NextPod Soccer Podcast for November 10 - FIFA u17 Men's World Cup Preview

In this special edition of NextPod, the boys preview the 2023 FIFA u17 men's World Cup. With appearances by Canada Soccer's Men's National Youth Excel Director Andrew Olivieri and MLSSoccer's Charles Bohem, who looks at the USYNT and the role of NextPro in shaping the roster.

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Welcome to Next Plot, your weeklylook at North American soccer prospects and the
West. Next Bro Campil and beyond. These are your hosts, Dwayne Robe
and James Grossei, and welcome toNext Pot. I'm Dwayne Rowlands and I'm

(00:31):
happy to be here as always joiningme on the line. Very special guest
today is the King of Kensington,James GROSSI. How you doing, James
dun And I told you I livein the East End. Kensington's in the
West End. I don't know what'sgoing on. Yeah, it's a good
reference. I think it's good forthe kids because he's very timely being the
King Kensington. Being a Canadian sitcomfrom the seventies, also good for American

(00:53):
listeners, which we might have afew more today because Charles Wilmes roin is
to talk about the American U seventeenprogram, MLS, Next pro and a
few other things like that, stuffthat ties into Canadian development. I think
it's a really interesting conversation that Jameshad with Charles yesterday. Unfortunately I had
some tech issues so I had toonly listen in. But James and then

(01:14):
Charles had a great conversation that Ithink you're really going to enjoy. We
also have some clips to preview theUnder seventeen four World Cup which is taking
place in Indonesia this month, andwe'll be doing a lot of coverage of
that. We want to thank CanadaSoccer and TFC for helping us set that
up. So, yeah, alot to get to you today. We're
gonna start outside the international game thoughfirst James, were gonna start a little

(01:34):
bit at home. It's you Sports, You Sports Championship weekend. Tell us
a bit about what's going to begoing on and the two championships for the
men and the women in the Usports sector. Yeah, both men's and
women's championships are coming up this weekend. They get underway on Thursday and wrap
up on Sunday with the finals ineach side, and the women's championships are

(01:56):
being held at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. Eighteen will be representing the
U Sports field at this match.At this championship, I should say,
the opening fixtures, we'll see numberone Laval the rouge Or who are r
s EQ champions, taking on theWestern Mustangs who were bronze medalists, and
the oe U A and that onev eight match. In the women's side.

(02:21):
Number two, the Ottawa Gigs,who were OUA champions, will be
facing off against UBC Thunderbirds, CanadaWest finalists, who were seeded seventh coming
into this competition. The s fxex Women, who are a US champions,
will be opening their tournament against numbersix the Montreal Caravans who are r
S e Q finalists, and numberfour Trinity Western Spartans, who are Canada

(02:45):
West champions, will be facing offagainst the hosts side who are OUA finalists,
the Queens Gails. So lots ofsoccer action coming up this weekend for
Canadian viewers. All those matches willbe streamed in English on the CBC dot
Com and they will be streamed inFrench on Radio Canada and the U Sports
website as well. So get yourfire up all of your screens. It's

(03:08):
going to be a busy weekend.The men's Championship will be taking place at
Cape Bretton University in Sydney, NovaScotia. It begins on Thursday and concludes
on Sunday as well, and allthose matches will be streamed dot CBC dot
Ca and Radio Canada and the Usports website in both French and English.
The opening round of fixtures on Thursdaysee number one seed, the Mount Royal

(03:30):
Cougars, who were Canada West champions, take on number eight York Lions who
were OUA finalists. Number two satef X Men, the AUS champions,
will be opening their competition against theUBC Thunderwords who were Canada West finalists.
Number three the Carlton Ravens as OUAchampions will be opening up against number six

(03:52):
the Montreal Caravans who are our SEQfinalists, and number four the r s
EQ champions. University of Quebec CUARivier will open their competition against the Cape
Breton Capers, who are appearing inthis competition as hosts. And as I
mentioned, all those games will bestreamed on CBC and English Readio Canada and
U sports dot Ca and French andI'm sure our friends over at forty nine

(04:15):
Sports will have a ton of coverageas well. I've been using Ben,
our friend Ben Steiner's site and allof his all of his colleagues there to
keep on top of what's been goingon in the U sports world, so
it should be a fascinating tournament.I hope everyone gets a chance to tune
in and taking the conclusion of theU Sports Soccer calendar, Yeah, a

(04:38):
lot of familiar programs in those championships. If you follow you sports at all,
you'll notice that the same programs getback year after year. And I
think that's a real, real signof positive things happening in certain parts of
the country and universities. I reallylike that Cape Breton program out there.
I had the opportunity to talk totheir head coach a few years ago.

(04:58):
I came home with mangl and abuilt a program there in this sort of
tiny, beautiful but forgotten kind ofplace of Canada, and it's kind of
an unique situation there. So it'sgood that they're hosting and I'm looking forward
to having that conversation next week totalk about what happened. I'll also be
watching this weekend James the Other Footballbecause my alma maters in the Eighth Cup.

(05:18):
Gohawks beat those beat those Omelets.Anyway, that's a little football reference
for y'all. But nonetheless, let'smove forward in this conversation with the U
seventeen World Cup, though something alittle more in our wheelhouse here before we
get into the Canada stuff and theAmerican stuff. Let's talk with the turners
whole set up force. James.Yeah, this will be the first edition

(05:40):
in the U seventeen World Cup sincetwenty nineteen. Rush was held in Brazil
twenty twenty one, which was meantto be held through was canceled due to
that whole pandemic thing that we allwent through, and they were stripped of
their rights for infrastructural defects, whateverthat means, and so instead the tournament
was moved to Indonesia for twenty twentythree. It's six groups of four.

(06:02):
I was gonna run through all ofthem, but I think you know,
James, listing off names of countriesand groups of four isn't particularly exciting listening,
so instead I'll just highlight a coupleof them. Of course, there's
Canada's group Group B, where theywill face off against Spain, Mali,
and who's Bekistan. Group C featuresthe past two champions in Brazil and England,

(06:23):
alongside New Caledonia and Iran. Wedon't get a chance to see a
lot of New Caledonian football, soI'm curious to see how they'll do in
that really tough Group. Group Eis the US age group alongside France,
South Korea and Burkina Fosso. BurkinaFosso were the team who knocked five time
winners in Nigeria out of the Useventeen Africa couple of nations, so there'll

(06:45):
be an interesting team to see howthey do at this stage. In Group
F, another CONCACAFF side in Mexico, always a powerhouse at this age group,
alongside Germany, Venezuela and New Zealand, so plenty of football awaiting US.
As always, first and second placesides will advance automatically to the knockout
round and the top four third placefinishers will as well, so there's only

(07:08):
going to be eight teams that fallout at this first hurtle. I think
we all know which teams you cansort of consider to be favorites at this
level. Brazil are four time champions, England won in twenty seventeen, Mexico
are two time champions, France's onlywhen came in two thousand and one,
but I'm not going to be rightin them office as not being a threat.
In Indonesia, Spain interestingly have neverwon, but they were four times

(07:31):
runners up, and so Canada willbe in tough against the Spanish in their
opening match. And now I justthink we should note that there's always a
surprise or too at these competitions.I looked back over the history and you
know, Paraguay made a run tothe quarter finals in twenty nineteen, Maley
made one to the finals in twentyfifteen, in the semi finals in twenty
seventeen. Me Nigeria's five times championshave yet to replicate that on the senior

(07:55):
side. So the youth level alwayssort of throws up some surprises and gives
us a chance to see teams thatwe might not normally see on that metal
podium at the end of the day. So definitely something to keep an eye
on there. And you know,I couldn't find to see anything seem to
find anything on the TSN website regardingbroadcast details, but RDS is listed at

(08:16):
the FIFA website and the most recentCanada Soccer presser mentioned that TSN will be
broadcasting the games. I assume itwill mostly be online, but I wouldn't
be surprised if some of the tastesyour fixtures ended up on actual broadcast television.
So something to keep an eye on. And the tournament gets under way
Friday morning, bright and early atfour am, So it should be a

(08:39):
pretty fascinating month of youth football aheadof us. Yeah. Just you mentioned
the unpredictability of the youth programs,like obviously the big nations that you're used
to hearing when often, but thatdoesn't mean that you don't get surprises that
there have been four different confederations whinthe seventeen world couple in this century,
two from the CONCACAP both next togo to our Free from Africa All Nigeria,

(09:01):
and then you have a year youknow, commonable and you're a WAIFA
champions as well. So yeah,lots can happen. It can be quite
unpredictable, and we look forward toit. We also look forward to seeing
what the Canadians do. They've neverwon a game at this level. Obviously,
that means they've never advanced out ofa group. They will look to
change that, won't they. Oh, most definitely. You know, I

(09:22):
think the takeaway that I had fromthe conversations with Andrew Olivieri and Lazarsanovich and
tioa Gofless was that this was agroup that was going into this World Cup
with a bit of a mission infront of them. And you know,
as we've talked about many times,it's not so much about winning at this
stage as it is about developing andabout testing yourself and about raising your expectations

(09:45):
and broadening horizons and setting yourself onthat next path way to becoming a full
fledged professional in this game. Solots to look forward to. But you
know, I looked back and lookedat the twenty nineteen squad and a bunch
of names there jumped out as guyswho made that jump from being top top
academy guys to being professionals. JasonRussell, Rowe, Jaden Nelson, DeAndre

(10:09):
Kerr, Kobe Franklin, Sean Ray, Ralph Prizo, amongst many others who
will be familiar to watchers of theCanadian Premier League and MLS nets pro.
Pretty much every guy on that teamis plying his trades somewhere in the professional
game these days, and so youknow, you have to hope with another
group of young guys putting themselves ontothe showcase stage of a U seventeen World

(10:35):
Cup, that that's what awaits themin their future. The squad is largely
domestic based, fifteen players from thethree MLS academies, which I know is
always a bit of a start point, but it's kind of what you have
to expect these days. As AndrewOlivieri will point out in one of our
clips coming up, that the valueof having guys in professional environments when you're

(10:56):
asking them to go and perform againstplayers of their age group who are in
professional environments, just can't be understated. I think the big the big news
of this year's roster was was wehave our first two representatives from the Canadian
Premier League joining the side, withVancouver FC's t J Taheed and Forges Cavanta
Vernier named to this final roster.So really excited to see what those two

(11:18):
young men can do on this stage. And Olivieri pointed out that, you
know, their experience of battling insenior men's professional football is going to be
so valuable on this stage for thosetwo young men. Olivier mentioned that that
Lazars Stefanovic and Alessandro Bielo Morobielo's sonfor those of you who didn't make that

(11:41):
connection, will be the co captainsfor the side. And and then speaking
about the players who he was notable to have on this roster. Two
injury announcements came out. Vancouver's KylerVoivodich picked up something before before this final
group and was not able to getfit in time. And Montreal's Antoine and

(12:01):
Die, who was a bit ofa standout at the CONCAFF Championships back in
February, has been out for muchof the season and was not able to
get fit in time. So wewill miss those, but I'm really excited
to see what this young young groupcan do on this world stage. Absolutely
thanks againing to Canada Soccer and TFCfor the clips you're about to hear for

(12:22):
them. Without any further ado,that's that's just sort of the first one.
We're going to talk a little bitabout the World Cup experience and what
this means to this group of kids. You can tell from the sun and
I got today it's been really hot, really good to come in early enough
to climatize to games that are comingup that the heated and the humidity is

(12:43):
the factor. And you know,we flew in. The boys came in
on the thirtieth. They had aday to try and start acclimatizing, so
not only the heat but also obviouslythe long travel. As you can see,
they're starting to get get comfortable.But it's a good first two days,
you know, needless to say withthe tough travel, but we're happy.

(13:07):
We're happy with where we are aftertwo days. So it's been a
really positive start and we're looking forwardto game against Argentina in two days from
now. Yeah, I mean,the World Cup's obviously going to be a
very big opportunity for not just me, but other guys, you know,
every every everyone that's on that finalroster, and you know it's going to
be obviously very exciting times for asoccer fans. Hopefully we can make history

(13:35):
and be one of the first teamsto get out of the group stage.
But uh yeah, I mean we'rejust looking forward to it. It's one
of the biggest, the biggest youthtenement, so I'm really excited. It
was it was really good to geta chance to speak with Andrew la Gary
as the group was arriving in Indonesia, and I had a chance to speak

(13:58):
with Zarafanavich the Orogopolis at the endof the TFC two season, So those
ones are a little bit older.They weren't exactly sure that they were going
to be on there. I thinkthey were pretty sure they were going to
make that final roster, but itwas good to get a chance to hear
from them as well. And youknow, the thing that stood out the
most of me was how early Canadagot on site. You know, my
understanding is that they flew in atthe end of October and we spoke to

(14:20):
Andrew last Thursday, so they willhave had ten days on site in Indonesia.
They're not that I think they weretrading on a different island. Most
of the tournaments being held on themain island over there, and they were
off on a satellite location. Butit's a good chance to get you know,
acclimated to the surroundings and the conditions. Would also get those long flights

(14:41):
out of your legs and get ina couple of matches as you prepare.
Andrew mentioned a friendly against Argentina.I did some internet slew thing and if
a sketchy vertical video I found onYouTube is to be believe that Canada had
a penalty kick at some point andit was saved, and there's a score
floating around of two to one,but I can't really confirm that U two

(15:03):
to one Argentina when I should sayand Andrew also mentioned a scrimmage versus the
US, So it's uh, it'sgood for these guys to get a chance
to get settled where they are,to experience what's around them, to have
a couple of warm up games,and you can feel that excitement and talking
to the two young guys about whatit's what it's going to be like for
them to step onto this massive stageat this moment in their careers. Well

(15:26):
yeah, I mean it's they're goingto Indonesia for for a month and getting
to represent Canada that they're international footballersfor the rest of their use footballers,
but none the less of international footballersfor the rest of their life and hopefully
they can drive their career forward,because that is the bottom line and what
we're really looking for here. That'sthat's we talk about the squad. That
we have a little bit. Wegot some both video or source which it's

(15:48):
not a video podcast, it's justan audio podcast. Guys. We got
some audio of the squad coal actionhere, so we're gonna throw to that
and then James will talk us throughthat after we're done. Yeah, Brazil
was a musk for us where we'rereally fortunate that that came around. You
know, Brazil were very supportive andhelping us get down there and play two

(16:11):
top top matches. You know,the defending World champions to hold different generation
of players obviously, but they're they'requality. They're a very very good group,
and that's what we needed. Knowingthat we're going into the tournament where
we've got Spain in our first match, so so to play that kind of
opposition is exactly what we needed.And you just don't know what it's like

(16:33):
until you experience it. And that'sbeen kind of the theme for the boys
is they need to experience those typesof matches and we'll be ready for it.
We'll be all the better for itcoming into our first game against Spain
and Uzbekistan as a quality side,you know, very very good side.
They they've been in Youth World Cupsbefore, not not much, but they've

(16:55):
been there and they showed quality throughthe Asian Qualifiers. So we know that
those first two matches are important forus to get results because the last game
against Malis, you know, theydidn't win the African continent, but they
were one of the better teams youknow watched I've seen them quite a bit
lately. There's certainly a top,top team coming out of Africa. We

(17:18):
know that that's gonna be a bigthird match, and we want to make
sure that we're in a good placegoing into that third match. Yeah,
I mean, I can just tellyou just from like a team perspective and
the way we're looking at it,we have the full, full and full
belief that we have a chance toget out of the group. And I

(17:38):
think obviously none of the games willbe easy, but yeah, I mean,
obviously opening game against Spain there'll bea good test. But you know,
we've already played teams like Brazil andMexico and we've seen what we've seen
what to expect from that. Sowe'll be compared in that aspect of you
know, teams like who's back standonBobbie, we don't play often and don't

(18:03):
really know much about so for thefor there, from that perspective, you
can say there's a bit of anuncertainty, but uh yeah, I mean,
either way, we're going to competeand we're gonna try and give results.
While we're did great. Group,really connected with each other, and

(18:27):
I think we're going into World Cuptrying to make history. Like no,
you seventeen teams got out of thegroup, so it's very cool. Yeah,
Andrew, I think this was onlymy first or second time to get
a chance speaking with Andrew. Butyou know, we always hear that criticism

(18:47):
about about you know, the CanadianSoccer Association only only looking at the three
MLS clubs and using that as assort of as their their selection, and
you know, that's long bit ofcriticism. But I think when you hear
a coach talk about how four playersto be ready to step on the field
against guys who are in these proenvironments, it's so important for them to

(19:11):
have those experiences themselves. And soI know everyone's a little bit sensitive about
the team, largely coming from thethree MLS clubs. As you mentioned,
we've seen some CPL representatives. Iwant to give a shot at to Zipco
County Rovers as well, who hada player involved in the Brazil camp and
in the training camp before the finalroster was announced. But it's it's kind

(19:32):
of the nature of why the academysystem exists is that you want to put
these guys in professional situations and allowthem to push themselves forward in the game.
And that's just more likely to happenwhen they're when they're surrounded by better
football and more football the way thatthey are. And you know, in
terms of the tactical approach that thatAndrew talked about, there were there were
a couple of John Herdman influences Iheard in there that the idea of having

(19:56):
a tactical flexibility, of of lookingat your opponents and and learning how to
adapt your game to to best suitthem was something that stood out to me.
And also the mention of tactical excellencein the four phases of the game,
which was a concept that I heardHerdman talk about an awful lot.
So it's good to see that evenif John is instilling on site, his

(20:18):
influences are are still percolating around thearound the ecosystem. Thank you all.
Yeah. John Herban's fingerprints are goingto be part of this system for for
quite a while until a new anew man comes in at the at the
top roster being dropped today when we'rerecording James, But we don't have time
to talk about that. Uh,that's uh. Let's throw and have a
little conversation about what this group lookslike exactly the team and and and and

(20:41):
how they're feeling heading into this.Yes, s if you question, I
think the principles are pretty consistent andin all the cycles that we bring in

(21:04):
all the generations, and we lookfirst and foremost, we look at the
stories that players careers are telling us. And that's the easy part of it
is you look at players playing intop environments. You look at players that
are playing starting to reach the toptiers of the game or the higher tiers
of the game. We're at thisyoung age of the U seventeen, you're
looking at players we're starting to pushinto the men's game, the pro game,

(21:27):
and so obviously some young men likelike TJ who's coming out of a
CPL season, it's a massive factorand that you've got to you've got to
respect that that there's some real experiencethere someone like a young you know,
Lazaar, who's gotta you know,did this pose into them some MLS matches.
So obviously having MLS next pro teamsin some of our Canadian clubs is

(21:52):
a great environment and we feel likeit gives us a step up from where
we were back in twenty nineteen.More young men playing around the professional game,
and if not playing consistently, atleast they're training around the professional game.
So that's a big factor for us. And then you look at the
others who are still coming out ofyouth clubs or sorry, the youth academies

(22:17):
of clubs, and they have tobe performing, they have to be showing
that they're excelling in those academy environments. So certainly the environment the players are
in is the first it's the startingpoint, it's where the principle starts.
And then we look at you know, the four moment players is obviously something
that that's the key to us,and we've learned that over the years that

(22:37):
there's some really really top Canadian talent, but we really have to focus in
on those players that are competent andin all moments of the gay game,
whether it's the attacking, defending,the transitional moments, and there can't be
gaps if we're going to compete thetop teams. Yeah, I mean,

(23:00):
just from our experience in Guatemala whenwe were in the Comic capt qualifying event,
I think we were a very closegroup from the first day that we
go got together for that in February, and even now we have some new
names coming up from from CPL liket J to Heat and kJ t Renier,

(23:21):
like new names, and you know, they just integrated to the group
so well. So I think theteam five going into the tournament is really
good. And that's you know,partially why we had that belief where we're
gonna try and you know, youknow, try and not surprise people.
I guess, yeah, you cansay surprise people when we get there and
try and make some history. Itwas great experience, just the different there,

(23:48):
like conditions and all that stuff,But I think it was it was
good playing like a top team,our age and top players they had,
Like it was just a great experience. It really showed us like what the
highest level is. I think thetakeaway that I get from these two clips

(24:11):
is, you know, we've talkeda lot in the past about how Canadian
teams in particular have struggled when they'rethrown together last minute and asked to go
into this caldron against these top playersand get a job done. And you
know from the camp that they hadlast winter to the CAF Championship, in
February, to the Brazil trip inthe fall, and now this preparatory camp

(24:32):
that they're having in Indonesia. Sure, you'd always love for there to be
a little bit more consistency, butthis is a group that's been been getting
to know each other for almost ayear now, and you like to hear
that a team spirit is built upand that a certain confidence has come with
that. So it was good tohear THEO and Laza enjoying the group that
they're a part of. And I'mhoping that these guys can come together and

(24:55):
make some history. Yeah, andhopefully they you know, it won't be
the same all the time, butthat acre of these groups can continue to
move forward at the youth level andmake some noise at the next level up
and then maybe even an Olympic qualifyingcycle right like that. That's the goal
here is to get some forward progressionfor the youth national teams which really struggled
on the result side for a while. I'm getting excited to see this turn

(25:18):
of James. You know, therehas been enough prep time. One of
the big you know, criticisms ofthe CSA have been that they haven't they've
massively underfunded their youth team, butI don't think that this particular group has
suffered as much as maybe they havein other cycles before this. There there
is an opportunity to make some historyhere. Now what that history is,

(25:40):
we have to be realistic. They'venever won a game at this level before.
Is winning a game success? Ithink it would be. So,
so let's go in and with thatkind of attitude and see what we can
get done and continue to build onthis one thing that's really unpredictable at a
youth level. And I found thesequotes interesting is that you never quite know
what you got with these guys becausethey're so young. You remember number sixteen,

(26:02):
I mean I sort of do.It was a long long time ago,
but you change. Hell, someof these guys might growth re inches
in the three or four months.You never know, right, So it's
some interesting thoughts about what they playerschanges are and what that kind of means
as a coach coming up next.I think it's been part of the DNA

(26:30):
since John has come in, andit was so on the woman's side when
John was there. There's a flexibilitythe tactical excellence that we aim for for
the tactical flexibility to put ourselves ina situation where we have an element of
control, whether it's feeling under controleven when we have to defend, or
it's been able to feel like we'reunder control when we're in possession, you

(26:52):
know, being able to cope withdifferent pressure that oppositions putting us under,
and sometimes the pressures having to breakdown a team that just wants to sit
in. So it's knowing that differenttypes of opponents in a World Cup,
just like it's very different profiles ofteams in CONCACAF, but the World Cup
certainly brings those different elements. Whenyou play a team like Mali, you

(27:12):
know, to a team like Spain, we have to be flexible, So
that's certainly something and if we're ableto do that, it's because we start
with the foundation, which is ourability to play out, our ability to
play with composures. So I cometo the center backs and our goalkeepers that
allow us to do that. Soour style of play is it'll be flexible

(27:33):
throughout the tournament. But the qualityof the group definitely starts from the back
moving forward, and it's just theplayers that are brave enough to give us
the ability to play under pressure.It's not necessarily where I'm saying, oh,

(27:55):
we're going, we're gonna get guaranteeda spot. It's more that that,
you know, you know, obviouslywe're gonna be humble in every game
that we play and we're not goingto get ahead of our ourselves. But
you know, with the team thatwe have, I feel and you know,
the belief is that we can dothings that other groups in the past
haven't done before. And that's,uh, we're you know, from a

(28:17):
team perspective. We play really youknow, close and types and we're really
tight with each other. So uhyeah, I mean we just see that
this as an opportunity to you know, maybe change people's opinions, and most
of we can show them when weget there. Yeah. I thought this

(28:49):
was a really interesting point, Smanderand something that that we don't always think
about on the outside. It's thatyoung players are changing so much at their
stage and this stage in their careers, and they're experiencing so much over this
twelve month period that as a coachyou have to really be adaptable and you
have to accept that the guy thatyou saw six months ago might not be

(29:11):
the guy that he is right now, and you know, I'm more familiar
with the TFC guys. So ifwe take Bazarre Staffanovitch, for example,
he's with Canada the U seventeen Championshipsin February. He goes on to play
a whole season in MLS. NextPro takes a break from that to go
to the GA Cup as one ofthe leaders for on a TFC's academy teams.
Comes back to MLS, next Pro, gets involved in the first team,

(29:33):
makes his MLS debut, plays threematches with the first team in a
ten month period and an eight monthperiod. That is a lot of experience
for a young guy to take onboard and to figure out how he adjusts
to that and to grow through that. And so the idea of the Andrews
point of learning how to manage theseguys and not being exactly sure what it

(29:56):
is that you're going to see,but keeping an open mind to the possibility
that players are going to make hugestrides and you're not necessarily going to be
the same guy that you had before. And you know, I thought back
to our conversation with Ricardo Clark recentlywhere he was talking about jeven Badwell making
a similar huge strides within the whiteCaps system as well, so that that

(30:18):
sentiment that applies to every single oneof these kids. You're never quite sure
where a young man is as heturned sixteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen,
eighteen, how that trajectory is goingto go. So as a coach,
I'm sure you've got to be onyour toes a little bit. James.
When I was twenty five years old, and make this about myself for
a second, when I was twentyfive years old, so three hundred and
twelve years ago, I was coachingat Pickering College. I was coaching the

(30:42):
under twelfth soccer team there. Weweren't very good, we were overmatched.
We were playing schools much bigger thanthis. Anyway, one of the parents
of one of the kids had aBrazilian player that came over in was going
to help us. He was goingto come and teach us some stuff.
I heard that that country, Brazil, and as a soccer fan, as

(31:03):
a soccer want to be coach atthe moment, I thought immediately, oh
my god, I've got a Brazilianin front of me. I've got to
utilize this. I've got to takewhat I can from this. Brazilian.
So he shows up to the practiceand long story short, he wasn't really
that good because not all Brazilians canplay soccer brilliantly in the same way that
not all Canadians can play hockey brilliantly. However, that aura of Brazil was

(31:26):
there. That's a long winded kindof conversation about the fact that these kids
just got a chance to play Braziltwice. That had to help, right,

(31:49):
well, I think that at seventeenyears old. The interesting thing is
the group changes drastically over for months. So the players that came into our
first camps to the players that cameinto qualifying within a two to three month
span. Players they're they're in suchgood environments now that they evolved quite quickly.

(32:10):
They're so young, and whether it'sconfidence or whether it's experiences that they
gained, they change so much.So it's never taking for granted that the
player we've brought in that performed reallywell for us one month, that's three
months later, that's still the sameplayer. They may have taken off and
taken themselves to another level. Wehave to pay attention to that, and

(32:30):
other players may have taken off andleft them in their shadows. So it's
always paying attention to the group andknowing the group in the moment, and
being really really sharp with the formthat players are in because you may have
to prepare a team a little bitdifferently six months down the roads. When
I say that, when I thinkof out qualifying, the group we have

(32:51):
here are very similar. There's somereally good additions that we've added since then,
but it's still a very similar group. But they're not seen team anymore.
And that's just the credit to therules that they've done they've made over
the last few months as young youngfootballers. Yeah, a lot of people

(33:22):
will look at that second game andsay, oh, you know, it's
five to zero, But I thinkthat that game I feel as an unfair
representation of what really happened down there. And I think as a group,
we just learned and we got weexperienced. You know, Brazil is could
be one of those teams competing forthe title come end of the tournament,

(33:42):
so we know, like this isthe best that we're gonna have to try
and compete against. So I guessyou know that experience against Brazil is gonna
put us in a really nice positionto know what's expecting we play spained opening
match play. So yeah, butI that the group, maybe not because
of the new names, is justin the first game, we actually I

(34:07):
felt that we played really well.Uh and we kind we almost made a
comeback against them. It's just obviouslysome unfortunate mistakes from our part. But
uh yeah, I mean, likeI said, I feel that we learned
as a group having been apart fromeach other since Fradbury. I think we

(34:28):
showed. And you can ask anyof the player that's a part of that
group as well that you know we'renot if you know you can, they'll
say the same thing. But thatsecond game was not necessarily our best game.
And then you know that team thatwe have, I feel that we're
just gonna put down our passes inour pocket and say we'll learn from it

(34:52):
and try and play learning into theopening game against those things. Yeah,
I mean the Brazil experience was abit of a mystery to us. You
know, we we knew it washappening. We saw the group that went
down there, we saw the scorescome out, but a try as I

(35:14):
might, I couldn't find any videoof it, and even even the sort
of you know, cursory map reportswere lacking in a lot of detail,
but I liked that that Bazaarre tookumbrage with with what that heavy defeat in
the second game sort of told peoplewho were seeing it from the outside it
was always going to be really toughgoing into Brazil. This group hadn't been

(35:34):
together for months at that point,but going into that hostile territory, you
know, playing on foreign soil,playing it against against high caliber players who
are at your level or a littlebit higher even in at your level stage
wise, or a little bit highereven, and learning to deal with with
the frustrations and the difficulties of thatis going to be a very valuable experience,

(36:00):
as as you know, as THEOsaid, as Lazar said, and
as Andrew highlighted that that first matchagainst Spain is going to be, you
know, a similar baptism by fireat this huge seventeen World Cup, and
you have to think that the experienceof going into Brazil and getting a taste
to that we'll suit Canada well forthis upcoming challenge. Yeah, absolutely,

(36:21):
all right. Well, one thingthat we're really focused on a lot is
what these kids are going to takefrom this and how this is going to
help them build their career moving forward. We had a few words here about
how this motivates them, how theycan use tournaments and experiences like this to
benefit them, to benefit to propeltheir for their career to the to the
next level. They don't even meto put a task in front of them.

(36:57):
They know that's something we talk abouta lot at the youth level is
we have to strive to put theshirt in a better place. And the
better place at the other seventeen levelis we haven't been to a knockout stage
at the seventeenth level, We've neverwon a game at the seventeen's World Cup.
At the youth level, we've neverbeen beyond a quarterfinal. So it's
clear that they want to bring,you know, this shirt and put in

(37:20):
a place that hasn't been before.So you know, that's something that's driven
by them and that's clearly their objective. Yeah, I thought Andrew hit the
nail on the head with this one. You know you want you know,

(37:45):
these young men have been in professionalenvironments long enough they're familiar with the great
strides that the Canadian senior team onthe men's and women's side have taken in
the last few years, and theywant the responsibility of taking this country into
those conversations about teams that you needto look out for at World Cups.
And so, you know, youlove to hear that the guys are chomping

(38:07):
at the bit and that Andrew doesn'thave to do very much in order to
get these guys ready. They knowthe opportunity that's in front of them.
And you know, something you andI have said repeatedly on this show is
just that as much as it's aboutwhat can you do at this tournament,
it's about setting them. It's abouturging them forward on their pathway for the
next stage in their career. Andyou know, a good performance at a

(38:30):
World Cup is the kind of thingthat catches us outside. It's the kind
of thing that can get a guya transfer over to Europe. It's the
kind of thing that can get aguy a first team contract with the club
that he's at. And again Ispotted a little bit of a hurd influence
in there talking about the shirt andwhat it means to represent the shirt and
making sure the shirt is celebrated andhoisted into the places where the players and

(38:53):
the coaching staff and the country thingssimple wong. So you know, a
lot, a lot of interesting stuffthere. It's good to see a coach
who knows that this is an opportunityboth for the players as a group and
for them as individuals, and doinghis best to nurture them and use those
use that energy in a positive way. So good stuff. Yeah. Well,

(39:15):
John Hurban is going to be atheme here because for ten of these
kids, he's the gaffer of theirclub team as well, so he's going
to control the whether these kids getopportunities moving forward to and if he sees
good things at this tournament, I'msure that he would be willing to give
them a chance within that TFC systemnext year, a TFC system that we
don't need to tell you needs somework, to say the least. Another

(39:40):
thing John Hurban was pretty good atwas converting dual nationals, finding dual nationals
and getting that shirt on them alittle hint of a dual national. Did
they catch that right? You know? There's a few more names. Well,

(40:00):
I wanted to name the other playersthat we've been working on, dual
citizens that are very, very passionateabout playing for Canada but can also play
for another country and the timing justisn't right for them at the moment,
so they won't be in the WorldCup with anyone else, but there are
potential future Canadians that could be pullingon the big league. Yeah, Andrew

(40:27):
was a little a little bit quiet. Wasn't even a question about doing nationals.
There was a question about players whowere not involved. And he's snook
in that little reference that there aresome ongoing conversations with some players who could
have been involved in this setup,but the time wasn't quite right for them.
So definitely, definitely something to keepan eye on. And I know
it's something that always pricks up theyears of Canadian soccer fans and conversations that

(40:52):
didn't result in a roster spotty Useventeen World Cup don't necessarily mean that they
won't result in a look see downthe line, and uh, we're not
far away from from the next cycleof qualify. That's a great thing about
youth the youth programs is every yearthere's there's a Youth World Cup. Every
year it's just women men women men. So and since we're now uh now

(41:12):
out of the COVID times, hopefullythat continues in that pattern James before we
uh would finished this little segment up. Any final thoughts on what we've just
just heard. Yeah, just oneone last little bit of audio that I
wanted to highlight. A couple ofquotes from from Lazars Defen that's just talking
about about the group ahead of themand sort of the challenge of seeing out

(41:34):
these three matches. I I thinkit's tricky to get Spain in that opening
match. It's a bit of ablessing and a bit of a curse.
You know, you get that thatreally hard match out of the way in
the first game if you can takesomething awesome, but then you have two
games to make up for it.But you know, with Uzbeka standing the
second game and Malley in the third, depending on how their opening game goes
and their results against Spain, you'reyou're you're gonna be a little bit behind

(41:59):
the eight ball if if you don'tmanage to get something against against Spain.
So curious to see if laz isconfidence at the ability of this group to
persevere and get out of that groupstage is going to come to fruition or
not. I think it's really clear. It absolutely offers a springboard for the

(42:25):
rest of their career, not therest of their career, but for the
next stage of their career, andtop performances often, you know, propel
them into club opportunities, propel theminto maybe the next level of youth team,
the under twenties that's coming up nextyear. The under twenties is a
two thousand and five generations, sothese young two thousand and six and two

(42:50):
thousand and seven players are definitely inconsideration for that. So it's it's absolutely
a springboard, and that's the mindsetthat we go into this with as a
program. We know that giving themthese opportunities, you know, the clubs
know that players coming into the nationalteam puts them on the world stage.
They experience the world stage, andnow it just gives them that confidence that

(43:12):
it experienced to take their personal performances, their personal careers to another level.
So the boys obviously want this asa team and they want success as a
team, but they also are ableto thrive off this personally. There's no

(43:32):
doubt that this is going to bea challenge James, But as I said
a little bit earlier on, I'mpretty excited to see what this group of
kids can do. They've they've hadan opportunity to play together. They're looking
to go down and make some history. You know. That's scheer them on
and see what happens here. Ithink a winner or a result would would
be a move forward. We haveto be realistic, you know. I

(43:53):
don't think that this program is ina position to compete to win one of
these competitions yet, but you neverknow. You never know at youth level,
you know, I don't think anyonebefore the you twenties that were in
Canada and twenty seventeen, we're twentyseventeen that missed that one in two thousand
and seven. We're really thinking thatAustria was going to make a run in
that tournament, but they did,so here we are you never know,

(44:16):
speaking of teams that might be lookingto make a run. The US youth
national team has a lot of tieins, a lot of similarities to what
Canada does in all these events.They probably are a little bit I don't
think there's probably about it. Theyare a little bit ahead of us when
it comes to their pathways, totheir development, to their youth team performances.
So we thought that having Charles Bowlingon would be a great guest to

(44:37):
talk about the US in this tournament, talk a little bit of about MLS
Next Pro, whether it's doing whatit's supposed to be doing, and kind
of what the expectations for the Americansin this tournament. During the tournament,
as James said earlier, we willbe doing some episodes after Canada's matches,
will be following the results of thisa little bit closer. So if you

(44:57):
are American listening to this for Charles, I urge you to back and try
us again. We are Canadian developmentshow, but we do touch into stuff
that ties in to MLS, soI think there's a lot of crossover that
you might take something from us,and we'll certainly watch the US pretty closely
in this tournament. James, let'shave Charles on now. James had that
conversation with him yesterday, and thenwe'll be back to wrap the show.

(45:32):
Hello, Hello, and welcome backto the next pot. Really please to
be joined by an old friend,Charles Boom of MLS Soccer dot com,
US Soccer players dot Com and abunch of other outlets. Charlie's a regular
feature around the North American circles.When it comes to covering this game of
ours, and so we're very pleasedthat he could join us to chat a

(45:52):
little bit about the US side headinginto the seventeen World Cup coming up in
Indonesia. Here shortly, Charlie,thanks so much for joining us. Always
a pleasure, always a pleasure.Perfect. This should be a pretty acidded
tournament. We've had a busy coupleof years here with international soccer since we've
come out of the pandemic, andyou know, one of the tournaments that

(46:13):
got lost during that period was thisyear seventeen World Cup. The twenty twenty
one edition had to be canceled,so this will be the first one in
four years. The USA are gogoing in with with pretty high expectations as
usual, I assume, but they'vegotten a new man in charge because Zalo's
cigar is former Chicago Fire defender CostaRican international. As I remember him,

(46:35):
you've had a couple of chances tospeak with him over the years. Can
you just give us your impression ofhim as a coach and what is he
putting in front of his players asthey get ready for this World Cup.
Yeah, you know, Gonzalo isin some ways this is his big close
up in a sense in terms ofhe's been in multiple youth national team coaching

(46:55):
positions for the last few years now, and he's sort of been kind of
grinding, and a big part ofit was we lost, you know,
an entire cycle to COVID with theseU seventeens, and it was a very
tricky process of sort of getting youthnational team programming up and running again after
the lockdowns, and so I hadan interesting conversation with him. Gosh,

(47:19):
I can't remember, it may havebeen two plus years ago now, but
basically he was one of the guysat the forefront of figuring out how they
could get youth national team groups together, do their id camps and try and
you know, sort of respect thepandemic limitations, which were really a patchwork
quilt across the United States, basednot not just state by state, but

(47:40):
in some cases county or town orcity by city. So it was really
a challenging environment. And especially too, we have to remember the US Soccer
Federation, like many others and othersoccer entities in general, was really kind
of went into panic mode in financialterms during the pandemic. They shut down
the Development Academy, which was theyouth league that they had stood up more

(48:07):
than a decade prior and we're spendingmillions on every year, and was widely
seen as a key ingredient in theresurgence of the national teams and the rebuilding
process after the nightmares of the twentyeighteen World Cup qualifying process for the seniors.
And so, you know, Cigariswas just kind of a Chicago guy.
He had stayed around for the mostpart after retirement. As you said,

(48:31):
he is Costa Rican, but he'sbeen in the States for a while
now, really popular in Chicago Firecircles, and I seem to remember that
I think he had done a bitof coaching in the Fire Academy, which
for a while under their previous ownershipwas quite neglected and marginalized. And I
know I'd heard from fans who werereally frustrated that he had left the Fire,

(48:53):
and so it was kind of theFire's loss was US Soccer's game.
So he started with the fifteens.Don't quote me on that, but he's
he kind of just worked his wayup and built the knowledge of the player
pool, put in the hard workto get the process of player identification and
evaluation going again. After the pandemicand now he's finally got a chance to

(49:16):
kind of be the guy in amajor tournament with a pretty talented group.
And I think it's a group that, regardless of what happens in terms of
their performances, and they've got areally tricky group stage assignment in Indonesia,
but regardless of what happens in termsof their team results, it's promising in
the sense of the individual talents thatare coming through and their potential upside in

(49:39):
the long run as professionals and internationals. Yeah, I I remember Cigars as
being a very competent defender back inthose days. And I always find it
interesting what position the player has comeout of when he ends up being a
coach. And we here always liketo see a coach who works his way
up those levels and gets a chanceto take a bigger stage and see what

(50:00):
his career takes him on as well. I do think that it's going to
be interesting to see how this oneplays out. With those lost development years
that we were lost over the pandemiccycle, I think a lot of nations
will be feeling themselves out having nothad that the same sort of strictures that
they're may be used to over thoseyears. I know Canada. Canada didn't
have a lot going on during thatfour year period for these guys. This

(50:22):
group has had a bit of anability to get together a little bit more
than they might have had in thepast. You had the COUNKCAFF Championship,
you had the little series they hadin Brazil. Now you have the little
pre camp that they're having. Thatthat seems like a luxury to me for
Canada to have three opportunities to geta group together before a big competition like
this. But looking over the waythat Canada built their roster, they're still

(50:45):
very very much tied to the threeMLS academies in terms of the number of
guys that account for the majority ofit, with a smattering of internationals.
Looking at the US roster, there's, you know, a good a good
amount of representation from MLS Next Pro. There's a smattering of internationals, a
couple of big names at interesting clubsthat I'd like you to get into.
But before that, can you canyou give us a sense of how MLS

(51:07):
Next Pro is working in terms ofgetting these players ready for this stage in
their career. Yeah, so there'sthere's been just some I guess I would
say it's just the same as itever was in terms of constant change and
evolution and occasionally upheaval in that spaceof the lower divisions, and then increasingly
as the lower divisions sort of connectto the academy levels. You know,

(51:32):
I've heard in multiple different coaches anddirectors and evaluators in multiple different situations and
positions around the country have have talkedfor years about there's sort of a doughnut
hole where you know, the overthe last ten to fifteen years, driven
in large part by the aforementioned DevelopmentAcademy, the United States has has built

(51:53):
at least a passable framework of aplayer pipeline and a set of pathway to
identify and elevate talented kids and keepthem, keep them moving up and raise
the ceilings, you know, forfor the playerpool at large and in the
individuals. And you see that interms of the pedigree of the players that

(52:13):
are on the senior squad right now. But the big, a big challenge
has been getting the academy kids upto the next level. There are some
who can make the jump straight fromlet's say, from a U seventeen academy
side up to a second team whichoriginally was you know, USL Championship and

(52:35):
then now it's MLS x Pro.Tyler Adams is one of the case studies
of that, you know, anearly bloomer who just keeps meeting the challenges
that's put in front of them whenthey're they're moved up through the ranks,
and then continues it all the wayup into the MLS first team and in
his case, over to some ofthe biggest leagues in Europe. But that's
not the necessary norm, right,and there's been kids who struggle to deal

(52:57):
with the scale of the jump froma a top academy youth side and the
environment that you're dealing with too,playing with, working with and competing against
grown men. And so you know, I think when MLS Next Pro came
around, it got wrapped up inthe wider narrative of the soccer wars as
we I guess somewhat sarcastically call them, in terms of professional lower divisions competing

(53:23):
in front another and that goes backto NASL, USL and it's various tiers.
MLS has got involved now and NISAand other independent alternatives and that sort
of thing. So, but onsome level, I think anything MLS does
has to be promoted right and brandedand treated as a big deal just because

(53:43):
it's now. The MLS is itsown ecosystem with its own gravity. But
if you were to just sort ofscale that back and from a developmental standpoint,
say this is a reserve league plus, right, So it's a reserve
league that is specifically focused on youngplayers while not excluding others who who need
that reserve platform. And in thatsense, I think we're only barely two

(54:05):
years in here, but there's someprominencing signs of being able to kind of
fill that hole create a platform forthe kids to keep moving upward. And
every club handles it differently, right, We've now got a big enough league
that there's kind of a wide spectrumof approaches to player development and youth development,
and so it's not universally sort ofuse across that spectrum. But there

(54:30):
are some really interesting case studies,you know, And I would point to
the Columbus Crew as a great example. They won, so yeah, they
won last year, and I thinkthey made it to the final this year
of MLS Next Pro and they weredoing so with a mix of academy kids
who were moving up but so projectsright, and they there was an interesting
couple of Canadians that were mixed intotheir Jason Russell Row, I think is

(54:52):
exhibit A in terms of spotting kidswho are maybe no longer technically kids,
are maybe out of the academy ages, but are still kids in the sense
of their careers as professionals, andgiving them an opportunity to excel at the
MLS Next Pro level and then ratchetthem on up. So you see he's
in the first team with the crewnow and they're pretty pretty darn good first

(55:13):
team at the moment. They're starting. Goalkeeper came up through a similar pathway
as well, so I think there'sinteresting things happening there that it's useful to
kind of apply multiple lenses to thesame league, if that makes sense.
Yeah, no, definitely. Ithink we both remember the old reserve division
and how sort of spotty and ourregular was, So just giving these kids

(55:36):
a chance to train weekend weekend andget those games every weekend I think is
an improvement. Yeah, Columbus hasprobably been one of the clubs that's excelled
most at the MLS Next Pro level, but that same problem that you pointed
out of making that jump from fromthese upper tier academy reserve levels into the
first team is something that we've seenguys at Toronto FC have struggled with.

(55:58):
In particular, I've got a coupleof candidates this year have done quite well
in Kobe Franklin and Alonzo Couelo.One of them an academy guy, one
of them a guy that they recruitedfrom outside and brought in to sort of
fill and need at the club.So, yeah, every team's doing it
a little bit different, and Iknow people want success and results right away,
but for a league two years in, I think they've they've gotten a

(56:19):
lot of good stuff done and soI was happy to see that amount of
MLS Next Pro representation in the USsquad. I was looking back over some
history the twenty nineteen team in theUS and names like Giovanni Rainer, John
Luca Vusio, Ricardo Peppi, JoeScali, Damien Last to give an MLS
Next Pro Champion shoutout to that AustinFC two goalkeeper. Give us a sense

(56:42):
of the group that that Gonzales puttogether for this one. Who are some
of the players that we should bekeeping a nile on. Yeah, it's
fascinating too to consider that. Youknow, I've been watching the youth space
or working in the U space tosome extent or another for more than a
decade now, and I look atthis YOU seventeen squad, and it's got
so many players in fully professional environments, some of whom are already pushing for

(57:04):
first teen minutes. You've got domesticand international kind of pedigree and locations.
I mean, this is the kindof outlook I think that was not even
at the U twenty level really justa few years ago for the United States,
and now it's at the U seventeenlevel. So it is a positive
sign. There's plenty of work stillto be done. There's still a questions

(57:27):
about the efficiency of the way everythingworks. But we'll just run through some
of the names, and I don'twant to suggest that I'm giving short trift
to anyone, just in terms ofthe names that jump out for me.
As players who've gotten some buzz already, who are on a pretty steep upper
trajectory. I think you're going tohear a lot about Cruise Medina. He
is a really talented central midfielder,although he can play multiple roles out of

(57:49):
the San Jose Earthquake system. Again, there's a number of MLS clubs and
big markets who have failed or notquite reached expectations in terms of their ability
to mobilize and maximize the deep widelocal player pools they have at youth levels,
and the Quakes are maybe you know, prime example there. But there's

(58:09):
signs of change, positive change inthat sense, and Medina is kind of
one of the standard bearers of that, so really interesting to see how he
does. I believe he was hewon an award or some was given honors
at the CONCACAFF qualifying as one ofthe top performers there. Just really a
good two way midfielder who can putin the work, but it also has

(58:31):
a nice bit of skill and expressivenesson the ball. So he hasn't really
made it all the way into thefirst team rotation yet, but I'm hoping
that we see that in the seasonahead under Luci Gonzalez, who you know,
just finished his first year in chargeof the Quakes first team and has
development chops on par with anyone inthe country or beyond. And then so

(58:53):
Taho Grene is an interesting player forme. He's a Columbus Crew product.
An example too, I think ofencouraging signs of the wider narrative changing in
the United States youth soccer. Ithink you probably don't have to tell you
that the whole trope of pace andpower and size and athleticism being favored sort

(59:15):
of almost institutionally in the United Statesyouth soccer is just kind of well established
debate or or phenomenon. But theprofessionalization of the youth ranks, uh,
the efforts to really make a moresophisticated, holistic approach to how players are
are are viewed and evaluated and handledis maybe showing some you know, bearing

(59:38):
some fruit with someone like a Brunewho's who's not particularly big or strong or
or dominant athletically, but just technicalgets around the ball, makes good decisions,
fun player to watch, especially ifhe's in a you know, a
team that has the ball, playson the front foot, is able to
ping the ball around and build possessionand build rhythm. And then also,

(01:00:01):
you know, we have this phenomenontoo that's kind of older that predates this
all these you know, reforms thatwe've been talking about so far, which
is you know, players trying toget abroad in any way possible. One
of the I guess complicating factors withMLS is dramatic. I think pivot towards
focusing on and investing in the Uspace is the norm, and MLS is

(01:00:24):
to sign players to young players tolong term contracts, and they're doing so
a younger and younger ages, butthere's still a significant commitment that you're generally
being asked to make as a youngplayer when you sign a first team contract
to be on the books for youknow, five years is the norm,
I would say, or you knowwhat they generally want, and as you
can imagine, that can feel veryrestrictive, especially if you have ambitions to

(01:00:45):
get across the Atlantic to Europe assoon as possible. So there's a little
bit of gray area. I guesswe can talk about unattached f C a
little bit and kind of another oldtrope, but there's players that are in
various phases of trying to get overEurope in whatever way they can, and
obviously the ideal is to find aCroatian grandfather who can get you an EU

(01:01:07):
pass for it, like the ChristianPolisig model. But that's not possible forever
and right. And so in somecases clubs, our players are signing with
USL championship clubs, maybe a shorterterm deal where they feel like they can
get first team minutes, first seamexposure and then jump over from there.
Others are just taking the leap.Maybe they have citizenship EU citizenship access somewhere

(01:01:28):
in their family tree and can hopover. In some cases are even in
like second third, fourth division clubsin places like Spain, and so there's
a number of interesting players are broughtin that sense. I think you're gonna
hear a lot more about Qrole Figaroa, who has a really fascinating backstory.
He's at Liverpool's academy. They seemto take him seriously as a very real

(01:01:50):
prospect for advancement in their system,which is no small matter. He is
the son of Maynor Figaroa, who'sa hunter in international who played in MLS
for most of the back half ofhis club career. Showed incredible longevity,
and the kid was eligible to playfor the US and Honduras, and he
picked the United States, which wasa little bit surprising to some people,
but I think it suggests the scaleof his ambitions and the scope of his

(01:02:15):
potential that he's gone that route.He's a striker, he's a goal scorer.
He's had a few injury problems thathave kind of disrupted his progress at
some phases of his career. ButI'm really intrigued to see if he's fit
and firing and can maybe put hisstamp on this tournament, because he's got
the kind of talent that can dothat. This is a potential Best eleven
tournament player if everything clicks for him, and then I'll stop after one more.

(01:02:40):
I'll look at Micah Burton, who'sanother one who's benefited from the next
pro pathways with Austin FC. He'sbounced around a little bit. He's actually
a Minnesota kid, and there's awhole other episode probably that we can do
about Minnesota United's difficulties and shortcomings inthe youth space. But he's an example
of somebody who when they closed theiracademy entirely, or I guess they would

(01:03:02):
prefer I say they refurbished and repurposedtheir academy, but during the latter stages
of the pandemic they had, theybasically paused everything, and the kids that
were in the middle of the processwith them generally had to go somewhere else
and find their way, and Burtonis one of those who wound up in
Austin. Down at Austin, Isee they've they've got some smart people running

(01:03:24):
their youth and academy programs and theirsecond team, and he's taken advantage.
He's one of the top players inthe league this year as they made it
all the way to the championship,and so I'm intrigued to see how he
does on the Spotlight. Under theSpotlight as well. Yeah, totally.
One of the reasons Joann and Iwanted to put this show together was that
there's so much that happens in thisyouth space around North America that sort of

(01:03:46):
goes under the rain iron. Soyeah, hearing about the stories in Minnesota,
the Honduran I remember Minor Figurella fromhis time with Wigan, I believe,
and of course his time his timein Concacafe. And you know,
if only every child had a Croatiangrandparent, then all this would be a
lot easier. But it's a toughdecision. It's a tough decision to ask

(01:04:08):
a sixteen year old, you know, Ja Qil Marshall already comes to mind
of you know, do you wantto lock yourself down for five years or
do you want to keep your optionsopen? What's the best decision for your
career, what's the best decision foryour family. It's a lot to put
on a young man and you youwould hope in the grand scheme that all
those decisions are made for the bestof the player and for the sport,
but it's a business, so there'salways other factors coming to play. Part

(01:04:30):
of my part of my history ofdigging was, you know, the best
best finish ever for the US sidewas in nineteen ninety nine fourth place finish.
That was a heck of a squadlanding Donovan, DeMarcus Beasley, Bobby
Kanvia, Gucci on Yeu, KyleBeckerman, amongst others. But generally speaking,
the quarterfinals seems to have been theceiling for the US. At the
U seventeen World Cup, what arethe expectations for this group coming in to

(01:04:54):
what is potentially a pretty tough groupstage. Yeah, you could almost say
the same thing about youth national teamsin general. That's been a ceiling for
the U twenties. The twenties havekind of slowly, steadily ramped up their
performance levels at the World Cups,but they just can't seem to get past
that hurdle. And I think that'sactually a more useful signposts maybe than tournament

(01:05:16):
performances tend to be. Right,we all know that one off month long
tournament at any level of the nationalteams is always risky when you turn and
talk about it, you know thatsnapshot that has often applied to make these
sweeping, big picture judgments or decisionsabout the whole systems. Right, But
I think that epitomizes the challenge infront of the United States men's programs at

(01:05:41):
all levels. Is it's one thingto rise to the top of the CONCACAF
heap, stricier than we think orthan we thought in past decades, to
stay there than it might seem.But the next step is the hardest,
and that's to truly climb into theglobal elite, that sort of top eight,
top ten in the world who justare breathing a different oxygen, right,

(01:06:05):
And the senior squad got a humblingreminder of that last month when they
played Germany and a friendly up inConnecticut, and you see this ability to
play with the best for spans ofa game, for periods here and there,
and you see maybe the talent gapis smaller now, But the talent
is only one part of it,right, And it's not just across the

(01:06:27):
eleven. It's across the twenty.Then it's across on your roster, then
it's across the full player pool.Then you start to look deeper, and
I think that's much. You know, a similar kind of story you can
tell with the seventeens. You know, the talent has been here for some
time. The talent is getting moreopportunities to excel now and grow. But
how do you become a program onpar with England or compete with them right

(01:06:53):
like that? Or Germany or Franceor Spain or Argentina. This is intensely
difficult. There are so many layersof culture and and infrastructure and UH and
the professionalism all of that. SoI think, you know what, what
the the general baseline expectation for thisgroup, like most in their positions and

(01:07:14):
the going into a World World Cuplike this, is to get out of
the group, be ready to play, have a coherence structure in eleven for
your your first knockout game and thensee what happens. Right, So much
comes down to the randomness of thedraw and other results elsewhere. But I
think if they can, if theycan manage the group phase, which is
going to be a real challenge,right, so they if we if we,

(01:07:36):
if we look down here, Iwant to make sure I get the
order of the games right. Butthey you know they've got they've got a
tough task in front of them.But if you get into that knockout phase,
then you can start to dream alittle bit. But again, like
the U twenty World Cup earlier thisyear, it was a really good example
of a team that did so right, but the effort you expand and actually

(01:08:00):
even compare it to the men's squadat the World Cup and cutter. Getting
out of the group is one thing, but how you get out of the
group is another. So you know, the Netherlands cruises through the group stage
still fit and fresh, still hastricks up their sleeve and plenty of gas
left in the tank for the knockoutphases, whereas the US were sort of

(01:08:20):
shattered as it turned out by thetime they got to the round of sixteen.
So I think those little details arewhere things really get challenging, you
know, for a country in thesituation that the US is in. So
anyway, just to make sure Iget this, so they open against South
Korea, then they played Burkina Fasso, and then they finish against France.
So it's tricky, right, Imean, they should absolutely have the ambitions

(01:08:44):
to finish in the top two.There they can get through with a good
third place performance. But I couldeasily see them coming last year because you're
talking about you know, France isjust an elite squad at all levels.
The US have had a couple offriendlies different youth levels against France in the
last year two and you see it. You see the gap. I mean
just the talent, the maturity ofthe talent, the depth of the talent

(01:09:06):
is is really impressive. I thinkthe guys can go toe to toe with
the Career Republic and then Burkina fossomaybe a bit more of a wild card,
but I know they're gonna be They'regonna have plenty of talent, They're
gonna be difficult in one v onesituations. So there's so much that goes
into it, right, and thenthe order in which you're playing these teams
and trying to get results in thefirst two so that you don't need something

(01:09:28):
from France and all those little thingsthat go into it. Yeah, if
I'm not mistaken, Burkina Fosso isa team that knocks Nigeria, five time
champions out of the African Combinations toprevent them from being at this U seventeen
World Cup. I think you know, we won't get into Canada's struggles at
the youth level here, Danna,and I'll dig into that a little bit
more, but I think Canada andthe US are are in the same boat

(01:09:49):
here. You always hear that youknow, you twelve, you thirteen.
The talent is all there, butthere's something that happens as you get closer
to the professional game where the depthand the breadth of its experience and that
culture piece just isn't there in thesame way. And that sort of stuff
takes takes time to build. Youcan't rush you can't rush history. And
so you know, we'll be keepingan eye on Canada in this U seventeen

(01:10:12):
World Couple, to keeputt an eyeon the US and this Charlie, thanks
so much for joining us, andmaybe we'll check back in what you as
the tournament goes on. Indeed,indeed great chopping it up with you and

(01:10:38):
welcome back. Thanks again to Charles. Charles has always been great with his
time through the many years that I'vespent interviewing him and podcasting. He's always
a guy that you ask him forfifteen minutes and he'll give you fifty.
And he's in Encyclopedia in terms ofwhat's happening in the American system. So
we do really appreciate Charles's time,and we hope that that was an interesting
interview and a beneficial interview for youout there, our next pod fans fans,

(01:11:01):
I don't know if you're fans yourlisteners. James thoughts on Charles and
the Americans performance, and sort ofjust overall thoughts on the U seventeen tournament
before we say goodbye. Yeah,it was. It was really good to
catch up with Charlie. He andI go go back a fair bit and
I am a lot of soccer days. I haven't a chance to speak with
them much in the last few years, and you know, I think this

(01:11:24):
the thing that stood out to methe most is whether we're talking about Canada
or the US you think that they'rekind of silo is but so many of
the so many of the issues andthe difficulties and the struggles and the successes
run in parallel. And so thenumber of times that he would mention something
and I was just sitting there nodin my head wanting to interject a Oh,

(01:11:44):
that's exactly like this. Oh that'sexactly like that. And so it's
always interesting to come at the sameproblem from a slightly different point of view.
And you know, I think ifif the US can find a way
to find the consistency and to buildthe debt and to find a way to
have success at these tournaments, it'ssomething that Canada can do. And as
you said, you know, we'regoing into this twenty twenty three edition of

(01:12:08):
the U seventeen World Cup, andyou know, I don't think anybody's going
to be placing any money on Canadato win it. I'm sure you would
get amazing odds, but we're notthere yet, and we have to be
patient. And part of this isis inching the forward program, one competition,
one tournament, one year, onecamp at a time. And so
I'm going to be curious to seehow the US does. As I mentioned

(01:12:30):
in the interview last the group atthe last edition has seen a good number
of guys push on to that seniorside, which you know, ultimately is
one of the goals as well ofthese youth competitions is is find the next
crop of youngsters who are going tobe representing the senior side in the near
future. So excited to see whatthe US can do. It's a pretty
tough group of France, South Koreaand Latina fosso, but it should be

(01:12:53):
a fascinating tournament all around. Italways is, and it's chaotic to watch
a youth tournament. You know,these players are are really really talented,
but they're not fully formed yet,so you tend to get less tactical consistency,
that's say, and that can resultin some some beautiful chaos. So

(01:13:15):
so yeah, that that's uh.Let's get up early and watch this tournament
and we'll talk about it here onnext pot in the days ahead. Thanks
again to Charles, thanks for thetime, for all the people that we
spoke to today. Thanks to theKing of Kensington for joining me as always,
and until next time, goodbye.