Ahead of the 2018-19 USSDA season, a hybrid U-18 Sounders Academy team traveled to Japan to compete in the Toyama World Challenge. Facing off against some of the top youth sides in the Asian Football Confederation, the Rave Green brought a squad composed of two U-15s, three U-19s, and the bulk of U-17 squad that won the USSDA national championship in July.
Serving as a valuable litmus test for the new squad as they prepare for the new season, the young Sounders were taken out of their comfort zone, with the team immersed in a new cultural environment. Moreover, they faced elite youth teams that employed styles and tactics they don’t typically encounter in domestic competition.
“Our first objective is to get players into the First Team, and the byproduct of that is we want to get players into the national team as well,” said U-19 Head Coach Mike Morris. “It’s a big world out there, and with the expanding World Cup format, the boys will face all different types of cultures and players, so this was extremely relevant for us.”
The young Sounders kicked off the event with a resounding 3-0 win over Kattaler Toyoma, behind a brace from center back Blake Malone and fantastic goal by striker Alec Diaz, who scored five goals in the USSDA playoffs for the U-17s.
Needing a win against the JFA U-17 national team in the second match to advance to the final, the Rave Green fell just short in a 4-3 loss. Midfielder Danny Leyva, the second-youngest player on the squad at 15, stole the show against the JFA U-17 national team as he bossed the midfield despite playing against some of best prospects Japan has to offer, who are two years his senior.
One of the challenges for the team was integrating top players from three different age groups with limited time for preparation. For example, the U-19s employed a different formation and pressing scheme than the U-17s. But by the third-placed match against Chonburi FC, a club whose first team competes in the Thai first division, it started to look like Seattle Sounders soccer, with the Rave Green winning comfortably.
Much has been made about this generation of Sounders Academy players from an individual ability and tactical identity perspective. According to Morris, the integrity and temperament of each player on the squad is what has enabled them to be so successful throughout the past two years.
“I can’t stress enough that the quality of individual that we’re bringing in is really important because they represented themselves so well,” he said. “From start to finish they were ingrained in the culture, which I think is a reason, that maybe isn’t noted as much, as to why that group of players has been so successful. It’s not just being able to play, it’s having the right character.”
One anecdote Morris shared is that, in Japanese soccer culture, the teams line up and bow to the crowd after each match, before turning and bowing to the opposing bench. By the second match, every player on the squad conducted this ritualistic practice without any prompting from the coaching staff, a sign that they truly respected their opportunity to learn the culture as they represent Sounders FC abroad.
The team poses for a picture in downtown Tokyo | Sheila Tatsunami
After the tournament, the squad played a competitive friendly match against the U-18s from J-League club Urawa Reds, an organization Morris compared to the Seattle Sounders in terms of their supporter culture and prominence in the first division. With their new-found cohesion and tactical execution, the young Sounders won 2-0.
For Morris, who helped coach the Sounders Academy U-14 team in 2015 that was the first in club history to compete in an international tournament, the biggest takeaway was the meteoric growth of club’s youth system in just a few years.
“I’m proud of how far we’ve come as a club because I was there when we went on our first international trip to France four years ago,” Morris said. “We’re not even on the same planet anymore in terms of our Academy. We felt lucky just to get ninth place in that tournament.
“The type of players that we’ve recruited, the consistency in our style of play, you can see the clear DNA in how we play. Despite the travel, the heat, the consecutive games, and the fatigue from the long season, we were still disappointed not to win [the Toyama World Challenge]. The expectation was to win everything, and it wasn’t that way four years ago.”
