For U-9 and U-10 games, I really like the build-out line, placed equidistant between the penalty area line and the halfway line, and the fact that keepers can no longer punt or drop-kick the ball.

Perhaps the most crucial information from recent science on concussions is how dangerous another concussion is if suffered shortly following the first.

Coach John Hackworth made 11 changes to the 32-player roster for the U-17 Residency Program for the fall semester from the squad launched in the spring semester that is aiming for the 2017 U-17 World Cup.

North Korea beat defending champion Japan, 5-4, in a penalty kick shootout in the final to win the 2016 U-17 Women's World Cup. Spain took third place thanks to a 4-0 win over Venezuela.

We're getting in to that time of year when people start sneezing and coughing all around you. It's pretty easy to catch a cold or sinus congestion to generally make you feel lousy. And at the same time your team continues to practice and play games. You want to keep playing, so should you just try to play through it or should you sit out and get better (and maybe do your teammates a favor by not getting them sick)?

On Friday, Japan faces North Korea in the final of the 2016 U-17 Women's World Cup, a biennial championship launched in 2008 that the USA has never won.

A few very advanced refs can earn enough money from refereeing to make it their vocation. For the rest of us, it's a hobby that earns some money.

Mallory Pugh, the 18-year-old Colorado product who has already made 17 appearances, with four goals and seven assists, for the USA's full national team, is one of 21 players named by Coach Michelle French to the USA's 21-player roster for the 2016 U-20 Women's World Cup (Nov. 13-Dec. 3) in Papua New Guinea.

The USA exited in the first round at the 2016 U-17 Women's World Cup with a win and two losses. Needing a victory over defending champion Japan on Saturday after opening with a 6-1 win over Paraguay and a 2-1 loss to Ghana, Coach B.J. Snow's team fell, 3-2, to the Japanese. Only once since the biennial tournament's launch has the USA survived group play at the U-17 Women's World Cup.

Atlanta United begins MLS play in 2017, but it made a bit of history by becoming the first MLS club to field U.S. Soccer Development Academy teams prior its first team taking the field in MLS. That was thanks to merging with the Georgia United Soccer Alliance -- a partnership that has resulted in two Homegrown signings.

Within the last few weeks, while coaching and refereeing, I observed a couple of very different kinds of youth coaches.

One reason U.S. Soccer invests so heavily in its youth national team program is to give young players experience in high-pressure, international competition.

The USA's quest to win the U-17 Women's World Cup for the first time began with a 6-1 rout over Paraguay in which Coloradan Civana Kuhlmann scored a hat trick.