Coach De La Rosa began his journey when he and his family integrated to New Jersey from the South American country of Colombia. After a few years in New Jersey, they moved south to Miami, Florida where he remains. He played collegiately at Florida Atlantic University. 

Coach:

Gio De La Rosa: Director of Coaching for Miami Springs Virginia Gardens.

Topic 1: Mental Toughness:

Coach De La Rosa gets into some X’s and O’s about how accountability and technical ability can play a role in the development of mental toughness. He believes that within the failures comes success. In other words, you learn and develop from when you experience something not working out. He says he utilizes positive verbal reinforcement to intangibly reward the athletes he’s instructing when they successfully complete a task or skill.

Additionally, Coach De La Rosa touches on how youth sport athletes can navigate through feeling various types of pressures from their parents during a match. He says that athletes should walk the boundary of humility with their parents, however by the same token, they should highly consider laying down expectations at the beginning of a season as to what parental sideline behavior should look like. Specifically to parents, Coach De La Rosa says only the coach and the player know the tactic for a specific match, and that sideline coaching can often directly contradict that plan, therefore confusing the athlete and forcing them to decide between pleasing their coach or pleasing their parent. 

Topic 2: Journey Into Coaching:

After he played collegiately, he began to help coach with his sister-in-law’s U16 girls team working with the forwards on finishing. His older brother was a local high-school and club boys coach and he began to help him out there. The family affair was contagious and he fell in love with teaching the game. For the past 15 years,  Coach De La Rosa has been a Director of Coaching for Miami Springs Virginia Gardens. He attributes his success to the mentors in his life. He was able to watch and learn from other individuals on the field and learned what to do and what not to do. 

Topic 3: Adjusting Coaching Style:

According to Coach De La Rosa, transparency is the key to a successful coaching style. He believes that if your knowledge of the game is good, then your passion and honesty with the athletes is what makes the difference to a well-received coaching style. He also went on to say that his love for what he does is what drives his success.

Topic 4: Advice for Lower Incomes:

Coach De La Rosa states is a firm believer that everyone deserves to play the beautiful game, regardless of income. His club will highly sponsor different athletes in need, but with that comes the expectation of full participation. Additionally, he encourages youth athletes to do their homework on different clubs and what they’re looking for in their club experience. Research can include things from cost, to college placement rates. 

Topic 5: Staying in Shape:

Coach De La Rosa’s biggest piece of advice for staying fit during the time of COVID-19 is to stay positive and to pick what you as the athlete think you need to do to get better with the resources that you have. Additionally in his opinion, he encourages athletes to find the components of the game that they enjoy and want to do. He believes that intrinsically motivated elements of the sport will be easier to complete with no instruction or accountability from coaches compared to components of the game that the athletes may not be as inclined to do. 

Topic 6: Favorite Soccer Environment:

Coach De La Rosa talks about how he believes the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill is his favorite environment that he has ever experienced. He goes on to discuss how the historical success of the UNC - Chapel Hill program adds to the experience. Despite hailing from South America, he surprisingly prefers to play in a colder environment compared to a hot environment because you can always add layers, and only remove so many layers.

Topic 7: Most Famous Person Cell Phone:

Lastly, Coach De La Rosa states that the most famous person in his cell phone is George Acosta. He currently plays in the MSL for Inter Miami FC.

Coach De La Rosa, along with other coaches want athletes to stay in tuned with their mental health and skill set. Using the resources that are available will help little by little. We will all get through this pandemic, and become not only a stronger athlete/coach, but a person too.

Full Transcript:

CHRIS GORDON  

Hey everyone. Thanks for joining us for another edition of exact club experts. Today we're joined by a great friend of the program. He's a director of coaching for Miami springs Virginia gardens soccer club, as well as the head coach with Florida National University. He's one of the exact oh geez, Coach Geo Data will sell. We had a great conversation with Coach geo. We talked about what inspired him into getting into coaching after a four year college career at Florida Atlantic. We talked about adapting his coaching style to the different teams he coaches for ranging from youth High School into collegiate we talked about advice to players that play for smaller clubs and how they can get more exposure opportunities. We mentioned blocking out parents and sideline distractions that take away from potential Potential success. We also talked about how the mental side is incorporated into Joe's coaching style and how it is important to simplify the game. You can check out our entire conversation at our blog, exact sports comm slash blog or on our social platforms, Instagram and Twitter at exact sports and our Facebook page, exact soccer. This is a great one I look forward to sharing with everyone. Hope you enjoy it. Alright, let's get started here. So we talked about your background. Before we got into this conversation, you're originally from Colombia. So obviously, tell us about your journey to America. And then from there, what got you into coaching and hyzer end up kind of starting your own club here?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, it's a start up a long time ago. You know, 5050 somethings 50 Plus, but I came at four years old, my age Emily emigrated to New Jersey with the rest of the clan. It was a series of brothers and sisters moving together. At that time in, in the late 60s, early 70s. Columbia was in a conflict, internal conflict, civil war, and we left and then we migrated south to Florida because you can tell I don't like the cold weather. And that was inherited by by my parents, both my mother my father. So you know, we landed in Miami. And that's that's how we got here. But you can see I grew up in the US and so country I love

CHRIS GORDON  

and then you started you played. You played at Florida Atlantic City solid Playing career and then what kind of got you into coaching we coach there as well.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, Cody was that was an easy adventure for me started back in 1986 and it started with a family member, my sister in law got me into coaching and basically he had a girls team and she called me She said, Hey, come over here, come here and help me with my strikers my forwards and help them finish, you know, teach them how to fish. And it was a you 16 group of girls and that was it was fun. I enjoyed it. And then we had we had success with that little group of girls. Some of those girls in the high school team couple years later won a state championship first and only every time that scores ever won. And then my older brother was also a high school coach in a club coach. And then he said, Well come and help me on the boys side. So I was within a couple years I was helping boys and girls coach. And you know, it was fun. It got you got me hooked. So you can say it was it was a family affair. On my sister in law side and a mother brothers And all my brothers have coached at one point or another, and it's always been a family affair. So that's how I got into coaching.

CHRIS GORDON  

Right on and you've been been a director of coaching for your own club for the last 15 years or so. Can you talk about how your experience throughout coaching college coaching High School is kind of led you to that role of a leadership role and how you pass your your knowledge on to other coaches within the organization?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, I got into into directive coaches

GIO DE LA ROSA  

by time and experience, but it was actually I was blessed with the mentors I've had. And what I mean by that is, is you want to be a director back in the days in the 80s to kind of see a program develop, where you get to pass your knowledge on to the coaches in your coaching philosophy. When you take over a club, or start a club, it's really because you have the ideas that you want to you want to enforce and develop. And if you follow the your local guides, or as I say, your structure where you want to get to get to the highest level, then those ideas have to be able to, to, to be exercised by your by your other coaches. So it's like having a team in place. Really, everybody has one plan, one system, because you want to be able to interchange ideas on the one strict plan, which is how do we how do we get these kids to the next level? We became a director, but he was always after having success as a coach. And then, you know, people want to have eight How can you help me with a club to have that success not just with one team, but the whole club in development has to be development. It can't just be about winning.

CHRIS GORDON  

Absolutely. Now your your ability to be successful at all levels is probably helped you become into the role that you're in now. Now can you talk about how the differences are how you apply to different coaching style, or the same coaching style to each level you coach x, I've seen me a camp of the girls, you're great. You're great with the guys as well. You've coached High School, you've coached younger level club, you've coached college. So talk about you know, how you've been able to adjust your coaching style based on your coaching at any given time.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, the first thing you have to be as transparent, you have to be you have to be yourself, you got to find what you do, and be you and then a day. People want to know who you are. And that comes with your coaching style. So when we say I caught your boys team or girls team or go to your 12 or 14 or 18th 19th, or a college team, you have to be you. And what I mean by that is if your knowledge is good, and you've done the work that you have to do your homework, you really can't mislead the kids. You can't really. Like I say, you can't lie to the kids, they'll see right through that. So if I, if I'm passionate about what I do, and I've done my homework, and what the homework means. So, first of all, get as much knowledge as possible. It's fun. Anytime you go out there, I don't care what age group. I don't care if I'm teaching you sixes, you nines. It just one every everything's about development. And what I mean about that is, you wanna, you want to fine tune the kids, the players, the girls, the boys demand the college team. And they'll see that if you if you're honest about your work, it becomes fun. And there's nothing that you'll be able to help. Not Not, not that not to stop helping the kids. Not the job but to stop them. But you gotta be passionate about it you got to have the passion if you don't love it and you know you're not the right the right spot

CHRIS GORDON  

yeah I think funds a great word to describe your your coaching style and you work hard. But at the same time, I know that most of the players are going to remember Gio and the session that he ran with him. And that's evident by the camps that I've seen.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Thank you.

CHRIS GORDON  

Definitely well that specific question to your region a coaching obviously Miami has a lot of players that that come from diverse backgrounds and some of them may not be able to afford to play for the high level club that might get them exposure to college coaches from from big time schools. So with your experience working with these players, can you give some of the some advice to these players on how to they may not have the resources that a big time clubs To get exposure to college coaches

GIO DE LA ROSA  

I'm a writer I'm coaching a probably not your most successful club. I'm coaching at a nice club. It's a local club. So I can tell you right through that, that question. I've got kids in my team, and we go to we're from Florida, Miami, Florida, Miami springs to the mark sac, Miami springs Florida. We go to Castle which is Virginia. Now sorry castles in North Carolina. We go to Jeff cup, Jefferson cup, which is in Virginia. We got a Wags.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Another one in Virginia used to be

GIO DE LA ROSA  

up in the DC area. Now it's in the Richmond area. We go up and down Florida. And what we do is, is we find a way to help these kids. So if you're that kid, you got to do your homework and make sure that the opportunities That club been there for you. We will sponsor a kid. I was helped Obama was 85%.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

We didn't have to pay any coaches fees.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Vary the minimal of the travel fees they have to pay. But the but we what we do expect is full participation. You know, come to the practices. Don't miss one man, don't miss one. Come to every tournament, you can't miss a tournament. You know, I'm not saying because you're good. I'm just saying just put the effort in. And you do that, that God's going to take you in and if they can't take you in, find another club that will give you the opportunity. But club kicks will tell you. You can't afford that. That that, that team. That's a wrong club. That's the wrong club. We should never ever turn away a kid because they can't afford it. So you should be able to find a club that will say hey, come to me. And I'm going to help you to them. Do your homework. If they say you Okay, what's your placement rate? If your goal is college? What's your placement rate? I'll give you an example. My club Miami springs. We don't play the developmental Academy. We don't play ecml. This year we have seven seniors committed to go to the college from D one, D two NAIA and probably do three but the day seven kids, they're posted on on our Instagram page. seven kids from a small club who does not play big time boys or the girls and it's a girls team. We have seven kids going

CHRIS GORDON  

yeah, that's impressive. I am your your coaching background looks like you've, you've guided over 120 players, the account scholarships, and yeah, was gone on to win some big awards. So you know, props to you for helping helping the players along and it's you know, not everyone's fortunate enough to go to our ID camps or play at a high level club. So it's good to know that are good people in the soccer community that are going to help these players kind of get to where they need to be. With that being said, you know, it's not going to just be given to them, they're going to have to earn it. So I'm appreciating that and given given us some advice there, I'm turning it back over to the, to the, to the guidance of the players, you've attended a lot of our events and seeing what we do on off the field with our players and when it involves a mental side, confidence building. So I know you're a big advocate of of the things that we do at our events. Can you tell us a little bit more on how you work the mental side of the game, my interior coaching style?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, with the mental approach

GIO DE LA ROSA  

you know, first thing is accountability. You know, and I follow what you guys do. I put in the the meet and greet part of it, the elevator pitch and that breaks down hi By project coach, and you guys have have a fantastic approach with deal with that with that step. But the way I run my mental at my practice is I hold the kids accountable. Let's say, Oregon, the principal defending, you know, what, what are the principles of defending I advocate who knows if it's going to be a 111 v one drill, and you're the first defender, you know, you prep them with a question at the beginning, then you give them a reward in the middle. If they press the right way. They guide it the right way. They defend it the right way. And you break it down, step by step ready. You're not looking at the overall picture, you're making the game small. And you make it a one B one game or a two B two game. And if you can make the game small, it's right here. Because you're not looking, you're not looking at 11 defenders, you're looking at one defender. So So that's just one approach. Don't get me wrong there. Game is big the game is played live in verses 11 1011 attacking zones defending zones. But when you make it a mental approach, you gotta say can myself, my defender or my attacking player, can they be functional and I can, can I hold him accountable. So So you got to start with the front approach of of teaching them how to have success. If, for example, we don't want to be one drill, and the success is not really defending the shot, but hey, I want to I want you to force him to the left. So they can beat you the left, and you take a shot. And guess what, maybe that gets right for you, and you force them to the left. So that shot would be a less of an opportunity for that the other team to score. So you teach them how to win the game, and at the same time, that they think it'll be shot. So within the failures, it's a success. listener says it's not having the kids who left footed and scored their successes guiding the kid to the left side.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

So yeah,

CHRIS GORDON  

sounds like a simplified approach is the one

GIO DE LA ROSA  

and you're gonna hear it a lot. You know, the moms and dads will tell you more than me. Oh, that kid does that kids not left for the force of love. But okay, what are you gonna do? So you make that one player just defending sick about only defending. If you make a mentally say, I did my job by forcing them left. By but they better than me, they beat me they won't take a shot by force them left. That's a victory. So the mental approach starts with the small details. I'll give an example. So now you go to be one attacking, final third. The second runner, the one without the ball. All they have to do is make a run and try To pool that one defender think they might get the ball and you're asking that the attacking player not pass the ball. So that second defense, the second attacking player has to make a run mentally, they're not going to get the ball. So they're going to be down. I'm not going to get the ball coach, why am I gonna go run? No, no, no, that's not your job. Your job is to try to pull and keep honest that defender to make them believe that to be one. So that you know so you go five reps out of the five reps to you make the passion the second runner, the second attacking player so they can shoot and keep the defender honest. And the rest of the time that says is when you don't get the ball. But you make that defender do this. Watch your run. If they do that mission accomplished. So you got five runs, saying second attacking player five runs how many times That defender acknowledged your run. If they did it without the ball, mission accomplished. So it's Hey, and we'll let him know Hey, nice job, you know, the support the encouragement, the positive reinforcement. And you know, sometimes you guys say, hey, you don't have to run hard enough. Sometimes you can be nice. But you got to reward them with a positive reinforcement. But the mental approach of the small detail and holding them accountable is difficult. But at the same time, when they do it, you got to be right there, you know, that give them the praise. And and then the game becomes fun because they'll tell you hey, that's my assertion. I pulled them and maybe, maybe I kept the, the the goalie on me the whole time on my run. So when you beat the other player, and you go to go, does everybody trained that way? I certainly hope so. But I can tell you, by the way, I see that teams play. They don't they don't. I mean, some most of them, do something. Wrong, just just saying, General.

CHRIS GORDON  

Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. That's a good approach to accountability and keeping things simple. I feel like that will you know that that turns into little successes and overall wins. So it sounds like it's been working. You brought up a good point, I'm gonna hit you with a surprise question here. Parents yelling from the sidelines, saying maybe one thing isn't as good as you think it is. If I'm a player, and my parents are animated on the sidelines, trying to, you know, tell me what to do. How do I get them to kind of back off a little bit? Or if you're a coach, what can you do to maybe limit the interactions from from parents that might think they know everything?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, what happens in today's world, everybody's entitled, Mom, dad kids, so you're going to limit that interaction, but you're not going to prevent it. So you do is you have the original At the beginning of the season, or rather, when you pick the team, at the end of the season, before that, well you tell them, hey, learn how to cheer your kid. You know, don't don't be coaching on the sideline. And you and you lay down the rules really, you know, you say, this is what we expect of you guys, this is your behavior. And again, acceptable behavior, the sideline. But again, you're going to have, you can control the sideline, and don't think you can. Because what happens is this right? So, you know, I come to the game, I make a phone call. I'm in Virginia. My best friend in college shows up at the game. He's on the other side, my best friend forget about the part. The parents my best friend, and he's the player. And what he's gonna do he starts yelling at the kids. Hey, make a pact Hey, do this. So your own friends don't even have a kid will encourage and say hey, I tried to help you, man. I saw some kids, not make your runs. I enjoy the help. Do you like, okay, you're going to be home. Thank you. So that goes to the parents again. So you might have parents, Mom and Dad, uncle, aunts, neighbors of those parents. And they're knowledgeable, they play the game. So they know they might hit up their own, you know, siblings with instructions. And he's gotta be humble and you say, to your own team, I know you're on complete, bro. I know you're at playing college. And I know your oldest sister played in high school. They don't know what that tactical plan is. And if they went through our practice, then they might know what it is. But the end of the day, they don't know what your role is. So the mental approach of the game and the parents in the fans like I call it you got to be like you're playing in a stadium with a with a sellout crowd and you got to block them out, man. Because if you don't block them out, then you will never remember what we did. practice and that all comes back to what did you practice that week? What is the approach of this tournament? And what is their job as a player was that shackled job with a boy or girl goalie forward? Everybody should be should know the role for that game. If you don't know the roles, then guess what? You're gonna have more Patrick coaches on the sideline.

CHRIS GORDON  

Yeah, it makes sense it's gonna be impossible especially I know there's some passionate fans out of Miami and and a lot of soccer background so it's gonna be virtually impossible to keep that shut out. But it sounds like this good tactics to, to kind of block it out and make sure that you know, you're still that the main voice and everyone said so. Makes a lot of sense. Last question, obviously what the times were adapting to stay at home environment and trying to get our players to stay mode. invaded. So, can you talk about some ways that you're working with your clubs or teams on staying in game shape? While being isolated? Not just physically but mentally as well?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

You know, that's a good question. You know, we're we're in a unique situation. Nobody has a plan for this. Nobody. And I called all my colleagues in college club, the DA the ecns. And everybody has a different approach. Everybody. Oh, God, we should do this. Oh, gee, let's do that. Or we should go. Oh, we should do a tick tock. All we should. You know, listen. I don't know the answer. I'd like to see you on take time to No, no. No, I'm not gonna sit there and do a zoo with you know, 40 kids. I got a college student I got to club teams. What I tell people is this be positive. If you think you've got unique core set ups, push ups do core. If you want to do a little bit of dribbling on the back yard in the front yard, you know someone beside the road. Go for it. But But the most important is is is mentally, mentally be positive, you know, be be optimistic of what we're going through. Because this is not an offseason, it's not offseason, well, we can say, in eight weeks, we get back to work. And in four weeks, and we have our first game, you know, we don't have a date for that. And we don't have a date or something. It's very difficult, in my humble opinion is very difficult. I mean, as as an ex player, forget about me coaching as an ex player. I knew what my appreciation started. I knew when my first game was started, so you were able to pass all that in. So mentally, it was easy. How to Do you know four miles the first day, two miles the next day Three miles The next day, one day off, and then back out of work. And then get that morning, afternoon or morning, midday and afternoon, you know, three times a day. So you have your goal. I have a you have a week, eight week plan that I use in the offseason, only in the summertime. And I'll do in the morning do the midday and I do at night. So I have a plan, but I cannot execute that plan without a date. So the only way in my humble opinion, this is an opinion this is not even a fact is be strong mentally. You know, if you want to do setup, do setup, you want to push up the push ups. If you want to do a dribbling, you know shooting whatever, you know, do it. But you got to do it willingly. You got to do it happy. You can't do it because I'm telling you to do it. You know you can't do it because your coach demanded for you to do something. And because your mom and dad say Hey, get out of the house, you know No, no, you can't do that. There's no At any event that we have a plan for, you know, we because we'd have no end date, unless you give me an end date, then I can give you a plan. So that to me, again, I'm not a scientist, I'm a soccer player, soccer coach. But the way we get our mental side ready for this, to train hard, you got to have a date. If I don't have a date, you know, we got to get out there we burn the gold rush him to go on, you know, twice a day. And we say, yeah, there's a two week plan. Okay, what happens if it goes, you know, 15 days again, you know, here in Miami, we're going to, um, I think they 30 for the kids away from school. It wasn't an original plan for 30 days. So, and without that end date, you gotta let the kids do what they got to do. Just leave them alone. They'll figure it out. And when and when they're ready. They'll you'll know where to go. Hey, Mom, dad. I'm gonna go in the backyard, I'll juggle. I'm gonna do push ups, we'll do setups. So I mean, that's, that's one thing I can say, dude. I can't I can't tell people. Yeah.

CHRIS GORDON  

That makes sense. I think, you know, we've heard, it's easy to just say, hey, go run, go dribble, a watch film. Those are the I mean, everyone knows to do that. But I think the main point is, you know, staying positive, like you said, and you know, making sure that the love of the game is still there. So you're not burning yourself out and you're ultimately ready to hit the field once where we're giving you Okay, so

GIO DE LA ROSA  

I have a daughter, she's a she's 13 she's very active. She's, she's a good player. So you know, we go out and we'll do a cyber tennis. We'll do soccer, basketball. We'll do juggling you know, I go on you do one I do. Two you do to go one we go left and go right. And then You know, I'll call my brothers on on what's up, and I'll be on the phone talking to them and zoom and video chatting with them. And I'm juggling with her. So it can be again. I'm not gonna say no to what everybody else is doing out there, you know, the FIFA elevens or do whatever plans out. I'm not gonna say don't do that. I just have a different approach to this. Then I would say 80% of the people out there. My way to be a soccer player is you must love this.

CHRIS GORDON  

Oh, yeah, that makes sense. You gotta love it get here now. It's gonna be a lot harder to get back involved.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Listen, no one had to tell me when to go train. Nobody had to tell me. Hey, here's a program. You know, I was very successful player. As a coach. I work around the clock or watch a game I watch a game now even a game every single day I wake up. People say You're crazy. I go. I'm a coach. Now, here's a here's a catcher. So I thought that was the same game over and over and over again. I know teams in college and pros better than other teams because I follow their tendencies. So when I coach, I tell people, we are talking about tendencies. And people said, Oh, yeah, it's all about tendencies. Okay, well what do they do? You know, how do they play? How do they attack and then you know, we want to do something else. From tendencies because then you got to make decisions. But but it but that that passion is what drives you through when you're off. So my passion to get better. Is is watching games. They have coach learning the fine tunes of coaching. And and and listen to my to my I still got mentors I got people I talk to all the time we exchange ideas to other coaches other colleagues and and it keeps me fresh, it keeps you always on top your toes. Definitely

CHRIS GORDON  

well or at least in this little interview with some fun questions and get to know your personality a little bit better. You've obviously probably played and coached in some pretty cool stadiums and fields through college or as a as a club coach or as a college coach. If you were to pick one venue or one field to play at what would it be right now?

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Oh, wow, one place to play. says that says I coach kids. And I coach girls. I must, I must say Chapel Hill. Okay, several times. And this is the You know, the this is Mount Everest man. This is it, you know, Chapel Hill, their history speaks for itself. Their assess, speaks for itself. But the most important thing about Chapel Hill is when you walk in to that stadium, the new stadium. It's beautiful. The environment is lit. Everybody expects them to win and to have success. They don't lose much. Nah, they don't lose much, man. And it's a credit to answer the door into what he's done with that program. I followed it since the since I got into coaching in 1986. And we're just unreal. That unreal run. And you know, I hear people all the time. Oh, you know, they're there. It's parody. There's more teams. Yeah, there's more teams that can play. But when you walk into their home field, everybody expects Chapel Hill to win. When you walk into other places I can feel what if they're playing the wrong team. They're not expected to win and that to me is is is the passion of the sport, because that's the way that successful pro teams are. When you play at home, you're expected to win. And I don't care who you play. And Chapel Hill has that environment. I've been to a lot of different places. I'm not gonna name them all because I mind certain people. But But Chapel Hill, I seen people walk in and they have just one yet they had never seen either lost at home or had been there. So they're pretty exciting. That is pretty cool.

CHRIS GORDON  

All right. Well, next question I already know the answer to and I've been asking all the other guests. I've asked. Would you rather coach in 30 degree weather or 100 degree weather? I'm pretty sure I know your answer is going to be based on what I've what I've seen here, Nicole.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Well, 100 degree weather. I can't blame

GIO DE LA ROSA  

my coach, Coach or recruit, coaching or recruit

CHRIS GORDON  

yeah coach or crew and And

GIO DE LA ROSA  

warm is good. I've been in 100 degree weather. I've been to indoors, it was 100 degrees. And I've coach in Orlando in the summer hundred degrees.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

You know what, I'm gonna go against what you think I'm going to say I think the authority to be weather.

CHRIS GORDON  

Really? Wow. I'll tell

GIO DE LA ROSA  

you why. I can wrap up. I can put on gloves. I can put on under shirt. But once 100 you're already down to your T shirt. And your feet are burning up. I can say what as a coach as a sideline. 100 degree weather. You didn't say it. You didn't say it to Miami weather. You say it to weather. I love coaching 80 to 100 degree weather. Dude, go I go to Honduras go to Guatemala, or been there, you know, come down to Orlando come down to Miami the summer July. I mean,

CHRIS GORDON  

I've done Atlanta. Can't when it's 105 degrees

GIO DE LA ROSA  

I got my up to here you can see my eyes but but I love the one weather warm weather is fantastic You know what? It's unique and and the teams are trained the hot weather has an advantage have a definitive advantage because there aren't enough teams who know how to play in 100 degree weather and everybody knows how to play in 30 degree weather. So the guys who can play a warm weather have the advantage every single time every single time

GIO DE LA ROSA  

and they play if they both play under the weather they have their bench

GIO DE LA ROSA  

gotcha.

CHRIS GORDON  

I last question. Most famous person in your cell phone if you were to get named one

GIO DE LA ROSA  

most famous person

CHRIS GORDON  

yeah asking everybody their favorite What do you say other other than yourself? Who is the most famous person in your cell phone. I'm sure you've coached some, some players that have gone on like play Pro.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Oh, man. Well, my current one right now. He's, uh, he's actually played with Miami. And I will say Georgia Costa, he just signed with him. I coach when he was younger. He went on to Boca Juniors, and he's there now. And he's an inter Miami player. I mean, listen, I know a lot of people if I if I say one or

GIO DE LA ROSA  

the other, they get this paper that might

CHRIS GORDON  

aid me. We'll go with that one. That's fine. is a good one.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

He's in the US system is just fun to watch. So we'll go We'll go with a young one. That will be famous soon enough. But when was the last time you heard that kid from Miami? Go down to Boca Juniors and make the reserve team was was one step away from the top team. That doesn't happen every day.

CHRIS GORDON  

Yeah, that's pretty big.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

somebody's name is Georgia Casa is a national program he was in the 1460s 70s scored against against Colombia being farther Colombian scored against Colombia and the US 70 World Cup. And he just uses a funky to watch. And I'll just go with someone who's young. Georgia kosher. Fair enough.

CHRIS GORDON  

All right, do that's all I have for you. I appreciate you coming on sharing some great insights and awesome stories. As always, it's been a pleasure.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Now, Hey, thank you, Chris. loves you guys do it. Exactly. And, you know, anything I can do for you guys. Anytime you're so humble to say thank you so much.

CHRIS GORDON  

Absolutely. All right. Stay safe, buddy. Take care. All right.

GIO DE LA ROSA  

Take care. Everybody stay safe.

CHRIS GORDON  

That's all for our conversation today. Thanks again to coach Giovanni delarosa for joining us. He shared some great stories and gave us some great advice coming up. We're have more conversations with different coaches from all sorts of backgrounds. How to prepare for tryouts staying in shape or being at home, and other topics you may have questions on. That being said if you have any specific questions, feel free to visit us on our social media platforms, Instagram or Twitter at exact sports, Facebook at exact soccer and our blog exact sports comm slash blog. We'd be happy to get any of these questions that you may have answered without being said. That's all we have today from exact club experts and we will catch you again next time.

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