The 20-player squad named by Coach Michelle French for the U-20 Women's World Cup Concacaf qualifying tournament Dec. 3-13 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, includes 12 pre-college players and eight young enough to be eligible for the 2016 U-20 Women's World Cup as well as the 2018 edition.

Futsal has been growing rapidly in the USA as it's a wonderful player development tool. But refereeing it can be a different ballgame than outdoor soccer as it's much quicker, it's played with five players to a side and a smaller low-bounce ball -- plus the rules can be kind of quirky. Coaches have said to me on numerous occasions, "Geez, by the time I understand the rules, the season will be over."

After starting for the USA when it won the inaugural Women's World Cup on 1991, Shannon Higgins-Cirovski moved straight into college coaching. In May, after several years of coaching youth ball including at U.S. Soccer's Maryland Training Centers, Higgins-Cirovski, was named the girls Director of Coaching at Maryland youth club Bethesda SC.

Much has been written about concussion in young athletes but today I want to devote a few words to an area not often discussed: Who should the young athlete see after a suspected concussion?

I'm a positive thinker. But all the positive-thinking in the world cannot erase the fact that refereeing is a challenging and sometimes dangerous avocation.

Dr. Robert Cantu, one of the USA's leading experts on concussions in sports, responded to some of the common criticisms of the U.S. Soccer Federation's recommendations on heading in youth soccer in an interview with SI.com's Grant Wahl.

In 1998, the Mexican government changed its laws to allow dual citizenship, thus enabling U.S.-born Mexican-Americans to obtain Mexican citizenship. The measure, combined with the rise of the U.S. game, spurred aggressive scouting of U.S. youth with Mexican heritage by the Mexican federation (FMF).

In recent years, new science has provided clearer information on the dangers of concussions and studies have revealed their frequency in youth soccer. It seemed that it would be only a matter of time before the game's governing bodies seriously addressed the issue.

Part of this I found amusing as I reffed 8-year-old boys whose coach had them wear scrimmage bibs on the sideline like they do in the pros.

Selecting the right college can be frustrating, and even cause anxiety for many families. Many kids will start thinking about their dream college as a freshman in high school, some will take a "wait and see" approach, while others will just simply wait till the last minute hoping to "get recruited" before they consider which college is right for them.

What rule do refs in the youth game tend to get wrong most often?

The U.S. Soccer Federation launched the U-17 Residency Program in Bradenton, Fla., in 1999. Later that year, the USA finished fourth at the U-17 World Cup in Zealand.