The North American Soccer Expo provided a lot of opportunities for people to learn and gain tactical knowledge on their expertise throughout the weekend. If you wanted something tailored for you, there was plenty of that on display.

For others, they could’ve looked at the list of speakers and just decided to find the most interesting ones, and still get something impactful out of it. The list this year was perfect for doing that as well, and three in particular had a lot to offer in their sessions.

John Hackworth

Technical Director for St. Louis City SC, John Hackworth has been hopping back and forth with both the First and Second team as their interim head coach. His defensive principles presentation took place on a full-sized field, using different scales to go through the many drills coaches could be implementing for their team. The Michigan Jaguars volunteered their youth players to run these drills.

He started off his session by teaching rondos, a basic drill that teaches passing and ball control, along with awareness. Though most high-level coaches have implemented this already, Hackworth shared with me just how vital this could be if you started using this drill with a young age group.

“I can’t emphasize enough how important it is,” he said. “I started the session with a rondo, and if you’re getting your team used to doing that, a coach can organize the field and start preparing [the rest of training].”

He ran multiple smaller drills after that, each of them working with smaller sized teams and fields, and all designed to improve defensive intensity and communication. He hosted a 3v3 drill in a small field that focused on the defense being the fresh legs, and made the objective for the defense to not allow the offense to have more than 1 touch on the ball.

After that, he made the dimensions a little skinnier while separating the players by 2, for a 2v2 drill that did not allow the defensive players to cross over each other. This required the defenders to communicate “Step!” or “Drop!” and focus on the spacing to not allow a through pass or an open shot on goal.

The following drill was simply a game to Golden Goal, with Hackworth urging the defense to not allow anything coming out of the goalkick, which started the game. He saw the value in allowing players to play in scrimmage-like settings while emphasizing the skills they just worked on.

He ended his presentation with this, saying “Nothing can get these [players] better than an intense game of soccer, where time and space is pivotal. That’ll teach them more things than any of us ever could.”

Peter Vermes

Peter Vermes just recently ended his tenure of 17 years as the Sporting KC Head Coach, where he won four major trophies, the second most of any active coach entering the 2025 season. He hosted two Q&A sessions, where he got to reflect back throughout his career as a player, technical director, and coach, sharing unique stories that can allow for participating listeners to apply those lessons and values into their own soccer journey.

“If you’re showing up to things like this, it probably means you’re a pretty collaborative person,” Vermes shared with me and others throughout the weekend. “If you’re doing anything in life and want to be successful, I think you have to have some collaborativeness in you.”

He spent the first session focusing on player development and grassroots programs, and spent the second session reflecting on his soccer history and infusing those into his thoughts on the state of the game today. His mannerisms and storytelling ability told the audience much more about how much he loves the game.

“I’m always attracted to people that love the game,” he shared on Sunday related to a comment another speaker made about making money in the industry. “We’re also all trying to make a living…if you want to scout or recruit players, all the experiences that you get within the game can make you a great identifier of talent.” He assured folks that the time and work put in throughout the early stages of your soccer career will pay you back later on.

Vermes spent a lot of time with folks in these sessions going over different topics, as well as chatting with anyone who came up to him throughout the weekend.

“I’ve done so many of these over the years,” he shared. “I like coming to these things because there’s a lot I can learn because the game’s always changing…We’re seeing people talk about different topics and it’s very therapeutic, it’s more of a conversation than a one-way street.”

Alexi Lalas

Alexi Lalas is the host of the State of the Game podcast on Fox Sports platforms, and prior to that was a successful player for Rutgers University, then the United States National Team throughout the 90s. The “headliner” hosted a Q&A session of his own on Sunday morning, and answered more questions about his thoughts on the game of soccer on multiple levels. It was almost like an episode of his podcast was brought on the road.

“I have a lot of respect and appreciation for someone that starts something from the ground up and recognizes it’s a work in progress,” Lalas said. “It’s not just celebrating Michigan soccer, it’s celebrating soccer and the people on and off the field that make it so.”

Lalas started his session asking the audience to stop apologizing for “what we aren’t” and to start celebrating “what we are.” A lot of this discussion was built off the idea that there are many Americans who will become fans of soccer over the next year with the World Cup being hosted in the United States. “As the saying goes, ‘you’ve come a long way, baby’ and we have…It’s certainly not perfect, we have flaws, we have a long way to go.”

It was very interesting to hear him speak on subjects that wouldn’t garner national attention for his platform, including the amateur game, parents’ expectations for their kids in soccer, and what a good expectation for the Men’s National Team would be. Similar to Vermes, he was open to chatting with many folks throughout the weekend about anything they’d like. He found that this experience was very enjoyable for where he’s at in the soccer industry.

“It warms the cockles of my Michigan heart, to be here, to meet everybody and to see how hard people work,” he said. “I put on makeup and scream and yell into a microphone. I don’t do the hard work, I’m not in the trenches.”

If you are someone in the trenches, you probably would’ve enjoyed many speakers throughout the weekend, including these three highlighted in this article. For future North American Soccer Expos, you can be sure that the lineup will be as stacked as this one, and potentially offering something different than we received this year.

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