St. Croix’s youth soccer teams are making a name for themselves in the soccer world after a great showing this month at the Schwan’s USA Cup, the largest American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) tournament on the mainland.
St. Croix fielded two teams, Under-12 and Under-16 select groups, at the event, which was held in Blaine, Minn. The U-16 team took second in both the weekend and weeklong tournaments, while the U-12 team was able to test its mettle against some of the top teams in the world, according to coach Brian Blaschka.
Two 17-year-old players also got a chance to play for the Rio de Janeiro club select team, which lost in the semi-finals, Blaschka said.
Describing his players’ performance as "fantastic," Blaschka said that the U-16 team, which has only been together for about a year, exceeded his expectations. The team lost 2-1 in regulation against the select team from Appleton, Wisc. in the weekend tournament, and fell in the championship of the weeklong tournament against a select team from Toronto, coming in 1-0 in overtime, Blaschka said.
While the U-12 team did not place, Blaschka said they put up a good show, and coming this January, they plan to defend the title they picked up earlier this year at the Florida State championships.
"For the USA cup, I put the team in the elite division to see how they would compete against the best teams from around the world," Blaschka said. "We won a couple, we lost a couple. We did not advance, however, we realized that we could play with these guys."
Talking to some of the other coaches, Blaschka learned that most of the other teams had been together for at least three years and played upwards of 50 games together since the beginning of the year.
"Our team has been together less than a year, and before this tournament, we’d played five games together, so it was quite an accomplishment for these 12-year-olds to be able to compete at that level with little experience," he said. "It proves that we have some really, really good soccer players down here. And the 12-year-olds are our future national players, who we’ll be seeing in five, six or seven years, that we’re training right now, so we wanted to see how they would stack up against the other teams that we saw out there this year."
St. Croix’s biggest sponsor this year was Plaza Extra, but the teams are looking for more help. The teams’ biggest obstacle is that they don’t play a schedule similar to the competition that they face on the mainland, so getting more game experience is key and the only way to do that is to travel, Blaschka said.
"What we need are a couple more sponsors to help out financially because it’s expensive to get off the island," he said. In meantime, the St. Croix teams might get in some game time against teams from Puerto Rico, which Blaschka said have expressed interest in "playing a friendly."
"Puerto Rico is so close and they have a very good soccer tradition, so we’re going to try to go over there in September or early October, and then have them come here in November or early December," Blaschka said.
When they’re not competing in tournaments, many of the St. Croix players participate in various leagues on the island.
"But it’s just not the same level as what we see when we go away," Blaschka said. "We saw teams from Iceland, Denmark, Rio and Hawaii — these kids are from all over the world. So, we need game experience. There’s nothing like game experience."
