Sounders establish Regional Training Centers for elite youth players

September 22, 5:29 PMSeattle Soccer ExaminerDavid Falk

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I spoke with Darren Sawatzky, Seattle Sounders FC Director of Youth Development today about some of the latest announcements by Seattle Sounders FC involving their youth system. All Major League Soccer clubs are required to have youth development programs in place, and recently players have made MLS sides from these programs.

There are plenty of three-letter acronyms in youth soccer, and we'll look at just a few of them below. Here's your decoder: RTC=Regional Training Center. YDP=Youth Development Program. ODP=Olympic Development Program. Here's one with four: USDA=United States Development Academy.

The Sounders released the following announcement on Monday:

Regional Training Centers across Washington opened on September 15. The Sounders FC Youth System incorporates Washington Youth Soccer ODP in four age groups for the boys and all five age groups for the girls. The new relationship unites the very best avenues to high level soccer through a Regional Training Center (RTC) model incorporating the top youth clubs across Washington State and upper age group Academy teams that will be formed in the spring of 2010.

The seven RTCs are located in Everett, Puyallup, Snohomish, Spokane, Tukwila, Vancouver and Yakima.

Youth Club soccer in Washington state will be unaffected by the inception of the RTC’s outside of offering a player centric training day each week The RTC’s will bring the very best players together once per week to train with the top coaches in the state in each of the 5 locations. These players will train, be evaluated, and develop with the ultimate goal of achieving the state pool of players for each of the age groups designated. The pool that is designated in each age group will become the ODP/Sounders FC youth team pool and the very top players will travel as the ODP/Sounders FC youth teams to competitions commensurate with ability level. There will also be an open tryout for the RTC’s to make sure that no player is excluded or missed within this opportunity.

Sounders FC will be fielding U15/U16 and U17/U18 boys Academy teams starting the spring of 2010. These teams will apply to the USSF Academy League following the other MLS youth teams that participate in this league. Per the MLS Youth Initiative, players may be signed to a professional contract out of this programming for the full professional team for Sounders FC. The girl’s older Washington State ODP teams will serve as the top teams for this program.

I followed up this announcement with questions to Sawatzky to clarify the role of the RTC's. In terms of the Sounders Youth Development Program, these centers are a separate entity, says Darren.

"The RTC’s are a supplement to club soccer.  This program was designed to identify, help develop, and promote personal development for the players identified as being in the top percentage of ability for their birth year," he clarified. "The five RTC’s cast a larger net to help broaden the player pool and attempt to make sure players do not get missed through the process.  There is also an open tryout for all age groups in the RTC’s and the older Sounders FC Youth/ODP teams.

"YDP (Youth Development Program) is separate from the RTC’s.  The RTC’s are a player centric training model to help the very best players develop.  Club soccer should not be affected by the inception of this program outside of the possible schedule changes to accommodate Monday night training."

I asked Sawatzky who would be staffing the Regional Training Centers. "The Regional Training Centers (RTC’s) are staffed by very qualified youth, collegiate, and professional coaches that follow a progressive curriculum based on player development.  The RTC’s are Player Centric.  Yes, as we get the system running on all fronts, I will go to different RTC’s on Monday nights.  You will also see other coaching staff from Sounders FC at different RTC’s from time to time."

When I saw that Sounders FC had established a RTC within minutes of future MLS rival Portland Timbers I asked Sawatzky about territory limits. "We have been operating an RTC in Vancouver, WA for three months now.  Stay tuned for more information regarding home grown player territory."

About the end goal of getting full ODP (Olympic Player Development) teams playing under the Sounders FC banner, I asked Darren about 2010 and how soon the clubs could join the ODP. "The younger age teams that have traveled out of Washington Youth soccer as ODP teams will now travel as Sounders FC Youth/ODP teams when appropriate.  You will see these teams traveling to Phoenix for the ODP Regionals in January and to other competition that makes sense.  Sounders FC will be applying to the USDA for teams to compete in the 2010 playing year (This is U15/U16 and U17/U18)."

More on MLS club youth: Chicago & Colorado  Part One  Part Two