Ep 318: Pay-to-Play is Not as Black and White as you Think

Today, I have a unique guest, 22-year-old professional player Taylor Davila. He grew up in Southern California, where he played most of his youth soccer at a well-known club, Real So Cal.

My brother, Brian Kleiban, had known him from a very young age and had always wanted to bring him aboard our teams. Ultimately, Taylor agreed, and Brian ended up recruiting him to the LA Galaxy Academy, where he subsequently became a pro and played for Galaxy 2 in the USL Championship for two seasons.

Now, he is currently playing under former Colombian World Cup veteran Wilmer Cabrera at Rio Grande Valley in Texas, again in the USL Championship.

One of the things that we like to do here in our soccer family is to help our players both on and off the field, especially if they ride with us as pro players. In the case of Taylor, he was interested and excited to learn about podcast hosting and production. So here he is, he didn’t hesitate, and he grabbed the opportunity to work with me and produce his first episode. You’ll be hearing a lot more of him in the coming months as we work together to make him a skilled content creator.

Again, I’ll repeat because it’s worth mentioning, our group here really believes in arming our players and friends with skills outside of soccer, skills that will be invaluable once their playing career is over. In this episode, Taylor is still finding his voice, but he’s starting to get the hang of it as the episode rolls on.

The topic that he happened to choose is an interesting one that we’re all very familiar with – pay to play.

Yes, everyone has quite a bit to say about this topic, but I think there are some insights and angles here in this episode that are quite different than what’s out there in the mainstream.

I don’t think the mainstream really understands the topic well, and we need to look at it a little bit differently. I hope you enjoy this one, and I hope after listening, you’ll send some messages of encouragement to Taylor as well.

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