Talent Isn't Enough: Youth Soccer Development

[0:00] Hey guys, welcome back to the podcast series that we've started. But again, I'm the host. I'm Devansh. I'm also the host. I am not going to speak about that at all because the next 30, 40 minutes are about this gentleman who is here with me with a lot of experience and we're going to have a banger episode. So, Guy, take us, give us a quick introduction to the audience. Tell us what you do, where you're located, how big is your club. Just quick facts and then, yeah, let's get started with that. So, first of all, Devansh, I want to thank you for the invitation. Excited to be part of your project.

[0:51] My name is Guilherme Henry. I'm from Brazil. I live in the United States for the last 12 years. I did my college pathway here. I did my master's. Currently, I'm the academy director and the U-20 head coach at El Paso Locomotive in West Texas. Fun fact that we are in the border between the United States and Mexico. On the other side of the wall here, we have Juarez. So, it's a very special opportunity for me because this region, there are so many good players. Diego Luna came from here. Ricardo Pepi came from here and between others and hopefully from, we have some guys right now in the club that will be playing in high levels in the next few years. Our club, I would say we have like around 400 players.

[1:43] We have ECNL, ECNL RL, N1, and we have the girls program as well with ECNL RL. And also, we have the recreational that for me is very exciting and they call them, we are known as Locos. So, the little kids are called Lil Locos. So, Locos means crazy in English. So, I think it's a very nice setup that we have to make this pathway from the early ages all the way to the professional soccer or college or whatever comes. Amazing. And how many kids again are you guys serving? 400 players. Yeah. Maybe a little more. Yeah, that's amazing. So, I guess the first question that I usually ask all people that I meet with is what separates your club versus others? So, there are so many clubs out there.

[2:47] Even, forget all the successful ones. There's also new sports clubs, new soccer clubs that start and they dry or they fail in the first few months. So, what keeps you guys running and then what makes your club different than maybe one down the street? I think that's a very good question. would be transparent to you. I have been working many clubs across the country. I think this club definitely is a club that we are so concerned about each player. We have a very clear understanding that not everybody will be playing professional soccer. Maybe some days when I even go to college. But we should have a place for each kid because I think sports is a very important part of the human development as well. You know, being part of a team, socialize, be around.

[3:41] Here we have a big military base. So, we have people from around the world, around the country. We have a big Latino presence. So, these interactions, learning from each other, different backgrounds, different ages. I think that's very important. My side, I'm more responsible to make this pathway between college or professional. But there are other people involved to make the most fun experience, to teach life lessons, to make them have fun, to love the game. So, I'd say what makes us different is that we actually want to help each player on the ECNL program to go to college or to have a professional experience. We want everybody in the ECNL RL to have an opportunity to achieve what they want in life. And we have people responsible for each department and to make sure that we deliver in these results. But not just delivering, educating the parents, educating the players what it looks like.

[4:42] Because I think that's, I think some clubs, I don't say fail sometimes, like as well, depends on the staff and the resources that you have. But you want to take the players in a pathway that they don't know about. They don't know what it takes. College is not as hard. But if you don't indicate what's division one, what's division two, what's division three, what's junior college, like every player has a different pathway, you know? So, I think we do a really good job on that. And I would say as well, I'm very fortunate to say that I work with people that care about the players that we work with. So, we have like a week, a Monday meeting. We always touch bases of like, what's the progress that we're making? What are we struggling? How can we find solutions?

[5:33] And I have never been in a environment like this, you know, that we care so much about what we're doing for the people that we serve. Amazing. And there's a few words and few themes that I just heard from you. One is care, that you care about them. And it has to be genuine care because anybody can know when it's fake versus genuine. And the other thing that you mentioned, which is very important, and I want to go deeper in that, is personalized feedback. Because each kid is unique. Each kid's goals are unique. So, how we come up with a plan, you said, that supports that unique person's pathway.

[6:24] And how do you guys do that? So, if you were to break it down, Guy, come to you as a student. What are the first few steps? Do you sit down with you? Take me through, like, what are the first few steps? How do you determine my goal? How do you educate me? And how do we move forward? So, first thing about the caring part, I would say everybody says that they care. But, as you said, caring has a price. And sometimes the time is the extra work. It's checking on the people that are involved. So, that requires a lot of energy. And sometimes I'm just tired and I'm here again, you know. But the process here is very, very simple. I'll talk more about the ECNL. That's what I'm responsible for.

[7:14] So, I'm the director for the U13, U14, U15, U16, U17. And I'm the coach, but also the director for the U20s. So, first thing we do is, especially for the U17s and U20s, I have been working very close to them. So, I know exactly what are the best players. I know more or less, like, what's the level. So, I work directly with the college placement director of, like, I believe this kid, it's a D1 caliber, but that's where he stands right now. So, we have, like, IDP or evaluation, like, that's the level that he has, what he needs to learn. And I talk directly with the coaches to, like, that's what we need to be doing. For example, today at 12, we have a training session between the U20s and the U17s.

[8:06] It's specific for each position. So, we want to improve those certain details to them. But at the same time, like, we have monthly meetings of conversations like what school this player should be going to, or maybe this player is a first team caliber in one, two years. So, what should we do to them to provide the resources for them to achieve the level that they need to go in that pathway? And then talk to the parents. I think parents are super important, as I said. You cannot make a decision for them, you know? You need to understand what they want. So, I would say the step two is sitting with the parents and the players to understand, like, where do you want to go? What pathway do you want to go? If they want to go college, what's the major that you want? Because that also makes a big filter, you know?

[8:57] Sometimes you put so much effort in a school that don't even have the major that they want to. So, it's useless, you know? I would say those are the main two steps. And the third one is a consistently weekly, daily feedback to them on terms of attitude, on terms of commitment, on terms of performance, on terms of... We have here, especially for the U17s and U20s, we say that the performance doesn't come only on the field, off the field as well. So, have a clear highlight video, professional one, because, you know, sometimes the kids do anyway. And I tell them, like, you're selling yourself. The better the quality, the better the chances of you succeeding. So, it's an investment that's worth it, you know? It's an investment that's not wasting money on getting something. So, there are some lists of what they are expected to do, what's the deadline, and they have to do it.

[9:50] And we just guide them. And I think the college placement director does a really good job on connecting the kids, on opening the opportunities, on educating the parents. That's not so much my job, but my job is on a daily basis to make sure that the players are learning and are going in the right direction to do those things. And if they don't do it, they don't play, they don't train, there's a little punishment. Because I think it's not just being annoying or being strict to them, but it's preparing them for life, you know? You want to succeed, you need to have this discipline in this process here. And I'd say the main challenge for these, for parents and players, is the lack of patience. Because sometimes, for example, we're going to have an ID camp here in December. We bring a lot of college coaches, but the focus is the U20s and the U17s, because they are more prepared, they are next in line to go to the college pathway, right?

[10:49] And some parents are complaining, oh, my U16 has to be there, because they can't even talk to the coaches yet. Why they have to be there? You know, be patient, instead of focusing on yourself has to be in the ID camp. Why are you not focusing on what he should be learning right now? What should he be learning, developing right now for next year to be able to go? So I think that comes from education and caring, because gets frustrated when someone doesn't understand what you're doing sometimes. It's not the fault, you know? Maybe the communication is not right. Managing expectations, like that's the pathway, that's the process. And I feel like we do really well. I think we have a lot of players going to really good schools and having more successful cases. So I feel like in two, three years, hopefully, we have more and more cases that the parents can trust the process that we have.

[11:47] As is something new, I feel like sometimes there are questions because they don't understand. So I think we need to also prove ourselves a little bit, and it just will come naturally. Yeah, well, a lot of things to take away from that. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. So there's two different audiences. One is obviously audiences as in the people that you're dealing with. One is parents, and one is the students. So I want to know from you individually, again, assume some other club director or coach is listening to our conversation. What are some tips that you would give them on how to communicate with parents, especially when they're angry? Many good tips. And on the other side, on the athlete side, what differentiates a good one versus a great one? So when an athlete comes or he's training, I'm sure you can tell.

[12:50] You obviously don't tell them, but I'm sure internally you can spot the difference who's willing to go that extra mile versus who's not. So in your language, what differentiates a good athlete versus a great one? And someone who's a good athlete, what are the steps or what changes do they make to their game to become great? And so your first question with the parents, I think manage expectations from the beginning is something that makes everything easier. And you need to remind them consistently because it's very easy to forget, you know, like you say one time and a quick example of it. And actually, I listen this Monday and I always kept that with me, like whenever you go to Disneyland, you know, you see those huge lines to go to the attractions. But then there's the time. Look, if you go in this attraction, you're going to have to be waiting in line for 90 minutes. If you go, you're not going to complain because you want to know you knew that you knew that 90 minutes, you know, and it's funny. If you go there and you stay 100 minutes, you already get mad like, oh, no, because that wasn't the expectation.

[14:00] So I think managing expectations is the best thing to do it. And again, you'd be very consistent. I also say that your actions must transcend what you say to the parents because you can't just say you have to also read. So, for example, like, again, I had been very involved with the U20s, U17s and you 16s right now. I'm not so involved with I was not so involved in this first month, two months that we had in the season with the 15s, U14s, U13. So what I did last weekend, we play U20 in Arizona. I literally got a car, drove all the way to the Phoenix Airport. Got a flight, went to San Diego, California, got there at 9 p .m. to watch the game Sunday and Monday. The game Sunday got canceled because of the rain.

[14:53] But I stayed there Monday to watch them playing. And I watched them play. I was there, spoke with the kids, spoke with the parents. So a lot of potential, like I saw like this kid, like these three or four kids probably will be with us very shortly. We need to give it up. We need to make a plan for them. And today, for example, 130, we're going to do a 3v3 tournament for the U13s, U14s. So what I say by that is like, I want to be involved to them. I want to see like what's happening, what's the level, what can we do better. The coaches as well. And I think that helps me. If I'm involved, people believe me because I care. Like I'm around. It's not like I'm saying, oh, we care about your kids. And I'm never around. I'm never giving attention. Never involve learning them, like all those things. So I would say the expectations and I would say the work ethic. If you are around, if you listen, if you involve, if you and you said something about how to deal with the parents when they are frustrated.

[15:49] I would say first, as a parent, your son or your daughter are the most important thing in your life, 100 percent, you know. So you need to have a little empathy, you know, like they are not maybe mad with you. They probably are mad of the situation that their kids went through. So you cannot take things personal. And I always say this, like I think emotional control is one of the best things. And I would say I have a big path to go. Like we are humans. We have emotions. Sometimes we get frustrated. Sometimes we feel a situation is unfair. But I think we cannot take things super personal, you know. It's about the process. It's about the mission that we have here to help these kids. Like we might make mistakes as well, you know. And we need to be human and humble to recognize, look, we make a mistake here. That's the steps that we're going to take it to fix it.

[16:39] And those are the steps that we're going to take. It should never happen again, you know. So I would say not take so personal, have empathy for the parents because, you know, their kids are the most important thing. And a lot of the times it's not about you or not about the club. It's just about the situation, you know. And about the players, about the good and the great players, I would say, honestly, nowadays, we spoke a little bit about this before that we started. I feel social media nowadays is really dangerous to the athletes because they feed themselves with a lot of wrong information, things that are not so true. And they create an illusion that it's easy. There are shortcuts. You don't have to do so much. To be honest, to go to the top one percent that play professionally or to the top two, three percent that goes to a big division one school, you need to be an outlier. You need to be the best of the best.

[17:41] Not just on the field. I think the field reflects on what you do off the field. Your nutrition, your concentration, your body language, your attitude, your commitment, your discipline. And I think, as I said, I think everybody wants to be successful, but everybody's willing to pay the price to be successful. But I think winning and being successful in the youth level can be very dangerous because when you win, it's a good opportunity for you to hide all the problems that you have. And I think I have a lot of talent players, but that is not enough. And I think what makes a difference between the good and the great, it's when you have the talent and you work hard, I think you are a great player. When you just have the talent, you're good because things will get tough.

[18:33] Games will be hard. The opportunities will be hard. You're going to receive so many no's. And that's what I'm saying. If you have a great habit, you might not see the results in the short term. But you keep doing, you keep doing, keep doing. He's going to get noticed. And you're going to do the results of it. I want to go deep in this. When someone's down, when someone's demotivated, how do you bring them up and running? And it's not a different question. It's along the same lines. for some people, it's easier to keep going when, you know, it's long-term, not short-term wins. For someone who can't do it, can we change them? Can we make them think about long-term? How do we do that? Because I meet a lot of people, especially I think younger generation. So I'm not that old. I'm 22.

[19:31] I'm just 22. But a lot of people of my age and younger, I feel like they get demotivated very fast. I grind every single day. My whole process has shifted from outcome to process. I can keep going every single day. It doesn't matter what I'm getting. I know I need to put in this. But I also know there are so many of my own friends. There are so many colleagues, people in my own team who are not willing to do that. So what are the strategies? How do we make them see the long-term? I think that's a very good question. I think it's a hard question, to be honest with you.

[20:21] I do believe the environment that you come from, your family, history, all those things shape your character. So I would say here in El Paso, most of the parents worked really hard to provide a good life for the kids. Because a lot of the parents came from Mexico, came from, they had to start a new life here and there are the challenges. And I would say as well, I think some of my players are good examples of it because they live in Juarez and they drive through El Paso every day. They are crossing the border at 4 AM. That's the dedication. That's the dedication. That goes to what I'm telling you. Everybody says they want to pay the price. But you don't pay the price by saying you want to pay the price. You pay the price on the things you do every day, on your activities.

[21:12] So I would say to you, I think it's something that coaches get wrong in my opinion sometimes. Because I feel like a lot of times the coaches want to be right, but I think we need to get used to be wrong. Sometimes the players don't have that commitment, don't have that discipline, but you can shape them. For example, I think I'm very strict to my players, but I'm also flexible. Most of my players here, they already made a mistake since I joined the club. I cannot cut them by one mistake. So I try to show them, look, we are in a process here, as you said, of you need to do the things right over and over and over and over and over. Probably you're not going to see any benefit on this for the next six months, but seven, eight, nine, one year, you're going to see it.

[22:01] And especially, I would say from 16 to 18, it's a very important age because that's the path that you're going to go off first team or college. So you need to, it's not so long. The long term is not so long. Let's put it this way. And one thing I believe in on my coaching philosophy is that discipline equals freedom. If you do the right things, I'm a guy that wanted the kids to enjoy the process. So, for example, whenever we went to the playoffs in San Diego, we were three minutes away from the ocean. We won the first game, five hours on the ocean, playing, they were playing soccer, surfing, talking to girls. And I don't care.

[22:51] Let them have fun. That's part of life. Let them collect moments, let them collect experience. But whenever they come back to the hotel and there's a word that I use as a trigger for them, now it's business, shower, business. Like, let's watch footage. Let's prepare for tomorrow. And we won as well. So enjoy again. Back. Let's focus. And we lost, but I think we gave everything we could. Learn a lesson. You work even harder on the days you lose. I hope so. I'll be honest with you. I'm not. I'm not saying I'm a bad loser right now. I think I have been always a bad loser. I think I had learned that losing is part of the process. But I suffer a lot, not the fact of losing. But I'm like, what did I miss? Like, what I didn't do right, you know? So I'm actually joking that we have the U .S.

[23:40] Academy Finals and then Super Cup in December. And I'm like, that can be amazing. So I think the one thing I would just like to finish here is the sentence. I think that they need to see the benefits of doing the right things in the short term for them to the folks on the long term. They are not enjoying the process. If they are not saying, look, they value what I'm doing, they know what I'm doing. There's one thing that I believe that culture, it's the values and the people that you promote. So when you promote the being on time, being a team player, being humble, recognize the mistakes, there's no other way around. But you need to be flexible. There will be mistakes and our job is to shape them.

[24:33] It's not true. You did something wrong by it. Especially nowadays that I think the world's changing, you know, the world's changing. I think you're 22. I'm a little older. I'm 10 years older than you. I think when I grew up, like, what's a big, like, in values, respect, you cannot talk back. You cannot have opinion with an older person. Nowadays, it's different, you know? So we need to also try to adapt ourselves to the new world that we have. Yeah, definitely. You said one line that saying I will pay the price doesn't mean paying the price, which is absolutely correct. There's another line I keep hearing that all the time. I don't remember who said it, but he said that thinking about doing the thing is not doing the thing. Making a plan about doing the thing isn't doing the thing.

[25:30] And a few other things. Only doing the thing is doing the thing, which is so damn true. Like, you can spend so much time, but people get excited that, oh, I have this plan. I have this. But until you follow through, it means shit. Sorry for the word, but it doesn't mean anything. I think I'll be transparent to you, like, the last two years I would say I have been through maybe the most difficult period of my time, my life. And I think that was the transition from being a young man to a man. You know, I think we believe that life has to be perfect, happy all the time. And it's not the truth. You know, we struggle, we suffer, we learn from mistakes, we suffer from mistakes that we have made. And those are the beautiful things because you learn it from it. You have the choice to learn it and become another person.

[26:25] I think the problem is that we know we need to pay the price of learning, and the pay of price of learning is going through hardships, you know? And I think we need leaders, coaches, educators. Especially they would say the players struggle to listen so much to the parents nowadays as well. I think sports give us a chance to shape them because sports are life as well. You win, you lose, you do amazing things, you do bad things. You can damage others or you can help others. So I think we have a, not just on the athletic part, but like in life, I think we can shape the next. Citizens in your society. Yeah, no, definitely. I think in the social media generation, AI generation.

[27:18] Yeah, I think people are getting weak. I see that people are getting weak there. Yeah, I think they just don't want challenges in life. What I, again, I'm young, I haven't achieved even 1%. I haven't seen life fully yet, right? But I ask myself, if whatever goals I have, I got it today, like I did it. What am I going to do the rest of the life? I'll be bored. Like it's everything is about this process. Even if I reach that destination, what do I do after? Do I just sit? Even if I had a billion dollars or I was a trillionaire, what do I do? So you need to have a greater purpose in life and that only comes from a process-oriented thinking.

[28:19] I'll tell you the bunch for myself. You know, I think as everybody, like sometimes in sports, when things go wrong, your question like is worth it, all the sacrifices, because I think to do a good job, you need to sacrifice a lot of things and you need to put so many people above your own interests. If you want to do it right, in my opinion, right? And sometimes I kind of question like, is it worth it? Because I'd say in America, there are so many opportunities, you know, sales, easy learning, not easy, but an easier path to build some wealth and maybe just lift off the wealth that you build in 5-10 years. I know a lot of people that have been doing that and being very successful. But for me, okay, if I build wealth, am I going to do next?

[29:08] If I don't have this process, like for me, I know the goals I have, I know where I was five years ago, and sometimes I think like things are not going in my way, I'm far behind and I look like where I was five years ago and I look where I am today. I look who I was five years ago and I look who I am today. And I see, I believe in God and I believe like every experience I went through, the good, the bad, the people I met, the successful relationships, the ones that didn't work well, shaped me to be who I am. And the person I became are the ones helping me to do the job I'm doing right now. And the mistakes I'm doing right now are giving me the opportunity to become who I need to be in five years from now, you know. So I think it's an endless cycle. And again, it's not comfortable, you know, I'll be transparent to you, like we have these games in December.

[30:00] And I already, like you can see a little bit in my eyes, and I'm not sleeping well already because I think it's an opportunity that we have to put a pass on the map for the kids that we have here for the new generations to make them believe it's possible for them to realize the process is important. So I feel the responsibility and I love it. You know, maybe I don't sleep so well every day, but I'm addicted to it, you know. And I'm okay to pay the price of not sleeping well, of having stress, or to overthink. But I don't want to do that for myself. I want to do that for the people I'm working with, you know. Yeah, well, yeah, we have so much to talk about. I'm loving this, Guy, and we can keep going on and on. And there's that whole mental side of things.

[30:51] But I want to shift gears a little. What's the role of technology to run the club, run the programs? Yeah, and especially you can also touch on AI. What's your opinion on AI? And if you guys use it, how you use it? So, well, because obviously, 400 is not an easy number, right? 400 is a lot of people. So I'm sure technology plays a role in helping maintain that cohort. I think technology is very important nowadays. I think you cannot deny the importance. And we spoke a little bit about shortcuts. I think technology and AI is a shortcut on the operations, on the communications, on decision-making. I think our data that we can also make good decisions, you know, from parents confirming, attending their attendance on training, to games, to like send an email to 400 people with two clicks.

[31:55] I think it's so important on the technical side. I think cameras, watching the videos, get their stats, get the percentage. I think that helps us to make decisions to see what we're doing well, what we're not doing well. I think it's extremely important. I'll be transparent to you. It's an area that I want to grow more. I want to get to know more because I feel my daily routine is so much on the field. Cultures, parents, players, I don't know so much in the office. I think there are more people that are more involved with it. But we are working right now to get a software that can break down everything for us quickly on footage and scouting players and all those types of things to make easier or routine here. But I think it's extremely important.

[32:51] I think nowadays technology can make your life easier. I think for parents, for coaches, for directors. And I think it's a big part. I think a club that don't use technology is very behind on everything. Yeah, yeah. 100%. What gaps do you think there are right now? I would say, honestly, and I think every market is different. But I do think the education part for the parents, how to use it, I think is a big one. It's funny that we have our software here and some parents don't use and they go ask on messages, on emails because they just don't know how to use. So I think that's maybe a gap because, okay, the technology can have all the benefits, but the people that are using don't know how to use. Use the benefits. What's the point of planning it, you know?

[33:47] So I think actually is a feedback I gave here in the weekly meeting. We need to educate the parents because if they don't know how to use, what's the point of using it? Yeah, that's a good point. And do you have a lot of, I guess, people who speak different languages in your program other than English? I would say 80% of the people here, they speak Spanish. And does the technology support multi-language communication? I don't think so. That's a good point. That's a good point. So, yeah, so what I'm, what I, again, I think, and you can, you know, add your opinion, you can correct me. I think the main point of technology is to help.

[34:39] main point is not to have something fancy, something beautiful, something excellent. Fundamentally, a business or technology, it's supposed to help the other person. And I think I realized that every single platform out there, they only let communicate in English. So what we've added at Waresport is multi-language thing. So you just write the message once, it automatically detects the native language of the other person. So when they receive the communication, they might be receiving it in Spanish, they might be receiving it in French. So what that does is makes your life easier. Because sometimes they might be receiving English, but if parents' first languages say Spanish, they're either going to have to rely on their child to translate or they're going to have to go on Google Translate.

[35:33] So we've added that feature. You think that is helpful? That's going to help? I absolutely think it's helpful. I never actually thought about it. There's one thing here that we actually do sometimes is to write in English and Spanish. So that takes a lot of time. It takes time. And I have been in contact with parents that we made them like information that was important for them, but they never understood. And they ended up doing something wrong because they were not able to understand the message. So I think actually you have a great point there. Another thing that we've added is WhatsApp integration. So we realized every platform, they support email and some also do email and SMS. We have email, SMS and WhatsApp.

[36:32] So I'm Indian. Indians love WhatsApp. And I know Brazilians and there are so many other ethnicities who don't use it. They use text messages. They use WhatsApp. So that was another gap that I saw in the market. So we also added that. Actually, I'd love for you to see what we have. And I'd love your perspective on that. But from the technology standpoint, that's been my entire goal. How do we make it more accessible? Right. So I think right now the market is lacking accessibility. But anyways, think that's a good place to end our conversation.

[37:23] I want to do an episode two with you. I want to meet with you again. I have so many other questions and we can make so many different verticals. And I'll email you for that. But thank you. Thank you for coming today. And I'm super grateful. I got to learn so much from you. It was my pleasure having you as a guest. And before we wrap up any last thoughts, any questions you have for me, anything else that you want to say? First of all, thank you for the conversation. As I said, I think it's good to share things. Even if one person takes something from it, it's really the good point of it. I think it's a good project for you. I always say that so much content on the Internet, not necessarily every content, it's realistic or positive. And again, thank you.

[38:20] And let's keep in touch. But anyways, if people want to learn more about you or the club, you guys have a website where can people find you? So we have the Instagram page for the club that's called Locomotive Youth Soccer. And my Instagram, it's my name, Guilherme Henry, but with two I's in Guilherme. Someone took my name first. But yeah, I try to share the reality. I share about my work a little bit. Not so much about personal life because I don't think nobody's worried about it. That's the right way to do it. But I try to show, I think I'm very fortunate to be following my dream, to live and go after what I want. And somehow I try to show it's worth it. It's not perfect, but it's worth it.

[39:10] So thank you again for the conversation. It was a big pleasure. Sounds good. See you guys next time.