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Rec soccer in Denton has more than a thousand kids. Club soccer is waiting on the other side. And in between, Josh Meadows kept finding the same thing — kids on wait lists, kids on the bench, kids quietly drifting to another sport.Josh is the founder of Good Sport Initiative (GSI), a community youth soccer development program in Denton, Texas, built to bridge the gap between rec and club soccer. It started with free sessions at a neighborhood playground. Today it's an umbrella for local development teams, a home for 50 to 75 kids a season, and a launchpad — some of those playground kids went on to Paris Saint-Germain's new program in Denton.Ian and Josh get into how a former wrestler and undersized linebacker fell for soccer at 22, why he walked away from a steady job at UPS, and how coaching his daughter's rec team became the one bright spot in the hardest stretch of his life. Josh explains why he tells his players "y'all don't work for me," why he refuses to play gatekeeper, and what happened when two GSI teams that scrimmaged all summer finally met in a competitive match.They also tackle what parents should look for beyond the badge, why coaches need to be transparent about what "development" really means, and what a community can do when it decides to take youth sports back.For soccer parents, youth coaches, and club leaders who believe every kid deserves a place to grow — not just the ones who can pay or play right now.Key Talking PointsWhat Good Sport Initiative is: a community-based youth soccer development program in Denton, Texas, bridging the gap between rec and club soccerA mom who still plays in over-40 and over-50 leagues, and how Josh fell for soccer at 22 on a community college field across the streetLeaving UPS, a five-year leap of faith, and how coaching his daughter's rec team became the light during a hard stretch at homeFrom free playground sessions to 50–75 kids a season — with Josh running sessions seven days a week"Y'all don't work for me": coaching as a team, and setting kids up for success next week and years down the roadGSI as an umbrella — partner teams like Pirates FC, North Texas United, and local development leagues at Crossbar — and why Josh won't play gatekeeperCelebration of competition: two GSI teams that scrimmaged all summer meeting on a competitive field, and respecting the opponent who shares your dreamsBadge vs. development: why time on the ball matters more than the club name, and why coaches need to be transparent about what "development" meansCost, access, and community: training at the park, renting city fields, fundraising, and taking youth sports back from the middlemenAdvice to his younger self: trust the people who love you, answer the call, and "do it for big Susie"Quotes from Josh Meadows"Y'all don't work for me. The way I like to see it is we're a team.""If we're only putting effort towards the kids who can pay or the ones that can play now, we're missing a whole population of kids that just needed that time.""If you're promising development, you can't demand results that you haven't invested that time and effort into that child.""It's okay to be new. It's okay to not have it all right now.""It's not about the name. It's about time on the ball. It's about experience.""I'm not here trying to safeguard kids or play gatekeeper at all. We're just here to provide opportunities.""I feel like that's what's missing in youth sports, not just soccer — celebration of competition.""You need to go hug your mom. You did it, man. You played soccer for the first time.""I tell my parents all the time, 'We are the product.'""Give them time, because it's not gonna last very much longer. They reach the age of 10 very fast, and next thing you know, they're 20."Connect with Josh Meadows🌐 Website: NTX United – Denton📸 Instagram: @NTXsoccercoach👍 Facebook: Good Sport InitiativeFollow Chat By The Pitch🌐 Website: chatbythepitch.com🎥 YouTube: Chat By The Pitch📸 Instagram: @ChatByThePitch🎵 TikTok: Chat.By.The.Pitch✖️ X / Twitter: @ChatByThePitch📘 Facebook: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Spotify: Chat By The Pitch🍎 Apple Podcasts: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Subscribe & Review: Your support helps us keep bringing conversations with players, coaches, and leaders that matter.#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #PlayerDevelopment #RecVsClub #CommunitySoccer #GrassrootsSoccer #DentonTexas #NorthTexasSoccer #DFWSoccer #SoccerParents #YouthSoccerCoach #DevelopmentOverWinning #ProtectTheJoy #GoodSportInitiative #ClubSoccer #AccessToSport #CharacterDevelopment #LoveOfTheGame #YouthSports #SoccerPodcast

A professional club sends Mario Iveljic a request: a number six who wins the ball, covers ground, plays long diagonals, and connects. Not a good player. A profile.In Part 2, the licensed FIFA agent and author of Make the Smart Move turns to the soccer parenting decisions that shape a player's path — starting with why early success is a poor predictor of where a kid ends up. Ian and Mario talk late bloomers and puberty, the pressure that pushes kids out of the game around 13, and the car-ride conversations Mario admits he's had with his own kids and now tries not to.Then Mario pulls back the curtain on the pro side: why MLS was built with a salary cap after the NASL collapsed, how the Beckham rule opened the door, and why "go to Europe" is never the whole answer. He walks through how his agency weighs an offer — league, team, position, role, minutes, then salary — and why staying home to play was the right call for Chicago Fire goalkeeper Chris Brady.Plus: chasing the badge, why college recruiting comes down to filling a need, why young players should learn every position, and one simple question that protects the joy. Mario closes with the show's signature question, naming his greatest influences as a player and in his career.For soccer parents, youth coaches, and players who want to make the smart move at every step.Key Talking PointsEarly success is a poor predictor: why rankings at 12 reward early puberty, and how to keep late bloomers in love with the gamePressure, structure, and an identity tied to results — why kids walk away when it stops being fun, and the car rides Mario tries not to have anymoreCut from the high school team: why one "no" doesn't have to end a playing career, and what the next decision looks likeThe business parents don't see — training compensation, solidarity payments, transfer fees, agent fees — and a college landscape that keeps shifting with NILWhy MLS has a salary cap: the NASL collapse, a single-entity league, and the Beckham rule that opened the door for designated playersChris Brady's path: why staying home, playing, and making mistakes with the Fire beat an early move to EuropeMinutes are currency from youth soccer to a pro contract — and the questions behind every European offer: league, team, position, role, minutes, salaryHonest advice over easy answers: when parents see dollar signs, and why a first contract is about getting a foot in the doorMake the Smart Move: chasing the badge as the biggest mistake families make, and why recruiting at every level comes down to filling a profileForward, center mid, left back: why young players should learn multiple positions, what to look for in a coach, and "Did you have fun?" as the way to protect the joyQuotes from Mario Iveljic"Early success is a poor predictor.""A lot of what's being rewarded at those ages is physical development.""Let the kid just finish the game, get home, and not critique what happened.""Minutes are currency... You can train all you want, but if you don't play, you don't really have a career in the game.""Okay, it's Europe, but league, team, position, role, minutes. Then here's the salary part of it.""If you're 20 years old and making some mistakes in Europe, you don't get a second chance.""I'd rather be honest with a parent or a player and they disagree than just say yes.""The best club may not be the best club for your kid at your particular time.""It's not as simple as, I'm a good player, I can play there. You have to understand that they're looking to fill holes.""Ask them, 'Did you have fun? What do you think?' And then if they want advice, ask them if they want you to help them."Connect with Mario Iveljic📖 Book: Make the Smart Move: The playbook for better sports decisions🌐 Website: magmilesport.com🎥 YouTube: @MarioIveljic📸 Instagram: @magmilesport✖️ X / Twitter: @MagMileSportFollow Chat By The Pitch🌐 Website: chatbythepitch.com🎥 YouTube: Chat By The Pitch📸 Instagram: @ChatByThePitch🎵 TikTok: Chat.By.The.Pitch✖️ X / Twitter: @ChatByThePitch📘 Facebook: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Spotify: Chat By The Pitch🍎 Apple Podcasts: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Subscribe & Review: Your support helps us keep bringing conversations with players, coaches, and leaders that matter.#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #SoccerParents #MakeTheSmartMove #FIFAAgent #LateBloomers #PlayerDevelopment #ProtectTheJoy #DevelopmentOverWinning #SoccerAgent #MLS #ChrisBrady #ChicagoFire #CollegeSoccer #SoccerRecruiting #ClubSoccer #YouthSoccerCoach #LoveOfTheGame #NorthTexasSoccer #SoccerPodcast

Mario Iveljic grew up playing with a number 10 so smooth he'd just stop and watch. That kid may not have finished four years of college. Mario, by his own admission not the most talented guy, went further.That gap is why Mario — a licensed FIFA agent at Chicago's Mag Mile Sport, an attorney, and the son of a former European pro — believes talent gets you seen, but decisions get you signed. In Part 1, Ian and Mario map out youth soccer player pathways in America: MLS academies, MLS NEXT, ECNL, high school, college, and kids heading to Europe at 16. Mario's take: these are competing systems, not stages of one, and nobody is coordinating them.Mario explains why the best club and the best club for your kid right now are two different questions, why meaningful minutes and a clear role beat the badge, and why switching clubs often means bringing the same problem to a new address. They dig into pay-to-play and whether FIFA-style training compensation could change what clubs sell, what the World Cup did and didn't fix about access, and the club culture Chicago's old ethnic clubs once had.Then an honest take on college soccer: if the goal is pro, eventually get to D1. If the goal is four great years, go where you fit.For soccer parents, youth coaches, and players weighing club, college, and pro — and asking whether club soccer is worth it. Part 2 continues the conversation.Key Talking PointsGrowing up Croatian-American in Chicago: a dad who played professionally in Europe, an ethnic club that just let players play, and a US Amateur Cup title in his final competitive seasonFree play vs. structured training — two hours of small-sided games, learning to fix your own mistakes, and why everything in America being a car ride away changes the equationTalent gets you seen, decisions get you signed: the number 10 who didn't go as far, and the slow realization behind Mario's bookThe engine: talent plus smart work, and controlling the controllables — your mindset and your fitnessCompeting systems, not one pipeline: MLS academies, MLS NEXT, ECNL, high school, college, and Europe at 16Don't chase the badge: meaningful minutes, a clear role, a commute you can sustain, and a coach you trust with your childAfter the World Cup: more attention, the same access problem — and why pay-to-play isn't only an American or a soccer issueTraining compensation and solidarity payments as a way to reward clubs for developing players instead of winning tournamentsAmerica's second-chance system for late bloomers — and the downside of so many options: families switching clubs and bringing the same problem alongCollege reality check: NIL and the House settlement, the transfer portal, and why the path to a pro contract eventually runs through D1Quotes from Mario Iveljic"The talent gets you seen, but the decisions are the ones that really get you signed.""It was just by playing free. Learning on your own and learning how to correct mistakes on your own.""There are two things that you can control: your mentality, your mindset... and then your fitness.""Those are all competing systems, not just stages of one system.""The best club and the best club for your kid right now are two different questions.""Going to the best club, but then sitting on the bench for all but 10 minutes, you're not going to develop.""A World Cup doesn't lower the cost of playing here in America.""If you don't have that inner drive, that work ethic, you're just bringing the same problem to a different club.""In America we're good at giving second chances, and I think that's something that we should not do away with.""Sometimes those that haven't played the game ask better questions."Connect with Mario Iveljic📖 Book: Make the Smart Move: The playbook for better sports decisions🌐 Website: magmilesport.com🎥 YouTube: @MarioIveljic📸 Instagram: @magmilesport✖️ X / Twitter: @MagMileSportFollow Chat By The Pitch🌐 Website: chatbythepitch.com🎥 YouTube: Chat By The Pitch📸 Instagram: @ChatByThePitch🎵 TikTok: Chat.By.The.Pitch✖️ X / Twitter: @ChatByThePitch📘 Facebook: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Spotify: Chat By The Pitch🍎 Apple Podcasts: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Subscribe & Review: Your support helps us keep bringing conversations with players, coaches, and leaders that matter.#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #PlayerPathways #SoccerParents #FIFAAgent #PlayerDevelopment #DevelopmentOverWinning #ClubSoccer #PayToPlay #CollegeSoccer #MLSNEXT #ECNL #SoccerAgent #MakeTheSmartMove #LateBloomers #FreePlay #YouthSoccerCoach #NorthTexasSoccer #GrassrootsSoccer #SoccerPodcast

In 1993, Scott Martin was driving to a Nike camp with new Ray-Bans and the music turned up — still playing, coaching a nationally ranked college program, with everything in front of him. A month later, he woke up from a coma without his hands.Scott, author of the memoir Play From Your Heart, shares the story behind his youth soccer coaching philosophy and the illness that nearly ended everything. Group A strep and necrotizing fasciitis cost him both hands and parts of both feet. What followed was decades of grief, a lost malpractice trial, an unpaid coaching job on food stamps, five adopted children, and twenty years away from the sideline.Then a club in Bellingham, Washington handed him its U13 C team. The approach he brought back — put players in a position to learn, ask more questions than you answer, and play the flow instead of the ball — turned a group of overlooked kids he calls his soccer rats into undefeated state league champions.Ian and Scott also get into free play and why every young player needs a worn ball of their own, why there's a dancer in every soccer player, bringing eggs and Motown to training, humor as a coaching tool, and what Scott believes is broken in American youth soccer.For soccer parents, youth coaches, and club leaders who believe development beats winning — and that the game is best played from the heart.Key Talking PointsGrowing up on Wide World of Sports and the NASL in the '70s — Pelé, Beckenbauer, Cruyff — and a backyard where any sport was fair gameA mother who raised six kids on three jobs, and where Scott says his work ethic really came fromJan, a Dutch director of coaching who went on to lead the Netherlands Olympic team, and a conversation over a pint about angles and percentages1993: the Nike camp, the fever that got sent home with Gatorade, and waking from a coma to group A strep and necrotizing fasciitisGrief, denial, and depression — why it took decades to let go of the player and the coach he used to beLearning discrimination from a new angle: an athletic director's hallway comment and the handshakes that pulled backStarting over at the bottom: an unpaid assistant role, food stamps, five adopted children, and twenty years studying Cruyff and Guardiola from a distanceThe U13 C team in Bellingham: a 7–0 loss to the A team, confidence before arrogance, and the two lost finals that made them hungry"My mission is not to teach you, but to put you in a position to learn" — questions over instructions, eggs at training, and music as a metronomeFree play and soccer rats: why kids need a worn ball and no coach, why over-structure is choking exploration, and why flag football should worry soccerConnect with Scott Martin🌐 Author Page: Library Tales Publishing📚 Book: Play From Your Heart — Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Library Tales Publishing📧 Email: [email protected]💼 LinkedIn: Scott Martin✖️ X: @SoccerRatMartin👍 Facebook: Scott MartinFollow Chat By The Pitch🌐 Website: chatbythepitch.com🎥 YouTube: Chat By The Pitch📸 Instagram: @ChatByThePitch🎵 TikTok: Chat.By.The.Pitch✖️ X / Twitter: @ChatByThePitch📘 Facebook: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Spotify: Chat By The Pitch🍎 Apple Podcasts: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Subscribe & Review: Your support helps us keep bringing conversations with players, coaches, and leaders that matter.#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #PlayFromYourHeart #PlayerDevelopment #CoachingPhilosophy #FreePlay #SoccerParents #YouthSoccerCoach #DevelopmentOverWinning #Resilience #SoccerRats #TotalFootball #LoveOfTheGame #GrassrootsSoccer #ClubSoccer #SoccerCoaching #LimbDifference #BeautifulGame #SoccerPodcast #NorthTexasSoccer

Zero college offers in his U18 year. A first-round MLS SuperDraft pick a few years later. Released after one pro season — and still chasing it. Roman Torres has lived nearly every turn of the youth soccer player pathway, and he’s only 24.Roman grew up in Dallas, starting on a rec team at the Y before coming up through FC Dallas, Classic League, and the club’s ECNL team. From there his road ran through Germany’s fifth division at 19, junior college at Iowa Western, a breakout season at Creighton, a first-round pick by Minnesota United, a loan to Birmingham Legion, and now Forward Madison FC in USL League One.Ian and Roman get into what that pathway really asks of a player and a family: raffle tickets and long drives to practice, choosing high school soccer and his friends over a move to the academy, why JUCO can be a smart route to the pros, and what it felt like to walk into an end-of-season meeting confident and walk out released. Roman also shares what he’d tell his 12-year-old self — touches, left foot, scan — why strength work at 10 misses the point, and why parents should care less about the league badge and more about the quality of every training session.For soccer parents, youth coaches, and players chasing the next level who want an honest look at development over winning — and the grit it takes to keep going.Connect with Roman Torres📸 Instagram: @Roman.btjFollow Chat By The Pitch🌐 Website: chatbythepitch.com🎥 YouTube: Chat By The Pitch📸 Instagram: @ChatByThePitch🎵 TikTok: Chat.By.The.Pitch✖️ X / Twitter: @ChatByThePitch📘 Facebook: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Spotify: Chat By The Pitch🍎 Apple Podcasts: Chat By The Pitch🎧 Subscribe & Review: Your support helps us keep bringing conversations with players, coaches, and leaders that matter.#ChatByThePitch #YouthSoccer #PlayerDevelopment #PlayerPathway #SoccerParents #DevelopmentOverWinning #NorthTexasSoccer #DFWSoccer #FCDallas #NorthTexasSC #JUCOSoccer #CollegeSoccer #MLSSuperDraft #ForwardMadisonFC #USLLeagueOne #RoadToPro #SoccerMindset #TouchesOnTheBall #YouthSoccerCoach #SoccerPodcast