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Charting a soccer path for your kid in Los Angeles

When our boy caught the soccer bug, we had a really hard time figuring out the right path to pursue for him to make the most of his aptitude for the sport. Los Angeles, ironically, is a confusing place to raise a soccer player as the city lacks a well-structured curriculum young parents can consult for guidance. The point of this post is to offer what little we’ve learnt shepherding our boy through the local scene.

First off, here is his progression to date (he is 10 years old as of September 2022):

• Super Soccer Stars from 3 to 6 years old
• Vikings from 6 to 8 years old
• Total Futbol Academy (TFA) from 8 to 10 years old
• LA Galaxy Academy at 10 years old (playing up a year)

Overall, I do feel that this is quite a promising progression for a 10 year old. If you have high aspirations for your son or have a boy with big dreams, I believe this outline can be helpful for you to consider replicating. I will now share my views on each step in the progression so far in the hopes you can make the right choice for your son.

Super Soccer Stars

This is a great place for first steps in the sport. They start as early as “baby soccer” but also offer a decent onramp for organized club soccer up until the age of about 6. You will get the right amount of games and practices without introducing too much pressure on the player (or the parent for that matter). It’s pretty pricey but it’s worth the money, in my opinion. Interestingly, there are several kids at our son’s current academy level whom we have known since his Super Soccer Stars days. Unfortunately, if you want “more” than essentially a kid-friendly soccer program, this place will quickly lose its appeal. Several parents began looking for the next step, and this is how we ended up moving to Vikings.

Vikings

I won’t spend a ton of time on the Vikings because, unfortunately, the program wound down due to COVID and the business was subsequently purchased by a new owner. The entity is now called Los Angeles Bulls Soccer Club.

What I do think is worth sharing is the following. While our boy trained with the Vikings, he began training with TFA simultaneously in anticipation of TFA launching their youngest age group (8 year olds). More on the transition below. However, the key point is that our boy would train with the Vikings from 4pm until 530pm in West LA, and we would then drive over to East LA for him to train with TFA from 7pm to 8.30pm.

That might sound completely nuts to some parents, but I really do believe that this regime was a key turning point for our boy, not only because it got him into TFA but because it fueled his love for the sport while giving him exposure to a broader spectrum of players.

Total Futbol Academy (TFA)

TFA is the gold standard of sub-12 year old soccer development in SoCal. They are so good at developing top notch players that 95% of parents with kids outside of TFA absolutely HATE how good TFA is. TFA develops hungry, scrappy, mentally-strong players that practice a brand of Tiki Taka soccer that is essentially unheard of at such a precocious age.

If your boy is between 8 and 10 years old, then without a doubt, your objective should be for him to join TFA. TFA has grown very much through the years and there are now satellite TFA clubs in Orange County, San Fernando Valley and many other regions in California. But the gold standard of the program is the Academy program which used to be East LA but since Covid is really just a “decentralized” program where the location of training depends on the coaches.

Between 10 and 12 years old, TFA remains a top notch program. However, we made the tough decision to leave the program when LA Galaxy came knocking. TFA is free for kids in the Academy.

LA Galaxy Academy

We had absolutely no intention of leaving TFA when the Galaxy Academy reached out about our son. We changed our minds for two reasons:

1. We began to feel that TFA lacked in the way of technical development
2. Galaxy offered to accept our boy in their 2011 program, meaning he would train with bigger, faster and more developed boys.

He has been in the program for a few months now, and we have no regrets about leaving TFA. The facilities are second to none and the technical development has really had a positive impact on our son.

Futsal

We made the mistake of not putting our son in Futsal at a very young age. Many of the best ball handlers in the SoCal soccer circuit are boys who have been practicing futsal from the get go. The two top programs in the broader LA region are Toque and OC Premier. Many of the kids we know from TFA and Galaxy are players with either Toque or OC Premier IN ADDITION TO CLUB SOCCER.

International Soccer Camps

We are lucky to have roots in Europe, so we generally end up spending at least 3-4 weeks a year in several countries in Europe. We have spent a LOT of time researching camps in England, France and Portugal for our boy. He has been lucky to do camps with Manchester City, PSG and AS Monaco. I can’t recommend these types of international camps enough if you have the capacity to venture to Europe. In each of these camps, our boy met kids from all over the world, including the USA. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions, but there is a great full-service agency called Soccer Camps International that can help you locate and enroll in these programs. We went directly to the programs we ultimately attended, which was cheaper, but if you don’t know the language or don’t want to spend a ton of time researching, they are an awesome “white glove” option.

What about all the other clubs in LA?

There are so many other options in LA, like AYSO, Culver City FC, Beach, Surf, Albion, Legends etc. There is too much to cover and these clubs all have pluses and minuses.

This will likely irritate parents who have kids in these programs, but make no mistake — there are essentially only 3 tiers of clubs for boys 12 and under in LA: the Pro academies (LAFC & Galaxy), TFA… and everybody else.

I hope this helps you think through your options and that this “guide” will help you save time as you ponder the right progression for your boys.

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