Welcome to the scuffed podcast. I'm Adam Bells in Minneapolis. With me is Greg Velasquez and

Des Moines. We talk about U.S. men's soccer. Our guest today is Todd Saldanya, the Academy Director for Los Angeles Football Club, a former

US Soccer Federation Technical Advisor for the Southwest Region, and a former Scout for

Jorg and Klinzman and the US Men's National Team.

LAFC's Academy is new and has become an instant contender in the Development Academy.

The oldest team now competing at the U17 level had the most wins of any U15 team in the country last year and

LAFC had several players called into youth national teams including three of the

18 players at the U15 concave championship late this summer. So I'm excited to hear

what they're doing. Todd, welcome to the podcast.

Adam, thanks. Thanks very much. Now we're hearing you read all that is a nice little reunion to what we've done over the last little bit but

no thanks for having us we're super excited about what's what's going on at LFC.

Yeah I'm super excited to have you so So first question, I think I read that the Academy coaches at LAFC are involved in scouting new signings for the first team and you personally helped look at Diego Rossi.

Is that right?

Can you talk about it?

Yeah, no, that's true.

At the very beginning stages too,

of developing the first team.

I mean, we were, the Academy staff and the Academy had already begun so we were the guys in the

office with John Thorrington and you know we're fortunate we have pretty international

staff also so there were guys that have experiences in different places and so

John had asked us to help out with the scouting where we could so most of it was was done through

White Scout and just resources and people you know contacts we knew but yeah it was a it was an honor for them to ask us and

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