April Heinrichs: Chapter 7 - Technical and Tactical Development

I don't know if there's a coach, coaching staff, or a coaching country that understands their players better than the American coach understands the American player. So in the end of the day, our coaches manage our players and understand just how much tactics we can put in there, how much inspiration needs to be doled out, how much little arm around, little love, little kick in the pants, little poke now and then. But we don't beat up our players. We don't teach them to overanalyze. We set them out on the field and we freaking set them free.

You're listening to the Vision of a Champion podcast with Anson Dorrance, eight time coach of the year, 22 time national champion coach of the 1991 Women's World Cup Team hall of Famer, leader and mentor to so many in the soccer community. On this podcast, Anson brings on players and coaches to discuss what it means to be a champion. The drive, the passion, the desire, and yes, the stories.

Here's your host, voice of the North Carolina Courage and North Carolina FC Dean Linke.

Hello again everyone and welcome back to the Vision of a Champion Podcast. I'm your host, Dean Linke, longtime soccer broadcaster and the longtime voice of the North Carolina Courage women's professional soccer team. Today we will be flipping to chapter seven titled Technical and Tactical Development. The previous chapters primarily focused on the psychological components to improving your game. Now we are getting to the physical components. Here, Anson breaks down some good habits to improve your technique on the ball and lays out UNC's tactical strategy on both sides of the field. Chapter 7 even introduces Anson's famous or depending who you talk to, infamous 343 formation. Our guest for today's episode is former UNC standout and accomplished U.S. women's National Team player and coach April Heinrichs. April played under Anson from 1983-86, winning three NCAA national titles and one second place finish. During her four years Carolina as a player, April Heinrich scored 35 goals and 46 caps. The first Women's World cup in 1991, she scored four goals in five matches for the USA's first major victory on a world stage. She was an assistant coach under Tony DiCicco and took over as head coach after the 1999 World cup victory. With the world motivated to take down the Americans, April and her team held their ground, winning a gold and silver in two Summer Olympics and a third place finish in the 2003 World Cup. In 1998, April Heinrichs was the first female player inducted into the National Soccer hall of Fame, and indeed, rightfully so. We also get to hear from another National Soccer hall of Fame inductee, the great Anson Dorrance, 22 time NCAA champion and world cup champion. Coach Anson revolutionized the women's game during the UNC dynasty, and after 40 years of coaching, he still finds ways to progress the game forward. April and Anson are two of the best people to talk about technical and tactical development, and we couldn't be happier to have them both here today. Welcome to you both April and Anson.

Thank you for having me. It's quite a pleasure.

Yes, indeed. And Anson, you obviously knew what April Heinrichs could do because you brought her to uncle. But why was April an automatic for you as part of the USA roster in 1991?

Let me share what she's done, which I talk about all the time. I talk about recruiting her, and I found out indirectly that it's not a story she likes. I'm not going to tell it in front of her, but basically when she came into my culture at unc, she was a shark with blood in the water. And I actually absolutely loved it. Obviously, what's really interesting and all the different cultures of developing elite, competitive women have to go through this period, it's not a comfortable culture because it's not the way we raise our young girls and our young women to feel comfortable in this. You know, you want to win every game and practice sort of culture. But the thing I loved about watching April, and I knew she was good coming in, but oh my gosh, I didn't realize she was that good. And all of a sudden she's showing me in practice just how dominant she is and not just in the occasional scrimmage or 6v6 game. She's dominant in everything. Every 1v1 duel, everything she did was right on the edge of her game. And I was thinking, this is incredible. And honestly, it shook some people up in our training environment and they were a little bit concerned about how seriously April took everything. And April knows this because she's obviously coached a very long time and coached at a very high level. Sometimes you're protecting the people within your culture because they're doing things the right way and it's not making anyone else feel comfortable. And so what I loved was actually saying, no, no, no, no. That's exactly the way I want you guys to compete. And I used April as sort of a model for the way I wanted my collegiate culture to be. Basically sharks with blood in the water. And then when I was appointed the US Women's National Coach, the first player I picked was April. Every player I brought in, basically after her, I pointed at April and said, that's how we're going to train. We're going to train like sharks with blood in the water. So this culture that's still winning to this day, and it's not winning because we are the most advanced team technically, I would certainly give that to the Japanese or they that were the most athletic team, because the French right now are just as athletic as we are or the most tactical team. I still think the Germans and the Swedes are in a different level. Tactically, the quality that separates us is the quality April brought to my collegiate team at North Carolina. And she was the role model for me for my national team in 1986. Because keep in mind, in 1986, when I was hired, the US had never won a game. And in international competition, five years later, we were world champions. And we didn't do it the German way or back then, the Italians were really good. The Italian way or the Norwegian way, we did it the American way. And so April's mentality and her capacity to compete, the fact that we are all 1v1 gunslingers, that's the way we won in 1991. And April was, for me, that sort of soccer messiah that I built my UNC program on, but also the US Women's National Team.

On April, even 30 years later, hearing Anson say you were the first pick for that US Team, that's got to mean something special.

Yeah. I mean, just like the 91 World Cup, Anson's presence in my life is a treasure that is a gift that keeps on giving, too, because, you know, he's had so much longevity and he's been such a profound influencer in the game and on so many of the women that have influenced the game and so many women that have gone into coaching and coaches that have gone in. So, yeah, I mean, I can't say enough how much I respect and appreciate whenever he compliments me. It's shocking that this many years later he still does it and that it's still. I know it's genuine that it. That he reflects back to so many years ago, and I'm flattered by it. And I wouldn't change my time at North Carolina for any other era. I wouldn't change my time with Anson. One of the things that I think that Anson and I did, we taught each other. So he told the story about how he learned about my competitiveness. By the way, Anson, I don't know if it surprises you But I recently watched the Michael Jordan series.

Does not surprise me.

People were calling him a jerk by the end of that series. Right, exactly. Maybe people thought I was a jerk, right? But I found my friends, I found my social network, I found my like minded people. You know, I always felt accepted socially. But yeah, I'm sure, I am 100% sure that there were times where, you know, for probably the first 30, 40 years of my life, I took myself very seriously. I competed at everything. It was, it was my way. It was what helped me get out of Colorado, it was what helped me get to college, because nobody had gone to college in my life, in my family. It's what gave me a coaching career. It's what gave me this drive to be the best coach I could be. I have to say that being a player was way easier, way easier than being a coach. So, yeah, when I reflect back on my days at North Carolina, I cannot imagine a path any different than the path I had chosen. I went to North Carolina sight unseen. At the last minute, he says, by the way, you're one credit short. You got to pick up a summer class. And it was like, where is summer school now? I had to pick up a summer class to get there. By the way, when you arrived, there was actually no dorm because he didn't realize I was technically a transfer student. So there was no dorm room for me. But I got there and man, did I. Maybe I was a shark, but I was swimming with sharks and I knew it. And that's where I was happiest is swimming with other women that wanted to compete, that played the game that gave it as much as they got it. And we all walked off the field fronts. So I wouldn't change my decade, my era for anything on the planet.

Indeed, I wouldn't change anything either. I felt like I had a front row seat to your brilliance. Before we go to work, I do have one thing to say though, because I did get to see you play and I lived in Colorado and being from Littleton, when I think Littleton, Colorado, I think April Heinrichs. So, Anson, you might want to pipe in here. Kristin Hamilton had a breakout year this year for the Curry. She even got a cap for the usa. But I have a big problem with Kristen Hamilton every time I see her, because she didn't know that April Heinrichs is from Littleton, Colorado. Her same hometown. How can that happen? You got to respect your elders, right? You got to know who paved the way, right?

Know who rode the boat before you got in. I'm Going to have a chat with Kristin Hamilton.

Yeah. Well, you know, what I have really loved about the American women is they do look back at their history, and I think maybe less and less now, but there was a period when everyone did look back. I've always respected that in the culture of the extraordinary women is they know this was built on the backs of other women. And the thing I really love about having Foudy in such a prominent position is she has no issue sort of sharing this on a consistent basis. And, you know, there's a reason why tennis on the women's side does have equal pay with the men, because basically, Billie Jean King fought tooth and nail to make sure that would happen. And so Fadi's association with Billie Jean is also part of what we're trying to do right now on the women's side to get equal pay for them as well. But let's be completely transparent about this. The culture that we developed back in 91 was one of respect, because the coolest thing about that team in 91 is they played forever. I mean, Mia was 15 when we brought her onto that team, and so she played forever. So did Foudy, so did Lily. And obviously, it's because their memory of the people that started this is still a part of their DNA. And the greatest thing about Foudy right now for me is she has that institutional memory of where the women's team came from. She's not shy at all of sharing all this on a consistent basis. And so I really appreciate that. So I don't know where Kristen's been hiding, but if she hasn't been listening to Foudy and about the history of the game, I mean, she's just got to get to work, because that's been very clear from the beginning.

Well, you said get to work. Let's go to work. And dive into this chapter. Anson and April. Anson, we start with you. This is the chapter where you make your extensive argument for using the 3, 4, 3 formation. How did you decide that formation was the best for your team?

Well, it's really funny. I was on a call this morning with Raymond Verheyen. Verheyen's talking about one of the big mistakes almost all the coaches in the world make is they look at the reigning champion. So right now, on the men's side, it's the French, and they seem to think they can imitate what the French did, either in their academy teams or with the team that won and then bring it into their culture. And all of a sudden, it thrives and it doesn't. You have to coach your team within the culture, your culture. So in the United States, here's what we are. First of all, we are competitive as hell. So I knew right out of the gate that I wanted to play a particular style that was competitive as hell. So what style did I want to play? I wanted to play in your face, baby. So we weren't going to have a line of confrontation, you know, 10 yards outside our penalty box. Hell, no. You know, if you had possession near one of your own frigging corner flags, we're going to attack you defensively to try to win it back. So it didn't matter where you were, we're going to go after you. That's the American way. So this is our culture. What's another part of our culture? We're gunslingers, baby. I've got a six gun on my right hip and one on my left hip. We're going to go out there in the street and let's see who's got the quickest draw. So how did we develop that team to win in 91? It was with 1v1. We couldn't get together every week and play this possessional game where we played it around the back and then played a probing ball into midfield and then knocked it the back again and then found another player that could face up in midfield, then found the feet of the nine who then, you know, played it off to the 10 and then, no, no, no, no. We couldn't play that way because to play that way, you got to have. Basically, you got to get together all the time. So that's not the way we played. So sometimes we got together once a year. So what do we tell the girls to work on? 1v1. 1v1. So when you came into camp, one of two things was gonna happen. Either you were gonna have to pass a fitness test, and if you didn't pass that, we were sending you home, or you had to play 1v1. So all of these players, and April, obviously, being an extraordinary example of this, came in as gunslingers, basically duelers, people that could beat people off the dribble, people that could stop people off the dribble. So in the front seven for the United States team in 1991, because we're playing obviously with a goalkeeper and three in the back, six out of the seven would rather beat you off the dribble than pass it. The only one in the front seven that would rather pass it than dribble was Shannon Higgins. So April at Right wing, what's her quality? Give her the ball. Get the hell out of my way. She's going through everyone. Michelle Aker, same thing in the nine. Karen Jennings, the same thing in the seven. So basically the whole front line, they're 1v1 artists. Who's it right in midfield, it's Mia Hamm. What does she like to do when she gets it? Does she look up and sort of go, ah, where should I be passing the ball? Where's the win? No, no, no, she gets the ball, she goes through you. What does Lilly do on the left? Same thing. And Foudy, who's in the middle of midfield, likes to gallop through midfield with a ball. So basically we were a gunslinging team. That is the American culture. So everything I do at UNC and everything I did with the US Full national team was all about basically conforming to the way the Americans would love to play the game. So that's the way we did it. So it's a pressing game. It's about work ethic, it's about doubling at every opportunity. It's about winning the headers, winning the tackles, taking people off the dribble. That's the American culture. That's the American way. And so that's the way we've designed our teams back then. And to this day, we're still pressing. With the exception of Washington State last year, no one else in the US presses. Are you freaking kidding me?

Hey everyone, we're going to take a quick break here to tell you about our sponsor, soccer.com. anson has been coaching for 44 years and it seems like soccer.com has been around nearly that long as well. It's pretty close as the soccer.com business has been family run and based in Hillsborough, North Carolina since 1984. If you're a player or a coach who needs soccer shoes, equipment, gear, whatever it may be, do what the pros do. Head on over to soccer.com I hope you've been enjoying the podcast and I wanted to make you aware that Anson just released a new audiobook version of his hardcover book, the Vision of a Champion. Now you can listen to the book narrated by Anson Dorrance and switch back to the free podcast to hear the stars of the women's game discuss each chapter. The Vision of a Champion Audiobook is available on Apple Books, Amazon's Auto Book, Google Play, or wherever you get your audiobooks. To find it, simply search the Vision of a Champion Audiobook. Now let's get back to the show. April, when you hear Anson talk about how he weaponized the 3, 4, 3 formation. Can we get your perspective of what it was like playing in that formation?

Yeah, I mean, I think that when you're a young soccer player, the first thing you want to hear is a coach give you freedom. And so Anson endorsed that freedom, the freedom to make decisions, to take players on, to take responsibility, one versus one. And as a young coach, like, I've tried to do the math a few times and my memory escapes me, but as a young head coach, he understood quite early that I'm going to give every woman this sense of freedom and this take responsibility. We used to always talk about the one versus one duel. So it's a simplification of the game. If you win your one versus one battle, and we do that all over the field, we win. So he empowers women to take the ball, make decisions. He empowers women. He can motivate a piece of grass to grow faster. Right. So when you combine sort of this young, charismatic intellect that was using us as sort of his, I'm guessing, incubator, right, you would try something here and then you'd try something there. That's what I mean by a partnership. And I want to get back to what he said about the US Team because, yes, I think Anson as a really young coach, got it. Got it. Well, my generation taught him some other things, like player management. You know, it's not just about standing on the sidelines and motivating players. You got to get in touch with the leadership, which I think he was. He was always probably putting his hand to the leadership prior to, you know, keep that professional wall between himself and the players before I got there. Once I got there, he started to realize that some of us women wanted to chime in and what we thought, hey, I really think that Susie here could be a good wing back. Or, hey, I really think. Have you thought about rooming so and so with April to calm her down and get her socially accepted? Or have you thought about. So he started to learn about player management, and player management, it became. He was the master of it. To this day, I am still fascinated by draws. So, you know, you talked about how Anson pick me as the number one player. There was no draft, there was no combine. But just the other day, there was a tweet that went out that had three rows of players. I don't know if you all saw it. They assigned a number value to each player on each of the rows. You had to pick a 5v5 team with a certain Amount of points. And I'm like, I would freaking win that game. You give me Sam Kerr up top and the cheapest goalkeeper in the back. We're gonna win that 5v5 tournament because Anson taught us how to do these tournament draws. And Anson used to sit as a fly on the wall. Listen to April Heinrichs choose so and so and why. And Julie Foudy choose so and so and why. And Marsh McDermott choose so and so why? And who went last was always important or who. Why wouldn't somebody choose somebody? Anson started to learn the women's nuances and we were teaching him that. So I wanted to mention that and those days. But also to turn to your reference to the last World Cup, Anson. I had dinner with a friend from Australia Saturday night and this is a true statement. I said, you know, we won the women's team, won the World cup, but I don't know if there's a coach, coaching staff, or a coaching country that understands there's players better than the American coach understands the American player. So that ties exactly into what you just said. The French sometimes over analyze and beat up their players, right? I think the we're just gonna let the paparazzi ruin England, right? Because them up and spit them out. In the end of the day, our coaches manage our players and understand just how much tactics we can put in there, how much inspiration needs to be doled out, how much little arm around little love, little kick in the pants, little poke now and then. But we don't beat up our players. We don't teach them to overanalyze. We set them out on the field and we frickin set them free. We set them free, make their own mistakes, learn from their mistakes. I referenced earlier how I'm not afraid to make mistakes. Fits a failure is how you get better at things. So Anson gave us an environment where we could make mistakes, gave us environment where we had to take responsibility and you could make mistakes and you have to make your own decisions and you can make those mistakes. So that combination was just a magical combination to create the culture. And I will forever, forever, as long as my brain cells allow me to remember things. I'll forever remember our humble beginnings as a collegiate team. And also that transferred some to the national team. And Anson and I together as a player and a coach and that relationship. That's worthy of a book, Anson. Oh, I think you've done that.

Yeah, a great book.

Sorry for the long answer, but you got me all fired up there.

That was great, April.

Yeah, we Love when you get fired up, April. That's what makes you.

You.

And Anson, you kind of touched on this already, but in this chapter, you explained that unstructured play and pickup soccer are so important for the development of a young player, yet it was not common for American kids to play pickup soccer during their free time. When you wrote the Vision of a Champion in the early 2000s, have you felt like soccer has become a more common playground game since you wrote the book?

No. And it's a tragedy. And what I loved what April shared. And let me just thank you, April. That was wonderful, because I did evolve, and I evolved by listening to the women. Because what I talk about all the time, and I've got leadership speeches when I talk about when I first started coaching the women, it was one mistake after another. They taught me how to lead them. And so April's right. It was a partnership. And what's sort of interesting now, what people are shocked with is I tell people I only make three decisions in my program right now. I decide who starts, who subs in, and who travels. Other than those three decisions, all the other decisions are made by my leadership council, which is the team. And so as a result, their ownership of the team is extraordinary. So April knows this. I don't have curfew. I don't go from room to room to room to see if my kids are in their rooms at 11pm I don't have rules about drinking. I treat my women like they're adults already, and I think they really appreciate that. Now. Do they make mistakes? Occasionally? Yeah. On the field, do they make mistakes? Occasionally, yeah. But I don't just lambaste them for it. No. We grow together in this. And I think there are other choices you could have made. And they agree. And so April's absolutely right. So she was there at the beginning when, honestly, I was searching for a partnership because I didn't really have a really good understanding of this culture. I went to a boys boarding school, and one of the things I joke about whenever I speak is the closest I came to a woman in those days because I had the leading female role in the school playing my senior year. I mean, so that's my. That's my corporate speech, humor. And so, yeah, and so what April's sharing is. She's sharing that they educated me. I wasn't comfortable with women. And she's right. At first, I called them all, you know, Rayfield and Heinrichs. And then I realized that is so stupid because they called me Anson. So, yeah, I started calling Her April, and she called me Anson. And so it was a completely different paradigm, but the paradigm shift was because of them and because I'm realizing, you know, gosh, I am so stiff and uncomfortable. And all of a sudden they made me realize, you know, if you allow yourself to be vulnerable, trust me, we're going to trust you. So a lot of this evolution in my leadership quality came from the players I was coaching. And right now, the players run the program. Doesn't mean we have, you know, recreational practices, no running practice, but they're running the program. So first of all, April is spot on with this.

And for Anson, can I say, for all the coaches out there listening, I think that was a really important thing. I know Anson is self aware enough to know that this is, it's not a, you know, realization today. Just hearing it probably reminded you. But also, when all of us leave North Carolina and we go on to coaching, the first thing we realize when we start coaching is, oh, my God, I am not Anson Dorrance. And I cannot, I cannot talk like him, I cannot motivate like him. And so there is this crisis that you have immediately when you start coaching. And I can remember having it at the University of Maryland when I got there. I'm not Anson. I don't coach like him. I can structure things. But what I took from him is exactly what he just talked about. So I'm going to recruit players, I'm going to put them out in environments and I'm going to watch them and I'm going to listen to them. And I can remember the first time we ever went to a flat back zone at the University of Maryland. And my center back was a very intelligent player. She was like raising her hand, raising her hand, raising her hand. And I didn't have any of the answers. And I was like, we'll see. It depends. Let's check it out, let's look at the video, you know, and so you start to listen to their questions and then all of a sudden I started filling in the blanks together with them, not speaking, spoon feeding them answers. So you take that in your own generation and in your own way. And then of course, you learn to coach with your own personality. I do think it's super important, no matter what kind of coaching personality you have or background you have, you can learn from your players. And then all of a sudden, when you watch them and you see a midfielder struggling, for example, again, I wasn't a center back and I wasn't a center midfielder. You see a center midfielder who you feel like she should be stepping up to press and she's backing up, backing up, backing up. You sit and talk with her, you realize she's the slowest player on your field. She doesn't want to go forward to press somebody, she's going to get beat. Then you have to teach her. If she goes and everybody around her goes, we got this together. So that's what you know. Anson taught you how to listen to your players and partner with your players to help solve problems.

Incredible dialogue about the dynamic between these two all time greats, Anson and April. April, I think it was timely and trending that you mentioned the Last dance and Michael Jordan, of course, both of you, one of the ultra uber competitors to come out of North Carolina. I want to go back to that because as you watch that now, you say people think Michael Jordan is a jerk. When I think about, as you said, Anson could motivate grass to grow. You're right. I still remember the speech where he's talking about your intestines turning into diamonds. I'm like, wow, I want to play for this guy too. Now here you are with this triple edged sword where Akers is going to score goals, Karen's going to score goals, you're going to score goals. Let alone the other superstar players that Anson talked about on a team sport, how do you make sure you get yours but you still get the victories?

I never thought like that. How do I want to say that? You know, I had a knee injury right before the World Cup. I had surgery about two months before the World cup and I was struggling to come back. Really struggling to come back. And I remember going to Anson. I don't know if he remembers this, but I remember going to Anson and saying, I'm smart enough to know that I'm not at 100% Anson, but I want to win enough that if you don't think I should start, I want you to not start me. Do you remember that at all, Anson?

I do remember that. But do you want my response to that or do you want to give the response?

Well, I don't recall the response other than the fact that I started. But my point is to your question, Dean, ultimately, as serious as I was, as competitive as I was, as Shark oriented, by the way, I like to think I've turned into a dolphin now.

I saw that and some coaches have a hard time not starting one of their more senior players right. And I wanted to win more than I wanted to start if I was going to put our team behind. And you know, I know that there's times where you limp when you play. I was perfectly comfortable doing that with that. It wasn't about pain or protecting myself or fear of failure. It was literally. I know I'm not 100% here, so I'm going to take the pressure off of you. Anson, if you don't think I should start or I shouldn't play because I'm not contributing, I'm taking the pressure off of you. You have my permission not to start me. I just want to freaking contribute and win this thing.

And, Dean, it was that attitude that of course I was going to start her for sure. She was an extraordinary driving force as a leader. I mean, she was my captain. And so there's no frigging way I'm not, you know, rolling out my team without my captain out there. And then she did. She had a. She still had a great tournament. And I love the Chinese description of those three. Is there a better description than the triple edged sword? Basically implying every one of these strikers can slice and dice you. Every one of them can, you know, inflict pain. And I thought that was an incredible description of that front line. And you know what's really interesting? And I don't know if, April, you're involved in this yet. I get dragged into this all the time. You know, what is the greatest front line in history? Consensus has it it was your line. The triple edged sword is the greatest front line in US history. And they're all saying if a 91 team played the 99 team or this team played that team, and they're all dragging me into this and of course I won't commit, but I love this. The consensus is the best front line of all time is Heinrichs, Akers and Jennings.

Well, yeah, I don't know.

I have no issue.

Pretty great starting lineup.

It is a pretty damn good front line because, you know, you're. If you have one weak player in the back, they're gonna get carved. If you're, you know, your center back is a problem, trust me, Michelle's gonna destroy her. If your left back has any issues, April's gonna destroy her. If your right back has any problems, Karen's going to destroy her. The balance in that front line and the different ways you guys competed and played was just fantastic. So for me, that was an incredible front line.

Anson and April, as we head down the stretch run of our time today, reminding you that the chapter 7 is titled Technical and Tactical Development. There's a lot of discussion about 3, 4, 3 in different formations at the end of the day today, when you hear technical and tactical development, what does it really mean? I ask you both.

Decision making. It really is about decision making. Because what we saw at the last. Yeah, I mean the 343 was a great system and we really had two systems. During maybe the 80s and 90s, people were either playing a 3, 4, 3 or a 4, 3, 3. In the 2000s, the 4, 4, 2 reemerged and that's kind of been the most consistent system or some variation of that. But in the last World cup, what we saw was a positional fluidity and formation fluidity. So we had players that maybe started in the back at four, but as soon as they regained possession and they built out, their build out shape could vary. Some they would release a asymmetrical wing back to go forward, or they would send the two wing backs high and wide drop a center back or center mid back. So I think of technical and tactical development as being really decision making. And when I think about systems of play, who knows, in like two more World Cups, we may not even have formations or systems. We might just have coaches rolling the ball out there and saying play. Because it was so fluid this past World Cup. Positionally, wing backs would come inside. We started to see wing backs come inside and build up. We're starting to see wing backs get some countries high and wide. So all of that fluidity was what the most recent World cup tells us is going to happen in the future.

Yeah, and then for me, the way I construct teams is always based on how we compress. And so even if we're changing systems, for me and Dean, we have changed systems in the last couple years at uncle because for the 3, 4, 3 to thrive, both of your flank midfielders have to be extraordinarily fast fit as can be. And there was a three or four year stretch when we just didn't have that. So then we started playing different systems. And even last fall, my starters played a 3, 5, 2 and my reserves played a 4, 3, 3. And obviously I'm very high on substitution. So we played two different systems because the personnel of the reserve team was completely different than the personnel of the starting team. But for me, all the systems that I want to play begin with how we're going to press out of the system. But April's right. Her first response to that question you asked was, yes, it all comes down to decision making. For you to develop any sort of tactical nuance how you make your decisions, the information you gather to make them is the bottom line in developing a truly elite player.

All right, this has been absolutely awesome. Two A's with two of the best A's of all time, Anson and April. It's been incredible. And April, no matter what Kristin Hamilton says, I mean this sincerely. To me, Littleton, Colorado will always be April Heinrichs, usa without question. And Anson, I'm sure you'll put a stamp on that, right?

Oh, absolutely. I just can't believe how did she get this far and not realize that she was basically being raised in the cradle of greatness? I am so disappointed in her when I see her next, and it could be in two weeks because of course, she's 20 minutes away. I might just chastise her for this.

All right, a Vision of a champion from two of the all time great champions, April Heinrichs, thank you so much for being on the podcast.

Anson, thank you again for all the things that you've done for women's soccer and the way that you keep the 80s and 90s alive and how you celebrate all of the people that you've been in touch with over the years. Thank you for all the gifts you keep giving. And yeah, thank you so much for inviting me to be a part of your podcast.

Well, April, thank you. And all your words have gone right into the middle of my heart. So that was all heartfelt and I loved having you here. And trust me, as Haas knows and he's listening, this is an incredible podcast. And this is. I love his expression for this. This podcast is evergreen. This will have value 10, 15, 20 years down the road because the stuff you're sharing, April, is absolute gold. So thank you.

Gold indeed. And if you like this show, one way you can support our work is to subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and leave us a rating and review as well. This show was edited and produced by Creative Allies. If you're looking for information on full service podcast production, head on over to creative allies.com I'm Dean Linke. We'll see you next time on the Vision of a Champion podcast.

Hey everyone, I hope you like this episode and I just want to thank all of the people involved in making this happen and all of our sponsors, including AddaFootball.com in addition to Spotify, Apple Podcasts and all the usual podcast apps, you can listen to the show on attafootball.com which is a new women's soccer community that is helping elevate the sport through sharing some of the top women's matches, highlights and athletes from around the world. ADA is enabling women's football to shine its brightest now and for generations of young female footballers to come. So visit attafootball.com to learn more.

Hey fans, you can follow the Vision of a Champion Podcast chapter by chapter by purchasing the hard paperback online. Simply go to anson dorrance soccer.com if you are ordering the book, use promo code Vision Champ. That's Vision champ to get a 15 discount. And thank you for listening to the Vision of a Champion Podcast.