Tag: youth soccer

soccer

Single-Digit Soccer: Parental habits develop early

Posted on by Beau Dure

This weekend, I coached a U8 All-Star team in a tournament here in suburban Northern Virginia. The kids were rambunctious but fun, and I saw a few glimpses of good soccer emerging.

They say this is a vital age for developing good habits rather than poor habits that will be hard to break. I think that’s true. But perhaps moreso for parents (and coaches) than for players.

The parents on my team were terrific. They got their kids everywhere they needed to be, on time. They put together a wonderful photo album and brought plenty of snacks for everyone. No one had any ridiculous demands. I surely didn’t hear everything they yelled in the course of the game, but I didn’t hear anything silly.

So let’s talk about some of the other teams, from what I witnessed and what I heard from other coaches:

– A U10 girl had the ball in her own half under no pressure whatsoever. A parent was maybe 10 feet away, yelling “Kick it hard!” She did, and it went about 15 yards to midfield before rolling out of play. “Good job!” the parent yelled.

– Some parents and coaches ran the length of the sideline during games to offer their high-volume input. One team’s coaches ran directly in front of my clubmates on their half of the sideline and blew vuvuzelas when their team scored. Somehow, this game didn’t end up in a massive viral-video brawl, for which I credit my clubmates. (The same club had another All-Star team with out-of-control parents, but they apparently forgot their horns.)

– U10 boys game: Player was offside by 10 yards, not called. Our club’s keeper tried to make the save and broke his wrist in the ensuing collision. Ref let play continue until the other team scored. Our club’s team also had four guys come off the field with injuries after uncalled fouls. (The opposing club, incidentally, is a D.C. United affiliate. But this is house league, so I don’t think you’ll see these kids injuring opponents in a Developmental Academy game down the road.)

– Similarly, a U8 coach was stunned to learn from the ref, a coach and parents that his players were totally out of control.

– U8 players and their coach practicing headers. (On a really, really good team — they have no house league, so this is basically a “pre-travel” team that does nothing but practice 2-3 times a week and play “pre-travel” events. But they’re nice people, and my goodness, some of their players have fantastic skills. You can tell they play more pickup soccer in a week than most suburbanites play in a year.)

It’s a strange tournament in the sense that I can’t imagine U.S. Soccer being thrilled with the game setup — five-a-side, no goalkeepers and big goals. So one of our club’s parents was lamenting the soccer on display — kids just slamming the ball toward that big goal while a coach yelled to kick it hard.

But it was fun. It’s different from our usual house-league soccer (five-a-side, smaller goals) and the pre-travel/academy/crossover league (six-a-side, goalkeepers). And I’m not sure that’s a bad thing.

A lot of U8 players lean toward magnetball — everyone gathered around the ball. This tournament may have taught them the value of keeping heads up and spreading out. (Those were the only two lessons I tried to get across in two weeks of practice: “Head up” and “Spread out.” I was tempted to add “Can’t lose,” but first of all, I don’t think they’ve seen Friday Night Lights. Second of all, you actually can lose. Third, it’s not that funny.)

From a coaching perspective, I walked into a dilemma with one player. A common complaint in youth-soccer circles is that parents and coaches try to discourage dribbling and make kids pass it. I had someone with the best one-on-one dribbling skills I’ve seen. And sometimes one-on-two. When it got to be one-on-three or one-on-four, it was hard not to notice the teammate standing wide open in front of the goal, and it was hard not to be a little frustrated when he finally lost the ball without attempting that pass.

But I think the kids are learning. We saw some beautiful goals — a couple on clever passes, a couple on terrific individual efforts, a couple on loose balls, and a couple of pure accidents. We didn’t magically turn players into technically and tactically sound soccer players, but they made progress.

So what do we do about the adults?

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DNQ: U.S. youth soccer teams hitting a wall

Posted on by Beau Dure

Can we draw any conclusions from the USA’s failure to qualify for the U-17 Women’s World Cup? Or is the USA simply a victim of soccer’s cruelty? (We did say soccer karma doesn’t exist, except perhaps to see Real Salt Lake past Los Angeles last night.)

The statistics rounded up at Soccer America defy reason. In four qualification tournaments, the USA has outscored its opponents 103-3 and never lost a game. But the team has twice tied in knockout games, and each time, they’ve been eliminated on penalty kicks, yesterday by Mexico. So that’s two out of four U-17 Women’s World Cups that have taken place without the most accomplished country in women’s soccer.

“Maybe the U.S. women need a Developmental Academy like the men,” came one of the responses on Twitter last night. Perhaps. But things aren’t so good on the men’s side, either. The U.S. men’s U-17s lost in the CONCACAF quarterfinals to miss out on all four qualification spots. That’s the first time the U-17 men have missed out. The U-20s made it this year after missing out in 2011, which was the first time that had happened since 1995. The U-23s have failed to qualify for two of the last three Olympics, not even getting out of the group stage on home soil last time.

By comparison, the women have done well. The U-20s have won two of the last three World Cups.

On the whole, we have this strange paradox: As the country has grown more serious about herding its best youth players into elite national environments — the U-17 men’s Bradenton residency, the men’s Developmental Academy, the women’s Elite Clubs National League — the USA has fared worse in international youth tournaments.

Coincidence?

Partially, sure. Other factors include the growth of soccer elsewhere. On the women’s side, the USA’s growth is helping other countries — as Soccer America pointed out, the Mexican goal scorer and goalkeeper who eliminated the USA yesterday both play for the ECNL’s Texas Rush.

We can’t draw too many conclusions on the women’s side. The U-20s are fine. The U-17s have just had curious failures in penalty kicks, which old-school coaches often call a “lottery.” Sure, perhaps the U-17s should never let a game with Mexico get to that stage, but it’ll happen sometimes. Ask the senior women about their last World Cup qualification.

The men’s side is more puzzling. The USA used to round up a bunch of high school and college kids for these tournaments. They got a couple of semifinal and quarterfinal appearances in World Cups and the Olympics. Then nothing beyond the round of 16 since 2007.

It’s still not enough evidence to suggest something is systematically wrong. A bounce of the ball here or there can be the difference between a semifinal World Cup run or failure to qualify at all.

But it’s enough to suggest there’s no easy answer. Bradenton, the Academy and the ECNL aren’t going to produce champions through the sheer fact of their existence. It’s going to take rare talents, coached with care.

Systems don’t win championships. Players do. Or they lose and get an experience that will hopefully prepare them for better futures.

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Should young players stick with one club?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Elite youth soccer in the USA used to send its kids through this rotation of clubs: Youth club, ODP, high school, youth club, ODP, high school, big-time summer league (Super-Y, etc.), college, USL, college, USL … then maybe pro.

Now it’s supposed to look like this: Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, Development Academy, pro.

The reason we’re supposed to be shifting to this new system is, of course, because That’s The Way They Do It In Europe. Just ask Jurgen Klinsmann.

Now consider this point about Klinsmann’s playing career and how it affected him as a coach:

Klinsmann, 48, agrees to revisit the experiences he amassed playing for eight clubs over the course of 17 seasons, exploring each coach’s philosophy and mining the elements he synthesized into his own.

So Klinsmann has grown in soccer by playing for different clubs. But our elite kids are supposed to sign up with FC Bigname Youth Club Vipers at age 12 and play for no other coaches in no other situations until college or the pros?

The old system is certainly chaotic. The summer leagues — PDL, W-League, NPSL, WPSL — are strange entities that grab players for a handful of games. ODP can require a ton of time and money on top of the time and money already spent on travel.

But when I speak with players and parents, I sometimes hear that they’ve learned more from their ODP coaches than from their club coaches. Or vice versa. Or that one coach pigeonholes a player as a left back, while another rotates him or her through different positions.

The “solution” to this situation is supposed to be greater uniformity in coaching. You get one coach. If that coach leaves, the new coach will have the same principles in mind.

Why not expose players to different coaches? Different ideas? Different positions? Don’t we want players who can adapt?

And going through different teams exposes players to different environments. High school soccer games may not be the lore of Friday Night Lights treatment just yet, but they’ll have more of an atmosphere than an ODP event. A youth soccer showcase is more likely to be highly competitive on the field and subdued off it.

The Academy system has the allure of simplicity. But could it also dumb down youth soccer?

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The cutthroat world of youth soccer, part 3,489

Posted on by Beau Dure

Two big local soccer stories may be of interest to people beyond Northern Virginia:

1. The VCCL is now the CCL. The idea behind such leagues is that clubs can schedule games in all age groups against other clubs so that a greater sense of club identity is forged. In reality, when one club’s U15 team isn’t up to par with the other clubs’ U15 teams, they recruit heavily from elsewhere to level the playing field. Or they take an entire team from elsewhere.

See the discussion at the generally vile Fairfax Underground (seriously, do NOT read the thread about the Muslim cabbie assault). I think “travel parent” speaks for me. (No, it’s not me.)

2. McLean Youth Soccer is out of the Development Academy. You can some discussion on that story as well as the Fairfax Underground thread, which perked back up with the McLean news.

All of which makes me glad I’ve so far avoided the big-time travel scene. And it makes me feel badly for people whose kids are soccer prodigies.

I recently had a fun conversation about this topic:

ME: Suppose my kid turned out to be the best 12-year-old player in Vienna in a few years.

NOT ME: You’d probably want him to go to one of the big clubs.

Why?

To get the best competition and best coaches.

Why?

So he’d develop.

Into what?

I know — I’m being intentionally obtuse. But I think the race to get to the “best” clubs and the “best” competitions is getting rather silly. Kids who play American football get to play for their high schools against other teams. Kids who play soccer have to shop around to find the right fit, preferably one that won’t cost their parents a ton of money or commuting time.

I get the notion of promotion/relegation to make sure club games aren’t useless, joyless blowouts. In an area with as many good clubs as Northern Virginia, you could certainly have good competition up and down the divisional ladders.

If they’d all play in the same danged league.

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Single-Digit Soccer: An Easter Lilly for coaches and players

Posted on by Beau Dure

I envy soccer coaches of the 2020s. They will be able to call up apps that keep the attention of their easily distracted players to show them drills. (Yes, my first practices of the season included a few reminders that the most important part of the body in soccer isn’t the foot or the head — it’s the ears.)

We’re starting to see a few steps in that direction. The latest is an intriguing ebook from Kristine Lilly and Coerver Coaching. (HT: Equalizer Soccer)

The one issue I see: Like a lot of “youth soccer” publications and videos, the audience isn’t defined. Is it geared toward girls who want role models, like so many Mia Hamm publications? Is it geared toward soccer coaches who need drills and a good way to demonstrate them without running all over the field and losing their players’ attention? (Please?) Or is it geared toward parents who want to show their kids a few good moves they can try on their own? It’s all three, and that’s going to make this ebook difficult to market.

But for patient consumers, the good news is that the ebook seems to satisfy a couple of those audiences. If you’ve read the stories of the 99ers and North Carolina’s dynasty a million times over, you can skip all that and check out Lilly’s nifty moves on the field. (To nit-pick: “The Lilly” seems like a slower version of “The Cruyff.” But I can’t do the Cruyff effectively, so maybe I can try the Lilly sometime when my teammates won’t scream at me.)

Ebooks and apps are only going to get better and better. I’d love to get involved with them, honestly. We need electronic media to teach kids the game so it’s not left to a coach trying to hold the attention of 14 players who see a dog walking by the woods. We need coaching guides that don’t look like Civil War battle re-enactment plans.

(And it wouldn’t hurt to market them for boys AND girls, whether it’s Kristine Lilly or Brian McBride doing the demonstrations.)

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Single-Digit Soccer: Who cares about the stakes?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Earlier this month, I did an interview with CBC radio about Ontario’s proposal to get rid of official scores and standings for soccer players under age 12. I made a passing reference to my over-30 coed indoor team and our overly competitive games with nothing at stake but a T-shirt for a division champion.

The CBC wasn’t there to capture it, but a couple of days later, we had a perfect illustration of the point.

The problems started before the game. I had never seen a roster eligibility challenge in an over-30 coed rec league before, but lo and behold, we had one. The result: We had only two female players, which meant they would have to play the whole way.

Our opponents were rather smug about it, too. They might have been a little less conceited if we had challenged a couple of their players, but we weren’t going to go there. We’ve paid money to play soccer. We just want to play.

They spent the first 10 minutes of the game establishing a “physical” presence on the field. I was tempted to toss off my gloves and walk off. This wasn’t fun.

Thankfully, the ref took control. He started blowing his whistle, which clearly startled some of our opponents. They were used to whacking people in the back with impunity.

At the end of the game, I went up to thank the ref for minimizing our bruises. I had to wait, though, because someone from the other team was yelling at him. I don’t speak much Spanish, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, “GREAT GAME! HEY, DID YOU SEE THAT MESSI GOAL LAST WEEK? THAT WAS SICK!”

Oh, by the way, they won.

So even after winning both the game and an unprecedented (as far as I know) pregame roster challenge, this guy needed to voice his complaints about the ref having the temerity to whistle maybe five of the 50 fouls they committed during the game.

We know we lost the game, and we know our record this season. We don’t know theirs. They don’t know ours.

And that’s why I’m a little skeptical of the idea that players and coaches will start focusing on the right way to play when there’s little at stake and no standings to peruse. Overly aggressive people need other means of restraint. Like a good ref. Or maybe having a few beers before the game. (That won’t work at youth level, of course. Especially not for the parents.)

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Single-Digit Soccer: “Messi would never have made it in the USA”

Posted on by Beau Dure

The U.S. youth soccer system is often criticized as too Anglo. Too athletic. Too focused on big brawny suburbanites, too resistant to Hispanic players and their magical ball skills.

And so the argument goes that if Lionel Messi had been raised in the USA, he wouldn’t have made it.

To which I say: B&*$%@!

As evidence, allow to present a quick peek at the most hyped U.S. player in history:

If you saw Freddy Adu play over the years, you know he was never a dominant physical specimen. He could be explosive with the ball, but he’s not the fastest guy in the world. And he’s not a big guy.

If anything, Messi is more physically imposing than Adu. Messi can score goals with defenders draped on him. Adu is more likely to be muscled off the ball.

Maybe the Ghanaian pickup games in which Adu learned his trade were better for development than American U8 games. Fine. But it’s a fallacy to think a 10-year-old Messi would be overlooked by U.S. teams.

Then we would ruin his career.

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Single-Digit Soccer: The score is always 0-0

Posted on by Beau Dure

Perhaps Caddyshack was ahead of its time. Chevy Chase’s character just went out and played golf — very well. Score? Nah. Didn’t keep it.

A lot of youth soccer leagues don’t keep score in the early ages — in our case, we don’t keep track until U9. And the travel leagues don’t keep standings until U11. (Oddly enough, our U9 house league had standings on the Web for all the world to see.)

In Canada, they’re going a step farther. Under age 12, no scores, no standings. (UPDATE: Here’s some info about the plan as a whole, which addresses far more than scores and standings.)

In a country in that loves its hockey fights, such a plan is going to draw some flak. Fighting back against those critics is player-turned-commentator Jason deVos, who issued a strongly worded defense of the plan against what he calls ignorance and misinformation.

Jason is a sharp guy who does his research, and I’m sure a lot of the critics (Don Cherry? Really?) don’t fit that description. He’s got some backup from a thoughtful Toronto Star column on competition vs. cooperation, A couple of other columnists, including Duane Rollins, think the plan’s backers are losing the PR war. There’s no question that some of the concerns raised in this plan are valid.

But to give a sneak peek at the book I’m writing now, I’m a little skeptical about turning off the scoreboard. And that’s based not on Don Cherry’s macho notions of sports but on my experience coaching a wide range of kids — some exceptional, some decidedly average.

One point from the deVos column:

This pressure-filled environment has nasty repercussions for children. Rather than fostering their natural creativity and curiosity about the game, it stunts their development. In such an environment, children are not free to make the mistakes that are necessary for learning to occur. They play the game with a sense of dread, fearful that a mistake will lead to a goal against or a lost game.

Valid concern. But does that pressure go away when the parents aren’t writing down a score? Jason and others concede, correctly, that the kids know what’s going on. I’ve seen kids in U8 games get upset when things aren’t going their way, even though I shut off all discussion of score-keeping. “When we kick off again, the score’s 0-0.”

So the pressure of mistakes is still there. What we lose in the Canadian plan is the accomplishment of winning.

Last season, the first season my U9 team had scores, we had a rough regular season. Then we played a season-ending tournament in which everything suddenly came together. We beat two teams that had beaten us in the regular season to reach a final against a third that was unbeaten through nine games. We won that one, too.

The scoreboard critics say such things mean more to parents and coaches than they do to kids. I’m not so sure. My kids were experiencing the thrill of victory. One parent told me, “He’ll remember this for the rest of his life.”

Another consideration deVos raises:

They have taken an adult competition format, involving promotion and relegation, and imposed it on children.

My impression of promotion and relegation in youth soccer is that it’s there to keep teams of similar ability grouped together. You won’t have any 10-0 blowouts, regardless of whether anyone’s officially counting the 10 goals. And elite U10-U11 players will be challenged rather than relying on a handful of tricks and athletic ability to overwhelm a bunch of kids who haven’t developed yet.

One way to do this without putting too much pressure on kids is to keep the division structure opaque. I played for a U14 team that was “promoted.” To this day, I don’t know what we were promoted from or to. Division 1? Of what? Was there a Premier League above that? Was this all of Georgia or just Atlanta-through-Athens? Good thing the Web didn’t exist in those days.)

(One possible irony, though I can’t find enough detail on the Canadian plan to confirm this: Will they still have tryouts for elite teams? If so, are we just substituting individual accomplishment — making an elite team — for team accomplishment such as winning?)

And is the best course of action for elite players the best course for everyone? Steven Sandor isn’t so sure:

Not keeping score will, if done in an elitist manner (which, unfortunately, our insular Canadian soccer tends to do pretty well) drive the average kids away. But, there’s no doubt that the no-score system helps the elite kids.

In other words — the vast majority of kids playing soccer at age 11 aren’t going to be professionals. Many of them won’t even play at age 14. That scares a lot of soccer people to death, but really, it’s OK. A lot of 11-year-olds play several sports and then choose one on which to focus at age 14. (For me, it was running, which was a really stupid idea in retrospect.) When I talked with MLS draftees last month in Indy, most of them had done exactly that, laying down their basketballs and baseball gloves in their teens.

So for these kids, all they’ll remember of soccer is a bunch of scoreless games, all designed to prepare them for a future that they weren’t going to pursue?

The best axiom I’ve heard for youth sports is simple: “Let kids be kids.” The soccer community tends to forget that youth sports are supposed to be a kid’s activity, not just a breeding ground for future World Cup players. A lot of these kids want to play games and tournaments with trophies on the line. Why rob them of that experience? “Because the rest of the world does it,” frankly, isn’t a good argument. And you’re still going to have good coaches helping players improve while bad coaches just try to win, even unofficially, by any means necessary.

I think there’s a creative way to address the valid concerns deVos and others are raising. We’re already doing a lot. We delay scorekeeping and standings for a few years already. Even when we start traditional league play, we rotate kids through different positions and spread out the playing time, giving everyone a complete soccer experience.

Maybe it’s as simple as having a lot of “exhibition” or scrimmage games that don’t count toward standings, then a tournament at the end of each season. Maybe it’s something more clever than that.

The important part is to continue the discussion, not to end it with a concrete plan handed down from Canada’s Olympus. Daniel Squizzato puts it well: “Don’t confuse legitimate criticism of the (Canadian) plan with an outright aversion to change.” Change is good. Realistic change is better.

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Where are they now: Bradenton, Spring 2003

Posted on by Beau Dure

Following my last post on Bradenton, doing the relatively easy online research to figure out where the class of 1999 had gone, I asked if  I should turn my attention to another class. A voice emerged from the crowd: “Play Salieri.”

Or, in reality: “Do Memo Gonzalez’s class.”

By the time the future Galaxy roster member played in Bradenton, the program was bigger. Some players were spending multiple years. So the list below is broken down by graduation date and the number of semesters they spent in residency. It also includes many players who didn’t play in a U17 World Cup.

That 2003 U17 World Cup, held in Finland, was the one in which 14-year-old Freddy Adu shredded South Korea. The USA also beat Sierra Leone before falling 2-0 to Spain, which got a goal from someone named Cesc Fabregas. He turned out pretty well. That led to a quarterfinal appearance against Brazil and a forgettable finish. Nineteen of the 20 players on that team were in Bradenton; goalkeeper Quentin Westberg was based in France. The players on that team are marked with *

And wouldn’t you know it — someone from ESPN/Soccernet looked at this team as well back in 2009. It’s worth a read for the recollection of the South Korea game alone.

So I’ll be updating and expanding. Here goes …

Graduated in Spring 2003 after two semesters in Bradenton:

Adrian Chevannes*: Went to Clemson but transferred to SMU, sat out the 2005 season and finished up in 2007. Drafted in 2008 by Colorado, but he told Soccernet he had suffered a few injuries in college that made a pro career unlikely. Said something in that piece about grad school. Beyond that, I found nothing. Anyone?

Steve Curfman*:Went to Wake Forest. Drafted by Real Salt Lake but wound up back in North Carolina, first with the Carolina Railhawks, then the Wilmington Hammerheads, then the PDL’s CASL Elite. Listed as a coach at Carolina Soccer Club.

Chris Germani*: Several injuries at North Carolina and Penn State, and he finally sat out his senior year. Now an investment operations manager with Northwestern Mutual.

Brian Mascarenhas: Coincidentally, India has a player by the same name. The American Brian Mascarenhas went to Vanderbilt, only to see the program disband. Then he went to Georgetown for a year. Then Penn. Along the way, he interned for U.S. senator Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) but embarked on an apolitical career, working for Cox Media Group and coaching at his old Atlanta youth club, Concorde Fire.

Brandon Oot: Transferred from St. John’s to LeMoyne. Then I’ll give a classic “What I know / what I don’t”: There is a Brandon Oot and Associates listed in Newburgh, N.Y., there’s a Brandon Oot “business owner / professional training and coaching” listing for Newburgh, there’s a Brandon Oot listing with a Syracuse hometown and current location of Newburgh, and the soccer player named Brandon Oot is from Lafayette, N.Y., just outside Syracuse. What that proves other than my love of run-on sentences, I’m not sure.

Jacob Peterson*: This one’s a little easier — went to Indiana and won a couple of NCAA titles, then bounced around MLS: Colorado, Toronto, San Jose, Kansas City. Tied his career high for goals in 2012 with four.

Eric Vogl: Started his college career at Furman, transferred to Charlotte (formerly UNC Charlotte) and then stopped playing. Has a really impressive business resume, though.

Jamie Watson*: Played a couple of years at North Carolina before going pro through Generation Adidas. Couldn’t get regular time at Real Salt Lake and took a journey through the lower divisions. Spend 2012 on loan to Minnesota but plans to return to Orlando in 2013.

After three semesters:

Jose “Trini” Gomez: Started at UCLA but transferred to Loyola Marymount, where his GPA was impressive. Beyond that, he’s hard to find. Not exactly a unique name, even among U.S. soccer players — another Jose Gomez is projected as an early pick in the 2013 MLS draft. He also goes by “Trini,” short for his middle name “Trinidad,” but that also doesn’t help.

Drew Harrison: Went to Virginia. Then it gets interesting. To summarize his colorful bio: He went into stock trading, watched the markets crash, went to Central America, then came back to Charleston (S.C.) to promote sustainable urban agriculture. He was named one of Charleston’s “40 Under 40” and said his goals were to expand his Green Heart Project and see the U.S. win a World Cup. (Men, we’re guessing, since they haven’t won one yet, though it’s been a while for the women as well.) And yes, he coaches a bit.

Kyle Helton*: The Soccernet roundup tracked him from Duke to New England to Sweden to Atlanta to Austin. He’s in Norway now with Mjøndalen, which has narrowly missed out on promotion to the top division.

Jonathan Spector*: Maybe other players were more heralded, but he’s the one who signed with Manchester United straight out of Bradenton. He made a couple of appearances for the EPL giants but went on loan to Charlton, then transferred to West Ham, where he had a few productive years. He has since moved on to Birmingham City. He has been in and out of the U.S. team, but he was “in” for the glorious 2009 Confederations Cup.

Chase Wileman: Played at SMU, then stayed in Texas with FC Dallas, where his current bio says he was reserve team MVP in 2008. He has since gone into coaching, first locally in Texas and now at Dartmouth.

After four semesters:

Corey Ashe*: From North Carolina to the Houston Dynamo, the left-sided player has been a strong cog on a lot of winning teams.

John DiRaimondo*: Went to St. Louis, then played mostly in Colorado’s reserves. Passed through D.C. United, Harrisburg City and Richmond in 2009. He returned to St. Louis to get an MBA and work with the soccer team, then joined Ernst and Young.

Eddie Gaven*: Overhyped! Underrated! Overhyped! Underrated! Three seasons with the MetroStars, seven seasons with Columbus, and people still don’t know what to make of him. He’s pretty good. Really.

Guillermo “Memo” Gonzalez*: A can’t-miss prospect who missed. Maybe Dan Loney or someone else from the Galaxy fan base can explain how things went down in Los Angeles. But the bottom line is that he played a total of 12 games in MLS, all with the Galaxy, and no one picked him up. He has been an assistant women’s coach at Cerritos College, among other coaching gigs, for several years.

Brian Grazier*: Like DiRaimondo, Grazier went to St. Louis, then to Colorado, then back to St. Louis to do graduate work and help out with the soccer team. Now on the coaching staff at Rutgers.

Michael Harrington*: Went to North Carolina and was picked early in the draft, then spent six good seasons with Kansas City. Traded earlier this month to Portland.

Phil Marfuggi*: Goalkeeper played at Clemson, was picked in the MLS Supplemental Draft, wound up with the USL’s Pittsburgh Riverhounds and went on to a successful football career. Oh, not that football. Or that one. He moved to the Arena Football League as a placekicker. Funny thing — he has more tackles than field goals.

Tomiwa Ogunsola: Played at Clemson and James Madison, starting 21 games in four years. Popped up at German lower-division club VfR Horst, then Cleveland City Stars. Turned up at a pro combine in 2011, getting good marks for speed and strength. Then he turned up on a list of coaches at Northern Virginia Soccer Club … hey, did I coach against him at All-Stars?

Brandon Owens*: Brandon is his middle name, so you may see him listed as Dwight Owens. Played at UCLA, taking a redshirt season to recuperate from a knee injury. The Soccernet roundup in 2009 saw him passing up one of the old-school (or old-CBA) $13K developmental contracts with D.C. United. Instead, he went into coaching and banking, with a few stops in the PDL (Thunder Bay, Orange County) along the way.

Continued on in the program (with one exception, players had been in Bradenton for two semesters and
continued for another two):

Freddy Adu*: This was the third of his five semesters in Bradenton. Has had an enigmatic and erratic career since then, starring at every level of age-group soccer (U17, U20, Olympic) but struggling to find a long-term pro home.

Michael Bradley: Didn’t play in a U17 World Cup but seemed to do pretty well for himself. He was a bit of a mystery when he signed with MLS at age 16 and had to wait until the fourth round — unusual for a teen signee — until his father’s team, the MetroStars picked him up.  His father, Bob, also coached him on the national team. It’s taken a few years and a few stints with five European teams, but the “nepotism” charges should be officially dead now. American Soccer Now’s panel of experts ranks him as the No. 1 U.S. player at the moment.

Christian Jimenez: Six minutes. That’s the MLS playing career of Christian Jimenez, who left South Florida after one season and was drafted 14th overall by Chivas USA in 2005. He never played for the Rojiblancos and moved to Real Salt Lake in 2006. At RSL, he played in one game — for six minutes. He moved into coaching.

Marcus Rein: Goalkeeper transferred from Wake Forest to Central Florida, then dropped off the roster just in time for a young freshman named Sean Johnson to come in. Then he moved to California and started a fitness company.

Steve Sandbo*: Played at SMU and declined an invitation to the MLS combine to go into investment banking. Still doing financial stuff.

Danny Szetela*: Once upon a time, he wasn’t far behind Adu in the pantheon of youth stars. He went into the MLS lottery and played a couple of underwhelming seasons with Columbus, but he was still enough of a star (and a success at the U20 World Cup in 2007) to sign with Racing Santander in La Liga. Then he was loaned to Brescia in Italy’s Serie B. Came back to MLS and was a little less successful than Adu, playing a handful of games for D.C. United and getting the axe. Arrested in a 2011 bar brawl. After that, the trail goes a little cold. He is certainly not the “Daniel Szetela” on LinkedIn. I don’t see him on Facebook, either.

Julian Valentin*: Had a good run at Wake Forest but spent most of his MLS career on loan from Los Angeles to somewhere else — Hollywood United Hitmen, Cleveland City Stars, etc. Moved on to Tampa Bay in Division 2 and was named team captain in 2010. Then he retired to be an assistant editor with the Colorado Rockies. Maintains a fun Twitter feed:

http://twitter.com/JulianValentin/status/269675426685808640

Tim Ward: Last but not least, the defender went to St. Louis and left early to join MLS, playing with the MetroStars, Columbus, Colorado (reserves only), Chicago and San Jose. Unclaimed in recent re-entry draft, so he’s now a free agent.

So overall … a lot of murky careers, a lot of injuries (playing too much?), a lot of college transfers, a lot of guys landing on their feet.

 

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soccer

Bradenton residency, Class of 1999: Where are they now?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Is U.S. Soccer’s Bradenton program adequately preparing players for soccer careers? Or college? Or anything else?

Those questions popped into my head in thinking about several youth sports and college sports questions. Some of my Twitter buddies seem convinced that college sports (“big-time” college sports, at least) are nothing more than a holding pen for people trying to go pro, apparently not buying the NCAA ads in which a bunch of perky people with microscopes say they’re going pro in something other than sports.

As U.S. soccer “academy” programs drift downward in age groups, perhaps we need to be asking more questions. What happens to players who give up significant chunks of their childhoods for soccer?

We won’t be able to track every single player who passes through the Development Academy. But we can take a look at a few specific groups, particularly from the U-17 residency program in Bradenton, and see how they fared.

So what better place to start than the original Bradenton class?

A few of these players don’t require any detective work. We know where to find Oguchi Onyewu, Kyle Beckerman, DaMarcus Beasley and Bobby Convey. There’s also another guy named Donovan who may have been in the news recently.

And then I’m not the first person to try this. Soccernet checked in on the Spring 1999 players in 2008. So all I’m doing here is updating and adding the players added in the fall. LinkedIn helps.

For other info, I’m open to crowd-sourcing. If you find anything about these players that I’ve missed, please mention them in the comments. I was going to list each player’s youth clubs, but their bios tend to start with Bradenton and mention a high school but not a club. Funny how things change.

Nelson Akwari: Went to UCLA, then through an assortment of MLS and USL teams — MetroStars, Columbus, Real Salt Lake, Charlotte, Charleston, Vancouver (pre-MLS), Los Angeles Blues. Didn’t play in 2012, but an RSL blog caught up with him and found him finishing school, starting a family and considering a return at some point.

DaMarcus Beasley: Funny how everyone frets about Donovan not playing in Europe, and then few people pay attention to Beasley, who did it in a big way. After a good run with Chicago, he went to PSV and started in a Champions League semifinal. He went on a yearlong loan to Manchester City, but injuries started to take a toll. He moved to Rangers instead and played less and less each year, eventually moving to Germany’s Hannover and all but disappearing. Now building his career back up with Mexico’s Puebla and looking for a national team return, having already played in three World Cups.

Kyle Beckerman: Brief stop with Miami, where he spent much of his time on loan to the Project-40 team for young reserves that played in the A-League (now USL, not Australia!). Then a long stay with Colorado before hopping over the Rockies to Real Salt Lake, where he has been a cornerstone of a successful team. Also gets occasional national team calls.

Danny Bolin: Spring 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. Wikipedia sometimes puts things so well: Bolin is listed as a “former U.S. soccer midfielder and current helicopter pilot in the United States Air Force.” Sums it up pretty well. He started out at soccer power Wake Forest, then transferred to the Air Force Academy and moved into the military from there. Don’t say Bradenton didn’t recruit overachievers. The most recent substantive Wikipedia edit, which isn’t sourced, is from 2011. Any update?

Filippo Chillemi: Spring 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. Went to Notre Dame and injured his ankle in practice, colliding with fellow residency grad Greg Martin, the Soccernet roundup reports. Still got a bit of pro experience in Italy before deciding on his fallback career — medicine. Again with the overachievers. Looks like he’s a resident at South Alabama now, unless there are two young orthopaedic surgeons in the USA named Filippo Chillemi.

Jordan Cila: Went to Duke and took some flak for not going pro right away. Finished up at school and went undrafted, then clawed his way onto MLS rosters at Colorado, Real Salt Lake and New York. Now he’s an analyst at Goldman Sachs. That “college degree” thing seems to be working for him.

Bobby Convey: The youngest MLS signee at the time, joining D.C. United at age 16. Went to England and helped Reading win promotion to the Premier League. Then came the knee problems. He returned to MLS with San Jose and then Kansas City.

D.J. Countess: Goalkeeper had a stellar youth career and a good year at UCLA before briefly to the MetroStars and then to Dallas, where he seemed to be the goalkeeper of the future. Then off to Chicago, where we wound up as a backup, then to expansion Salt Lake, where he was shelled. Stops in Sweden, Chile and Argentina followed, and a wrist injury ruined his career. The Offside Rules found his 2009 wedding video, calling it “100% baller” and “an advert for affluence.” I’m surprised it wasn’t on MTV. The production quality is unreal. I can find absolutely no record of him after that, including any confirmation of the anonymous rumor on The Offside Rules’ comments that they did not live happily ever after.

Steve Cronin: Goalkeeper went from Santa Clara to San Jose (briefly) and then to Los Angeles, where he was the backup on the MLS Cup-winning team of 2005. He started for the 2008 Galaxy, then moved into the USL with Portland. After bouncing back and forth between Portland and D.C. United, he went clubless in 2012. His Twitter feed has given a few updates — he’s a father, he’s retired and …

Kenny Cutler: Went to Clemson and had a few years with Real Salt Lake and then the USL’s Richmond Kickers. Then he disappeared and … oh, nope — like Cila, he’s at Goldman Sachs, except that he’s based in Salt Lake City.

Justin Detter: Fall 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. Played at Notre Dame along with Chillemi and Martin. Made the Kansas City roster but didn’t get above developmental level. Now a facilities manager in Michigan.

Landon Donovan: Whereabouts unknown. For the moment, anyway.

Adolfo Gregorio: To UCLA, then England’s Darlington, then Real Salt Lake, for whom he played six games in 2005. Went back to run Pro Soccer shop in Modesto and was profiled in the local business press this year for taking advantage of lower property values. Sharp guys in this class.

Bryan Jackson: Made the rounds in Europe, getting a rough start to his career, before retiring to be a sports performance coach in New York. One woman from his class left a review calling him a “cutie who reeks of euro-cool.” But he’s also a tough trainer, apparently.

Kellen Kalso: Played at Michigan State and spent a few years managing restaurants. This fall, he moved to ESPN as a sports development manager. Twitter account says he’s going for an MBA and is an aspiring pro golfer.

Greg Martin: Notre Dame captain went into the energy field. This year, he founded a company called EdgePoint, which “represents the next generation of smart grid solutions.”

Oguchi Onyewu: Starting defender for Spain’s Malaga, which won Champions League Group C ahead of his former team, Milan. Take that! Also has a reputation for reducing Mexican forwards to tears and frustration. Just look at this picture. And he and Jay DeMerit will be forever famous for shutting down Spain in the 2009 Confederations Cup semifinals.

Raul Rivera: Spring 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. NSCAA junior college All-American (a division below Dane Richards and Omar Cummings). Spent a lot of time with the PDL’s Fresno Fuego but took 2010 off to work on his degree. Showed up for Fuego preseason in 2011 but wasn’t on season roster. The Soccernet piece said he was also working with van customizer SportsMobile. Found nothing after that.

Matt Roberts: Spring 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. Declined to be interviewed for Soccernet piece. Went to Maryland and made the ACC honor roll.

Abe Thompson: Fall 1999 only but DID play in U17 World Cup. Went to Maryland, played a few years in MLS with Dallas, Kansas City and Houston, played a bit for the NASL’s Fort Lauderdale Strikers and then retired this fall to move into the USL’s administrative ranks.

Seth Trembly: Might be best known for missing a Colorado Rapids game to go to his prom. Played a bit with Colorado and Salt Lake over the next few years and was RSL’s Humanitarian of the Year in 2006. Moved into youth coaching with Colorado Rush and now with Albion Soccer Club in San Diego.

Peter Withers: Fall 1999 only; didn’t play in U17 World Cup. Played for Ohio State and went on to work for adidas, where he’s now soccer sports marketing manager.

Alexander Yi: Went to UCLA, then Belgium’s Royal Antwerp, then FC Dallas. Hamstring problems ended his career, and he went back to school — first at Dayton, where he also started coaching, then back at UCLA, where he also works with the Galaxy’s academy program.

So leave any other updates and observations in the comments. Which class should we do next?

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