The Inside Scoop with Anytime Soccer Training - Discussing Youth Soccer from Around the World

Every coach knows the problem: the game ends, the moment's gone, and the feedback that actually changes how a kid plays never makes it past the parking lot.

On this episode of The Inside Scoop, I sit down with the founder of Impressive Play to talk about why he skipped the stats dashboard and video tagging tools everyone else is building — and went with voice AI instead.

We get into how it actually works, what "good" post-game data looks like for a coach in the hour after the final whistle, the mistakes teams make when they roll it out, and how you use AI without losing the relationship side of coaching — the read-the-room stuff no stat line will ever capture.

If you're a coach, club director, or soccer parent tired of feedback that sits in a folder and never changes Tuesday's practice, this one's for you. 

I sat down with pro footballer Erik McCue, who's played in Thailand, Sweden, and the U.S. — and asked him what actually separates European soccer from ours. His answer surprised me: in Sweden, his team runs 1-2 full video sessions a day, breaking down every training rep like game film.

In the U.S., that happened maybe twice a week. We talk about what it's like installing a new tactical system with a new coaching staff, why raw athleticism gets you noticed here but barely matters there, and what he now tells young American players trying to make the jump overseas.

Everyone thinks they've found the fix for pay-to-play. Free training centers. A revamped ODP. Sounds great on paper.

But what if the "fix" actually makes things worse?

I've spent years building something in this space, and I still don't have all the answers — but I know enough to see when a good-hearted idea is about to backfire. In this episode, I get honest about the incentive nobody wants to admit exists, the parts of my own thinking I'm still working through, and the alternative I keep coming back to that has nothing to do with bigger budgets or bigger buildings.

This one's less "here's the answer" and more "here's what's actually been sitting with me" — and I want to hear where you land on it too.

It happened again. Two years ago, a tournament got rained out halfway through. No third game. No refund. No champion. Just a bunch of disappointed kids standing on a wet field.

This time I decided to get answers. I sat down with Dutch Schotemeyer, a coach and tournament director who's run over 300 events in Southern California, and I asked him straight up: what's supposed to happen when the rain stops play? Is there a backup plan? Should there be one?

What he told me is going to change how I pick every tournament from now on — the fine print in registration nobody reads, why the field matters more than you think, and how directors actually decide who "wins" when a tournament never finishes.

If you've ever paid good money and walked away with a soaked, disappointed kid and zero answers — this one's for you.

Check out Dutch's tournaments:
🔗 alisocup.com🔗 sanclementecup.com🔗 modernsoccerparent.com

I keep hearing that pay-to-play soccer needs to be "fixed," but I think most of that conversation misses what parents are actually buying.

This isn't a necessity — it's a lifestyle choice, closer to walking into a BMW dealership than a Honda one. Parents pick up side hustles to afford the uniforms, the hotels, the "experience," and clubs know cutting those costs risks the very thing families are paying for.

I compare it to luxury car shopping, break down why clubs aren't exactly incentivized to trim the fat, and admit where I think clubs actually could do better. Curious what you think after hearing this one.

My guest Goran has lived more soccer cultures than almost anyone I've talked to — born in Croatia during wartime, raised through a Bundesliga club's academy in Germany, thrown into American club soccer in Dallas, then training at a high-intensity academy partnered with FC Barcelona in Argentina.

We go country by country on what actually changes: the fitness-heavy grind in Germany, the small-group technical focus in Argentina, and everything in between.

He also tells me about Teach Me Too, his "Airbnb for private lessons" that connects parents with vetted coaches and college players. If you want a real picture of what youth soccer looks like outside the US, this one's it.

People assume soccer's cheaper abroad because parents there grew up playing, so they just make better coaches. I don't think that's it.

Coaching is its own skill — playing the game doesn't hand it to you for free, same as it wouldn't in baseball or football. What's actually different is culture: those parent-coaches stay at the same club for years, like volunteer firefighters, and get better through repetition.

I break down why that myth is wrong and what I think it'd take to build something similar here.

Most players go years without an honest read on where they stand — not because coaches are unkind, but because nobody's built the yardstick.

I break down an idea I've been chewing on: start with proven, established players, work backwards to define what "good" actually looks like technically, tactically, physically, and mentally, then use that to calibrate real feedback and real improvement plans. Got your own way of measuring where a player stands? Come share it on the show.

People love the idea that solidarity payments and training compensation will fund grassroots soccer and motivate coaches — but does it actually work that way?

I break down how these FIFA systems really function, why the payoff is more lottery than income, and what US soccer is still missing to build a real professional pipeline.

This episode, I pushed back on the idea that executive salaries are driving up youth soccer costs. Less than 2% of Americans make half a million a year, and that money's concentrated in tech and finance — not soccer admin. I also drew a line between this debate and the corporate CEO pay debate, which is really about wage-sharing, not pricing.

Bottom line: if we want to fix soccer costs, we need to look at club P&Ls, real demand for paid training, and the volunteer-vs-paid divide — not just point fingers at executives. I asked listeners to send data or push back if they disagree.

Also plugged the Anytime Soccer Training relaunch — 5,000+ videos, travel passports, global races. Free to join at anytime-soccer.com.