Chicago's Super Y-League Plan

Super Y-League Feature

Friday, June 15, 2012 – The Chicago Fire, in conjunction with Youth Elite Soccer, recently launched the Elite Performance Center at Toyota Park. The EPC is a seven-week long summer program that offers camps and weekly practice sessions throughout the summer for boys in the U12 to U17 age groups. The Super Y-League Mid West Division club held tryouts in late May and is now into the first week of its course, a preseason camp.

Though the first game for teams in the Mid West Divison of Super Y is not until late June, Brian Roberts, Player Development Manager at the MLS club, said that preparing the young players starts on site.

“Because we practice right here in the shadow of Toyota Park, on the turf field, we get them in the right environment,” he said. “During this week we’ll bring them into the stadium, we’ll introduce them to some of the first team coaching staff and some of the first team players so they’ll get used to the environment.”

The main reason the Fire started the EPC is to give kids in the area a chance to compete in the summer in a similar way that they might compete in the other seasons, and the Super Y-League is the optimal league in which to do that.

“We spoke to parents and players who want to aspire to play in the academy one day,” Roberts said. “They all talked about their summer season and how their summer season is different to their spring, winter, and fall seasons, how they are very structured. When it comes to summer, there’s not a great deal in the Chicago marketplace to accommodate what they want to do.

“Up until now there’s sporadic summer camps. They might do a summer camp with their club, they might do it with their high school, local college, a local camp. But they might do three or four summer camps. So, from the parents that we spoke to, they want something a little more structured, maybe something that reflects or mimics a mini spring or fall season. We sat down and looked at the platforms that were available and explored USL and Super Y and put together a seven-week program.”

As far as the type of player who will be participating in the EPC, Roberts said that the program is not exclusively open to current Chicago Fire Juniors players.

“It’s open to the whole soccer community,” he said. “There’s a short overlap with the MDL season (Midwest Developmental League), [so] for the majority of the EPC players [it] will be the only program they participate in. The demands are higher; we closely monitor the players’ participation levels. I think it demands a high level. High level soccer players are constantly changing. The evolution of the sport here in this country is evolving at a rapid rate.

“Will we see the same players back next year? I think we’ll hold tryouts again next year. Players develop at various rates. A player that’s regarded as a top talent this year may not be that position or be regarded as a top player in 12 months time. We position the player very high here at the Chicago Fire, and our expectation is higher, as well.”

The Chicago Fire have done well to have multiple teams make it to the Super Y-League North American Finals in recent years, as well as the Super-20 team winning the championship in 2008 and having an undefeated season in 2010. Robert was quick to point out, however, that success is relative.

“You’ve got to define success,” he said. “We’ve had a handful of teams qualify for nationals in previous years. Last year we piloted an EPC-like program with the U13 boys, so if you define teams that qualify for nationals a success then, yeah, that team was successful.

“But here at the Fire we’re looking for added value. At the program we compare those players for the fall season. How many players chose to continue their development with the Fire at one of our talent schools in the fall and the winter? This is about structure and about putting something in place that will have medium- to long-term benefits, not have different teams have the chance to qualify for nationals.”

Roberts also mentioned that the Super-20 team will be fairly unaffected by the EPC and is exclusively for the Chicago Fire Soccer homegrown players, much like the PDL team.

“I think we have short-term goals and medium-term goals,” he said. “I think, as we enter the first week of training camp this week, the focus is getting players in the correct environment and routine of training. We’ll have players that will have had a fall season with a wide variety of different soccer clubs across Chicagoland. Our initial goal will be to introduce them to EPC, [the] ‘Train like a Pro to Play like a Pro’ curriculum, which is very age-specific, very skill-specific, and has different stages during those three weeks that increases or decreases percentage outputs.

“A percentage output might be: how many times do we spend doing technical work in a practice session, how many minutes do we spend on a tactical, or physical, or psychological [session]. So that would be our initial goals - to get players used to the type of training that we’re delivering.

“That leads down to our medium-term goals. After our first year is to build reputation, to build reputation with opposing coaches and players and referees that officiate our games. We talked to players about what it means to be a part of the Chicago Fire, and we talked about being young professionals every day and to have our players, both on and off the field, act as young professional soccer players.”

The Fire and Youth Elite Soccer began their partnership in January of 2011, and Roberts said the organization has been pleased with the way the affiliation has worked to date.

“Youth Elite Soccer and their staff operate the camps and training department. Essentially, they take the lead in the club’s grassroots initiative. They do a number of summer camps and have full-time trainers for our different Juniors programs and different clubs across Chicagoland. In 2012, we were very happy with the performance of Youth Elite Soccer when it came to their camps and training programs, and we tasked them with developing programming for elite players. Youth Elite Soccer are providing the management tools and the staff to run these programs.”

In the future, the Fire hope to get some of the players from the EPC into the first team to compete at the highest level.

“I think we have a player pyramid here at the Fire that represents all of the player development programs that we have. The ETP (Emerging Talent Program) is a key component to that pyramid. We certainly would like to bring that group of players into our program this year and keep them for coming years and eventually represent at the first team.”

The Chicago Fire join the Crew Juniors, also of the Mid West Division, FC Dallas West Texas, Colorado Rapids, DC United Women, and Reading United AC (Philadelphia Union) as affiliates of MLS clubs participating in the Super-20 and Super Y-League hoping to increase the level of development of young athletes in North America to the level of European clubs.