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Then you have the big countries.
Speaker 12 (11:48):
You know Argentina, you have Brazil, you have Italy, you
have Germany, England that just have loads of players coming
out of them, and people always ask, like they always say, oh,
for how big the population and the resources that are
in the US, you know what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, for one thing, in these countries, football is the
national pastime. Clubs and leagues have existed for centuries. Clearly,
one of the issues we face here is the competition
from other sports. Most kids don't fully focus on soccer
early on like they do elsewhere. I mean, just think
how many stars we might be losing to the NFL
(12:30):
and the NBA each year. Imagine Patrick Mahomes spring passes
like beer Lebron James leaping to save a shot bound
for the top corner.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But the landscape is changing fast.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
MLS now has the youngest and fastest growing fandemographic of
any pro sport in the USA, and with the World
Cup coming to the United States in twenty twenty six,
interest in the game could explode. Mike Yvaas remembers the
impact that the home World Cup had on him.
Speaker 12 (13:02):
The ninety four World Cup Company of the United States
and my parents scraped enough money to get us to
the camera roo in Brazil game and just watching that environment.
Obviously with the World Champions play at Stanford Stadium was
another cemented moment where it was always going to be
football for me.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
As it turned out, that same Brazilian team would later
meet Team USA in the knockout.
Speaker 13 (13:35):
Rounds kick off against the host nation, the United States
of America playing.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Today and put an end to the home nation's dreams.
Speaker 14 (13:45):
Winn it Bank, it's the final whistle.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Brazil approve to the World Cup quarterfinals.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
America's World Cup.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Is over ninety four was a landmark moment for the
sport in this country. Its success and popularity basically launched
Major League soccer. Sold out stadiums from coast to coast,
and wall to wall media coverage brought the beautiful game
to millions of kids just like Mikey, and he's certain
that twenty twenty six can have a similar effect.
Speaker 12 (14:17):
Just having the World Cup in the US is going
to be a win because you're bringing the best talents
around the world for the American public to go watch games.
The fact of the matter, though, is if the US
has a great World Cup, it's going to exponentially speed
up the process of really injecting a massive football culture
(14:40):
into our country. And if we make a big run
in a tournament which we have players in a generation
of talent that has the potential to do it. It would
be basically putting us light years ahead of where we
are right now, because it's going to inspire again, not
only the football fans in the football players that already
(15:01):
exist here, but that's going to inspire everyone who has
only a mile to no interest in the sport. Because
at the end of the day, as Americans like, we're
proud to be American, right, and so when the United
States does well in anything, you're going to engage the
broadest audience possible and it could really really inspire the
(15:21):
fan base to just explode. Really.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So the bottom line is that twenty twenty six could
spark a massive increase in participation for a sport that
is already played by nearly fifteen million kids a year.
The task for MLS academies is to find the best
young talent, get them into professional environments as young as possible,
and keep them there as long as possible. And I'm
(15:49):
telling you there's no better place to do that than
America's finest city.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
We're at Singing Hills in Elkohoone.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
It's way back in November of twenty twenty three, the
day San Diego FC fired the starting gun on their
race to revolutionize youth soccer. It's the official groundbreaking ceremony
where the people behind the project pick up a spade
and officially kickoff construction on the facility.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
The great and the.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Good are in attendance, Mani Machiano, Tom Penn, Sir Mohammed Mansour,
and of course Sequon Chairman Cody Martinez. It's a momentous
day for the tribe and for Native Americans everywhere.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
We've been reached out to buy so many travel leaders
about how excited and what this means to Native American athletes.
I think our ancestors are extremely proud, and they're looking
down on us with big smiles on their face. During
the ceremony, I couldn't see it because as our back
was to it, but they said there were three hawks
circling the field behind us, and hawks are a symbol
(17:06):
of good fortune in Native American culture.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
This land is where they hope to shape the future
of the sport in this country and set an example
that will extend well beyond the San Diego region. But
first and foremost, this project speaks to their commitment to
future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
You'll find a common saying is is future generations or
seven generations. And so today my children represent the seventh
generation that has been living on Sequan since eighteen seventy
five our reservation was founded. We truly believe in investing
in youth and having a better day for the youth.
My grandparents, my parents, their parents before them, they live
(17:52):
hard lives and they struggled, but they did it knowing
that they were providing a better life for their children.
So with the alignment of the values of right to
dream that you could find excellence anywhere that anyone has
the right to dream, we live that.
Speaker 12 (18:05):
We believe it.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So for the Sequad people, the vision and the reason
why we do the things we do is completely aligned.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
With right to Dream.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So we're so happy to be a part of the
growing Right to Dream family and bringing their model to
Major League Soccer here in the United States. And again,
it goes beyond any financial gain the tribe or the
club could have. We're going to change lives and to me,
that's priceless.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's an inspiring message, no doubt about that. But what
are they walking into? Why did they choose San Diego
for their academy first football model, and how do the
locals feel about it? Those who've been growing the game
here for decades, San Diego is heralded as a hotbed
of soccer talent. Don't take my word for it. Look
at the stats. More pros are produced here per capita
(18:53):
than almost anywhere else in the nation. And that's before
we talk about the Mexican talent right on their doorstet.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
I was born in la but only lived there til
I was eight, lived in Seattle, Idaho, Texas, Boston, so
I've been all over and all along I've played soccer
and been involved in the football scene.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
This is Michael Orosco, a San Diego soccer fan through
and through. As someone who has played and lived the
game all over the US. He thinks this place is
truly unique in terms of its football culture, and that
passion shows in the youth soccer landscape.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
I would argue that it is the strongest hub of
youth soccer nationwide, and the testament to that is the
years and years of success that regional teams from here
have had. So I do know the participation is one
of the highest in the nation. There is just an
undercurrent of football that has been here for years. There's
nothing new about it. Obviously, there's a huge Latin contingent,
(19:59):
you know, mostly a Mexican can contingent due to the proximity.
But you will find people here in San Diego from
all over the world and they bring that football expertise
with them.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That cultural diversity, the geographic location, along with year round
perfect weather is pretty much why San Diego is a
talent gold mine, a mine that other MLS clubs have
been more than happy to dig in for decades.
Speaker 8 (20:26):
There's a reason San Diego is called a hotbed of
you soccer. There's a reason the national champions come from
the city. There's a reasional there's professionals from the city.
Despite not having a pathway that was formal. We have
kids at LAFC and Austin in New England, Real, Salt Lake, Philadelphia.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
We have players all over the United States.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
If you were to be cornered and had to just
get stuck in one corner of the United States and
be asked to mind talent there, there is not a
better corner of the United States, which you know you
had to call your home territory.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Then right here in San Diego, up against the border.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Key to this success has been the number of elite
youth soccer clubs in the region. Clubs like Surf, Nomad's
City SC and Albion. They're up there with the best
in the country. But despite the incredible achievements and years
of hard work, there's many who feel it's a flawed system.
Speaker 10 (21:24):
Whenever I find myself speaking about the American youth soccer
landscape to anyone who's unfamiliar with it, it's like you
start by suggesting they pull up a chair and get
comfortable and be prepared for a lot of complexity.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Charles Boehm has spent years trying to make sense of
the youth soccer landscape, how it works, and who it
works for.
Speaker 10 (21:47):
I often call it the Wild West, because whereas in
many mature footballing nations, the lines of power and authority
and structures by which players pick up the game excel
at it are identified and nurtured into hopeful professionals of
the future, the lines are clear, everything's well established. In
(22:10):
the United States, it's a big, messy system that is
still in evolution.
Speaker 11 (22:14):
On a year to year basis.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
You have to start by pointing out that there was
already a very mature youth soccer landscape before MLS was
even born, and it was all aimed towards college scholarships.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
In the decades before MLS arrived, grass roots soccer in
the US evolved with one goal in mind, getting players
into college.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
The best clubs developed.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Relationships with the best universities and competed at the best
tournaments across the country to give the kids the best
chance of being seen by scouts, and that system of
tournament based club football ballooned into the multi billion dollar
business that is thriving today across the nation.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Millions of chill compete in.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Travel soccer, as it's often called, but simply put, producing
world class individual talent is not what this system was
designed for. Even here in San Diego with some of
the top youth clubs in the country, there were those
who saw the need for evolution, people like Michael, who,
along with other passionate soccer dads, took matters into their
(23:23):
own hands.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
Your club experience is always dependent on the coach, and
your coach's experience can vary and their expertise can vary.
We all had kids who loved the game and we
wanted the best for them, and we just realized that
there was a limit to what education could be provided
them in terms of the club infrastructure. So we just
wanted to kind of provide a standard and maybe try
(23:44):
to teach our kids what might be taught in academies.
So instead of making it up our own, we started
an academy here in San Diego. We actually called it SDFC,
so we're the original SDFC.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
In twenty twelve, the San Diego Soccer Center was born.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
And we just figured, hey, let's roll up our sleeves
try to grow the game because we were passionate about
it and wherever happens happen, so we started the academy.
We brought over some coaches from Barcelona, some a licensed
UEFA pro, actually licensed coaches from Barcelona, and we just
had them supplement our children's soccer education. If I were
(24:22):
summarize it, we just wanted to teach these kids pro habits,
the stuff that a lot of times the clubs didn't
have time to teach.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
As word got out, more and more kids from across
San Diego soccer world signed up. They got bespoke professional
training and went back to their clubs better players for it.
Everyone was a winner. Eventually, the Soccer Center started taking
teams on the road to compete, even entering international tournaments abroad.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
That was our proof of concept.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
We knew the talent was here and that was kind
of probably the crowning achievement of this academy.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
And again they were kids from all different clubs.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
We just kind of hung a Switzerland type banner and
put this team together the best kids we could find
and gave it a run. And we just showed that
the talent is here, the passion is here. So we
were able to do something I think important for the
community in terms of just providing supplemental training that made
these kids better for their clubs.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
And so me and two partners we did that for our.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Kids and the kids who played with them, and we
did that for five plus years. And so that's my
crazy soccer dad's story.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Michael's soccer finishing school, working with clubs to prepare their
kids for the professional level was really a prototype for
what MLS academies have been doing more and more in
recent years. It's part of an ongoing process as they
tried to figure out how to better work with the
existing youth club system to help develop the next level
(26:04):
of US soccer talent.
Speaker 10 (26:06):
So MLS had to come along and sort of adapt
to that system. Then over the past I would say
fifteen years or thereabouts, we've seen the millions and millions
of dollars and years of effort and many different people
at many different clubs trying to build something closer to
the global standard in terms of academies going down all
the way to some cases as young as under twelve
(26:27):
ages to create a pipeline, and there's as many different
approaches to that almost as there are clubs in MLS.
So there's an environment that existed that is evolving, and
then there's new.
Speaker 11 (26:40):
Structures being built atop that.
Speaker 10 (26:41):
So you still have a wide spectrum I would say,
of effectiveness levels for the different academies.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
As MLS academies and youth soccer clubs continue to coordinate
their efforts, there's no doubt a better pipeline will emerge.
But there's one issue we haven't addressed, an elephant in
the room, a hot issue that strikes at the heart
of the game in the US, and as it happens,
it's also one of the primary reasons that brought right
(27:09):
to dream to these shores. You see, it's not just
the complex nature of the system that's the problem. It's
the fact that many American kids can't access the system
at all.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
Essentially, when you sign your kid up to play soccer,
going all the way down to age five or thereabouts,
you sign them up with a local club or a
recreational organization that charges a fee for the coaching or
field access uniforms.
Speaker 11 (27:36):
Over time, that mushroomed.
Speaker 10 (27:38):
Into a multi billion dollar economy. So what started out
as sort of a recreational municipal fee that was pretty modest,
has now become something that families routinely pay five figures
thousands of dollars annually to be at the best clubs,
who pay in the best leagues, who go to tournaments
(27:59):
and take part of events that have top coaches and
scouts watching.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
This system has become known as pay to play.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
It is the big bugaboo of American soccer is what
does pay to play? Miss who are being left out
of this system are kids from more humble economic backgrounds,
are kids in immigrant communities, many many of which have
soccer as the lifeblood deeply woven into their culture, but
cannot or do not participate fully in the pay to
play system for hosts of economic and cultural reasons.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Matt Davidson Right to dreamshead of Football agrees wholeheartedly.
Speaker 14 (28:38):
There's no doubt that so the whole pay to play
is a blocker for talent, and that's basically Right to
Dreams aim is to create opportunities for kids that don't
have opportunities. So in that perspective, it speaks right into
the US model that a lot of kids, and I've
seen a few of them myself, are way in the round.
(29:00):
My first trips to San Diego went around to some
of the communities to watch some random street games and
saw players there that we believed that if you put
them in right environment, they could play in the highest level.
But then speaking to the parents, said we have no
chance to pay the price of playing in a lack
of real academy. So it's very real, I would say,
(29:22):
the chance is that's obviously what also we want to disrupt.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Dan Dickinson Right to Dreams CEO makes no bones about
the fact it's an issue central to their mission here
in San Diego.
Speaker 15 (29:34):
You know, we absolutely believe that the pay to play
model creates a challenge for a lot of the young talent,
and so we wanted to be in a community where
we could leverage our model and serve kids that didn't
have that opportunity. And I know from my own experience again,
three of my four kids played travel soccer and you
had to join the club and write a big check.
And our kids and they grew up in a fairly
(29:57):
affluent suburban community, but you go in inner cities, you
go into poor communities, and they just don't have coaching,
the means, the ability to travel, the ability to get
the exposure. And so yeah, those are our target markets
for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
As Dan points out, it's not just the money.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
After all, many clubs offer discounts, payment plans and even
full scholarships.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
They want the best players to thrive.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
But even if a kid can get financial aid, it
still requires time, energy, transportation, and awareness. All sorts of
things can contribute to less fortunate kids missing out. Even
Michael lo Rosko, a passionate supporter of San Diego Soccer Clubs,
wishes things were different.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
It's been an age old kind of argument to the
question is, again, is who's going to provide this? And
you know, me having started a Soccer project. I got
stuck with the same challenge as any club will get.
Who's paying for the coach's time, who's paying for the
field rentals, who's paying to fix that divot in the
grass and to put the turf on this field?
Speaker 5 (31:05):
So they're just realities.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
The point is like it or load it. It's the
system we've got and it's one that's in high demand.
Speaker 10 (31:14):
Pay to play is commonly blamed, and it certainly is
a problem, but it's not a problem that you can
solve because there's an old saying, the business of America
is business, and even if you had a fleet of
billionaires ready to subsidize a fully built out elite player
development pathway for the professional and eventually international level in
(31:35):
this country, you will still not stop pay to play
because there will still be a marketplace out there for
coaches and clubs to provide the opportunities and the experiences
that millions of families and their kids want.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
So I think pay to play will not go away,
even if it's an easy culprit to blame.
Speaker 10 (31:54):
So then once you internalize that, then you move forward
to the next step, which is.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
What will work, which brings us nicely back to the
Right to Dream Academy at Singing Hills. While construction is
ongoing and their first intake isn't due until the summer
of twenty twenty five, they've had boots on the ground
since day one, putting out fielders, building relationships and creating
networks that will allow them to unearth the talent that
(32:21):
might otherwise be overlooked.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
How do you spot those kids and bring them into
your system? So you now have a scouting challenge, and
this is something that's been faced by the federation that's
trying to build the best national teams and youth national
teams possible. It's being faced by professional clubs at all levels.
How do you get everyone an opportunity? How do we
solve these challenges? How do we provide some kind of
(32:46):
equality in how the game is offered and grown in
this country. So it is a complex, knotty conundrum. No
one's quite solved it, and perhaps no one ever will
fully solve it.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Right to Dream have got a few ideas and are
preparing to give it their best shot with all the
will in the world. There are two realities as DFC
(33:19):
must face. San Diego's soccer clubs already produced some of
the best young players in the country, players they'll want
to bring into their academy, and second, as a new
club hoping to win over the county's soccer loving public,
they need to be seen as an ally and not
as an adversary.
Speaker 8 (33:40):
With the announcement of the MLS team coming here, obviously
it was going to change the landscape of football here
in San Diego. It was going to change the landscape,
especially of the youth scene, and so I'm sure there
was varying opinions with the arrival of the team. Some
people who were very ingrained, maybe under the stress or
(34:02):
the pressure of keeping their operations open by keeping their
rosters filled, might have looked at it as a threat
in terms of taking some of their roster spots, taking
some of their talent.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
The only way right to Dream is going to truly
succeed in San Diego is by working closely with the
existing clubs. So on arrival at the top of CEO,
Tom Penn's agenda was winning hearts and minds.
Speaker 16 (34:31):
We are not running a massive, no pay to play
youth program. We're running a very tailored, niche high investment
model into the best of the best talent where we
can help and what we want to do help in
the market. It's our responsibility to help elevate the quality
of play for everybody in San Diego, which.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Is already quite high.
Speaker 16 (34:54):
And that's what we're doing in our coaching, education and
our community connect to outreach with all the youth programs
and our sharing of curriculum. We really want to be
a resource to the local youth development coaches.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Here's the thing, it isn't just pr Their whole plan
for the academy relies on building local networks and creating
a symbiotic relationship with clubs and coaches at all levels,
not only to make sure they are seeing the best
of San Diego soccer talent, but to improve the ecosystem
and raise the level for everyone involved. Like a rising
(35:33):
tide lifts all boats, everyone benefits.
Speaker 17 (35:37):
You have to recognize the system and the structure that
it has built and also why in a country and
a culture like here in America it makes sense. And
so I think one of the things that remains interesting
and challenging for us is how do we work with
and within the pay to play model in order to
(35:57):
generate positive change in order to continue creating opportunities for
young people, especially those that sit outside of it.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
That's Seb Morua, Senior vice president of Brand, Marketing and Community,
and the man Tom Penn tasked with getting the message out.
Seb's first move was to make contact with the local
soccer expert, someone who knew the clubs, their directors, and
the politics, someone who could help shape their image in
San Diego as a whole. The man he connected with
(36:30):
was none other than Michael Lorosco.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
I had spent an evening with burgers in a whiskey
sour with Seb right when he got here, just to
get to know him.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
And I was very skeptical.
Speaker 8 (36:41):
I was very worried because I wanted this club to
succeed so bad, and I knew he was the only
boots in the ground, and I was like, whose hands
is this club in right now? So I was very
in tune to our conversation, in tune to figure out
who this kid was. As you know football. I realized
very quickly he knew the game. That's what I told
all them. I was like, listen, man, there's no gimmick,
(37:02):
no marketing gig, know nothing here. You do proper football
it's going to work. I was like, and I will
die on that comment.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
This was music to SEP's ears.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
They had been worried about how they could appeal to
the range of clubs and the diverse demographics of a
county made of eighteen different cities. With Michael on board
and with a few introductions, as DFC started to connect
with San Diego soccer world, this is a deliberate strategy
to go beyond the usual boundaries of scouting leagues and
(37:34):
tournaments and embedding into the game at grassroots level.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
What I've witnessed is a lot of resources put to
reaching out and directly connecting with clubs in the city.
I'm not sure you could be a soccer coach or
a soccer director in town and not have direct contact
right now with this new MLS operation, and that takes
(38:00):
a lot of bandwidth. It takes a lot of focus,
and it's focus in bandwidth that could have been put elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
One man who's been leading the charge for the club
is their head of talent scouting and Recruitment, John McGuigan.
Speaker 13 (38:13):
I don't think there's anything you know to say wrong
with the pace of play model. I actually think gets
a bad rep sometimes it's actually been very good for us,
and the majority of clubs are doing some great work
within that system. I think we just have to be
conscious that there will be lots of Right to Dream
players and Right to Dream stories that will never get
an opportunity if we don't deliberately go after the other
(38:35):
types of soccer that are in the community.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
With most of San Diego's soccer clubs now on board
and now in the process of sharing information and expertise
with Right to Dream, their attention turns to showing the
city they're serious about their promise to give every child
the right to dream. Kids who play in places like
Lemon Growls, a majority Hispanic and Latino community, just as
(39:03):
stones throw away from sdfc's snap Dragon Stadium, the kind
of place where they play a different kind of game.
Speaker 13 (39:11):
Like I said before, you know, not just scouting for
players who are playing in organized teams, also looking for
the boys who are playing on the street. One of
the first sessions that I saw actually in San Diego
County was in one of those environments. It was in
a kind of cage, if you like, like a street
soccer cage three v three, one v one lots of
(39:33):
highly technical moments. So again, I think it's about the
people that you hire, how deliberate you are with the
diversity of scouts that you hire, their backgrounds, their knowledge.
I think that really informs what we're doing and where
we're going to watch.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
The club has hired academy scouts specifically suited to this task,
scouts like Local x pro gabear Fund. Gabe has been
working across the eighteen cities of San Diego County, speaking
with rent coaches, watching pickup games, and scouting high school teams.
It's this non traditional approach that will set them apart
(40:08):
from the rest of MLS.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
In gears to come in the survey, we would identify
them during open tryouts and be like, oh, where did
this player come from? And in the survey we would
look at their club and it was unattached, so just
didn't have a team. So for us, it was a
key indicator of you know what, there are players out
there that are not in the traditional system, who have
very high potential that we need to offer opportunities to.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
He's now keeping tabs on various players, observing them in
their own environments in places like Lemon Grove, as well
as inviting them back to their own sessions.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
At Right to Dream, we're still monitoring a lot of
the players, some of them are returning to some of
them are new. What things there's what areas of improvement
that they still need to work on. The new guys
their learning ability. So there's quite a few different things
that we're really going to at.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
As Gabe chats to parents, teachers, and coaches, he notices
a common theme. Their community first approach seems to be
winning people over.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
It's incredibly important first to have the trust and build
rapport with the local community because I feel like a
lot of communities will take it as, oh, you're coming
here just to take our players. You're coming here to
take our players. So I think it's important for us
to educate people in the soccer community that we're doing
things for the right reasons. We're here to provide opportunities.
(41:33):
When I'm here to take players, and I think once
we're all on the same page, which I feel like
most people are, it's pretty easy to explain to them
our project. And you start explaining Right to Dream and
they start realizing that, Wow, this isn't a normal team,
this is somebody that has a vision a mission that
that's pretty special.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Next time on Behind the Flow, we step inside the
Right to Dream San Diego Talent Factory. We explore the
academy bill that's singing hills, meet the kids who hope
to make the cut, and see the club's efforts to
take their vision over the border into Mexico. Behind the
(42:22):
Flow is a message heard production. I'm your host Adrian Garciamaricas.
The series producer is McAllister Beckson. Mark Kendrick is the
assistant producer, and Rebecca Ware is the field producer. Jake
Warren and Sandra Ferrari are the executive producers. James Cox
and Dago Diaz are the production coordinators. The sound editor
(42:43):
is Lizzie Andrews and music composition is by Tom Biddle.
It's eight am on August seventh, twenty twenty four. The
morning sun is beaming down on the Olympic Training Center
in Chula Vista. Gathered on the concourse out front, waiting
for the doors to open, our hundreds of young boys
aged ten to fourteen, along with their families.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now it's a sea.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Of clashing kids, Barcelona, Manchester United, PSG wait where's Reell Madrida?
Speaker 2 (00:28):
But all of them hope to one.
Speaker 1 (00:29):
Day we're the Asul and Chrome of San Diego FC.
The kids are nervous, but they're excited. Some juggle football,
some jump in stretch, but some just quietly clutch their
boots in anticipation. Each of them has been told that
their chances are small, just to give it their best,
and most importantly, to go out there and have fun.
(00:50):
But all of them know that today could change their
lives forever. A couple hours later, and families are still
streaming in. Kids are being registered and organized into small games.
On the sidelines, proud parents watching cheer. But they're not
(01:11):
the only observers. Beside each game is a man or
woman in dark blue SDFC training gear, watching closely and
taking notes. Today is the first of San Diego FC's
free open tryouts. They're also the first in MLS history.
(01:35):
Over two days right here in the heart of San Diego,
South Bay, Scouts from sdfc's Right to Dream Academy will
assess hundreds of local boys. None of them have paid
a penny for the opportunity.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Oh it's unreal.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
Everybody's heard a story or two about going on a
trial but having to pay.
Speaker 5 (01:55):
Families saying, oh, I.
Speaker 4 (01:56):
Got offered a trial at this club and I just
have to pay whatever it is, four hundred dollars and
and through my personal experience, my mom ended up taking
out a loan for my brother and I to go
on tryouts, So I know the financial training can put
on families and it's not easy. So again, the fact
that these open tryouts and events are free is pretty.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Special to me. This is s DFC scout gave for fun.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
As a Mexican American and native son of San Diego,
he's no stranger to the talent that's on display.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
There's several players that are strong, but again it's just
tracking just due to physical maturation. Due to their age,
a lot can change in the matter of months, so
sometimes we'll see some magical moments, and we know a
player has high potential, but can they continue to be
consistent with that? Yeah, there's there's definitely some some high
(02:53):
potential players out here.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
In a few days time, s DFC, we'll head over
the border to the one to do it all over again.
In total, they'll see over three thousand kids, and these
tryouts are just the beginning.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
The lucky few who.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
Make the cut will be recalled and reassessed again and
again over the next twelve months. They'll attend invitationals, talent camps,
and play exhibition matches in their journey to join San
Diego FC's Rank to Dream Academy.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
But nobody gets cut at all.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
We won't make decisions for months and months, so again
part of the processes us continuing to track them, to
monitor them in our environment and their environments, and those
decisions will come down the road.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
The talent on show today has come from all corners
of Southern California society. Some kids traveled together from their
prestigious youth teams. Others had parents who drove for hours
on the interstate for them to take part. Some kids
simply rode the bus. For those who don't make the cut.
They'll go away with a clear message never stop dreaming
(04:03):
the right to dream. Scouts like former Ghana international and
Premier League player Derek Boatan will be keeping tabs on
them now.
Speaker 6 (04:11):
All of them will make it, you know. And he's
no min and he doesn't mean that he ends there.
We keep on money training them, We keep on watching them.
You know, some of them, you know, en regetering will
give opportunities.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
To everyone, not just one or two or three times.
Speaker 6 (04:24):
You know, some of them will be coming now they
are not ready the mesto or next six months or
masts they might be ready. So we keep on money
training them. Then you know we follow keep following them. Yeah,
and we keep on searching. You know we're gonna stop.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Today is the first step in the club's master plan
to scout further and deeper than any MLS club before.
Out Here, playing on these sun drenched fields could be
the US his first global superstar, the country's first Pela
or Maradona. Who knows one thing certain as DFC will
(05:01):
leave no stone unturned in their quest to find out.
In February twenty twenty five, San Diego e FC became
the thirtieth team to enter Major League Soccer, now the
largest professional league on the planet. But this is more
than just another football club. At least that's the hope
of the club's co owners. Under the leadership of Sir
(05:24):
Mohammed Montsour, Right to Dream is an organization promising to
rock American soccer to its foundations with a revolutionary approach
to coaching and youth development. Anchoring the project in the
local community is the Sequan Band of the Kumiya Nation,
the first ever Native American owners in men's professional sports,
(05:44):
and as the only MLS club officially sanctioned to recruit
out of Mexico. I mean, this thing could really fly,
that is, if everything goes to plan. In this episode,
we wade into an age old sporting. Why is the
US yet to produce truly world class soccer talent? Well,
(06:06):
Right to Dream are here and they've got a plan
to turn that around. Captured in the final months before
the twenty twenty five season kicks off, this series follows
sdfc's race to field their first ever team. I'm Adrian
gotta say I'm Outicus and this is behind the flow
the origin story of San Diego FC. There is no
(06:34):
doubt that US men's soccer is on the up. Many
(06:59):
even leave the US men's national team has never been
so strong, and with an average age of twenty.
Speaker 2 (07:05):
Five, it seems that time is on their side.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Team USA boast an array of bright young talents, many
of whom play in Europe's top leagues.
Speaker 7 (07:14):
Here is Policy brilliant, absolutely brilliant on his debut, the
American star shining so brightly for Mela.
Speaker 8 (07:26):
Mcconnie West McCartney, render anything to go, rent the.
Speaker 2 (07:36):
Proposer and back.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
In the summer of twenty twenty four, during the build
up to Go Bay American, the first hosted on home soil,
the scene was sent for those talents to shine, and yet,
despite being drawn in a very kind looking group, twenty
twenty four turned out to beget another chapter of glorious
failure for the Stars and Stripes.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
We can't we can't sugarcoat this.
Speaker 7 (08:04):
The US bounced don of Okpaminica.
Speaker 9 (08:06):
They got grouped, and it's embarrassing for the players, just
embarrassing for their federation.
Speaker 10 (08:11):
It's embarrassing for US as a footballing country.
Speaker 9 (08:14):
Whether it's the coaching staff or whether it's the players
potential themselves. Not being able to meet what we thought
they could do. There's an embarrassment there and there should be.
There should be if we're going to take ourselves serious
as a footballing nation.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It cost national team coach Greg Berhalter his job. Well,
you can't easily change the players, can you? Underperforming or not?
It's an age old story. Whenever the US men's team stumbles,
the first thing pundits and fans debate is the lack
of quality in the team. The players aren't good enough,
the talent point isn't deep enough.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
The system is broken.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
But some think times are changing, people like soccer writer
Charles Bowen.
Speaker 10 (08:54):
And when you see Christian pool Sick arguably ac Milan's
best player, you know one of the great founding club hubs,
iconic clubs of Syria as an American as the face
of them. Now there's multiple Americans on the squad at
Juventus making significant contributions, Western McKenny and Timuea and there's
other examples.
Speaker 11 (09:13):
So the question is was that.
Speaker 10 (09:15):
A golden generation and there'll be an EBB from there
or is that just the first wave and maybe the
ceiling is higher than we think.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
There's good reason for optimism Although many of these players
moved to Europe to fine tune their football education, they
learned the fundamentals here at home, either through US Soccer
Federation youth programs or within the new wave of professional
MLS academies.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
So maybe we are heading in the right direction.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Maybe it is only a matter of time until we
see a US global superstar emerge, a Montana Messi or
a Rhode Island Ronaldo. Looking down the age groups, things
look promising.
Speaker 10 (09:56):
If you look at how US youth national teams form
against their global counterparts at the earlier ages. When you
talk about U fourteen, U fifteen, U sixteen, U seventeen ages,
the massive talent that we have here in the United
States is such that those teams can compete with almost anyone.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
However, dig a little deeper, and maybe things aren't so
rosy after all. As those kids progress, they seem to
lose their way.
Speaker 10 (10:25):
As you get into the latter teams and move into
U twenty one or U twenty three competition, the level
is not quite as high. And so the question is
what's happening there? Why does the competitiveness fade a bit?
And it's it's not massive, but it's significant enough to
where you see that there's fine tuning that needs to happen,
(10:45):
and a lot of it comes down to what environments
those players are in.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Not surprisingly, before the age of nineteen, the likes of
Christian Pulisic, Tyler Adams, Weston McKenney and plenty of others
had all moved abroad to European academy. Time will tell
if this Golden Generation is an anomaly or the first
of a new breed. But there's one thing everyone agrees on.
(11:10):
The talent is out there. We just need to find
it and nurture it. As a former US men's national
team youth coach himself, Mikey Bonis is hopeful, but he's
also realistic. We're playing ketchup and there's still a long
way to go before we're at the level of other
top nations.
Speaker 12 (11:32):
We're an emerging football country, but we're not there yet.
Right when you talk about Chile, uru Way, Croatia, you
talk about countries that don't have huge populations but that
are just massive have massive amounts of talent.
Speaker 5 (11:47):
Then you have the big countries.
Speaker 12 (11:48):
You know Argentina, you have Brazil, you have Italy, you
have Germany, England that just have loads of players coming
out of them, and people always ask, like they always say, oh,
for how big the population and the resources that are
in the US, you know what's going on there.
Speaker 1 (12:08):
Well, for one thing, in these countries, football is the
national pastime. Clubs and leagues have existed for centuries. Clearly,
one of the issues we face here is the competition
from other sports. Most kids don't fully focus on soccer
early on like they do elsewhere. I mean, just think
how many stars we might be losing to the NFL
(12:30):
and the NBA each year. Imagine Patrick Mahomes spring passes
like beer Lebron James leaping to save a shot bound
for the top corner.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
But the landscape is changing fast.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
MLS now has the youngest and fastest growing fandemographic of
any pro sport in the USA, and with the World
Cup coming to the United States in twenty twenty six,
interest in the game could explode. Mike Yvaas remembers the
impact that the home World Cup had on him.
Speaker 12 (13:02):
The ninety four World Cup Company of the United States
and my parents scraped enough money to get us to
the camera roo in Brazil game and just watching that environment.
Obviously with the World Champions play at Stanford Stadium was
another cemented moment where it was always going to be
football for me.
Speaker 1 (13:29):
As it turned out, that same Brazilian team would later
meet Team USA in the knockout.
Speaker 13 (13:35):
Rounds kick off against the host nation, the United States
of America playing.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Today and put an end to the home nation's dreams.
Speaker 14 (13:45):
Winn it Bank, it's the final whistle.
Speaker 8 (13:50):
Brazil approve to the World Cup quarterfinals.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
America's World Cup.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Is over ninety four was a landmark moment for the
sport in this country. Its success and popularity basically launched
Major League soccer. Sold out stadiums from coast to coast,
and wall to wall media coverage brought the beautiful game
to millions of kids just like Mikey, and he's certain
that twenty twenty six can have a similar effect.
Speaker 12 (14:17):
Just having the World Cup in the US is going
to be a win because you're bringing the best talents
around the world for the American public to go watch games.
The fact of the matter, though, is if the US
has a great World Cup, it's going to exponentially speed
up the process of really injecting a massive football culture
(14:40):
into our country. And if we make a big run
in a tournament which we have players in a generation
of talent that has the potential to do it. It would
be basically putting us light years ahead of where we
are right now, because it's going to inspire again, not
only the football fans in the football players that already
(15:01):
exist here, but that's going to inspire everyone who has
only a mile to no interest in the sport. Because
at the end of the day, as Americans like, we're
proud to be American, right, and so when the United
States does well in anything, you're going to engage the
broadest audience possible and it could really really inspire the
(15:21):
fan base to just explode. Really.
Speaker 1 (15:28):
So the bottom line is that twenty twenty six could
spark a massive increase in participation for a sport that
is already played by nearly fifteen million kids a year.
The task for MLS academies is to find the best
young talent, get them into professional environments as young as possible,
and keep them there as long as possible. And I'm
(15:49):
telling you there's no better place to do that than
America's finest city.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
We're at Singing Hills in Elkohoone.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
It's way back in November of twenty twenty three, the
day San Diego FC fired the starting gun on their
race to revolutionize youth soccer. It's the official groundbreaking ceremony
where the people behind the project pick up a spade
and officially kickoff construction on the facility.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
The great and the.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
Good are in attendance, Mani Machiano, Tom Penn, Sir Mohammed Mansour,
and of course Sequon Chairman Cody Martinez. It's a momentous
day for the tribe and for Native Americans everywhere.
Speaker 3 (16:46):
We've been reached out to buy so many travel leaders
about how excited and what this means to Native American athletes.
I think our ancestors are extremely proud, and they're looking
down on us with big smiles on their face. During
the ceremony, I couldn't see it because as our back
was to it, but they said there were three hawks
circling the field behind us, and hawks are a symbol
(17:06):
of good fortune in Native American culture.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
This land is where they hope to shape the future
of the sport in this country and set an example
that will extend well beyond the San Diego region. But
first and foremost, this project speaks to their commitment to
future generations.
Speaker 3 (17:30):
You'll find a common saying is is future generations or
seven generations. And so today my children represent the seventh
generation that has been living on Sequan since eighteen seventy
five our reservation was founded. We truly believe in investing
in youth and having a better day for the youth.
My grandparents, my parents, their parents before them, they live
(17:52):
hard lives and they struggled, but they did it knowing
that they were providing a better life for their children.
So with the alignment of the values of right to
dream that you could find excellence anywhere that anyone has
the right to dream, we live that.
Speaker 12 (18:05):
We believe it.
Speaker 3 (18:06):
So for the Sequad people, the vision and the reason
why we do the things we do is completely aligned.
Speaker 2 (18:13):
With right to Dream.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
So we're so happy to be a part of the
growing Right to Dream family and bringing their model to
Major League Soccer here in the United States. And again,
it goes beyond any financial gain the tribe or the
club could have. We're going to change lives and to me,
that's priceless.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
It's an inspiring message, no doubt about that. But what
are they walking into? Why did they choose San Diego
for their academy first football model, and how do the
locals feel about it? Those who've been growing the game
here for decades, San Diego is heralded as a hotbed
of soccer talent. Don't take my word for it. Look
at the stats. More pros are produced here per capita
(18:53):
than almost anywhere else in the nation. And that's before
we talk about the Mexican talent right on their doorstet.
Speaker 8 (19:04):
I was born in la but only lived there til
I was eight, lived in Seattle, Idaho, Texas, Boston, so
I've been all over and all along I've played soccer
and been involved in the football scene.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
This is Michael Orosco, a San Diego soccer fan through
and through. As someone who has played and lived the
game all over the US. He thinks this place is
truly unique in terms of its football culture, and that
passion shows in the youth soccer landscape.
Speaker 8 (19:35):
I would argue that it is the strongest hub of
youth soccer nationwide, and the testament to that is the
years and years of success that regional teams from here
have had. So I do know the participation is one
of the highest in the nation. There is just an
undercurrent of football that has been here for years. There's
nothing new about it. Obviously, there's a huge Latin contingent,
(19:59):
you know, mostly a Mexican can contingent due to the proximity.
But you will find people here in San Diego from
all over the world and they bring that football expertise
with them.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
That cultural diversity, the geographic location, along with year round
perfect weather is pretty much why San Diego is a
talent gold mine, a mine that other MLS clubs have
been more than happy to dig in for decades.
Speaker 8 (20:26):
There's a reason San Diego is called a hotbed of
you soccer. There's a reason the national champions come from
the city. There's a reasional there's professionals from the city.
Despite not having a pathway that was formal. We have
kids at LAFC and Austin in New England, Real, Salt Lake, Philadelphia.
Speaker 5 (20:46):
We have players all over the United States.
Speaker 8 (20:48):
If you were to be cornered and had to just
get stuck in one corner of the United States and
be asked to mind talent there, there is not a
better corner of the United States, which you know you
had to call your home territory.
Speaker 5 (21:02):
Then right here in San Diego, up against the border.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Key to this success has been the number of elite
youth soccer clubs in the region. Clubs like Surf, Nomad's
City SC and Albion. They're up there with the best
in the country. But despite the incredible achievements and years
of hard work, there's many who feel it's a flawed system.
Speaker 10 (21:24):
Whenever I find myself speaking about the American youth soccer
landscape to anyone who's unfamiliar with it, it's like you
start by suggesting they pull up a chair and get
comfortable and be prepared for a lot of complexity.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Charles Boehm has spent years trying to make sense of
the youth soccer landscape, how it works, and who it
works for.
Speaker 10 (21:47):
I often call it the Wild West, because whereas in
many mature footballing nations, the lines of power and authority
and structures by which players pick up the game excel
at it are identified and nurtured into hopeful professionals of
the future, the lines are clear, everything's well established. In
(22:10):
the United States, it's a big, messy system that is
still in evolution.
Speaker 11 (22:14):
On a year to year basis.
Speaker 10 (22:16):
You have to start by pointing out that there was
already a very mature youth soccer landscape before MLS was
even born, and it was all aimed towards college scholarships.
Speaker 1 (22:31):
In the decades before MLS arrived, grass roots soccer in
the US evolved with one goal in mind, getting players
into college.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
The best clubs developed.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
Relationships with the best universities and competed at the best
tournaments across the country to give the kids the best
chance of being seen by scouts, and that system of
tournament based club football ballooned into the multi billion dollar
business that is thriving today across the nation.
Speaker 2 (22:59):
Millions of chill compete in.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Travel soccer, as it's often called, but simply put, producing
world class individual talent is not what this system was
designed for. Even here in San Diego with some of
the top youth clubs in the country, there were those
who saw the need for evolution, people like Michael, who,
along with other passionate soccer dads, took matters into their
(23:23):
own hands.
Speaker 8 (23:24):
Your club experience is always dependent on the coach, and
your coach's experience can vary and their expertise can vary.
We all had kids who loved the game and we
wanted the best for them, and we just realized that
there was a limit to what education could be provided
them in terms of the club infrastructure. So we just
wanted to kind of provide a standard and maybe try
(23:44):
to teach our kids what might be taught in academies.
So instead of making it up our own, we started
an academy here in San Diego. We actually called it SDFC,
so we're the original SDFC.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
In twenty twelve, the San Diego Soccer Center was born.
Speaker 8 (24:02):
And we just figured, hey, let's roll up our sleeves
try to grow the game because we were passionate about
it and wherever happens happen, so we started the academy.
We brought over some coaches from Barcelona, some a licensed
UEFA pro, actually licensed coaches from Barcelona, and we just
had them supplement our children's soccer education. If I were
(24:22):
summarize it, we just wanted to teach these kids pro habits,
the stuff that a lot of times the clubs didn't
have time to teach.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
As word got out, more and more kids from across
San Diego soccer world signed up. They got bespoke professional
training and went back to their clubs better players for it.
Everyone was a winner. Eventually, the Soccer Center started taking
teams on the road to compete, even entering international tournaments abroad.
Speaker 5 (24:49):
That was our proof of concept.
Speaker 8 (24:51):
We knew the talent was here and that was kind
of probably the crowning achievement of this academy.
Speaker 5 (24:57):
And again they were kids from all different clubs.
Speaker 8 (25:00):
We just kind of hung a Switzerland type banner and
put this team together the best kids we could find
and gave it a run. And we just showed that
the talent is here, the passion is here. So we
were able to do something I think important for the
community in terms of just providing supplemental training that made
these kids better for their clubs.
Speaker 5 (25:19):
And so me and two partners we did that for our.
Speaker 8 (25:22):
Kids and the kids who played with them, and we
did that for five plus years. And so that's my
crazy soccer dad's story.
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Michael's soccer finishing school, working with clubs to prepare their
kids for the professional level was really a prototype for
what MLS academies have been doing more and more in
recent years. It's part of an ongoing process as they
tried to figure out how to better work with the
existing youth club system to help develop the next level
(26:04):
of US soccer talent.
Speaker 10 (26:06):
So MLS had to come along and sort of adapt
to that system. Then over the past I would say
fifteen years or thereabouts, we've seen the millions and millions
of dollars and years of effort and many different people
at many different clubs trying to build something closer to
the global standard in terms of academies going down all
the way to some cases as young as under twelve
(26:27):
ages to create a pipeline, and there's as many different
approaches to that almost as there are clubs in MLS.
So there's an environment that existed that is evolving, and
then there's new.
Speaker 11 (26:40):
Structures being built atop that.
Speaker 10 (26:41):
So you still have a wide spectrum I would say,
of effectiveness levels for the different academies.
Speaker 1 (26:46):
As MLS academies and youth soccer clubs continue to coordinate
their efforts, there's no doubt a better pipeline will emerge.
But there's one issue we haven't addressed, an elephant in
the room, a hot issue that strikes at the heart
of the game in the US, and as it happens,
it's also one of the primary reasons that brought right
(27:09):
to dream to these shores. You see, it's not just
the complex nature of the system that's the problem. It's
the fact that many American kids can't access the system
at all.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
Essentially, when you sign your kid up to play soccer,
going all the way down to age five or thereabouts,
you sign them up with a local club or a
recreational organization that charges a fee for the coaching or
field access uniforms.
Speaker 11 (27:36):
Over time, that mushroomed.
Speaker 10 (27:38):
Into a multi billion dollar economy. So what started out
as sort of a recreational municipal fee that was pretty modest,
has now become something that families routinely pay five figures
thousands of dollars annually to be at the best clubs,
who pay in the best leagues, who go to tournaments
(27:59):
and take part of events that have top coaches and
scouts watching.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
This system has become known as pay to play.
Speaker 10 (28:09):
It is the big bugaboo of American soccer is what
does pay to play? Miss who are being left out
of this system are kids from more humble economic backgrounds,
are kids in immigrant communities, many many of which have
soccer as the lifeblood deeply woven into their culture, but
cannot or do not participate fully in the pay to
play system for hosts of economic and cultural reasons.
Speaker 1 (28:32):
Matt Davidson Right to dreamshead of Football agrees wholeheartedly.
Speaker 14 (28:38):
There's no doubt that so the whole pay to play
is a blocker for talent, and that's basically Right to
Dreams aim is to create opportunities for kids that don't
have opportunities. So in that perspective, it speaks right into
the US model that a lot of kids, and I've
seen a few of them myself, are way in the round.
(29:00):
My first trips to San Diego went around to some
of the communities to watch some random street games and
saw players there that we believed that if you put
them in right environment, they could play in the highest level.
But then speaking to the parents, said we have no
chance to pay the price of playing in a lack
of real academy. So it's very real, I would say,
(29:22):
the chance is that's obviously what also we want to disrupt.
Speaker 1 (29:25):
Dan Dickinson Right to Dreams CEO makes no bones about
the fact it's an issue central to their mission here
in San Diego.
Speaker 15 (29:34):
You know, we absolutely believe that the pay to play
model creates a challenge for a lot of the young talent,
and so we wanted to be in a community where
we could leverage our model and serve kids that didn't
have that opportunity. And I know from my own experience again,
three of my four kids played travel soccer and you
had to join the club and write a big check.
And our kids and they grew up in a fairly
(29:57):
affluent suburban community, but you go in inner cities, you
go into poor communities, and they just don't have coaching,
the means, the ability to travel, the ability to get
the exposure. And so yeah, those are our target markets
for sure.
Speaker 2 (30:13):
As Dan points out, it's not just the money.
Speaker 1 (30:17):
After all, many clubs offer discounts, payment plans and even
full scholarships.
Speaker 2 (30:23):
They want the best players to thrive.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
But even if a kid can get financial aid, it
still requires time, energy, transportation, and awareness. All sorts of
things can contribute to less fortunate kids missing out. Even
Michael lo Rosko, a passionate supporter of San Diego Soccer Clubs,
wishes things were different.
Speaker 8 (30:46):
It's been an age old kind of argument to the
question is, again, is who's going to provide this? And
you know, me having started a Soccer project. I got
stuck with the same challenge as any club will get.
Who's paying for the coach's time, who's paying for the
field rentals, who's paying to fix that divot in the
grass and to put the turf on this field?
Speaker 5 (31:05):
So they're just realities.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
The point is like it or load it. It's the
system we've got and it's one that's in high demand.
Speaker 10 (31:14):
Pay to play is commonly blamed, and it certainly is
a problem, but it's not a problem that you can
solve because there's an old saying, the business of America
is business, and even if you had a fleet of
billionaires ready to subsidize a fully built out elite player
development pathway for the professional and eventually international level in
(31:35):
this country, you will still not stop pay to play
because there will still be a marketplace out there for
coaches and clubs to provide the opportunities and the experiences
that millions of families and their kids want.
Speaker 11 (31:49):
So I think pay to play will not go away,
even if it's an easy culprit to blame.
Speaker 10 (31:54):
So then once you internalize that, then you move forward
to the next step, which is.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
What will work, which brings us nicely back to the
Right to Dream Academy at Singing Hills. While construction is
ongoing and their first intake isn't due until the summer
of twenty twenty five, they've had boots on the ground
since day one, putting out fielders, building relationships and creating
networks that will allow them to unearth the talent that
(32:21):
might otherwise be overlooked.
Speaker 10 (32:24):
How do you spot those kids and bring them into
your system? So you now have a scouting challenge, and
this is something that's been faced by the federation that's
trying to build the best national teams and youth national
teams possible. It's being faced by professional clubs at all levels.
How do you get everyone an opportunity? How do we
solve these challenges? How do we provide some kind of
(32:46):
equality in how the game is offered and grown in
this country. So it is a complex, knotty conundrum. No
one's quite solved it, and perhaps no one ever will
fully solve it.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
Well.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Right to Dream have got a few ideas and are
preparing to give it their best shot with all the
will in the world. There are two realities as DFC
(33:19):
must face. San Diego's soccer clubs already produced some of
the best young players in the country, players they'll want
to bring into their academy, and second, as a new
club hoping to win over the county's soccer loving public,
they need to be seen as an ally and not
as an adversary.
Speaker 8 (33:40):
With the announcement of the MLS team coming here, obviously
it was going to change the landscape of football here
in San Diego. It was going to change the landscape,
especially of the youth scene, and so I'm sure there
was varying opinions with the arrival of the team. Some
people who were very ingrained, maybe under the stress or
(34:02):
the pressure of keeping their operations open by keeping their
rosters filled, might have looked at it as a threat
in terms of taking some of their roster spots, taking
some of their talent.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
The only way right to Dream is going to truly
succeed in San Diego is by working closely with the
existing clubs. So on arrival at the top of CEO,
Tom Penn's agenda was winning hearts and minds.
Speaker 16 (34:31):
We are not running a massive, no pay to play
youth program. We're running a very tailored, niche high investment
model into the best of the best talent where we
can help and what we want to do help in
the market. It's our responsibility to help elevate the quality
of play for everybody in San Diego, which.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Is already quite high.
Speaker 16 (34:54):
And that's what we're doing in our coaching, education and
our community connect to outreach with all the youth programs
and our sharing of curriculum. We really want to be
a resource to the local youth development coaches.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
Here's the thing, it isn't just pr Their whole plan
for the academy relies on building local networks and creating
a symbiotic relationship with clubs and coaches at all levels,
not only to make sure they are seeing the best
of San Diego soccer talent, but to improve the ecosystem
and raise the level for everyone involved. Like a rising
(35:33):
tide lifts all boats, everyone benefits.
Speaker 17 (35:37):
You have to recognize the system and the structure that
it has built and also why in a country and
a culture like here in America it makes sense. And
so I think one of the things that remains interesting
and challenging for us is how do we work with
and within the pay to play model in order to
(35:57):
generate positive change in order to continue creating opportunities for
young people, especially those that sit outside of it.
Speaker 2 (36:06):
Right.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
That's Seb Morua, Senior vice president of Brand, Marketing and Community,
and the man Tom Penn tasked with getting the message out.
Seb's first move was to make contact with the local
soccer expert, someone who knew the clubs, their directors, and
the politics, someone who could help shape their image in
San Diego as a whole. The man he connected with
(36:30):
was none other than Michael Lorosco.
Speaker 8 (36:33):
I had spent an evening with burgers in a whiskey
sour with Seb right when he got here, just to
get to know him.
Speaker 5 (36:39):
And I was very skeptical.
Speaker 8 (36:41):
I was very worried because I wanted this club to
succeed so bad, and I knew he was the only
boots in the ground, and I was like, whose hands
is this club in right now? So I was very
in tune to our conversation, in tune to figure out
who this kid was. As you know football. I realized
very quickly he knew the game. That's what I told
all them. I was like, listen, man, there's no gimmick,
(37:02):
no marketing gig, know nothing here. You do proper football
it's going to work. I was like, and I will
die on that comment.
Speaker 2 (37:09):
This was music to SEP's ears.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
They had been worried about how they could appeal to
the range of clubs and the diverse demographics of a
county made of eighteen different cities. With Michael on board
and with a few introductions, as DFC started to connect
with San Diego soccer world, this is a deliberate strategy
to go beyond the usual boundaries of scouting leagues and
(37:34):
tournaments and embedding into the game at grassroots level.
Speaker 8 (37:39):
What I've witnessed is a lot of resources put to
reaching out and directly connecting with clubs in the city.
I'm not sure you could be a soccer coach or
a soccer director in town and not have direct contact
right now with this new MLS operation, and that takes
(38:00):
a lot of bandwidth. It takes a lot of focus,
and it's focus in bandwidth that could have been put elsewhere.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
One man who's been leading the charge for the club
is their head of talent scouting and Recruitment, John McGuigan.
Speaker 13 (38:13):
I don't think there's anything you know to say wrong
with the pace of play model. I actually think gets
a bad rep sometimes it's actually been very good for us,
and the majority of clubs are doing some great work
within that system. I think we just have to be
conscious that there will be lots of Right to Dream
players and Right to Dream stories that will never get
an opportunity if we don't deliberately go after the other
(38:35):
types of soccer that are in the community.
Speaker 1 (38:41):
With most of San Diego's soccer clubs now on board
and now in the process of sharing information and expertise
with Right to Dream, their attention turns to showing the
city they're serious about their promise to give every child
the right to dream. Kids who play in places like
Lemon Growls, a majority Hispanic and Latino community, just as
(39:03):
stones throw away from sdfc's snap Dragon Stadium, the kind
of place where they play a different kind of game.
Speaker 13 (39:11):
Like I said before, you know, not just scouting for
players who are playing in organized teams, also looking for
the boys who are playing on the street. One of
the first sessions that I saw actually in San Diego
County was in one of those environments. It was in
a kind of cage, if you like, like a street
soccer cage three v three, one v one lots of
(39:33):
highly technical moments. So again, I think it's about the
people that you hire, how deliberate you are with the
diversity of scouts that you hire, their backgrounds, their knowledge.
I think that really informs what we're doing and where
we're going to watch.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
The club has hired academy scouts specifically suited to this task,
scouts like Local x pro gabear Fund. Gabe has been
working across the eighteen cities of San Diego County, speaking
with rent coaches, watching pickup games, and scouting high school teams.
It's this non traditional approach that will set them apart
(40:08):
from the rest of MLS.
Speaker 4 (40:10):
In gears to come in the survey, we would identify
them during open tryouts and be like, oh, where did
this player come from? And in the survey we would
look at their club and it was unattached, so just
didn't have a team. So for us, it was a
key indicator of you know what, there are players out
there that are not in the traditional system, who have
very high potential that we need to offer opportunities to.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
He's now keeping tabs on various players, observing them in
their own environments in places like Lemon Grove, as well
as inviting them back to their own sessions.
Speaker 4 (40:42):
At Right to Dream, we're still monitoring a lot of
the players, some of them are returning to some of
them are new. What things there's what areas of improvement
that they still need to work on. The new guys
their learning ability. So there's quite a few different things
that we're really going to at.
Speaker 1 (41:01):
As Gabe chats to parents, teachers, and coaches, he notices
a common theme. Their community first approach seems to be
winning people over.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
It's incredibly important first to have the trust and build
rapport with the local community because I feel like a
lot of communities will take it as, oh, you're coming
here just to take our players. You're coming here to
take our players. So I think it's important for us
to educate people in the soccer community that we're doing
things for the right reasons. We're here to provide opportunities.
(41:33):
When I'm here to take players, and I think once
we're all on the same page, which I feel like
most people are, it's pretty easy to explain to them
our project. And you start explaining Right to Dream and
they start realizing that, Wow, this isn't a normal team,
this is somebody that has a vision a mission that
that's pretty special.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Next time on Behind the Flow, we step inside the
Right to Dream San Diego Talent Factory. We explore the
academy bill that's singing hills, meet the kids who hope
to make the cut, and see the club's efforts to
take their vision over the border into Mexico. Behind the
(42:22):
Flow is a message heard production. I'm your host Adrian Garciamaricas.
The series producer is McAllister Beckson. Mark Kendrick is the
assistant producer, and Rebecca Ware is the field producer. Jake
Warren and Sandra Ferrari are the executive producers. James Cox
and Dago Diaz are the production coordinators. The sound editor
(42:43):
is Lizzie Andrews and music composition is by Tom Biddle.
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