PSA training plan, business model taking shape in Ohio

by Robert Ziegler 10/30/2007



Above: PSA Director of Coaching Marc Hottiger talks with members of the Academy's inaugural class during a recent training session at the new Ohio facility. - photo courtesy Premier Soccer Academies


LORAIN, OHIO - When we last checked in at Brad Friedel’s Premier Soccer Academies’ complex in suburban Cleveland, we were given a good impression of the organization’s centerpiece facility as a sign of good things to come.

Several months later the facility itself, along with the organization’s business plan, training program and competitive structure are becoming much more discernible as Friedel and his staff move ahead.

The facility itself is still the first thing to get one’s attention. Driving to the facility in Lorain you see a now-complete main building complete with detailed security arrangements for the players, who began training and attending class at a local school 2 months ago. The massive indoor field house with a full-length synthetic field is practically complete, with 3 ½ outdoor fields in varying degrees of completion (the first class of players are training on a synthetic field outdoors, but ready to move indoors when cold weather hits the area.

But in the end, how the non-profit business supports itself, what kind of development the players in the program are receiving, and the means to utilize that development both as youth players and in the context of end-game delivery at the professional level, is what will set PSA apart. On all fronts, some very viable possibilities are taking shape.

Early training reviews positive

“It’s like going to national camp every day of the week,” said U15 Boys National Team midfielder Will Trapp, part of the academy’s inaugural class. “It’s pretty amazing here. Kids from all over the world are here and you get to see different cultures up close.”

What Trapp’s comments (echoed by other students at the facilities after a recent practice) seem to focus on are not just the actual training sessions provided by PSA coaches Marc Hottiger, Roy Tunks and Desmond Armstrong, but the program and curriculum behind it.

Hottiger is the coaching director for PSA. He earned 64 caps for Switzerland in an 18-year playing careers and more recently has worked in youth development for the Swiss National Federation and a pair of Swiss clubs. Asked to explain what happens on the PSA training ground that makes it different from what a typical American youth club offers, he gives a detailed answer.

“I don’t know for sure the way the U.S. youth soccer teams work so I wouldn’t want to compare. I focus on how we have to train each player at his age,” he said. “We consider all the stuff they need to change and improve at their age. We don’t just go out to enjoy the sunshine or say ‘I want to see some goals today.’ Each day we go out and work within the plan. Every week we know what we will be doing. Maybe next week we will work on defensive 1v1, and then 2v1 and then maybe train more on tactics. It’s all in the program. There’s a lot of stuff to learn and if you don’t prepare the players right, everyone will see that in the end. I know what we can bring to the player and then we can look at which things each player is getting and what they are not getting so well. Then I can build in time to work on the things the players are weaker at, in their own groups, but still work on the strong things too. We need to teach the players all the pieces: defensive, offensive, skills, tactics, mental, physical.”

U14 Boys National Team player Bennett Yort was recently invited to trial for a week at PSA. Yort cited the program’s content and intensity with setting it apart and helping boys as young as 12 make the adjustment from living away from home.

“Each day you work on something specific and it’s like that every week,” the Augusta, Georgia native said. “The drills weren’t much different, but the quality of coaches and players is just so high. The schedule is so tight you never really think about being at home. It kind of makes you feel like PSA is your home.”


Public slow to jump in

Yort’s take may be a difficult one for any number of high-level players from ages 13-17 to grasp. Besides the obvious challenge of living away from home, players are asked to leave their comfort level and submit themselves to a fairly strong authority, all the while trusting their career ambitions to a set of coaches they likely have little experience with.

PSA coach and Director of Recruiting Desmond Armstrong said the value of the program is being recognized at varying levels depending on the community.

“With the elite soccer public family, they don’t truly understand the magnitude of what is being offered. They don’t know how to position it within the landscape of youth soccer in America. In that sense we are coming from left field and they don’t have anything to compare it with,” Armstrong said. “If the family are immigrants who are familiar with football globally, when they see it they instantly understand what we are trying to achieve. They are desperately trying to get their kid seen by us so they can be included. I think that kind of recognition will eventually happen with traditional American family, but at a slower rate. The players who are here are now seeing it and saying ‘Oh, now, I understand.’”

While this independent or free market initiative may be a helpful or even vital spur, useful in improving the American developmental system, PSA staff are hopeful of making an even more direct impact in the field of coaching education.

PSA goalkeeper coach Roy Tunks, who has mentored a number of Premier League and International goalkeepers including Friedel, said the inclusion of “junior coaches” in the PSA setup will be a key means of developing promising coaching talent.

“We want to get a group of American coaches and give them our experience. I don’t want to sound as if we’re coming and saying ‘this is how it’s done,’ but I do think we have something good to offer,” Tunks said. “We’re open-minded, but I’ve got 45 years of professional experience as a player, coach and coach educator. What we’d like to get here is a base of coaches to help us improve on a wider level. We’ll also be running courses at some point for coaches within Ohio and hopefully we can turn it into a national-level opportunity.”

Professional Preparation

From the beginning, Friedel has stressed that the academy is a means of preparing players for an opportunity to pursue a professional soccer career. While participation in the program is not a threat to collegiate eligibility, no apology is made for the emphasis on professional development or the effort to place players in a play-for-pay environment someday.

An important component of this emphasis fell into place recently when the organization announced an agreement with Major League Soccer’s Columbus Crew. With MLS mandating its teams to being player development initiatives, and the Crew being accepted into USSF’s Player Development Academy program, Friedel and Crew General Manager Mark McCullers saw an opportunity for cooperation. Under the partnership, PSA players will be eligible for selection (via PSA youth club Cleveland United) for the Crew’s MLS youth program and entry into the USSF league, and thus eligible for eventual contract offers under MLS rules as “home grown” players.

McCullers sees the agreement as a no-brainer for the Crew.

“You could place his project and facilities at any club in the world and they would be thrilled,” the Crew GM said. “We have got to attract more elite American athletes and better soccer players, and this is a good way to help accomplish that.”

The logistics of the Crew Academy team as relates to Cleveland United and the PSA residency itself is still somewhat fuzzy. Columbus is also working out an arrangement with a club in Cincinnati that would place some of that club’s players on the Crew Academy team, which will compete roughly from February to June in a Midwestern division of the USSF league. Friedel said some age-eligible PSA residency players would compete with the Crew, and that others would come from the Cleveland United club, who also have had 4 players selected for a weekly visit to PSA residency for extra training. PSA CEO Craig Umland said the agreement with the Crew would not preclude PSA graduates from moving overseas to play, but did not elaborate on any possible first registration arrangement by which a PSA grad could be entered into the FIFA world and then sold on to an overseas club.

Umland also said Cleveland United will serve an important grass roots component. That club is still a pay-to-play operation, although Friedel said he hopes to see Cleveland United do away with its need to charge fees in the not-too-distant future, In fact it’s the pay-to-play aspect of American club soccer that the Blackburn goalkeeper finds especially distasteful, citing his own experience as a young player of being excluded from some activities and teams due to lack of funds.


The Necessity of Business

However committed Friedel is to moving away from a pay-to-play environment in this country, it will be necessary for PSA to generate revenue in order to provide the sort of opportunity it is giving to its residency players (currently 22 but later increasing to more than 30). Along with significant corporate sponsorship, PSA will bring in funds via rented use of its field house and workout facility, 5v5 tournaments held around the country, camps and combines both at the main facility and around the country, plus a PSA Experience program where guests can spend a week enjoying all the elements of residency life for a fee of $1,250.

Umland makes no apology for this aspect of PSA’s operation, noting that it helps make the top-level aspect of the program possible, and adding that there is significant overlap between these events and the program’s recruiting and evaluation process.

“The players in here (at residency), they’ve all been recruited based on their level of play. We see them as talent that needs to be polished and defined and taken on to the next level,” he said. “From there, why not offer other talent levels, other ages, that same expertise in coaching and training. We already have it here. When our kids aren’t using that, why not offer not only Northeast Ohio players, but players from across the globe the same level of training.

“I get calls every day from parents and coaches saying I’ve got a great player. The first question I ask is ‘Did you attend one of our camps or (tournaments)?” he continued. “We took 8-9 players from our elite week (held in June) to come live with us. If they hadn’t had gone, they never would have had that opportunity.”