U.S. Youth Soccer Development:

Photo Credit: ISI Photos

I have great admiration for our new leader and U.S. Youth Technical Director Claudio Reyna. The former National team player with outstanding playing credentials both in Europe and the U.S. hopefully will start to lead our youth system to greater heights.

He has already implemented a system that I feel will get us to be able to identify the best young players and give them the opportunities to succeed at the higher levels. Claudio has decided that U.S. soccer needs to get into the communities and get to work and identify the local players NO matter who they play for, NO matter which organization they are affiliated with. He wants the best technical SOCCER players available. He has appointed Technical advisers to key geographic areas.

We are fortunate to have Rene Miramontes as our National Staff Technical adviser for San Diego, Orange and LA counties, and Southern Arizona. Rene has worked for U.S. soccer for many years, and in many different capacities, including coaching U.S. Youth National teams.  Rene has already had meetings with local club directors to get them on board with the plans to have U.S. training centers in all the areas he is responsible for. 

The first U.S. training center is scheduled for October in San Diego County. The specific ages for this identification program will be 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 year olds both boys and girls. Rene is hoping to bring a pool of about 24 players from each age groups into the U.S. training sessions to be further identified, these numbers will include Olympic Development Program (ODP) players, academy players, and quite frankly anybody that is good enough to be seen at this level, no matter who they play for or where they come from!

We have good athletes, but we need players with the technical abilities to be able to compete at the highest level, or young players with those abilities that can be developed as they mature.

Shannon MacMillan and I recently joined Rene’s staff in San Diego County to help identify players for the girls program.  So it is exciting times for our local players, a chance they may never have gotten, but Claudio Reyna wants every player to get a chance.

It is a massive program for a country this size, eventually U.S. soccer wants training centers in every State, maybe then we will find the special players that will make a difference.

In Spain both Real Madrid and Barcelona have youth training sessions all over their country, also the famed Ajax Soccer Academy in Holland is known to have produced some of the best soccer players in the world and is the truest model of development in youth soccer and has been for many years. I have attached an interesting link below on the Ajax Soccer Academy. This will give a great insight to the way the Dutch system works, year after year they produce quality players, who have been brought through their system, and are playing for the top teams in European soccer. 

How a soccer star is made “The Dutch Way”   READ the New York Times article on soccer. 

For more information on CLAUDIO REYNA