Ep. 10 - Exploring the Heartbeat of Soccer: From U.S. Club Ambitions to FIFA's Global Stage

Prepare to have your understanding of soccer's vast empire expanded as we guide you through FIFA's intricate world, where the heartbeats of nations synchronize with the rhythms of the World Cup. Our latest episode peels back the layers of governance within the sport and maps out the U.S.'s role in the sprawling soccer cosmos. We're not just talking about goals and matches; we're uncovering the very framework that supports the beautiful game, from CONCACAF's regional influence to the buzz around Copa America 2024 and the FIFA Club World Cup 2025. If you thought soccer was just a game, think again – it's a pulsating network of ambition, strategy, and global unity.

Ever wondered how your local club can dream of playing in the same league as Los Angeles Galaxy or Portland Thorns? We shed light on the complex tiers of American soccer, where the dreams of semi-professional squads like the Little Rock Rangers breathe the same air as the titans of MLS and NWSL. Our discussion navigates the criteria clubs must meet to compete at various levels and how they forge their identities in the sports marketplace. With the USL Super League poised to shake up the women's game and the continued ascent of MLS, the landscape of U.S. soccer is both a battleground and a beacon of opportunity.

Finally, we tackle the heated debate surrounding promotion and relegation – the lifeblood of soccer dynamics globally, yet a contentious topic stateside. Ponder with us the cultural and economic tidal waves that could follow the introduction of such a system in U.S. leagues. Delving into the nitty-gritty of player transactions and the unique 'pathway to pro' in American soccer, we contrast it with other sports' draft systems. By examining the USL's potential for promotion and relegation, we're not just forecasting the future of American soccer—we're actively engaging in its evolution. Join us for a conversation that's about more than just the beautiful game; it's about ambition, culture, and the very fabric of the sport in the United States.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

Pitch to Pro is the official podcast of USL Arkansas. This will be our platform to tell our story about the club and the special place that we call home, northwest Arkansas. This is a journey we want to bring you along for the ride. We'll share what's going on behind the curtain, help educate the community at large about soccer, our league, and give updates on the progress of the club along the way. Together, we'll explore and unpack our journey to professional soccer, the magic that is NWA, our community, and talk all things soccer from on the pitch to behind the scenes, telling the story of our club. Pitch to Pro Podcast is proudly sponsored by PodcastVideoscom. Podcastvideoscom is Northwest Arkansas's premier podcast recording studio, equipped with industry-leading equipment. The recording studio and services save you time, money and hassle. They are dedicated to helping you create, record and publish high-quality podcasts for your audience. Be sure to check them out today at PodcastVideoscom.

Speaker 1: 1:07

Hello everybody and welcome back to the Pitch to Pro Podcast. I am your host, wes Harris, managing director for USL Arkansas, northwest Arkansas's professional soccer club playing in the United Soccer League. Welcome back. Everybody got an exciting episode today for you. It's just me, so I'm going to keep it short and brief for you guys. Nobody wants to just listen to me talk the entire time, so I'm going to keep it brief, but we got a pretty cool episode for you. Yesterday was International Day of Education, so I thought what we would do for this episode is talk a little bit about soccer in the US and abroad, how it's different than some of the other pro sports that we have and know and are used to, and talk a little bit about some of the common misconceptions that we hear when talking to folks about our project and league, and just give you guys a little bit of a flavor for that.

Speaker 1: 2:04

So, first up, soccer is different than most other sports that we're used to, and for a lot of different reasons, but one of them is soccer has a global governing body. It's one of the few major sports that has a global governing body and that is recognized as FIFA and that has a fun acronym, but it is the International Federation of Association Football or FIFA, and so they govern soccer all over the world. They're the ones that put on the largest sporting event in the entire world, bigger than the Olympics, the Super Bowl, bigger than any other sporting event, and that is the World Cup. And so, if you are and that is again just to cover it. That is where national teams come together, so nations come together and they compete. The best nations in the world compete over the course of about six weeks every four years, and it is one of the most coveted trophies and honors in all of sports. Again, it's the largest watched, most attended all those different things in terms of biggest sporting event in the world, and so FIFA is the one that puts it on, and so if you are a country and you want to participate in those different tournaments the World Cup being the biggest you have to meet the standards, abide by the rules set forth by FIFA, and the way that they then you know the world is huge.

Speaker 1: 3:50

The way that they then disseminate out or govern soccer globally is they have six different associations around the world, so they split up the world into six different groups that then have governing bodies for those associations and govern the countries within them. So you've got Konami Ball, and these all have fun acronyms which I won't get into, except for ours, but Konami Ball is in South America. You have CAF, which is Africa. You have AFC, which is Asia and Australia. You have UEFA, or UEFA, in Europe, and then you also have OFC, which is Oceania. Then you have CONCACAF the funnest one to say of the bunch, which is ours which is the Confederation of North and Central America and Caribbean Association Football. So within that you have North and Central America and then all of the Caribbean islands within there too. So that's where the United States fits. We are a part of CONCACAF and again, concacaf is just the region of the world where we fit. That again is kind of the global part of the global governing body arm out of FIFA that governs the countries within its association.

Speaker 1: 5:09

Within the US, our governing body of soccer is the United States Soccer Federation, or USSF. They are responsible for, yes, putting on and developing the US men's and women's national teams, as well as the youth national teams. But they are also the governing body of soccer all the way from the top level, professional level, all the way down to kind of grassroots you, for they set the standards, they set the, the rules and regulations that everybody needs to abide by. And again all of that ladders back all the way up to FIFA Again, some of those kind of global tournaments to get excited about if you are in the US and you're listening and You're a soccer fan or a general casual sports fan and want to see what soccer is all about.

Speaker 1: 6:01

We have some really cool things that are coming here and the next few years, one of which is the Copa America in 2024, so this year, this summer, and that is where Konami ball and cock a calf are coming together. So North America, south America, the Caribbean, central America those guys are all coming together. If you qualified, kind of the best teams from those Regions will come and participate in a tournament this summer playing against each other. It's almost like a mini World Cup of the Western Hemisphere. So that's 2024. We've got games real close to us here in KC in Dallas, as well as others all the way across the United States.

Speaker 1: 6:47

You've also then got in 2025. You've got the FIFA Club World Cup. So just like there's a World Cup for countries, for nations and national teams, you also have a Club World Cup. So think of the biggest clubs in the world Manchester United, real Madrid, barcelona, bayern Munich, paris-centrum and and others. You have Clubs, the best clubs from individual regions, from all those six different, you know associations from around the world that I talked about. Those guys are coming to the United States to compete in A tournament called the FIFA Club World Cup, which is coming in 2025. So more to come there on venues and all that kind of thing, but I'm sure that Dallas will get Be a venue, if not KC as well.

Speaker 1: 7:41

And then we also have the coup de gras, the men's FIFA World Cup in in 2026, coming right here to the US. Kc will be a Stadium and it was just announced that Dallas is. It's been leaked and believed to be correct, so I'll caveat that, but I'm pretty positive that Dallas AT&T Stadium, jerry World, is going to get the Final for the 2026 men's World Cup. So that's just five hours away. Absolutely incredible opportunity To be so close and to be able to host such an event. So, and then on top of that, after the men's World Cup, we have the potential we're in the running to host the 2027 women's World Cup or the 20, if not that one, the 2023 or 2031 excuse me Women's World Cup as well. So we have bids in both, but we're pushing hard for 27. That's just this incredible slate of Massive, marquee tournaments, and it's a great time to be a soccer fan in the US, or even become a soccer fan in the US and kind of get drawn in there.

Speaker 1: 8:59

So let's come back and kind of focus in on the US for a bit. We talked a little bit about the, the global governing bodies, and how that operates and works and what falls underneath. But now let's get into kind of the US and talk about the US soccer landscape. So again you have USSF United States soccer Federation sitting on top of Soccer in the United States. They kind of set the standards and regulations again for the US soccer pyramid.

Speaker 1: 9:33

So you keep hearing the term or maybe you this is a new term for you, but it's a very common one all over the world and it's called the soccer pyramid and that's often how professional soccer is stood up all over the world. And At the very, very top you've got a League or leagues, depending on on the situation in the country, but in our, in our case, it's it's one league for each, men's and women's soccer. So at the very, very tippy top you've got division one, what we'll call division one. You've got Division II and you got Division III. We have three different divisions and tiers, if you will, on that pyramid that equate to professional soccer in the United States, and professional soccer just means that a player can live and be successful, earn a living wage on their kind of compensation package from the team.

Speaker 1: 10:30

So in the United States the soccer pyramid has three different tiers or divisions and within those three there are a whole bunch of different KPIs and different metrics that the leagues have to hit to fall within those tiers and qualify for them. But the two that are the most common and easiest to understand are stadium capacity and population size. So on Division I you've got Major League Soccer on the men's side To be qualified to be. You know, if you're a new team you wanna go into MLS, you've gotta have a population base in your market of about a million million plus and you've gotta come in with a stadium, soccer specific stadium, with a capacity for roughly 20,000 people. That's Division I. Division II you have and you start getting into the USL ecosystem. On the men's side you have USL championship, the highest level of soccer in the USL. That is where our club will play, and the minimum stadium size there is 5,000 and market size around 750,000 in terms of population base. Then you dropped out into Division III, which is USL League I or MLS Next Pro and you're talking about markets of about 500,000 in that tier.

Speaker 1: 11:58

On the women's side you have the National Women's Soccer League, or NWSL. On the women's side you also have it's gonna be interesting you have the USL Super League starting in 2024. That is where we will play on the women's side and they meet all the criteria for that US soccer lays out in terms of market size, stadium capacity and those kinds of things to be called tier one. I don't believe at this point they've got their sanctioning yet. So there'll either be Division II or Division I, but it's a planned Division I League as they're making their launch here in 2024. Super exciting and again, that is where we will play. So we will play on the men's and women's side at the highest level of soccer within USL's ecosystem and at least Division II and potentially Division I on the women's side, depending on how that shakes out. Underneath that, then you have some semi pro leagues within the USL ecosystem that I'll talk about here too, which is USL League II. So in Arkansas we actually have a League II squad that does very well the Little Rock Rangers shout out to you guys and they went really deep this past year actually in the playoffs in League II and they drew crowds at War Memorial of almost 8,000 multiple times, which is huge and incredible at that level. So congrats to those guys.

Speaker 1: 13:25

You also have the USLW League and that is on the women's side. In those two leagues, typically what happens and what you find is their seasons are from kind of like May through August and that is typically. You find a lot of college players that are looking to play at a high level out of their college season and that's typically who makes up those rosters. So again, division I, ii and III are professional. You have MLS Championship in the USL and League I in the USL to round out the men's side, and then on the women's side you've got NWSL D1 and potentially USL Super League in either Division I or Division II. Nothing today on the Division III side of the women's pyramid, but then you have USLW League and Division IV Semi-Pro. So that is the US Soccer Pyramid.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Talked about where we're gonna play, where our club is gonna play, on both sides. Now the next question or concept that we get a lot that is a hot topic in US Soccer, in particular from those that come from around the world something called promotion and relegation. What is promotion and relegation, often referred to as pro-rel Promotion and relegation is? I just talked about the Soccer Pyramid that exists. I talked about in the US, that exists overseas as well.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Probably one of the most notable is the pyramid in England. So you have the Premier League on the men's side, you have the championship on the men's side, league 1 and League 2. That rounds out, and then you also have the top four. Then you also have the last level of professional soccer in England is the National League, which is tier five. So they've been around for a lot longer in terms of an organization and soccer league. So their pyramid is a little bit fuller and so. But what happens all around the rest of the world in soccer pyramid is they don't have playoffs and you win the league and you win the championship by having the best regular season record. That's number one.

Speaker 1: 15:46

Where Pro-Rail comes into play, or promotion and relegation is there is actually movement by a club up and down the soccer pyramid, or at least the potential for movement, and that all depends on your performance on the pitch wins and losses. So if you are in the Premier League, let's say and let's take a club like, I don't know, everton. Everton is kind of going through it right now and they're getting some points deducted for some financial fair play breaches and we that's a whole other episode on financial fair play and all of that fun stuff and points deductions and things like that. But a club that has been in the Premier League for a long time, they're in the northwest of England, in Liverpool, and they are kind of what we call close to the bottom of the table in that relegation zone. So in the Premier League the bottom three teams once they finish the season there's 20 teams. If you finish in 17th, 18th or, excuse me, 18th, 19th or 20th, 18th, 19th or 20th, if you finish in one of those three spots at the end of the season in the Premier League, you are not playing in the Premier League in the following season. You're dropping down. You're being relegated into the next tier which is called the championship. So you're down into tier two for the following season.

Speaker 1: 17:12

With that there's a lot of economic impact to that. There's a big deal. Crowds may kind of come down, sponsors may not want to pay as much, all of those different things. Tv broadcast money is not as high, as you know. Obviously the Premier League, one of the top leagues in the world Very, very different contracts and all those different things. So it's a big impact. And then also there's just the fan base that you know has this pride in playing at the highest level and now you're in the championship, and so it's a big impact and a big deal. And it really creates this because there's no playoffs, there is no championship game. Every single regular season match matters and so it brings that much more meeting. Every game is a nail biter. Every single point or drop points means something when you get to the end of the season in a big, big way. And so that's what you, what I mean by relegation.

Speaker 1: 18:11

Now, on the flip side, promotion the three teams that finish in one, two or three in the championship, in the tier two, those guys move up the following season into the Premier League. So they take the spot of 18, 19, 20 from the Premier League that dropped down one, two and three in the championship. They move up. And with that obviously there's a the reverse effect. There's jubilation, there's parades in the city, there's all these different economic factors that come into play and you know, you can add on to your stadium, you can charge more for sponsorships, you get a share of the revenue pie from the broadcast deals. All of those different things matter and in the long-term success of a club, sustainability of a club and then again just what it means to a town or a region when your club gets to go up and play in the Premier League. And so you have this shift at each level, all the way up, all the way down, and every year you have teams that drop, teams that come up, and so that's promotion and relegation.

Speaker 1: 19:22

The US is one of the few countries in the world that does not have promotion, relegation, and this is also, and part of it is. It's just not in our sports DNA in terms of professional sports and what we have come to know. You would never see the Dallas Cowboys finish bottom of the NFC East and one of the worst records in the NFL and all of a sudden go and be playing in the USFL or the XFL or some lower league. You would never see the San Antonio Spurs finish last in the NBA and drop down and go play in the G-League. You guys get it. You never see the Yankees finish the last in MLB and they would drop down to AAA in minor league baseball. So it just doesn't exist in US pro sports, and that's where soccer is different. And so one of the reasons that we don't have it in the US is major league soccer is operated very similarly to the other professional leagues, where it's a closed off league. There's no Pro-REL and part of it was the design of MLL and there's again a whole other episode that we could go into. But US professional soccer had a couple of different iterations, flashes in the pan, but they were all unsustainable, all unsuccessful on the long term.

Speaker 1: 20:57

The US hosted the FIFA Men's World Cup in 1994. It's often referred to as kind of the springboard of soccer in the United States, both from a fan base participation but also from a professional standpoint. That really provided that stickiness factor longer term. And one of the reasons for that and why we were able to win that bid and be able to host was FIFA kind of came in and said you guys have to fix your professional league on the men's side. You have got to fix it, find something sustainable, and one of the ways that they did that is a shared ownership of the league within major league soccer. So you don't own a club, you own one 30th of major league soccer. And that is as deep as I'm gonna go into that on this episode. But it was a way to kind of ensure that it was a rising tide's lift all boats, because we are all in this together. We are all ownership, have ownership stakes in the entire league being successful and not one individual club. You can understand, especially after multiple iterations of professional soccer that failed, how that was kind of attractive, was a way for this to get going. Now the league has been around for coming on to 30 years by the. It'll be 30 years anniversary actually when the FIFA World Cup comes in 2026.

Speaker 1: 22:34

And so there's a lot of folks that are kind of calling for promotion, relegation in the United States. There's a lot of things that kind of come into play there and most significant of which is the economic impact of what it means when you're either relegated or promoted and the changes and standards that you have to have in play. So that's why we don't have it in the US. You can imagine, for example, san Diego just came into major league soccer and they had to pay $500 million just to earn a franchise, just to get a seat at the table, just to get a club. Nevermind building a stadium, nevermind a training facility, nevermind buying players from an office. You guys get it. Massive investment, massive, massive investment. If you were to go to the ownership group of San Diego and tell them you just spent all this money quarter of a billion dollars probably by the time it's all said and done and after your first season, if you don't do well, you're gonna drop down to the second tier of US soccer. That has massive implications and you could understand that somebody putting that level of investment in right out of the gate, being subject to potentially, depending on how they do on the field not succeeding and having to drop down to tier two, it's not something that most people would raise their hand for.

Speaker 1: 24:03

And so you have major league soccer. That's going to be very hesitant and kind of stave this off and this conversation off, I think, as long as possible, and you can kind of, you know, if you put their hat on, you can understand it from a financial aspect, and so I do think we will. You know, will we ever have it? I think is the question, and there have been conversations within USL and exploration about you know what? We have this multi-tiered ecosystem already on the professional side. Could we potentially do that amongst our own ecosystem and be the first ones to introduce promotion and a relegation within USL. You know, even if major league soccer is not willing or doesn't want to participate in that and the conversations have gone well and people in terms of if you're a fan of Pro-REL, I think the appetite is there to try to figure it out.

Speaker 1: 25:02

The challenge is again the economic impact and how do you put together processes and safeguards in place so that you can have Pro-REL but have it be sustainable? And that's not a super-duper easy thing to just automatically figure out, cookie cutter off the shelf. It's gotta be custom, it's gotta be unique to the United States. There's a whole host of reasons as to why that is, but we'll see. I think you will see it in some level here over the course of you know, the next five to 10 years. Whether that's in just USL, I think if it involves the entire US soccer pyramid, I think that's a longer conversation. But as a soccer person and someone who enjoys supporting a club in the Premier League and other clubs in different leagues around the world that have promotion relegation, I hope that we find it one day in the United States. So that's promotion and relegation Within that and the pyramid. And you start talking about divisions, division one, division two, a lot of.

Speaker 1: 26:12

When we say we're in division two on the men's side, a lot of people will ask or make the comment oh so you guys are like the naturals are to Kansas City Royals, you're a minor league? And the answer is no, we are not minor league. That is a different model, very, very different model that you see in minor league baseball, that you see in the G league and the NBA and in other sports. We are our own, again, professional league, professional soccer, and it is a very different model. We will act major league in everything that we do and it's no disrespect to minor league baseball or the G league or anything that those guys do, but we are still professional soccer and we also do not share an ownership group.

Speaker 1: 27:04

We don't share players with other clubs, major league soccer. For example, the closest one is Sporting Kansas City, so that's the easiest for people to kind of make that association and they start that conversation with that Sporting Kansas City will. Their ownership group is not involved. They won't be involved. We do not share players together. We don't share a roster together. They can't send one of their players down to our team and rehab and injury and get some playing time. It doesn't operate that way.

Speaker 1: 27:39

Can we? And what we will do? Can we buy and sell players between major league soccer? Can they move that way? Absolutely. But those are only between predetermined time frames throughout the year. It is not just kind of willy nilly and kind of free range at those clubs.

Speaker 1: 28:02

Discretion. You know we absolutely will buy and sell players. That's part of international professional soccer. It's part of the revenue model you know. For example, louisville City had USL broke the seven figure transfer deal, hit that milestone in 2023, they transferred Josh Wittner from Lou City out to I believe it was Ben Fica in the Portuguese League and they hit that for 1.3, I think was 1.3 million. I believe was the transfer fee. So came from their academy youth team and prospect, played on the US youth national teams and was able to take that next step in his professional career and wanted to get overseas into Europe and was able to find a home in Portugal. But they had to pay for him and a substantive fee at 1.3 million dollars. It's nothing to shake a stick at and so that will happen with our players.

Speaker 1: 29:02

We will also buy players. So potentially it's a Major League Soccer player that is in MLS but on a squad that may not be getting as frequent playing time, that then he would like and wants to get more minutes and wants to find a different challenge in a new club. We can absolutely work out a deal with a Major League Soccer club and buy that player. That happens today, that happens all the time, it happens with MLS, it happens with all professional leagues all around the world. We have a very diverse league in terms of our player set and those players come from all over the world and those transactions happen constantly. But there is no kind of sharing hey, call up from the lower league like they do in the G-League or minor league baseball. So we wanted to make that distinction because we hear that a lot and I think the last thing that I will touch on, at least for today, is kind of that pathway to pro in soccer.

Speaker 1: 30:07

In most of our American professional sports what we see and what we have come to know is you're really good at the youth level, you play, you're sport, you travel around, you do these tournaments, whatever it is, and then you know oftentimes the model is you go to college and you play in college sports. You have college football, basketball, baseball, all of the collegiate sports and especially now with the NIL and what that means for athletes in being able to be paid. That is typically kind of your stepping stone. And then you have drafts. You have the NFL draft, the MLS draft. You know MLB draft, all those things, nhl. That is still the case for soccer in the US. You still have collegiate soccer both on the men's and women's side and it's at a very high level, and you have a major league soccer draft. You have an NWSL draft. They in fact just had that NWSL draft at the United Soccer Coaches Convention out in Anaheim Just about a week ago or two weeks ago. So that still happens.

Speaker 1: 31:21

But something that has been developing in US soccer as the sport grows is the growth and development of youth academies, and the academy model is something that comes from the rest of the world, in particular overseas and in South America, and that is kind of exactly what it sounds like. So you sign players to an academy contract when they are, I think, the youngest you can go in in. Call it England, you know it's probably the most high-profile League in the world for us to focus on. You hear a lot About it. You can sign as young as eight, I believe is the youngest that you can sign an academy contract and those players, instead of going and playing for you know, one of our local clubs here being sporting Arkansas you have an actual academy here in Major League Soccer with Sporting Kansas City. So you have an SKC Academy. So if you're a player and you're in Northwest Arkansas and you're that good and you're gonna go take that next step, you can go and play at SKC's Academy. Obviously, that's a lot of drive time for mom and dad right now if you're living in Northwest Arkansas or you are, you know your family is that committed that they're gonna move, they're gonna pick up and move To help support you on your journey to professional soccer. So that is what you're starting to see college soccer or Collegiate soccer in the rest of the world.

Speaker 1: 32:54

It's not that it doesn't exist. It's that it is not a stepping stone, approving ground, a recruitment tool for professional clubs. They are Looking and develop, looking at and developing players within their own academies as well as other clubs academies. They will have scouts that go these clubs they an academy teams. They go and they play each other In these academy leagues and you'll have professional scouts go and looking at players not only within their own academy, obviously they do that and they want to cultivate good talent. But then they'll go and they'll look and watch at other other clubs, academies, in those matches and watch and pull talent from there too. So talent in terms of recruitment and scouting Typically is not done at the collegiate level nowhere, especially not even close to the degree that it happens here in the United States, and your talent pool from a youth perspective in the stepping stone comes from the academy system, and so that has been something that comes Into play and has come into play and is starting to grow and develop across the US, and MLS has done it a nice job of incorporating that into their model. And so most major league soccer clubs now have youth academies and if they don't have full-fledged academies, they at least have academy affiliates, and those are clubs that you know kind of our feeders into into those kind of reserve teams and you know under 20 teams etc.

Speaker 1: 34:28

For the club we at USL Arkansas and and you start to see this too in in USL as a league, there are a couple clubs that have full-fledged academies, louisville City as one of them. As an example, I just talked about the player that they sold overseas to Portugal. They're a Full-fledged Academy. Usl Arkansas will have an academy Arm. We will have some type of youth Structure.

Speaker 1: 34:54

We don't yet know exactly what that is. There's a couple different ways that that can manifest itself, how we can choose to go about it. But, like everything we do, it's going to be community led and is going to be complimentary and grow the game of soccer and we want to do what's right for the market and so TB on what that looks like, we're having a lot of great conversations and don't need to to decide what that is today, but that will be something that we incorporate At some level. So those are some of the differences. You know. We talked a lot about about a lot. We have governing bodies FIFA, conca, calf, ussf, us soccer. We have soccer pyramids, division one, two, three.

Speaker 1: 35:40

We have not in the United States yet, but we have this concept of promotion, relegation and Mr Ted Lasso found out the hard way what that is if you've ever seen that show. We have, you know, a very different model than minor league, baseball, g league and basketball and Are a professional, standalone league and entity and team. And then we have also a different way about how we recruit and look at Cultivating talent. We also add in and still will. What will still play a large role is the collegiate game in our efforts because it's already very established and at such a high level of play already and that's just going to continue.

Speaker 1: 36:27

I don't see that going away any time soon. So that absolutely will become a part of when we look for talent as well. So it just wanted to make that distinction, but hopefully you guys learned a little bit today. I had fun kind of going through that and we'll kind of continue to do these along the way on different topics, but we just wanted to cover off on some kind of soccer landscape 101 and some common misconceptions. So happy international education day yesterday and, you know, be good northwest Arkansas. See you next time. Follow us at pitched a pro and at usl Arkansas, and until then, cheers.