Pitch-Proven Results: How US Soccer Compares to the European Game | Ep. 138
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What is the ECNL International Tournament and who participated?
Welcome to the week of June 3rd edition of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast featuring ECNL President and CEO Christian Labors and ECNL Vice President and Chief of Staff Doug Bracken. Today, Christian and Doug visit with one of the key leaders of a super successful ECNL program, the Oklahoma energy and their executive director and coach of a team that participated in the recent ECNL international tournament with Everton. That is just around the corner, but first we go around the league on breaking the line. And guess what? This week's episode is all about the ECNL international tournament powered by coaches voice and in association with Everton international Academy and and ECNL boys and ECNL girls went to celebrate all of the teams participating and succeeding in the event.
Eastside FC out of Washington, NCFC out of North Carolina, Oklahoma Energy, and Crossfire Academy out of Washington all participated in the boys' tournament, with Eastside, NCFC, and Oklahoma Energy advancing to the knockout stage. North Carolina made it to the championship game and defeated Chelsea FC to be crowned champions. North Carolina FC's Jordan Hatchell was named best goal scorer of the tournament, while Dylan Wilson was named best goalkeeper. For the girls' tournament, Bay Area Surf Legends FC, Michigan Hawks, and Solar SC served as the ECNL's representatives for the event with Solar, Legends, and Bay Area Surf all making it to the knockout round. In the semifinals, Solar SC defeated Chelsea, and Legends beat Bay Area Surf, setting up an all-ECNL final that saw Solar SC winning it all.
Solar's Addison Boone was named the best goal scorer for the event, and Hadley Hartsfield was named tournament MVP. The ECNL Regional League is just a week away from kicking off postseason play, jumpstarting an incredible summer of soccer within the league. ECNL Regional League girls currently has five clubs who have clinched postseason qualification for all six age groups. Legends FC, FC Dallas, Charlotte SA Blue, Charlotte SA White, and South Carolina Serve. ECNL Boys has two clubs who have achieved the same distinction, Arkansas Comets and NTH NASA. Congratulations to all these clubs, and we can't wait to see who will join them next week. This has been Around the League, so right now I turn it over to the ECNL President and CEO Christian Labors to talk some more about the recent ECNL International Tournament, a smashing success for the ECNL.
So let's have some fun. Take it away, good sir, Christian Labors. Thank you very
much for that introduction, Dean. As always, here we are back again. First week of June. All the excitement of the summer coming, Mr. Bracken. Oh, yeah. Kids' first
full day of summer out of school. So, mass chaos at the house. But we're going to get through it. And the warm weather is nice. The weather's actually been good here for a change. May was rough. It's always good there. So I always feel like when it's good here, I have to speak up and say, hey, it was good here. Getting hyped, World Cup's coming up. I mean, based on what you saw yesterday, the US, I mean, we're going to win the World Cup now.
Well, I mean, you can jump to conclusions if you'd like, but I did like the first half especially. But more important than all of that. is the profound stature of our next guest, another first-time caller, long-time listener, of course, Mark Howard from the great state of Oklahoma. Mark, welcome.
Thank you very much. Mark, when you leave the motherland to come to the US, why pick Oklahoma?
It's a good question. I was actually on the verge of going to LA, and then I got a call from one of my old teammates, Jimmy Nilsson, to come over to Oklahoma. He just took over the new professional club there, and he gave me a call, basically didn't give me a choice, booked tickets, and then I went over and I've never left.
All right. Fun fact before we get into Mark's background, because he has a pretty interesting background and one we'll want to dive into is, I lived in Oklahoma as a very young child. Lawton, Oklahoma.
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