Young soccer players chasing pro dreams
BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. -- Louis Mateus is living an American soccer coach’s dream.
Standing under a big, white inflated dome, he watches about 40 teenage boys trickle inside for two hours of drills and scrimmages in what by day is a suburban Chicago driving range.
The players -- Mateus’ players -- are members of the Chicago Fire’s Youth Development Academy, unpaid apprentices dedicated to the slim hope that someday they’ll be pros in a country known more for its football than its futbol.
“To be honest with you,” the 44-year-old coach says, shaking his head and laughing, “I didn’t think I probably would see it in my lifetime.”
Mateus is the director of the academy, one of 63 set up around the country over the past year by the U.S. Soccer Federation to train the 2,500 or so best American players. Six of the academies are affiliated with Major League Soccer teams like the Fire, others with lower-level pro teams or elite youth clubs. Another dozen academies, including three set up by MLS teams, are planned for next year.
The USSF, the sport’s governing body in the U.S., is trying to create an American version of the training academies that produce the best players in Europe and South America.
In the process, it hopes to transform the national soccer culture.
John Hackworth, technical director of the national academies, is trying to bridge what he sees as a vast gap between the kind of training American players receive and the no-nonsense grooming players get in the rest of the soccer world.
American players, Hackworth says, tend to develop bad habits playing for club teams that often emphasize winning over developing skills and games -- even against weak opponents -- over practice.
“It’s not a matter of whether little Johnny can handle a soccer ball, it’s a matter of whether little Johnny can get a result,” says Hackworth, also an assistant coach for the men’s national team. “That is a problem, and it’s always been a problem for national team coaches like myself.”
Soccer coaches and fans have wished for years that MLS teams would set up their own academies, like those run by top teams abroad, to develop pro players and deepen the talent pool for the national team.
MLS has talked for several years about creating academies, but the USSF went ahead, Hackworth says, because it has the reach to build them across the country. He expects more MLS teams to join the program next year and beyond.
The American player pool certainly has improved over the past two decades, in part due to a residency program in Bradenton, Fla., for the under-17 national team.
The U.S. has qualified for every World Cup since 1990. It advanced to the quarterfinals in 2002, then got knocked out in the first round two years ago. Still, no U.S. men’s or boys’ team has ever won a major FIFA tournament.
Hackworth notes that top American players often still lack technical expertise. They get by on stamina and speed rather than dribbling and touch, and sometimes take breaks during games. The latter, he says, is a product of playing so many youth-club matches that they habitually take a few minutes off here and there to save energy.
And even the coach who led the 2002 team to the high point in U.S. soccer history said at the time that the talent pool was far too shallow.
“We can slap 11 on the field and do pretty well,” Bruce Arena, now a commentator on soccer broadcasts, said in a 2002 interview. “But we don’t have the numbers behind it.”
At the Fire Academy, Mateus and his assistant coaches stop practice frequently, trying to correct simple mistakes that young Americans are sometimes criticized for, like dribbling when a pass will more effectively move the ball up field, or bunching up in tight groups rather than moving into open space.
“The coaches that are at this training, they expect a lot more out of you,” says Seth Stockley, a 17-year-old defender who drives more than an hour from his home in rural Earlville for the training. “I would say they’re more strict here than I’ve ever seen at a club.”
The coaches also make extensive use of video -- clips from the academy games and of pros at their best and worst -- something few, if any, of these players have ever used.
“There are a lot of things that go on in a game that you don’t quite realize,” Stockley says. “When you look at video, video never lies.”
The current crop of American players has obstacles besides bad habits, Mateus says, citing video games, cellphones, girls, school and making college plans.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just a different style,” he says. “Kids growing up in Europe, their main goal is to play professional. They take a lot of chances to make that happen.
“The question is, when push comes to shove, do [American] players have the desire?” he says.
Mateus believes his academy can produce four, maybe five pro players over the next five years.
On the artificial turf under the dome, a tall, blond Iowan is working to become one of them.
Ian Christianson, a 16-year-old midfielder, moved to the Chicago suburbs last fall to be part of the Fire academy. He left behind Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and just about everything else he’s known.
“A big family, five brothers and sisters, my parents, home, school,” he says. “Pretty much everything except soccer.”
Without pretension, he calls the game his career, and says the academy is his first step on that path.
Christianson lives with a teammate, going home once a month or so. He spends about a dozen hours a week training -- drills, scrimmages and fitness work, as well as time in the academy video room.
“It’s definitely no joke,” he says. “People are here to play; spots aren’t guaranteed.”
