By Mike Woitalla Slammers FC was named ECNL “Overall Club Champion” for the 2015-16 season. The Newport Beach, California-based club won 2016 ECNL national titles atU-15 and U-18 divisions and its teams reached the quarterfinals in four of the five ECNL age group national championships and the semifinals in three. 2016 ECNLFinalsU-14: So Cal Blues […]
Youth Soccer Insider
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So far, 53 clubs join Girls Development Academy
By Mike Woitalla U.S. Soccer, which on June 30 announced the first 25 clubs that will play in the inaugural Girls Development Academy season of 2017-18,last weekend named another 28 participants, and has indicated that more clubswill be announced in the near future. So far, California is the best represented state, with eight Southern California […]
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Do's And Don'ts of Supplements for Young Athletes
By Dev K. Mishra, M.D. Last week I wrote about painkillers and how to use them occasionally, as well as some cautions. This weekI’d like to follow that up with a brief discussion about supplements commonly used by young athletes. Supplement use is incredibly common in teenage athletes, especially males. In myinformal survey of the […]
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The cases for and against compensating youth clubs
By Mike Woitalla@MikeWoitalla When Manchester United paid a transfer fee of $10 million to Bayern Munich toacquire 30-year-old Bastian Schweinsteiger in 2015, a small German club named TSV 1860 Rosenheim received $42,000. Schweinsteiger joined Bayern Munich at age 14 from 1860Rosenheim. Because Rosenheim contributed to Schweinsteiger’s development after his 12th birthday, it was entitled to […]
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Collegian makes case for U.S. U-20 men's national team
By Mike Woitalla The only collegians on the USA’s 2015 U-20 World Cup roster were two backup goalkeepers. And en route to its quarterfinal finish, the USA for the first time in 14U-20 World Cup appearances, dating back to 1981, fielded a starting lineup without any field players who ever played college ball. The next […]
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Girls Development Academy taking shape: First 25 clubs accepted
By Mike Woitalla@MikeWoitalla Twenty-five clubs have been accepted so far by U.S. Soccer to compete in theGirls U.S. Soccer Development Academy, whose inaugural season kicks off in fall of 2017. U.S. Soccer has not specified how many clubs will take part in the 2017-18 season, during which teams willcompete in U-14/15, U-16/17 and U-18/19 age […]
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Is it OK to take pain medicine in order to continue playing?
By Dev K. Mishra, M.D. Several factors cause athletes of all levels to continue to play through pain: the warrior mentality, shame from showing weakness and letting others down,pressure from teammates and coaches, and the threat, imagined or real, of lost playing time. For young athletes, is it OK to take pain medicine in order […]
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California clubs shine at Development Academy playoffs
By Mike Woitalla@MikeWoitalla FC Dallas and Real Salt Lake-Arizona were the only clubs to qualify for the U.S. Soccer Development Academy quarterfinals in both agegroups. Five of the clubs that reached the knockout stage hail from California — LA Galaxy, Real So Cal, FC Golden State, Sacramento Republic and Nomads SC. Thirty-two teams at both […]
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Tips for attending a college ID camp
By Mike Woitalla With summer being a popular time for young players to attend College ID camps, we’ve asked Jim Millinder, women’s head coach at the University of San Francisco, to offer some advice for players. For coaches, the ID camps offer a chance to get a closerlook at players they have already scouted and […]
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Gottschee and FC Dallas take No. 1 seeds into Development Academy playoffs
By Mike Woitalla FC Dallas and BW Gottschee of Queens, New York, are the No. 1 seeds in the U-15/16 and U-17/18 divisions, respectively, of the 2016 U.S. Soccer DevelopmentAcademy playoffs. FC Dallas, the defending U-15/16 national champs, coached by Luchi Gonzalez, finished regular-season play with a 23-2-0 win-loss-tie while outscoring foes77-16. From the club […]