Nathan Richardson, co-author of Shoeless Soccer, joins the podcast this week to talk about the radical yet somewhat globally accepted ideas in his book. Basically, instead of turning soccer into an expensive coach-driven activity, why not let kids learn by playing? And maybe on hard surfaces so they'll learn to control the ball instead of booting it?

This conversation should give us all some ideas for how to reform youth soccer, even if you don't agree with all of them, and it should put the term "rec mindset" to bed once and for all. We all start as rec players, and in many cases, that's where we (well, not me) learn the things that make us better players down the road.

We ran rather long, so this will be a two-parter.

Practice plans mentioned in the podcast are at http://www.mayouthsoccer.org/coaches/u14/

Thanks as always to Patreon supporters, and keep an eye out for RSD merchandise available soon.

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