U.S. Soccer

There were all these new rules.

And I feel like for me, I was at Man City, um, that spring, and I had rolled my ankle, and I remember there was some tension with US Soccer because Man City wouldn't release me to go into camp, and it was like two camps before the Olympics, so it was like a huge deal.

And I was making this decision to should I come back to the NWSL before the Olympics or should I stay at Man City? Man City was obviously like such a great place for me to be, and I felt this really weird, like, thing with US Soccer happening where I think that they were like mad that I was playing overseas, but nobody could really outright say that.

And I think that whole thing, plus my injury being, having been my ankle and then kind of turning into my knee being so bad, I think that whole, like, year for me felt like messy with US Soccer.

And Vlatko, by really no fault of his own, was like in the middle of that.

And so I have like a, this like personal and like injury-related thing in my kind of relationship with Vlatko where it just wasn't...

I know

... already mentally thrown off? Like, were we just not set up for success? Like, was it...

What was the group like around that competition?

competition?Well, US Soccer, so you know, '94, um, we're hosting the World Cup, the Men's World Cup, and US Soccer asks everyone to quit whatever they're doing and move to Florida.

Um, and so January 1995, we're all showing up and training together and living together in Central Florida to prepare for the '95 Women's World Cup, where we're defending.

And then that happens, and then we reconvene in January of '96.

So I was in charge of, you know, standing up the operations and also, you know, to a level where it was classified as a Division 1 league-

Mm

... at US Soccer, which meant it had to meet certain standards.

It had to have a certain footprint, it had to have a certain operating budget, it had to have certain minimum standards.

What was the group like around that competition?

Well, U.S. soccer, so, you know, 94, we're hosting the World Cup, the Men's World Cup.

And U.S. soccer asks everyone to quit whatever they're doing and move to Florida.

And so January 1995, we're all showing up and training together and living together.

in central Florida to prepare for the 95 women's world cup where we're defending.

It's really hard.

And it, of course, takes a long time to recover.

So I was in charge of standing up the operations and also to a level where it was classified as a Division I league at U.S. Soccer, which meant it had to meet certain standards.

Listen, I mean, what he said, everybody's thinking it.

I mean, from the moment he resigned with the U.S. Soccer Federation, everyone knows it's four years.

Everyone knows that's a long time.

Everyone knows that a lot can happen in the interim.

He talked about a lot of other things.

He talked about how excited he is about this crop of young players that's coming through the U.S. ranks.

He talked about how happy he is to work with the U.S. Soccer Federation, although they just signed him to a new contract, so go figure.

And he talked a lot about the Olympics and some of the competitions that are coming up.

Yes.

But in general, I think this is part of the larger story of U.S. soccer, which is that we're seeing investment actually work towards both the sort of larger... quote-unquote like you know economic class that is funding it but also i think towards like building a better version of u.s soccer overall which it's hard to argue with

yeah i'm a i'm you know obviously just like you guys skeptical of private equity and their usual uh incentives and and what they're trying to do here i think you know again in order for this to make sense for them uh usl but obviously the mls hometown soccer holdings, MLS next pro thing, which is very interesting parallel because it's the same idea.

It's just being executed in different ways in order for this to make sense.

You know, I had two Oh sevens that I thought were the country's best.

And I let the Federation know people within the Federation.

No, no, in whatever it would be.

I don't know what year it was.

But the real kind of more like insidious problem that we face is you can actually ID a kid and it not matter.

And Peter Miller had a fantastic, an awful interaction years ago about recognizing Brooks Thompson, who at the time was, you know, the next big thing.

And he says something to the Federation.

The Federation's like, yeah, whatever.

I also had to find narrative strategy to explain what I do, because when I say storytelling, I always think that people, especially when I'm talking with people in the corporate world or in brands or in, you know, I always think they, I have this, I imagine they imagine me with like, you know, a ukulele, you know what I mean? With folk songs and like, yes, around a fire, you know, and what I mean is like, how do you how do you translate storytelling into purposeful, impactful, sort of, you know, impactful narrative that achieves what you what you need to achieve? Meaning like if you're trying to sell something or if you're trying to communicate something, right? So meaning what I'm doing is I'm not telling your story per se, but I'm helping you define and focus your narrative strategy, right? So for example, I'll give you a good example.

U.S. Soccer Federation recently launched the Soccer Forward Foundation.

A really good friend of mine, Lex Shalott, who was wonderful, who comes from Beyond Sport, and then more recently, the Qatar Foundation Legacy Initiative for the 22 World Cup.

She moved back to lead the Soccer Forward Foundation.

Right.

Living in this ecosystem.

So like, how does U.S. soccer talk about it? How do they talk about it in all their different departments? How do they talk about it to their 200 plus member associations? How do we leverage it so that the member associations can use this or talk about it or use it to their advantage? You know what I mean? Right.

So how do we you know, how does it live in their social media? You know, does it live in their social media? How can it live in the future on social media? And then how do you talk about it? within, you know, without fighting with the U.S.

These guys talk all things grassroots soccer.

They had the president of the USL on, and he was talking about ProRel, and they are working with US Soccer about changing...

the definition of Division I when it comes to seating capacity, trying to get that number lower so that it's sustainable for a league to have pro-rel, because right now it's not.

That's a big deal.