The inaugural Chicago U.S. Soccer Training Center event went off with just a minor weather delay at PlayUSA last night. And the event brought some exciting visitors as U17 Women’s National Team Head Coach B.J. Snow and U15 Women’s National Team Head Coach April Kater were both here evaluating the players. And B.J. even brought his wife 2-time Olympic Gold-Medalist Lindsay Tarpley to observe the event. Both Lindsay and B.J. are former club, PDL, & ODP players of Team Chicago Elite Academy Director Phil Nielsen’s from their time together in Kalamazoo, MI.

The event brought together some of the top players in Illinois in the 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 birth years. Team Chicago was represented by:

1999:
Kerry Abello, Maggie Roe, Nicole Mondi, and Rachel Erdman.

2000:
Alyssa Bombacino, Jamie Goralski, and Jordan King.

2001:
Alex Salemy, Erin McCarthy, Natalie Massa, Nikki Coryell, Paige Miller, and Sophia Majher.

On Monday, May 12th, Team Chicago will be hosting the inaugural United States Soccer Federation Training Center in Illinois. The U.S.S.F. Training Center is designed to bring together by invitation the top female players from Illinois in the 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 birth years as identified by the U.S. National Team Staff, its scouts, and the Directors of Coaching from the elite clubs. U17 Women’s National Team Coach B.J. Snow will be in attendance to evaluate the players. Players will then either be invited into a National Team camp, asked to return to the next Training Center event, or replaced by new players from the area who have been identified.

The 2001s and 2002s players will be training 5:30-7:00pm while the 1999s and 2000s will be training 7:15-8:45pm

USSF Training Centers are designed to replicate national team training camps, and as part of creating this type of environment only players and coaches are welcome. Parents are not invited to stay and watch the training session.

As the National Governing Body of soccer in the United States, and under the auspices of the United States Olympic Committee, the U.S.S.F. is empowered and charged with developing the teams that represent the United States in all international competitions such as the Olympics and World Cup. The Training Center Program is an integral part of this process.

At this point this U.S.S.F program is only offered on the girls’ side, as the organization is heavily invested in the Development Academy program on the boys’ side.

Team Chicago Academy-Bahia continued their U13 MRL Premier I Division league play this past weekend.

The competition started off on Friday night with Bahia facing the Eclipse Pre-ECNL team at their facility. Bahia trailed 1-0 after giving up a goal off of a corner against the run of play. However, Bahia continued to fight and the efforts resulted in a great goal a few minutes later. The goal was a clinical finish by Zaira Solis who slotted the ball first time with her left foot past the keeper from about eighteen yards out. The play started with Katie Murphy playing a nice through ball for Molly Grant who beat the defender to play a great ball into Zaira’s path.

The second half produced a set-piece goal for each team with Sophia Majher getting credit for Bahia’s goal off a corner. The girls played well enough to deserve the win, and unfortunately gave up two goals off set-pieces to settle the game at 2-2.

In Sunday’s game against JB Marine (MO) Bahia opened the game with domination in all phases of the game, but unfortunately went down 1-0 off another restart. The girls continued to probe and created several scoring chances and finally got one back when a corner taken by Sophia Majher was deflected out to Jeff (Jennifer) Pochyly. Jeff took the ball first time out of the air to place the ball in the back of the net. Bahia came close on several occasions in the last ten minutes, but just couldn’t find the back of the net. The game ended with a draw at 1-1.

Special recognition to the backline for not allowing a goal in the run-of-play all weekend.

Team Chicago Academy-Cruzeiro clinched the U14 MRL Premier I Division title and a berth into the 2014 USYSA Region II Championships in Dayton, OH, June 20-25th, and a berth into the 2014-15 USYSA National League with two games to spare.

Cruzeiro battled very adverse conditions in Rockford, IL with both strong winds and extremely poor field conditions, as they moved to a perfect 5-0-0 with a 2-1 defeat of Futura FC Pink Panthers (MO) on Saturday and a 2-0 defeat of Hoosiers FC (IN) Sunday morning.

On Saturday, Cruzeiro trailed 1-0 at the half after completely dominating play in the first half. However, the deficit was quickly wiped out early in the 2nd half by a wonderful strike by Jamie Goralski assisted by Kerry Abello and Jordan King. And a few minutes later Jamie Goralski got the game-winner assisted by Alyssa Bombacino and Kerry Abello.

In Sunday’s game, Madison Zaleski got the eventual game-winner 12 minutes into the first half assisted by Jamie Goralski and Emma Rydholm. And with 10 minutes to go Alyssa Bombacino sealed the win with a fantastic solo-run beating 3 defenders and calmly walking around the GK before tucking the ball into an empty net.

GK Bailee Witt recorded her 3rd shutout in MRL Premier I Division play and has only conceded 2 goals in 5 MRL games this Spring. And even more impressively, Bailee and her defense have only conceded 6 goals in the last 21 competitive games.

Team Chicago Academy-Internacional defender Sophia Moreau has accepted a great scholarship offer to continue her soccer career at Bowling Green State University. Sophia, who plays her prep soccer for coaching legend Joe Moreau at Neuqua Valley H.S., will be part of Bowling Green Head Coach Lindsay Basalyga’s 2015 recruiting class.

BGSU Falcons play in the NCAA Division I Mid-American Conference (MAC), and Sophia is now the 6th player from Internacional to commit to a MAC school.