South Valley Chivas 2003B team players Elmer Carballo (goalie), Erick Rincon (midfielder) and Alan Ramos (defender) have been invited by Mexican professional soccer team Monarcas Morelia to be on trial from November 8-16, 2015 in Morelia, Michoacán, Mexico.

All three players are part of the South Valley Chivas 03B (Under 12) team which is coached by Amber Hernandez. The three Chivas players were scouted by Guillermo Arciga Gonzalez, head scout for Monarcas Morelia, during a game of the Chivas 03B team. Arciga Gonzalez who is an acquaintance of South Valley Chivas Academy founders Esmaldo and Gilbert Hernandez, was in the area with the Monarcas Morelia Under 20 team and was personally invited by the Hernandez’s to come watch a couple of the South Valley Chivas games.

During their two week trial (Nov. 8-16), all three players will be staying at Monarcas Morelia club house which houses all Monarcas Morelia youth team players. Food an lodging for all three player will be provided free of charge by Monarcas Morelia.

Carballo and Rincon are no strangers to high level soccer as they are both a part of the Norcal Premier International Development Program (IDP).

At only 12 years of age all three players will be the youngest South Valley Chivas Academy players to be invited by a professional soccer team.

The invitation of these three players will be the start of a partnership/collaboration that South Valley Chivas Academy will have with Monarcas Morelia to provide all the South Valley Chivas Academy elite players with an opportunity to tryout for Monarcas Morelia.

South Valley Chivas continues to provide all its players a soccer program with a philosophy to development individual players for high level soccer.

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Here is a video of Monarcas Morelia, head scout, Guillermo Arciga Gonzalez explaining what Monarcas Morelia looks for in players

While many local soccer coaches, players and their families were converging on Lindsay High School this weekend to witness the best that the Central Section CIF had to offer in both Boys and Girls High School, the South Valley Chivas Academy coaching staff was at Sonoma State University learning from world reowned coaches of the likes of Frans Hoek, current Manchester United goalkeeper coach and ex Dutch National Team goalkeeper coach. This type of mentality is what has always characterizes the South Valley Chivas Academy philosophy of thinking which encompasses developing player to compete beyond the local area.

The South Valley Chivas coaching staff attended the Annual International Soccer Coaching Course being held at Sonoma State and being put on by the NorCal Premier soccer league which is the most competivitve youth soccer league in Northern California. Lectures for the course were given by world reowned coaches as the mentioned Frans Hoek, Gordon Young from Sheffield United of England, Renato Paiva and Ricardo Nuna both of Benfica of Portugal and US Soccer Federation Women Development Coach and Scout, Jitka Klimkova. Klimkova was flowned in from Canada late Saturday night after the US Women vs Japan World Cup game to be at the course. She was going to lecture on Sunday afternoon and she was returning back to Canada to join the US Women National team in preparation to play against US Women National team playing against Germany on Tueday.

Topics covered at the course were analyzing games, scouting model, player profiles, conditioning and fitness worldload of players and numerous field sessions conducted by each expert coach.

In contrasts to the local high school allstar game played this weekend in Lindsay, the NorCal Premier was showcasing their best NPL Player Development Program boys and girls high school players in front of this world class coaches and numerous college coaches who were in attendance taking the course. Coaches from Sonoma State, Sacramento State, Cal, Humbolt State, Cal East Bay, University Of Pacific and Fresno Pacific univerity to mention a few. Not to mention that on Sunday the girls were showcased in front of Jitka Klimokova who is also a scout for the US Soccer Women National Teams.

Video interview with Frans Hoek
Video of Gordon Young
Video Renato Paiva and Ricardo Nuna
Video interview with Jitka Klimkova

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There will be no academy practice for the week of June 29 – July 3.

We will resume practice on Monday July 6.

Back in January when the Mexican Soccer Federation were looking for someone to help host their boys under 15 and under 17 youth national team here in California they called none other than Porterville’s South Valley Chivas Academy cofounders Gilbert and Esmaldo Hernandez. Now a couple days away from the tryouts being held there is over 400 players from as far as Virigina, Florida and Texas pre-registered to attend the tryouts to be held this next weekend of May 16-17 in the Los Angeles area.

“We are very humbled to have been asked by Mexican Soccer Federation to host this tryouts”, said Gilbert Hernandez. “Of all the major youth soccer club here in the the United States, they called us to help coordinate these tryouts. This really say alot of the confidence people have on us at the international stage. This is mind boggling considering that from Porterville we are able to help Mexico form their national teams. This is really vindicating being that we have been called everything you can think of by others clubs and now it is not a professional soccer team which is asking us to work with them but a Federation who represents a whole nation.” This tryouts are for the boy sides and it just so happens that the tryouts coincide with the USA Women National Team playing against the Mexican Women National team on May 17 in Carson at the StubHub Center and Gilbert and Esmaldo are already scheduled to meet with long time friend Leonardo Cuellar and Mexican Women National Team head coach to talk about numerous projects for the female side which are in works. “Our relationship extends with Leonardo goes as far back as when Amber Hernandez, Esmaldo daughter, started playing for the Mexican Women National Team. All we can say is that it is truly a great time to be a part of the South Valley Chivas Academy if you are a youth soccer player both male or female and you are aspiring to play high level soccer being that we have a lot of major projects in the works for our academy.”, said Hernandez.

This weekend tryouts are absoluting free of charge to all participants and are being held at the Fedde Sports Complex,21409 Elaine Ave, Hawaiian Gardens suburb of Los Angeles. The tryouts are for all players born from 1997-2002 and the only requirements are that you are a Mexican born citizen or born to a Mexican citizen.

For more information please visit tryouts.futbolpromotions.com.

The South Valley Chivas Academy staff were personally invited by Mexican Women National Coach, Leonardo Cuellar, to attend the United States U17 Women National Training Center Invitational Tournament which took place at the StubHub Center from Feb. 11-15.

Women U17 National teams attending were United States, Mexico, Japan and Canada. Since the top U17 female soccer players in the world from the participating nations were present at the tournament that in itself drew college scouts from the top Division I College Women Soccer programs. Scouts were present from Stanford, USC, UCLA, Santa Clara, Penn State, Texas, New Mexico State, Ohio State, UNC, Wyoming, Arizona, Temple Syracuse, Norte Dame and many more.

For results of tournament please visit the tournament website on the US Soccer Federation website here

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We thought it was very important for us to try to answer this question as it gets asked to us over and over by parents involved with “club” soccer here in Central and Northern California. We know it is a question which will cause debate for some but all we can say is that our opinion is based solely on our club philosophy and the expectations brought upon us by our players families. And yes our opinion is going to be bias but looking at statistics and numbers you will quickly realize why one league is more competitive than the other. Also keep in mind that geographically we are talking about the Region 7 which is Fresno to Porterville here in the Central Valley of California.

Region 7 / Statewide

Both NorCal Premier and Calfornia Youth Soccer Association (CYSA) are youth soccer leagues in northern California. However in recent years just about all of the most competitive soccer clubs in northern California have switched over to play in the NorCal Premier.

Region 7 (Fresno to Porterville) is no exception, along with South Valley Chivas all Division/Class 1 competitive youth soccer club from Region 7 who used to play in CYSA like Central Ca Alliance, Cal Odyssey, Odyssey South, Bullard, Crossfire, Pumas UNAM Fresno have all made the switch to play in the NorCal Premier because of the lack of competition in the current Region 7 CYSA league.

In the case of our club, after listening to our families and to their expectations like: “We are looking for a youth soccer program which can help our son/daughter develop into a great individual soccer player as well as a respectful citizens of our society. Ultimately we are hoping he/she can compete for a college scholarship when it comes time to.” Our decision was simple, we had to play in a league with the most competitive soccer teams and it didn’t matter if our teams had to travel to outside of our area for one game. If we were to prepare our players for a higher level of soccer and to compete against those type of players in the future, we had to be playing against them weekend in and weekend out. It would not help the development of our players if we had decided to stay here local in our CYSA league and play against Division/Class 3 recreational teams, when in fact there would always be more competitive teams out there that eventually our players would be competing against in the future. Our players would be literally a BIG FISH in a small pond when in fact there is a HUGE OCEAN out there.

State Cup
Both league offer State Cup competitions and winners of those competitions move on to National competitions. But if the number of participating teams is an indicator of where all youth soccer clubs are heading then by far NorCal Premier has a lot more teams participating in their State Cup competition.

Back in the 1990’s the CYSA State Cup participation was huge, so much so that it had to be played on multiple weekends to accommodate the amount of teams. If you follow this link to the latest 2014-2015 CYSA State Cup competition, you will see that the competition is only offering limited divisions and those divisions have minimal teams participating in them. A far cry from what it used to be back in the 1990’s.

On the contrary you look at the NorCal Premier State Cup and you will notice that it offers multiple divisions (State, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Cooper) within each age groups and most of the division have up to 32 teams per division per age group. This competitions is so huge it has to be played over months. If you are a team participating in the State Cup and at the same time participating in the NorCal Premier Fall season, you will most likely be assured of playing multiple soccer games on each weekend during the Fall. The competition starts in August and ends into late April and early May of the following you.

Coaching
As a coach coaching a team playing in the NorCal Premier, you are constantly coaching against former collegiate and professional soccer players and at times against current college coaches which adds an added scouting opportunity for some of our players.

When it comes to coaching education, NorCal Premier is constantly evaluating its member clubs to ensure that there is a constant growth in coaching education for individual coaches. The more educated coaches you have participating in the league, the better the competition will be.

In order to have continuing growth in coaching education, NorCal Premier is constantly offering free of charge clinics which are usually taught by “world class coaches”. Take for example Frans Hoek who year to year is brought in to do a coaches clinic; He was the Dutch national team goalie coach during Brazil 2014 World Cup and was pulled to Manchester United goalkeeper by Louis Van Gaal. In the past couple of years NorCal Premier has brought coaches from top professional soccer club like ACF Fiorentina, AJAX and Tottenham. Not to mentioned that NorCal Premier is affiliated to ACF Fiorentina and all coaches can take course to learn the Fiorentina methodology free of charge.

CYSA has always offered the same USSF courses which are available to all coaches no matter if you are NorCal Premier coach. They are great courses but the added bonus of learning from a world class coach is unbeatable as they bring different methodologies from different countries.

As of recent NorCal Premier has also started to introduce and working more closely with the National Soccer Coaching Association Of America to bring in more coaching courses.

Elite Player Programs
While CYSA still administers the Olympic Development Program (ODP) and it is a stepping stone into being scouted for the US National Youth Teams, in recent years it has become open to all players regardless if you play in CYSA or in the NorCal Premier.

On the NorCal Premier side the equivalent programs is the Players Development Program (PDP) which is a feeder into the US Club Soccer ID2 Program which is also heavy scouted for US National teams. So on both side there are opportunities if you are an elite player. Not matter which program you decide to participate in, they both have great scouting opportunities.

Conclusion
So as a new parent coming into “club” soccer here in Region 7, you will eventually hear about the two predominant youth soccer league in northern California. Whether your son/daughter is trying out or is already a part of a club, it is very important for you to know the difference between the two leagues and why a club participates in one over the other. Obviously it should be trivial if your son/daughter soccer development is important to you: the more competitive teams/players my son/daughter plays against, the more he/she will have to adapted to that higher level of soccer and in turn it will help him/her become better soccer players.

In ending you can clearly see with the expectations of our families why our club competes in the NorCal Premier and not CYSA. Obviously this is a decision all clubs need to make on their own and should be based on your club philosophy and your families expectations. Do they want to play competitive or recreational soccer? Are they willing to travel outside the area, if needed, in search of that higher competition?

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Chivas players Seth Gonzalez and Sergio Reyes will be representing the South Valley Chivas Academy at the Region IV ODP Championships being held in Phoenix, Az. during January 8-11, 2015.

Pair was chosen from the ODP state pool for the Cal North 99 Boys ODP traveling team which will be competing against other ODP state team from Alaska, Arizona, Cal South, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.

Back in November 2013 Seth and Sergio spent time in Puebla, Mexico trying out for the Mexican Youth National Teams. At the time Cesar Vega Perrone, Mexican youth national team coach/scout had come to Porterville to work with the South Valley Chivas Academy and had invited both players for a tryout. Here is the article which was published back in November 2013.

Both Gonzalez and Reyes play for the SVCA 97B team which is coached by Emilio Gutierrez and competes in the Gold Division of the Nor Cal Premier Soccer League.

Another Chivas player who was selected as an alternate for the Cal North 99 Girls ODP traveling team and is waiting to see if she will be traveling to Phoenix was Valeria Rios.

We would like to take the time to thank all our South Valley Chivas Academy families who took the time from their busy schedules to join us at our first annual Christmas party/potluck toy drive for Toy for Tots.

We would especially like to thank principal Mr. Santos and his janitorial staff at Sequoia Middle School for their great support in hosting our group inside the Sequoia cafeteria.

There was a great turn out and enough food for everyone to eat.  Some kids played indoor soccer, video games while parents talked, ate and danced to live music.

Grace Rios the local area coordinator for Toys For Tots expressed her gratitude to all our Chivas families who donated a toy and assure us they would good to less fortunate children by this Christmas.

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