U-14 USGNT – Women's Soccer Express

U-14 Talent ID: Third and final regional mini-camp for 2025 to be held over Easter weekend

After conducting regional mini-camps in February and March, U.S. Soccer’s Under-14 Girls’ Talent Identification Program will hold a mini-camp for the Central Region, starting Thursday, April 17, in the Austin, Texas, area.

As with the previous camps, U.S. Soccer Director of Talent ID Nicole Lukic will lead the camp. Her primary assistants for this camp will be Central Talent ID Manager Lindsay Basalyga and South Talent ID Manager Illeana Moschos. Basalyga is a former head coach of the women’s soccer programs at Bowling Green State University and Eastern Kentucky University (LinkedIn profile). Moschos has significant experience as an assistant NCAA coach and competed in the 2004 Summer Olympics as a member of the Greece Women’s National Team (FSU profile).

One of the players called up, midfielder Alaia Harrington, is the daughter of a retired NBA player: Al Harrington (Wikipedia bio), who was drafted out of high school by the Indiana Pacers and played in over a 1,000 games from 1998 to 2014. He was named the national player of the year in his last high school season by both Gatorade and USA Today. (Instagram)

Defender Cambria Williams is the younger sister of Anaiah Williams (x.com), who is with the U.S. U-16 WYNT this week in Spain.

U-14 Talent ID: 80-player roster for the 2025 East Regional Mini-Camp announced

The second regional mini-camp of 2025 for U.S. Soccer’s Under-14 Girls’ Talent Identification Program gets underway outside of Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, March 20th, and features 80 players from the Northeast and Southeast Regions. All players selected were born in 2011.

Of the attendees with older sisters who have been in the U.S. Soccer women’s youth system, the most notable is midfielder Lilia Bhuta, whose sister Mia Bhuta now plays NCAA soccer for Stanford. In 2022, Mia Bhuta captained the USA at the FIFA Women’s Under-17 Women’s World Cup in India (Stanford player profile).

Two players, defender Anna Grace Richardson and forward Marley Skalski, previously attended a national identification camp in June 2024 (U.S. Soccer press release).

U-14 Talent ID: First Regional Mini-Camp of 2025 announced — Players named include sisters of NWSL pros

Among the players called up by U.S. Soccer for the year’s first regional mini-camp of the Under-14 Talent Identification Program are younger sisters of current NWSL professionals. The 80-player roster also includes a granddaughter of the late San Diego Padres legend Tony Gwynn. All of the players selected for this camp, who hail from 36 youth clubs in U.S. Soccer’s West Region, were born in 2011.

At least three NWSL pros have sisters at this camp…

Alyssa Thompson and Gisele Thompson, both of Angel City FC, whose sister, Zoe, plays for Tudela FC in California¹
Olivia Moultrie of the Portland Thorns, whose sister, Bella, plays for Soccer Chance Academy in Oregon²

Additionally, Kyla McCammon, who plays for Eastside FC in Washington state, looks to be the sister of the Seattle Reign’s Ainsley McCammon.³

Both Alyssa Thompson and Olivia Moultrie have been capped by the senior United States Women’s National Team. Gisele Thompson is uncapped but has been named to this year’s USWNT’s SheBelieves Cup roster, along with her sister, Alyssa.

Leighton Gwynn of City SC in San Diego, California, is a daughter of former Major League Baseball player Tony Gwynn Jr.⁴ (MLB profile, Wikipedia bio) and a granddaughter of the late Tony Gwynn (MLB profile, Wikipedia bio), who played for the San Diego Padres from 1982 to 2001 and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2007. A sister, Makayla Gwynn, also plays soccer and is a recent verbal commit for Grand Canyon University (Instagram, local news segment).

Washington Spirit owner Michele Kang pledges to give $30 million over five years to U.S. Soccer in support of women’s soccer development

On November 19th, in a joint press conference with U.S. Soccer, Michele Kang, majority owner of the NWSL’s Washington Spirit, announced that she has pledged to give a total of $30 million over the next five years to U.S. Soccer. Kang’s pledged gift has three stated purposes:

First, to double the number of youth women’s national team camps.
Second, to ramp up women’s youth talent identification by expanding U.S. Soccer’s digital talent identification platform.
Third, to double the number of licensed female coaches and female referees.

Beyond the stated purposes of the pledged gift, there were not much details about how the $30 million will be spent.

The first stated purpose of “doubl[ing] the number of” women’s youth “national team camps” from their current level is noteworthy because the number of WYNT camps held in 2024 is about half the number of camps compared to several years ago.

U-14 USGNT TIP: 2020 Central Region Mini-Camp Roster Announced

For its second mini-camp of the year, the United States Under-14 Girls’ National Team Talent Identification Program has called in 62 players, all based in the Central Region and all born in 2006. Regional Talent Identification Managers Katie Cole, Marieke Laurens and Diane Drake will be in charge of the event, which will run from Wednesday, March 4th to Sunday, March 8th, and will be held in the Dallas, Texas area. Continue reading “U-14 USGNT TIP: 2020 Central Region Mini-Camp Roster Announced”

U-14 USGNT TIP: 2020 West Region Mini-Camp Roster Announced

The Under-14 United States Girls’ National Team is back for 2020 and back to being an annual program, after having been active only in even years since 2015.

Following changes introduced on the boys’ side in 2019 (U.S. Soccer), the new Girls’ “Under-14 Talent Identification Program” now features three regional “mini-camps” of 60 players each, for a total of 180, from which just 60 players will be called back for a national identification camp. This change will more-than double the total number of players brought into a U-14 camp, compared to recent cycles, which had around 80 total players maximum per year. Continue reading “U-14 USGNT TIP: 2020 West Region Mini-Camp Roster Announced”

A Quick History of U.S. Soccer’s Under-14 Girls’ Programs

With U.S. Soccer now officially launching a new version of its development program for Under-14 Girls, it is useful to put those changes into context.

Prior to 1999, the youngest age-level for U.S. Soccer’s female youth teams, was the Under-16 Women’s National Team, which appears to have been established in 1996. (Danielle Slaton, Abby Wambach, and Hope Solo are all listed as members of the U-16 team in 1996 per their media guide biographies.) Before that, the only youth USWNT was the original Under-20 USWNT, which began in 1989 (if not earlier, as a U-19 program) and exists to this day as the U-23 USWNT, having adjusted its maximum age level twice.

U.S. Soccer’s first Under-14 Girls’ program began in 1999, as part of the federation’s Under-14 National Development Program, which started two years earlier, on the boys’ side. Participants of that first girls’ camp included Heather O’Reilly, Lindsay Tarpley, Becky Sauerbrunn and Ashlyn Harris. Continue reading “A Quick History of U.S. Soccer’s Under-14 Girls’ Programs”

Youth USWNTs: 2020 Calendar Update – Camps, Trips, and Tournaments

Updates:

05-Feb-2020: U-17 USWNT – Added details for CONCACAF Women’s Under-17 Championship
11-Feb-2020: U-23 USWNT – Added details for Portland Thorns Spring Invitational
17-Feb-2020: Minor updates/clarifications
02-Mar-2020: Added March U-15 USGNT camp entry
13-MAR-2020: U.S. SOCCER HAS CANCELLED MOST YNT CAMPS THROUGH THE END OF APRIL, DUE TO COVID-19 CONCERNS. (U.S. SOCCER)
- NO NEWS ABOUT THE CONCACAF WOMEN’S UNDER-17 CHAMPIONSHIP, WHICH IS SCHEDULED TO START ON APRIL 18TH IN MEXICO.

While U.S. Soccer’s dysfunctional website* does not often include much information about future youth team camps and/or matches, that is not the case with a number of other associations’ websites. In addition, youth USWNTs regular participate in annual friendly tournaments at the La Manga Club in Spain, which regularly publishes online its upcoming schedule of hosted matches.

*A subject for a future post. Or three…

So, after much browsing and searching…

…Here are some things that were news to me:

Confirmation that a USA team is scheduled to participate in the April U-23 WNT friendly tournament at La Manga Club in Spain.
News that the USA will be sending a GNT to the annual soccer tournament in Montaigu, France. The USA will be in a four-team U-16 GNT mini-tournament with France, Japan, and Norway.
A June U-15 USGNT camp or trip involving the U-15 GNTs of Germany and the Netherlands.
The host and dates of this year’s U-23 WNT Nordic Tournament: Norway, September 14th to the 22nd. (USA participation not confirmed.)
Also, the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, which was originally scheduled to start on Saturday, February 15th, was quietly pushed back to February 22nd.

(Update 02-Feb-2020): Clarified the descriptions of the U-14 events.

In addition, a U-14 Girls identification regional mini-camp roster with dates for two more regional mini-camps plus a ~~normal~~ national U-14 USGNT identification camp was published on Thursday, which gives a good picture of what that age group is doing up through late May.

Continue reading “Youth USWNTs: 2020 Calendar Update – Camps, Trips, and Tournaments”