Live The Pitch

After nine months of hard work, Vardar and Chicago Magic have been crowned U.S. Development Academy National Champions. This is the greatest accomplishment for a youth program in the U.S. Livethepitch would like to congratulate  both teams and also  all teams who participated in finals week.

In the U-17/18 division Vardar defeated Crossfire Premier 3-1 in the championship match. Kelyn Rowe found the back of the net for Crossfire to grab the early lead, but Vardar was not going down without a fight.

Vardar would score three unanswered goals to win the title. Peter Jacobson was able to knock in a rebound off the crossbar to even the match and Derek Schrauben would score two goals to lead Vardar to victory.
Final U-17/18 Standings

1. Vardar
2. Crossfire Premier
3. Real SoCal
4. CASL Chelsea Acadamy
5. Baltimore Bays
6. FC Dallas
7. Concorde Fire
8. Derby County Wolves

In the U-15/16 division Chicago Magic defeated Cal Odyssey in penalty kicks to win the championship. The fire took the early lead with a goal from Luis Medina in the 20th minute. Cal Odyssey were the runner up in this event last year and would not go down quietly with Gregory Antongnoli getting the equalizer ten minutes into the second half.

The match stayed tied throughout the rest of regulation and both overtime periods forcing a shootout. Chicago would make all five shots in the shootout winning 5-4 after goalkeeper Sam Euler saved the 2nd shot from Cal Odyssey.

Final U-15/16 Standings

1. Cicago Fire
2. Cal Odyssey
3. Baltimore Bays
4. De Anza Force
5. Internationals
6. Sockers
7. CASL Chelsea Academy
8. DC United

Read the rest of this entry →

The U.S. U-18 men were destroyed by the Chivas USA reserve squad 6-1 on Tuesday. This was a match up of boys versus men and the men took it to the youth team. This is not a good sign for the youth development program here in the U.S. After last summers dismal performance by the U-17′s, we need to start getting better results.

U.S. U-18 coach Mike Matkovich was quoted: “They were in over their heads,”and “Maybe that was my fault. A lot of these guys had never played against men in their life, and the problem in this country is I don’t know how much guys have the opportunity to get games like this. It’s a learning process.”

Yes it’s a learning process, but these boys need to learn the pace of the game if they want to succeed at the highest level.

Here is the full story by TopDrawerSoccer.com- Coach says U18s ‘over their heads’ in big loss