A podcast loaded with Top Flight guests hosted by Mid Table Dads. Based out of St Louis, a soccer city that is the polar opposite of… kansas.
St Louis MO
Joined October 2022
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MO State gets barely $6k per kid per year in State Appropriations (taxes)
Notre Dame gets close to $30K/ student in government funding (taxes)… as a private institution… with a tax free endowment north of $20B ($300m/yr tax free roughly)
Where’s the outrage there?
Missouri State is a public university funded by American taxpayers. Their men’s soccer team has 27 players. 26 of them are from other countries. 1 American.
Is this what “college sports” looks like now? @Kayceeunplugged reports on a troubling trend.
sportandstate.com/2026/10/20…
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
STL Best XI Week five is live! Check out this awesome group of amazing players! This week, we're highlighting two ballers from Howell Central: Louie Troha and Chase Radeke, who are leading the Spartans to amazing heights! #WhereLegendsAreMade
Great chat about stadiums, cities, and soccer! What do they have to do with each other? Everything.
@MLS @USLChampionship @USMNT
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
In the future, when I run @MSHSAAOrg , here's what I would do:
1) 90 minute regular season matches, no overtime. Can end in a draw. That's how soccer is meant to be played and Varsity kids already are used to 90 minutes from club.
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
STL Best XI Week 3 is back with another fantastic group of ballers! This week, we're highlighting Eliot Allen, a Ladue forward who's having a tremendous year for the Rams! Drop a comment for your favorite player!
#WhereLegendsAreMade
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
STL Best XI is back with week 2! Check out this group of ballers from around the area! This week, we're highlighting Jack Hennessy, a CBC forward who's come back from STL City Academy and is showing out for the Cadets! Drop a comment for your favorite player!
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
Brief bio and what my individual sessions I usually do look like. @MLSNEXT @ProspectsUsmnt @LouFuszSoccer @SoccerDadPod #stlmadesoccer @footy_access @ImCollegeSoccer
If a kid is good enough, they will get recruited and will play.
The actual issue is the vast majority of players are not aware of the level that they are actually playing at, and are delusional with where they feel they deserve to be.
Men's college soccer barely exists anymore.
Outside of the top D3 conferences -- NESCAC, UAA -- the idea of "student athletes" is dead.
Top D1 is dominated by internationals and transfers. And kids are going to 3 or even 4 schools in their college career.
It's purely transactional. No culture. No community. Just mercenaries.
There are exceptions (Georgetown, ND, Stanford, Denver). But not many.
And the pressure to win NOW means that there will be even fewer in the near future.
Da Goat!!!
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
High School Soccer is back! Here's the players to watch for the 2026 fall season! Go out and support the lads! Reminder that all players are nominated by area coaches and then voted on by area coaches! #WhereLegendsAreMade
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
“Somebody needs to come up with a new acronym for MLS. It should be like ‘Making Less Sense’ because they passed on this guy.” 😳
USMNT legend Eric Wynalda is back after spending some time in Europe, and he’s called out MLS for missing out on $130 million talent Yan Diomande.
He was speaking on UNLEASHED with Eric Wynalda for GOLZ TV.
“This is the reality of how bad our scouting is in this country,” Wynalda began.
“There’s been some very recently things released about people having opinions about if you actually join an academy in the United States, it decreases your chance to ever be a pro.
“Some of the information that that's coming out that now is kind of things that we've been talking about for a while in this program. So, glad to see everybody catching up.
“Is there a better story than this recent signing by Real Madrid? If you’re unaware, Yan Diomande has made the move to Real Madrid.
“Now, let me tell you his story because this is one of those things that that needs to be understood.
“When people talk about the United States just being too damn big, and not having the ability to just throw a net around everything, this is an interesting one.
“Because Yan was right underneath their nose. And if you don't know the story, Diomande, before he went on to blowing it up in Europe, our country passed on him. Completely.
“What I mean by that is the MLS dummies had their shot. He was right there in Orlando. And you know who you are, guys.
“And, you know, one of you've dismissed your coach. I don't know if this had anything to do with it, but maybe that would be a good reason.
“This guy scored two goals to win the UPSL championship, which is a level that they say, ‘Oh my god, we would never touch that. This isn't this isn't top level stock. We can't have a player like that. You know, that's not good enough for us because we're MLS.’
“Somebody needs to come up with a new acronym for MLS. It should be like ‘Making Less Sense’ because they passed on this guy.
“Now there's four other teams that passed too. So you're not going to get exonerated from blame either.
“But this is a player that was playing in subsequently our fifth division? Is that what UPSL is? Now he just went for $130 million, which is more money than every single transfer that you have made from start to finish in Major League Soccer.
“We still haven't figured out the development piece of this league, and we call ourselves a developmental league?
“Yay Cavan Sullivan, you might be pretty good. You got a couple of assists. Great, super fantastic. Where's the rest of them?
“The rest of them are right underneath your nose. They are playing in places that you just don't look because you're too god damn arrogant to get in a car and actually talk to somebody who might know what they're talking about and find the kid.”
Diomande spent time in DME Academy and played for AS Frenzi in UPSL, before moving to Spain in 2025 with Leganés.
After an impressive spell there, followed by another impressive spell in RB Leipzig, he’s been signed by Real Madrid for $130 million. 💰
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
College soccer in and around St. Louis really cranks up this week, here's a look ahead at the schedule. And remember you can find the full STL Unified Calendar at stlsoccernews.com/schedule/
Can we stop wishing @MLS top talent skip out to Europe every time an unproven kid is considered the "next best thing"? At some point, shouldn't we want a domestic league that:
A- Solidifies local support
B- Improves USMNT pool
C- Isn't Europe's bit$h
D- Avoids 9th inning talent
?
THE Soccer Dad-Pod 🎙️⚽️🎧 retweeted
THE YOUTH SYSTEM IS NOT THE PROBLEM. Anyone telling you that either doesn’t know what they’re talking about or they’re protecting MLS.
The USMNT will never become an elite national team as long as MLS continues spending millions on young foreign players instead of giving meaningful minutes to young Americans.
Every MLS club has talented academy players who sign Homegrown deals. Fans get excited, then those players spend the next 3–4 years sitting on the bench or in MLS NEXT Pro. By the time they’re 21 or 22, the window to become truly world-class is gone.
There’s a reason the only young Americans who consistently break through in MLS are outside backs and, occasionally, center backs. Those are the positions clubs typically don’t spend big money on. Meanwhile, they invest millions in midfielders and forwards, making it nearly impossible for a 17-, 18-, or 19-year-old American to play over a 20-year-old South American the club paid a $10 million transfer fee and a multi-million-dollar salary to.
Until that changes, you can overhaul the youth system all you want it won’t matter. If young Americans aren’t actually playing meaningful first-team minutes during their most important development years, the pipeline will never consistently produce world-class players
U.S. Soccer is exploring a complete overhaul of the youth soccer system amid renewed scrutiny of pay-to-play following the USMNT's Round of 16 World Cup exit — with the goal of making the game more accessible and affordable 🇺🇸⚽️
U.S. Soccer COO Dan Helfrich: “We are not seeking to make the current system more affordable. We’re trying to create a new system that then we make highly affordable. It’s a really important distinction.”
Arsène Wenger, speaking alongside Helfrich at U.S. Soccer’s headquarters outside Atlanta: “From outside, I felt that people from a poor background had no access to the game. That is quite a big part of the population that usually in Europe, the best football players come from poor backgrounds. We want maybe a job to do as well to make it possible and available for everybody and after to be consistent because it’s not a short-term fix.”
The discussion centered on how the federation can continue growing the sport after what U.S. Soccer CEO JT Batson called an “incredibly successful” World Cup that “has fundamentally changed the trajectory of the sport in the United States.”
