The fact that North Shore/Burnaby-based Mountain United Football Club has trouble fielding a full team in one of their age groups is actually a testament to how strong the soccer program has become in its short three years of existence.
Mountain United began play in 2011 as one of the eight founding members of the EA Sports B.C. Soccer Premier League, a circuit created to bring all of the province's best youth players together in a kind of showcase super league.
The problem arose for Mountain's "96" girls team, a squad made up of players born in 1996 or later, after the team put together a run of exceptional victories. As it turns out, there were so many stars on the team - they won the U-16 division in the inaugural BCSPL season and went on to play in the national championships - that more than half of the players were scooped up by the Whitecaps Elite Girls program, basically the only level of club soccer that is higher than the BCSPL in the province.
"We don't actually have a full 1996 girls team any longer because 10 of them last year were promoted into the Whitecaps elite program," said club technical director Frank Ciaccia. "I doubt if we'll ever see 10 girls selected from one group to go into a program like that again."
Pushing players to the brink of the professional game is one positive outcome of the new league, but that wasn't the main goal when some of the provincial leaders in the sport got together to get the Premier League rolling.
"It was intended to compress the more advanced and high-level players into the eight franchises," said Ciaccia. "It was, essentially, an answer to what a lot of people in the soccer community saw as a little bit too expansive of a program in metro soccer. There were too many teams, too many players spread out throughout the province."
What they came up with was a fairly radical shift from the old model, and it didn't sit well with everyone involved in the sport.
"Any time you introduce what some people would call 'elite' programming, unfortunately that term sometimes takes on negative connotations," Ciaccia said.
"I think what we've had to do here is be quite (unapologetic) of the fact that we are paying attention to the advanced soccer player. Frankly, from a personal perspective, I feel that we've neglected or even ignored that player. We've done a really good job of running soccer in this province - don't get me wrong - and we've produced some great soccer players, but in comparison to years gone by, British Columbia has not been producing the same numbers of advanced players that we have in the past. At the same time, we just felt there was more to offer."
Part of the concern around the start of the elite league was simply fear of change in a soccer system that had been entrenched for decades.
"Any time you move the goalposts as significantly as we have, it's going to get people's attention," said Ciaccia. "Generally speaking, humans are somewhat reticent to change and there has been some resistance. There have been some people who cast a bit of a jaundiced eye until they see the proof in the pudding.
That's all understandable.
When you make changes as dramatic as we have here and introduce essentially a new league and a whole new level, I think you should expect growing pains, I think you should expect some resistance even. But three years in now, what I think we're seeing is a lot more cooperation."
Mountain United, in fact, has great relationships with the local soccer associations it deals with on a regular basis, including North Van FC, North Shore Girls Soccer Club, West Vancouver Soccer Club, and similar associations in Burnaby, said Ciaccia. Those relationships have helped the club thrive.
"I can't say enough about the support we've been receiving from the partner clubs. In essence they're the ones that will populate and create the teams that we are fielding. I'm completely dependent on their programming so I have a vested interest in what they're doing and how they're doing it."
It seems to be working well. The league's clubs typically throw a big festival each time they host games with boys and girls teams from the U-13 to U-18 level playing games all day on the same field. Mountain splits its home games between Burnaby
Lake Sports Complex and West Vancouver's Ambleside Park. The setup is a lot of fun for the kids while also providing other practical benefits, said Ciaccia.
"It provides an exceptional opportunity for university and college scouts to be out on weekends and watch the best players in the province at a singular venue instead of having to travel around to numerous parks over a given weekend," he said, adding that the club just hosted a very successful weekend of games against one of its biggest rivals, Surrey United. "The sidelines were full of B.C. Soccer staff scouting for the provincial program and university and college head coaches scouting for potential recruits. That's really what the league is all about: to turn every weekend into an event. It's providing wonderful exposure for these kids."
The system also provides elite players with high-level coaches and extra practice time that they wouldn't be able to access in other programs. The teams train three times a week and get extra benefits like strength training, physio, and focused positional instruction. The tradeoff for the players is that they're expected to commit fully to the program.
"We've got both feet on the ground here, we understand that it's not going to be an environment for everybody," said Ciaccia. "We do have multi-sport athletes, we can make room and find time. What I say to families though, is in an advanced program — any advanced program, whether it be soccer, softball, hockey, dance or other activities — if you're going to be signing up for three or four times a week, there's an expectation that you will attend for the majority of that."
It's still early days for the club and the league but Ciaccia and the rest of the Mountain United staff are quite encouraged by several success stories. Two of those '96ers,' including North Vancouver's Rachel Jones, played for Team Canada at the FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup held March 15-April 4 in Costa Rica. Several other players have found their way onto Whitecaps teams as well. The main goal, however, is something that is within reach for every player who suits up for the team, said Ciaccia.
"For the overwhelming majority of the kids, what we're seeking for them is to stay in soccer for life," he said. "We want to set the table for the kids to enjoy the game so much that they will be adult athletes.
In the more immediate term, though, the majority of these kids are wanting to move onto some postsecondary environment where they can carry on with their soccer. We've had tremendous success in that regard, with essentially every graduating player out of our program the last couple of years having received interest or scholarship dollars from a university or college. It appears we're going to be around the 100 per cent mark again this year."
Ambleside Park will play host to four of Mountain United's teams this weekend with the younger squads in town to host Vancouver/Richmondbased Fusion FC. The U-13 and U-14 boys teams will both be on the field Saturday at 12:15 p.m. while the U-13 girls will play Sunday at 10:15 a.m. followed by the U-14s at noon.
The club's older teams will be participating in the Whitecaps FC Showcase, a tournament being held Friday through Sunday at Surrey's Newton Athletic Park. The showcase will include a regular league game Friday followed by a weekend tournament that will provide college and pro scouts a chance to see teams from across Canada and the United States, including all eight of the BCSPL clubs.
For more information on Mountain United visit mufc.ca.
