IN THIS ISSUE

• 🤝 Introduction: Champions (again)

• 👨‍🎓 Soccer Thought Leader: Nathán Goldberg Crenier, U.S. Soccer

• ⚽️ Soccer Jobs: The most interesting new jobs in soccer

• 🫵 Do This Now: Our cold outreach playbook + a free template

INTRODUCTION

The Columbus Crew have done it again! 🏆

The club that almost wasn’t has lifted another major trophy under Head Coach Wilfried Nancy, defeating LAFC 3-1 Sunday evening in the Leagues Cup Final.

Unfortunately for LAFC fans, it was the second time in less than a year that the the Crew topped their Western Conference foes after a 2-1 win in MLS Cup last November. Ouch.

In Issue 2, we spoke to the man who rebuilt the club by hiring Nancy, and signing the likes of Cucho Hernandez and Diego Rossi, among others - Tim Bezbatchenko.

The architect of the new Crew has since departed for Black Knight Football Club - owners of AFC Bournemouth (England), Auckland FC (New Zealand), FC Lorient (France) and Hibernian FC (Scotland) - but the wisdom he shared is as relevant and applicable as ever.

• ISSUE 2: Tim Bezbatchenko

Congrats to everyone at the Crew on another major accomplishment!

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

SOCCER THOUGHT LEADER: NATHÁN GOLDBERG CRENIER

“The value of being one step ahead of the curve is tremendous, but the work that goes into being one step ahead of the curve is also really, really high.”

Nathán Goldberg Crenier made the decision at age 13 that he wanted to pursue a career in soccer - and every step he has taken since that point has been thoughtful and intentional. In our conversation, he shares the important steps of his journey, from growing up in Mexico, to presenting the idea to be a walk-on player / manager to his college soccer coach, all the way to his current role as Vice President of U.S. Soccer.

Still early in his career, Nathán is deliberate, well-rounded, and as thoughtful as they come - not only about his own personal and professional growth, but also about how he can impact the world’s game, pouring his heart into growing the sport within the United States. He is passionate about all levels of the game - and is a true believer of the power of the sport to build community and changes lives.

Nathán is, as we are, bullish about the growth of the women’s game in North America and believes this presents amazing opportunities for those that want to start, pivot, or build their careers soccer.

Take note, soccer friends, and enjoy today’s conversation.

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder and CEO

Questions and answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity (and any emphasis below is ours, fyi!)

PATHWAY: Nathán, can you share a little bit about your soccer origin story? How did you fall in love with the sport?

NATHÁN: I was born and raised in Mexico, so I never really had much of a choice. In fact, if anything, I was a little bit of a late bloomer by Mexican standards. I think it took until the 2002 World Cup for me to really feel and understand the power that soccer had. The World Cup was being played in Korea and Japan, so the games were being televised live at 6 AM in the morning, and my school [start time] would get pushed back. Everyone in Mexico was watching the Mexico game – parents, kids, and everyone else was going to be watching, so the schools said, “Hey, we're going to have late starts whenever Mexico plays.” And I was like, wow, that's really cool that this sport that is happening halfway across the world is able to have such an impact on my community here in Mexico. And when we come together to watch games, it’s so important to people that it's more important than school. That's when I really fell fully for the sport, and I've been playing it ever since and have also been working in it for as long as I've been in the workforce. But it all goes back to growing up in a culture where soccer is just embedded into everything you do. It's everywhere you look, and it helps bring people together across all sorts of different socioeconomic backgrounds; it’s the one thing that everyone in a country can come together for and appreciate.

PATHWAY: It seems like you got an early start to your career in soccer. When did you know that it was something you wanted to pursue as part of your professional career?

NATHÁN: When I was 13, I moved to Austin, Texas to play soccer at a boarding school with a good soccer program. That was simultaneously an investment into my academic career and also an admission that playing professionally was not really in the cards for me, but I mourned my realization that I was not going to play professionally for about 24 hours. And then the next day I said, “Well, if I'm not going to play professionally, I still want to be as close to the game as possible, and my quality on the soccer field will not determine whether I'm able to work in soccer. That's entirely within my control. If I'm not going to play pro, I still know that I love the sport so much that I want to be around it. And if playing isn't an option, then I'm going to work in soccer as a plan B. So from now on, I'm going to focus on setting myself up for a career in the sport.”

PATHWAY: You have written about the idea of being in the right place at the right time, but that it also requires extra effort - what were the early things in your career that helped you form that idea? 

NATHÁN: So, basically every role that I have had in the soccer world came from me reaching out to someone. It wasn't the case that I saw a job opening and I applied and waited to get through the process. One that comes to mind is when I went to college, I also knew that I probably was not going to be getting recruited by a Division I program. So, as much as I wanted to play soccer, I had to put my academic goals first, and I applied to schools based on where I wanted to go to school, and then told myself that once I chose a place, I would then reach out to the coaching staff and say, “Hey, I'm coming to school here. I played Development Academy, and I would be really excited about being on the soccer team even if I wasn't recruited.” Once I settled on going to Harvard, I reached out to the coaches. They said, “We'd be happy to take a look at you. Why don't you come to one of our summer camps right before you start and we'll evaluate you and, from there, decide how to move forward?” And so I did that. I showed up to campus early so I could come to the summer camp, and the coach saw me and decided that I probably wasn't worth the trouble.

What they actually said was something like, “Listen, we have a big recruiting class” - It was the first recruiting class for a new set of coaches - and “we think that if you came in, you'd probably be towards the bottom of the roster. We're not going to give a spot to someone who's not going to make an impact from day one. So, if you were coming in to be one of the top 15 players, then yeah, then we would let you walk on, but not someone who's not going to make an impact.” And so almost without thinking about it, I said, “Well, if what you need is someone who's going to make an impact, I'll make an impact. I'll pick up the cones. I will wash the pinnies, I’ll do whatever it is that will make me worth the trouble. I will do that.”

And then hopefully by establishing myself that way, then I can prove that I deserve to be here on the soccer side. So, I offered to essentially be a team manager. And what they were not expecting or was not part of the program at that point, was someone willing to do data and analytics on our team. So, I said, if that's how I'm going to bring enough value to be worth the hassle of joining the team, then I'll do that on top of being a practice player, I'm sure I'll be able to contribute even if I'm just a practice player that doesn't play and all these other things. And they said, “okay, well, if you're willing to do all that, then sure, why not?”

So, I spent my first season as a practice player and team manager, and by the spring of that year, the coach said, “okay, well yeah, you've kind of proven your worth to the team, so we're going to move you into being just a fully rostered player.”

And my experience on the soccer team at Harvard taught me more than anything else that I learned on campus: About working hard to meet my goals, about persisting in the face of adversity, about interpersonal relationships with people who sometimes equated how good you were at soccer with how much their relationship to you was worth.

And I would not have been able to have that experience if I hadn't been there in person to make my case to the coaching staff, coming up  with a counter proposal on the spot that forced them to consider me for the team.

 Since then, working at Orlando City, I was the one who reached out and said, “Hey, I bet y'all don't have someone doing data analytics for you. I'm studying statistics. I do the analytics for my college team. I would love to come do that for y'all if there's an opportunity for me to do that over summer.” 

They said, “Yeah, you're right. We don't have anyone doing data. So, sure if you show up, there'll be a desk waiting for you. We can't promise anything else.” That was my first foray into the real soccer industry outside of the work I was doing for my college team. 

PATHWAY: There's so much embedded in that - the idea of persistence, the idea of showing your value, the idea of intentionally being in the right place at the right time, but also putting in the effort to make sure you are being thoughtful about the value proposition you're pitching. How do you have the confidence and the certainty to go and pitch yourself in such a strong way?

NATHÁN: Honestly, my college coaching staff was really good about encouraging that and pointing out to me the things that I brought to the table, and – I cannot stress this enough – being a good soccer player was not one of those things [laughs].

But, part of it was having at least a vague idea of where you want to end up or what direction you want to head in, then breaking that down into smaller steps. So, for example, if you wanted to be the president of the United States then, before that, you need to do this other thing first, and this other thing even before that. How do the people that get to that position actually get to that position, and what can I learn from the path that those people took to that position?

It was all about breaking things down into the next most important step. For me, I knew I wanted to work at the international level of soccer. Okay, well, I will get in touch with someone who is working in international soccer right now. Can I reach out to them and say, “Hey, here's where I want to end up. I want to help. I want to learn, and I'm willing to be flexible and to make myself as useful as possible to what you actually need as opposed to my idea of what you might need.” So, I think it’s very helpful to understand where you want to end up and work backwards to figure out what that pathway might look like.

PATHWAY: What strategies would you encourage someone who is a career pivot to utilize in order to begin their career in soccer?  We hear from folks that have been doing something else for 10 years, 15 years and they want to break into the sport. How can they get past that hump of sending that email, making that inquiry, knowing that a lot of them get lost or don't get replies? How do you have that resilience to just keep going and keep doing outreach?

NATHÁN: Yeah, I think knowing that those things happen is helpful. If you expect that every outreach message will come back with exactly what you were hoping for, you'll be disappointed. The good thing about the way that the human brain works is that if you send out 10 messages and one of them works out and helps you get a new job, then your brain will convince you that that was what was meant to happen all along. 

To some extent, it is a numbers game. I think the more tailored that your messages or your outreach is, then the higher likelihood that each individual message will yield a response versus if you're just sending the same generic message to a bunch of different people who have different interests or different roles. One of the more important things is explaining why you're reaching out to that particular person that you're reaching out to and saying ‘Hey, this is how I want to see my career path playing out, and this is why I'm reaching out to you as opposed to any other person.’ I think that makes people much more likely to want to take an interest in you and help you out.

PATHWAY: Nathán - you’re still relatively early in your career, and you've accomplished a lot, and had a lot of really cool experiences. What are the areas that you still want to take time to develop in your own career?

NATHÁN: I'm very excited about doing my coaching licensing and my referee licensing pathways. I don't aim to be a coach or be a referee, but I know how important those pieces are to the soccer ecosystem and the soccer landscape, and I've been a player my whole life, so I see that perspective, but I haven't really been able to put myself in the shoes of some of the coaches and some of the referees that make the soccer world tick. So, in order for me to be as effective as I can be in my role at U.S. Soccer, where we basically oversee all of soccer, I want to be able to have those perspectives from the different parts of the game. 

Beyond that, I am looking at potentially going to law school. I think there's a lot in the soccer world that gets decided by lawyers, and I want to be able to hold my own in those conversations. I would do a lot of our contract negotiations at Gotham FC, and, thankfully, most of those contracts were already boilerplate language, very formulaic, coming from the league headquarters. But, on occasion, there were things that we were doing that would require deviating a little bit from the boilerplate, and we had to work together with the league, with the agents, and with the players to get to the right solution. Just based on that and things like CBA negotiations that also are very legal-heavy, I think that’s going to be a good tool to have in my arsenal going forward.

PATHWAY: You have your own newsletter called  “Seeing the Present” and I wonder if you could explain that concept and how you see it applied to the soccer industry? 

NATHÁN: ‘Seeing thee present’ is a phrase that I borrowed from Ezra Klein - a New York Times columnist - and what he's referring to is that in order to anticipate or visualize the future, the most important thing that we can be doing is understanding what is going on around us right now. 

The rationale is that most of the things that are going to happen in the future have already been set in motion. So, the trends that are happening in this moment, some of them will continue and develop into what the future will look like, and some of them won't. Some of them will fizzle out. Some of them are not as important as others. Because it's not actually possible to see the future, and you can't look at a crystal ball to see what the future looks like, the next best thing is to have a really good sense of what things in the present are the things that are going to matter in the future.

And if you can get that right, then that gives you a big advantage in trying to anticipate the things that are going to happen in the future. That was a core part of how we wanted to approach things at Gotham. I think the way the women's game is changing, the pace at which things are moving, is exponential. It's a rocket ship. There are all these different metaphors for how the women's game is evolving in a very short amount of time.

The value of being one step ahead of the curve is tremendous, but the work that goes into being one step ahead of the curve is also really, really high. But that was a key piece to how we wanted to approach our decisions. If we are the team that is most aware of everything that is happening right now, then we have a better chance of being able to get ahead of some of our other competitors.

PATHWAY: As you look at the next couple of years - and we all know what's coming with 2026 and the acceleration of the sport - are there areas of soccer in America that you believe will see more significant growth over the next few years than others?

NATHÁN: The women's game, for sure. You have the launch of another first division professional league [with USL Super League]. A year ago there used to be 12 professional women's soccer teams, and now there's going to be 22 - and all those clubs hire people, and all those clubs have an impact on their communities and how those communities relate to soccer. And if you're thinking about the number of professional men's teams that exist in the US and the number of women's teams that exist, I don't know how long it's going to take for those numbers to be equal. But what I do know is that there's going to be a lot of growth on the women's side as those numbers get closer and closer to each other. 

And it’s worth understanding that the women's game has very specific challenges and opportunities at this moment that makes it a different facet of the game. That requires different thinking and different skill sets. But as it grows at this rate, there's going to be a lot more opportunities for people to get a job in soccer and help propel the growth of the women's game for the next five, 10 years.

PATHWAY: Finally, what’s your favorite thing about working in soccer?

NATHÁN: My favorite thing about working in soccer is the people. I joke that soccer is a team sport, but it's also a people business. And I've been so incredibly lucky to have had all these different experiences in the soccer world and getting to meet different people from different areas of the soccer world. I love the game, I play the game, I watch the game, but what I really, really love is the fact that the game serves as a vehicle to bring people together to do things together, more so than the actual kicking of the ball.

You can connect with Nathán on LinkedIn and X [Twitter!].

Go work with Nathán at U.S. Soccer! Here are a few jobs that are currently open at the Federation - all based in Atlanta:

• Manager, Strategy - U.S. Soccer

• Coordinator, Event Operations - U.S. Soccer

• Manager, Partnership Marketing - U.S. Soccer

• Senior Manager, Partnership Strategy and Insights - U.S. Soccer

SOCCER JOBS: THE MOST INTERESTING NEW JOBS IN SOCCER

New week, new jobs in soccer. Here are a few that caught our eye:

• Director, Analytics - NWSL

• Chief Revenue Officer - USL

• Assistant Groundskeeper - New York Red Bulls

• Assistant Director, Academy - Racing Louisville

• Senior Coordinator, Consumer Products - MLS

• Manager, CRM & Email Marketing - Portland Thorns

• Head Women’s Soccer Coach - University of North Carolina

• Events Coordinator, National Competitions - Canada Soccer

• Vice President, Partnership Marketing - Seattle Sounders FC

• Strength & Conditioning Coach, Academy - San Jose Earthquakes

DO THIS NOW: MY COLD OUTREACH PLAYBOOK

Because I’ve been in in the soccer industry for a minute (actually, it’s been more than 10,000,000 minutes!), I tend to get a lot of cold outreach - most often via email or DMs on Instagram, X, or LinkedIn.

The reason for the outreach varies (job seekers, sales people, potential clients, informational interview requests, etc.) but there’s a common thread - most of the outreach is, in fact, COLD.

Impersonal. Rote. Boring.

I’m always a bit amazed at how often someone writes to ask me to do something for them and it’s clear I’m receiving a copy/paste special. Even a little bit of work before you hit send can go a long way towards increasing the likelihood of a reply.

With that in mind, here is my cold outreach playbook to bring some organization to your approach and ensure you’re sending messages with a higher success rate. Go get ‘em!

• Block 30-60 minutes on your calendar every week

  • Pick a day and time that works best for you but do everything you can to not schedule over it! 

• PATHWAY RESOURCE: Steal our Cold Outreach Tracker template

• Spend the first half of your scheduled window searching LinkedIn for individuals you would be interested in speaking to

  • Look for folks who work in your area of interest but consider those who may be adjacent to your specific area, too (Ex: If you work in social media, connect with someone in marketing) 

  • Look for individuals to whom you have a specific, personal connection: 

    • From the same city/state 

    • Went to the same college 

    • Played a sport in the same conference 

    • Have a mutual friend that you know well 

    • Support the same teams 

    • Etc. 

• After you’ve identified a potential contact, spend time researching and reviewing their digital presence 

  • Find them on X [Twitter!], LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. 

  • Look for examples of their recent work and projects 

  • Look for mutual connections 

  • Look for anything that might provide a personalized opening sentence in your email

  • Then, if you plan to reach out, drop them in your tracker with your insights and notes 

• Spend the second half of the window, sending very short introductory emails to those you’d like to speak with 

  • Your message should be no more than 4-5 sentences 

  • Your only objective is to get in-person time with them - not share your entire career journey 

  • If you have a specific connection, be sure to mention it (Ex: “I went to Wingate University, too…”) 

  • Reference something specific you found in your research (Ex: “I loved the season ticket campaign you recently launched…”) 

  • Ask for no more than 30 minutes (and sometimes asking for 15 or 20 minutes will increase your chances of success) 

• In your initial outreach, give them an out right off the bat 

  • This is counterintuitive but giving someone permission to say “no” often leads them to say “yes” instead (Ex: “If now isn’t a good time, I completely understand…”) 

  • If you don’t hear back, follow up 7-10 days later with a short, simple note (“Following up with the hope you might be willing to connect…”) 

  • If you don’t hear back after a second follow up, move on - you’re simply not going to hear back from everyone (and no one likes getting hounded)

• PRO TIP: Don’t just make outreach to senior executives

  • Send requests to folks who are early or mid-career 

  • They likely don’t receive as many requests 

  • They often have more schedule flexibility 

  • Careers are long and today’s mid-career professional is tomorrow’s c-suite executive 

• Track your outreach and keep at it every week!

  • You may only hear back from less than 10% of the individuals you reach out to - don’t get discouraged and keep going

We shared a version of this playbook last year but have gotten so many inquiries about this topic recently that wanted to share an updated version.

We hope you find it useful!

-Kyle Sheldon, Co-Founder & CEO

ALSO…

1. If this email was forwarded to you, you can sign up here to ensure you get every issue (sent on Wednesdays!) directly in your inbox.

2. And, if you’re a club or brand looking to get in front of ambitious talent in soccer, drop us a line.

FOLLOW ALONG

• X [Twitter!]

• Instagram

• LinkedIn

^{See you next week, soccer friends!} 

• Kyle Sheldon

• Nolan Sheldon