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This week's edition of Breaking the Line features a hot topic across the soccer landscape and the sports world as a whole: the economics of sport, and youth sport in particular. 

ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken dive into this nuanced topic, discussing the current economic model of youth sports and the reasons behind it, the emerging role of private equity and big business in the youth sport space, and what all this means for clubs, leagues, parents and players.

Throughout this hour-long conversation, the conversation weaves between how these economic factors affect the youth sports experience, where soccer falls in the broader youth sports landscape, and how the ECNL balances soccer and business decisions.

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels.

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The Breaking the Line team has returned for another player-focused episode, this time discussing player development. 

ECNL Vice President kicks off the conversation with a thought-provoking question: if you were building an ECNL club from scratch today, where would you start?

With that as the starting point, he and ECNL President Christian Lavers weave their way through all the different aspects of player development: coaching, training, club roles, where does a league fit in to player development, player growth and more. 

Throughout the discussion, the pair give advice to all different parties, sharing their dos and don’ts, and define what growth and player development looks like at different age groups. 

The episode closes out with the same question posed at the beginning, but does their answers change? Listen to find out. 

If YOU were starting an ECNL club from scratch today, what would be your first move? Let us know on social media or in the comments. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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It's a very special episode of Breaking the Line, as the podcast celebrates its 125th episode!

After an invigorating discussion about navigating birth years and skill levels within youth soccer, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken continue the conversation with a parent email regarding how to properly handle when an athlete has the skill to compete at a higher level, but not necessarily the physical attributes to do so. 

This question, paired with some realizations from Ep. 124, leads to the meat of this week's episode: the parent-player-coach dynamic. 

The Breaking the Line team dives into the relationship from all three parties, and discusses the roles and responsibilities of each side of the dynamic, and how to ensure everyone is copacetic and have positive relationships and interactions throughout an athlete's journey. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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After a quick Labor Day pause, the Breaking the Line team returns to your airwaves. Fall is in the air, the kids are back at school and the 2025-26 soccer season is ready to kick off. 

This week, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken discuss two topics that were submitted by Breaking the Line listeners. First up was a question about a topic that has been discussed at length on the podcast: birth year vs. school year. This episodes, the pair examine how clubs are going to navigate the shift beginning in 2026, and more importantly, the distinction that not every player will automatically stay with their birth year or their school year, and that there are a multitude of factors players, parents and coaches need to examine when determining which team these players born from Aug. 1 - Dec. 31 will play on. 

The second segment of the show follows a similar through process, which is how, as a parent, do you know when your player has outgrown his current team environment? Once again, it's a gray area, but Lavers and Bracken go through their ideas of what development looks like at different age groups, what are good determiners of development, and more. 

It's a fantastic episode that every soccer parent will want to listen to, and the BTL crew even gives a teaser for episode 125. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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Breaking the Line, the ECNL Podcast, welcomes newly-hired Pre-ECNL Commissioners Bobby Reiss and Ruairi McGuinness to the airwaves for a riveting discussion surrounding the ECNL’s entry into Zone 1: the Pre-ECNL. 

ECNL President Christian Lavers sits down with Reiss and Ruari to dive into exactly what the Pre-ECNL is, what the ECNL has for the Pre-ECNL platform this upcoming season, how the ECNL plans to balance atheltes’ desire to win with the need for development, especially in Zone 1, and so much more. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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Fresh off the ECNL National Playoffs and Finals, and a live podcast recording, Breaking the Line returns to the airwaves with its newest episode featuring a very special guest, US Club Soccer’s Technical Director Ross Paule. 

Paule joins ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken to discuss an ambitions new initiative from US Club Soccer: expanding the id2 program to multiple age groups in hopes of continuing to bolster the United States’ youth soccer scouting network and player pool. 

The Breaking the Line team discusses exactly what the id2 expansion looks like, and what role the newly announced ECNL U14 Spotlight Games play in the overall youth soccer talent search in the younger age groups. Paule also gives insight on how US Club Soccer and US Soccer work together to expand the pool, and how each organization is handling the increased scouting network. 

It’s a fantastic episode examining how the US can get better at soccer development, and how that development can translate into youth and senior national team success. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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Filmed LIVE on Day 1 of the ECNL Boys National Playoffs in Redmond, Washington, the Breaking the Line team sits down right on the fields to discuss all things ECNL Playoffs. 

ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken are joined by ECNL Boys Commissioner Jason Kutney to give insights about everything surrounding the ECNL Boys Playoffs: how many teams get in, the formatting, why there's only Champions League for most age groups, how college scouts fit into the equation, and much more. 

The BTL Crew also has a conversation about how you cannot decouple winning from player development, and how that concept translates across all levels of soccer, not just youth soccer. 

Breaking the Line producer Jacob Born dives into the mailbag and the team answers questions submitted from listeners and the Bracken Brain Buster has the guys remembering their favorite ECNL moments. 

It's a jam-packed episode from the best event on the youth soccer calendar. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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The Breaking the Line team returns for its newest episode diving into a topic of discussion at every ECNL club and across the youth soccer landscape: high school soccer vs. club soccer. 

ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken discuss why the ECNL refuses to make a mandate regarding high school soccer, how clubs navigate high school and club seasons, and just some of the many reasons and scenarios why a player may choose to play club and/or high school soccer. 

That discussion leads into a second topic: would you rather be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a small pond? Lavers and Bracken tackle this question, giving their personal opinions and how it could apply to various players and clubs in the league, and then are joined by producer Jacob Born and broadcaster Dean Linke to round out the show and to tease a live podcast recording at ECNL Boys Playoffs in Seattle later in June. 

The Breaking the Line team would also like to give a hearty thank you to all of our podcast listeners, as the show eclipsed the 75,000 all-time listens during Episode 119. 

As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels. 

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Breaking the Line is back with ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken and the team hits two topics this week that every soccer parents should be paying attention to.

In Episode 119, Breaking the Line first sets out to break some myths about the odds of becoming a pro soccer player. Three out of every four parent believes their child has the skills to turn pro in whatever sport they play. The reality is, only 1% of all youth athletes turn pro. In soccer, academy players earning first team minutes vary by club; some it's as high as 50%, others it's as low as 1%. And if a kid signs on to an academy at the U13-U14 level, it's nearly impossible to make an academy. So how can clubs and parents be realistic about an individual's talent level without crushing their dreams?

That discussion leads to another one, where wins and losses are replaced by a "quality of play" algorithm to determine who is the better team; both on the pitch that specific day and over the course of a season. How does this help a player develop? Does this teach kids the wrong things about soccer? What role does analytics have within the game? It's a great discussion, one that has strong opinions on both sides. 

As always, thank you for tuning into the podcast. Make sure to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, follow the ECNL on all social channels, and if you have any questions or podcast topic suggestions for the Breaking the Line podcast, send them to us at https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions. 

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In a Part 2 of an incredible discussion surrounding coaching within youth soccer, Breaking the Line welcomes ECNL Coaching Methodology Advisor Doug Lemov for an incredible discussion on coaching philosophy, how to develop coaches, how to effectively use training sessions and more. 

ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken dive into all of these topics, diving deeper into topics from Breaking the Line Episode 117, and expanding the conversation to give advice for current coaches, current athletes, and current parents. 

If you're a fan of soccer, of coaching, or just of sport in general, you're not going to want to miss this episode. 

As always, if you have any questions or podcast topic suggestions for the Breaking the Line podcast, send them to us at https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions. And please, follow the ECNL on all social channels, subscribe to Breaking the Line, and don't miss all the exciting content being published on the ECNL's YouTube page!