USL Feature
Friday, February 24, 2012
BRADENTON, Fla. – As players arrived at the IMG Soccer Academy for the USL Super Y-League Boys Olympic Development Camp on Thursday, the second consecutive year the event has been held on the IMG Academies campus, they were met by pristine conditions and perfect weather.
For USL National Technical Director Peter Mellor, that’s exactly as it should be.
“We’ve got everything,” Mellor said of the four-day camp. “We’re giving them every opportunity to see where they’re at with their physical development with the T4 testing, and of course we have a great coaching staff who have a curriculum that I’ve put together for them to follow that are important parts of the game, from possession to speed of play to finishing, and of course we have the goalkeeper-specific training.”
Certainly the enthusiasm to get going was evident among the 200 players and coaches gathered in Bradenton as they were put through their paces during Thursday evening’s first session. Giving players optimum conditions to compete and learn in was the principle focus when USL partnered with the IMG Soccer Academy for the annual event, and the players certainly appeared to respond to that.
“You look at the energy the kids brought,” IMG Soccer Academy’s Scott Bowers said. “It’s a great opportunity for myself at the academy to see kids come in from all over. I asked how many kids were from the state of Florida and I maybe saw four hands.”
Adding the T4 Soccer as the ODP Camps Official Performance Testing Partner will add to the player’s experience this year as well. Designed to allow players to track their fitness not only at the camp but then as they return to their clubs to continue their development, the addition was a welcome one for Mellor.
“It gives us as a league a chance to look at the overall scores of certain age-groups and see where we stand in national averages,” Mellor said. “We can look at a certain age-group and compare it with the U17 national team and get a feeling of whether our kids, in their club environments, are being developed physically as well as technically and tactically.”
In addition to the training and off-field seminars that cover aspects of the game such as nutrition and mental conditioning, a major opportunity is waiting for those that impress during the course of the camp’s first three days. The two 95/96 All-Star teams selected on Saturday night will get a chance to play against the U.S. U17 National Team’s residency program, and one of their former counterparts in Wesley Wade.
Wade attended last year’s USL ODP National Camp after standout performances for the New Jersey Rangers, and a year later has become a visible member of the U17 National Team, scoring in the Nike Friendlies last year against France and more recently against Denmark at the Aegean Cup last month in a 3-2 victory.
“That’s the big thing,” Mellor said. “It would be great to have [Wesley] talk to the boys on Sunday after the game and just say, ‘hey guys, I was here last year, I was in the all-star team, I did what you did and look where I am now,’ just to show that it does work.”
It worked for more than just Wade, of course, with a number of players from last year’s camp now in full-time residency at IMG Academies. Bowers believes giving players a chance to see the level of facilities and education that are available to players is a great opportunity for the academy to show what it can offer top-level players, such as goalkeeper Evan Finney.
“Now he’s here full time and he’s on the under-18 academy team,” Bowers said. “To see where he was 12 months ago to where he is now, it’s a huge difference, developing with ODP and then coming here in August, I mean it’s just a great experience for him, but also for us to see how much he’s grown in the last 12 months.”
It’s hopefully the same sort of experience the players in attendance this week will get as they take their games to the next level.