Here’s a revelation: eat the least processed food you can find.

Right, that’s not a revelation. You’ve heard it before but it’s not an easy thing to do when feeding the typical American teenage athlete. But it can be done, especially if you try to stick to the 80/20 rule that I’ll outline below.

There are a lot of different diets and recommendations around but the number of choices is very confusing, and frankly, I’m not sure all of them are safe for young athletes. What we’re trying to do with a young athlete is make them as healthy as possible to improve their sport performance -- but more importantly I believe that we can set them up with good habits for a lifetime of healthy eating.

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I'm sure anyone who's raised an adolescent or teenager can attest to the idea that teenagers don't get as much sleep as they need.

For the adolescent or teenager a number of outside influences take place: more demands on time for homework, socializing, sports, music, or any number of other activities. Let’s take a look below at some reasons why sleep patterns change, what the proper amount of sleep is, and how it can affect sports performance.

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Tab Ramos, considered one of the USA's most skillful players ever, played for the USA at three World Cups, two Copa Americas, and in the Olympic Games. Two years after retiring in 2002 from a playing career in Spain, Mexico and MLS, he founded the New Jersey youth club NJSA 04. In 2008, he coached the NJSA 04 Gunners to the U-14 U.S. Youth Soccer national title, marking the first national championship for a New Jersey club in two decades.

SOCCER AMERICA: If you had a magic wand, how would you use it to improve youth soccer in America?

TAB RAMOS: Wow. I’d have to think about that…

One of the things that’s been most important for our club is, from the first moment, eliminating parents’ opinions from what we do.

The opinion of the parents of the players here is completely irrelevant to us. And that’s been a good formula for making this club a real soccer club.

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The first ear-piercing wakeup call for U.S. women's soccer came at the 2007 World Cup, where a dazzling Brazil outplayed and routed the USA, 4-0, in semifinals.

Last year provided more examples that the benefit of the USA’s huge head start in the girls and women's game was evaporating. The USA lost to Mexico for the first time ever, and at the U-17 World Cup, it wasn’t the Americans being hailed for skillful, entertaining soccer -- but South Korea, North Korea, Japan and Spain.

Tony DiCicco, coach of the 1999 World Cup-winning U.S. women, said, “On the girls’ side, our players are not smart players, they lack sophistication, they're not technical enough" – and he blamed the youth soccer structure, which he referred to as a big business.

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The world's three greatest players have a few things in common.

Lionel Messi, Andres Iniesta and Xavi all stand barely 5-foot-7 tall. They're teammates at Barcelona and they all came out of the club's youth program.

The trio finished tops in voting for the 2010 FIFA Ballon d’Or, the world player of the year award won by Messi.

2010 World Cup champs Iniesta (age 26) and Xavi (31) joined Barcelona at age 11 and 12, respectively. Messi (23) arrived from Argentina at age 13.

One person who had a close eye on all three of them during their youth days is Albert Benaiges, the coordinator of Barcelona's youth teams, which spawned seven players who played for Spain in its World Cup final win.

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On a sunny September Sunday, Coach Albertin Montoya watched his Gold Pride players, including the magnificent Brazilian Marta and U.S. world champion Tiffeny Milbrett, celebrate the WPS championship after a 4-0 win over Philadelphia.

The dominating final performance followed a regular season in which the Gold Pride averaged nearly two goals per game and played such entertaining and effective soccer that longtime reporter on the women’s game, Scott French, declared it the best women’s club team ever.

Thanks much to Marta, the Gold Pride played soccer worth paying to watch. So as Montoya, out of the corner of his eye, watched his players bask in the glory, I asked him why the USA isn’t producing Martas. After all, this country has more girls playing and more resources dedicated to female soccer than any other nation. Shouldn’t we be seeing many more highly skillful, exciting players?

“We’ll need to talk about youth soccer,” said Montoya.

Montoya is also a longtime Northern California youth coach for girls and boys. He and his wife, Erin, a former collegiate star and pro player, run the Montoya Soccer Academy and coach at Mountain View Los Altos SC, for which Albertin also serves as technical director for under-8 through under-14 boys teams.

“The biggest problem at the youth level is the emphasis on winning,” he says. “I don’t know if it’s in our genes or what, but there’s so much desire to win at the ages when player development should be the emphasis.

“The first thing I tell parents is, ‘You want to win at U-8, U-9, U-10, U-11, U-12 -- you’re at the wrong club.

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To: All incoming high school freshman
 
By now most 9th graders have a week or two of school under their belts.  For most of them it is an wondrous time that will hold many unique experiences in their first week, month and year of high school.  It is a time when new friends are made, opportunities to get involved in school activities present themselves and the excitement of representing their school in athletic competition becomes appealing.  High school should be filled with as many positive experiences as possible and participating in social activities with classmates will help to build relationships that could potentially last for a lifetime.
 
With all of these things going on it is important to take a minute to consider the future, not just from a soccer perspective but also from one that will allow kids to set the table for success and opportunity as young adults once they have graduated from high school.  For those who have not sensed where I am going yet, yes I am speaking to the possibilities of going to college and maybe even having the chance to participate in a collegiate soccer program.
 
For many, collegiate soccer may not even be a consideration yet.  For others it may be something they have already set as one of their goals and for some there may not be any interest at all.  Regardless of your situation at the moment, there is an important message that needs to be communicated to anyone hoping to get into a good college or university, regardless of the desire to play collegiate soccer.
 

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A player can always improve his fitness by working out hard. He can comprehend certain tactics by studying the game. But how far he goes will be determined mainly by how well he has mastered ball skills. Those are acquired by playing, day after day, year after year.

 

A player who really wants to excel will spend as much time as possible playing small-sided games when he has playmates, and juggling and kicking against the wall when he’s on his own.

  I spent a lot of time hitting the ball against the side of the house when I was a growing up. If my mother complained about the noise, I’d hop down the retaining wall at the end of our property to the office-building parking lot.  

I’d use that wall -- hitting the ball with both feet, seeing how long I could return the wall’s passes without losing control.

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"Let's kick, Daddy." Those were the words our 2-year-old son Braedon uttered a few months ago. As soon as the phrase had crossed his lips a flood of memories came rushing back to the forefront of my mind.

Two decades ago if you were a soccer player growing up in Millersville, Pa., "Let's kick! " or "Do you want to kick?" meant so much more than passing a ball back and forth as my son was now requesting. In our 1980s lexicon for soccer junkies, "to kick" took on a cult-like meaning that was as deep and varied as the characters who engaged in the activity.

The first step was to head over to the Millersville University soccer field, which was conveniently located a quick fence hop from Penn Manor High where most of us went to school.

If you arrived alone, you spent some time juggling and dribbling through mock defenders before drilling shots at the kickboard: a dilapidated structure the size of a regulation goal with peeling green paint.

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By rule in the State and District leagues, team rosters are “frozen” starting in August.  That means that there are no “guest players” allowed in fall league games as sometimes can happen in summer tournaments.  Starting in the fall, it has been the rule in the leagues Shadow has entered that a player must be rostered to one team and only that team’s rostered players can play for it.

The Player Development League (PDL) Player Pass allows for player movement among our club’s PDL Teams.  Because it is a PDL rule, the Player Pass only applies to our U12-U16 Boys and Girls PDL teams.

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Throughout the entire process, you may initiate contact (via email, instant messenger, fax, phone and/or letters) as much as you want.  Phone message (except specific camp related questions) CANNOT be returned until July 1st of your Senior  year and unfortunately College Coaches cannot text you!

Freshman/Sophomore Year

The beginning of your high school career should coincide with the beginning of your college search.  This is a time for assessment.   You need to begin to ask “Big Questions” at this time.  What do I want to get out of college?  Academically, where do I fit?  Do I want to be close to home? What do I want to do when I graduate?  More than likely, there will not be definitive answers to these life questions at this time and they may change, sometimes from month to month and even day to day.  The most important part of this assessment is not the answers but the thought processes which lead you to your choices. Make sure the place you choose is a ‘Good Fit’ for YOU!!

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If you are planning to play (or trying to play) in NCAA Division I or II athletics you need to sign up at the NCAA Eligibility Center (Clearinghouse):  https://web1.ncaa.org/eligibilitycenter/common/

This web site has a list of approved courses from YOUR high school that will meet NCAA minimums. If you are not on target to meet NCAA minimums on subjects and number of courses, you will know after your sign-up and submission of Junior year transcripts (see below), and you can make Senior year curriculum adjustments. Meeting NCAA minimums is not usually a problem for most HS college prep tracks. The Clearinghouse certifies that you are academically eligible to participate in DI or DII athletics.

*  When you sign up at the Clearinghouse, you will complete some background information and an amateurism questionnaire. Sign-up costs $60 and families with previously demonstrated financial need on SAT/ACT exam fees can have this NCAA fee waivered also.  

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One of the biggest gripes some people have when they don’t make a team is that it has to do with some political process. They blame lack of success on favoritism or prejudice. So, rather than discussing or evaluating failure through lack of ability or performance, the issue is politics. The problem with that specious argument is that it is made by those players on the bottom of a roster. So if you don’t want to leave it to chance, don’t let it be close. Make a clear statement in the trial about who you are and what you can do.

If you’re a good player you are going to make it. If you’re marginal, it may be left up to politics. If you want to be assured of making a team, be one of the top three or four players. Try not to be the 12th through 30th best for an 18-player roster, because in the selector’s eyes, players below the top 11 hold diminished significance. You may feel you will improve, benefit from the training and contribute to the team, but that is not likely what the selectors are concerned with. The selectors are most interested in the truly elite. That is their main responsibility.

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Every time I come away from a youth soccer game whether I am out recruiting for Whitworth or just watching my kids play, I end up shaking my head…and it doesn’t matter the level.   Do you know who cares the most about winning?  Parents!  Who is next on the list?  Coaches….however, the best coaches will always keep losing in perspective.  Who is last?  You guessed it, players.  Ultimately, players just want to play.

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By analyzing street soccer yourself, you will conclude that its strength is that it is played daily in a competitive form, with a preference for the match on all sorts of ’street playing fields’, usually in small groups. Rarely in street soccer do you see youths busy practicing isolated technical and tactical drills. No, it is always the competitive form, where youth players learn from their mistakes, unconscious of the technical, tactical, mental and physical qualities they are developing through the scrimmages being played.

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When Manchester United’s Academy boys glide from their dressing rooms at the club’s magnificent skill factory hidden deep in the Trafford countryside, they run past 10-foot high photographs of David Beckham, Sir Bobby Charlton, Duncan Edwards, Ryan Giggs and George Best. "We want them to be inspired," said Rene Meulensteen, United’s skills development coach.   They are inspired. In the ensuing sessions of drills and small-sided games, the technique, ambition and vision of United’s youngsters borders on the breath-taking. "If this generation carries on maturing," confided Meulensteen on Monday night, "they will steamroller everyone at Under-18 level. They’ll have skills coming out of their ears."
 

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