Meet the Rising Soccer Talents Ready to Make Their Mark

I've never really felt that I want to stop soccer. I never really felt why am I doing this right now, and I could be doing something else. I've always been wanting to train. I really want to be on the U.S. Women's National Team, which I know will take lots of hard work, but I'm willing to do it. Because if you don't try, you're never going to make it. Nothing's impossible. One day, I think that I am going to be better than Lionel Messi. I think it's limitless for him. The way he works and the dedication he has in ten years, there's no reason why he can't be in the U.S. National Team. I think what sets him apart is the fact that he wants it more, and he sees that he can actually build something out of it, and he's trying to do that. He's a phenomenal athlete. He blows everybody else out of the water. He's quicker, he's faster, he's stronger, his footwork's quicker, his shot's better, and it's all because of him. You're not even going to need to read the name. It's just going to be C, C for Chase Carrera, and they're going to know exactly who it is. What's up? I'm Chase, I'm ten, and I play soccer. Chase is definitely the most consistent kid I work with. I think the first time I saw Chase, he could have been six. The biggest thing that separates him from other kids is his dedication, his hard work, his work ethic. Nothing really inspires me. When I see other kids going and training, that doesn't inspire me. I just want to train, I just want to do this, I just want to do that. Given the weather here in New England, we get the opportunity, we're out there any chance. Whether it's indoor, outdoor, we talk about soccer non-stop. You've got to picture a keeper in there, you've got to bury him. Top corners. Good, and hit, and hit, and hit. Good, great finish. Good. What I try and do with the kids when I coach with them is try and make it as game realistic as possible. Anyone can just throw a ball and hit the shot top corners, and that was great. But can you do it when I'm running at him, I'm putting him under pressure? Go! But we're doing it at a tempo, which allows him to not have as much time to think. I know it's not all going to be fun, but I know that it's going to separate me from the kids out there who are not doing it. Quick drink, and then we're going to go into you finishing. Quick drink. Get him one, because I need time. It's not all about you, I need the rest. I've never really felt that I want to stop soccer. I never really felt, why am I doing this right now? And I could be doing something else. I've always been wanting to train, keep doing it more, which I think is really important. All right, now I'm just going to do a fork drill. Mitch is going to throw some cones at me. I'm going to hit it off the rebounder and shoot. With him being such an attacking player, whatever we do, we want to try and finish with a shot at the end. We're trying to make it as most game realistic as we can. Obviously, we're having him driving at me one-on-one. Keep moving it, keep moving it, keep moving it, keep moving it, keep moving it, keep moving it. Go. And hit. I always find a way to get better. I just like soccer, I like the way it's played. I just like everything about it. Growing up in New England, it's always cool. It's just something we have to deal with, especially with Chase. He's going to be competing at a national level, and some of the kids he's going to be playing with are from the southern states where it's a little bit warmer. So if he's going to take days off while they're working, he's not getting any better, so we've got to make sure that he's able to compete at that level. It's cold, but it really doesn't bother me. It doesn't slow me down. I keep training, I keep working hard, and that's all that matters to me. Take off, take off, take off, good. The one thing I noticed about him was his work ethic and how bad he really wanted it. As soon as I clap, I want you to push off your back leg, reach with the front one, try to cover some space, and then sink your hips in. I train pretty much every night of the week, whether it's snowing, raining, either I'm inside or outside. I think it kind of shows in my games, my videos. I don't take any days off, no matter what. Good job, nice. There it is. Good, don't look that way, just drive. There we go, all the way down. So most kids his age that I work with, they kind of find a reason to stop. Can we do one more? You want one more? I said to Chase, all right, let's call it right there. As soon as I said that, no, let's do more, I want to keep working. With the level that Chase is at, I have to find new ways to challenge him. Things like this, adding a resistance band, has been a good way to help with that. Drive, there it is, push, push, push, push. Get there, get there, arms. Second cone, get there, knee drive. What I really want to make sure is he's getting faster, he's getting more explosive, he's able to get a little bit stronger. In and out, in and out, shuffle through, in and out, take off, good, that's the one. Good job, he always wants to work. Even when the session's over after an hour, he's kind of upset usually. He goes straight to hockey, straight to boxing, never stops. I like doing boxing, and as most kids would say, I just like hitting things. Chase is quick to learn, makes it fun, and plus he's just a good kid. You want to be able to be coachable, and a lot of people forget that, and he's very coachable. I tell him something once, and he's on the game. Boxing helps me, because it's keeping me on my toes, and it's good conditioning for me, and strength for me, and it's just really good to help me with soccer. A lot of people will say he's gifted, but don't take it away from him, he works very hard. He's going to be fine at whatever he does. These are all pretty much from hockey, soccer. This one right here, this was the one from Mundialito from Spain. I was chosen to play on a national team and play against some of the best academies in the world. Someday I want to play in the World Cup for the U.S. and win it for my team. As you can see, my favorite player is Messi. One particular reason why it's not Ronaldo, because he's not cocky. Like, he's like... Messi motivates me. I think he's a great player. I just love the way he plays. He's technical on the ball. His mental game is great, and I dream to someday be better than him. He also understands how real this is for him. You know, he sees that these professional club teams are starting to contact him, and he sees that he can actually build something out of it. You'll never find a kid that loves the game and puts as much time into the game as this kid. I know that I'm already ahead of the other kids that I'm playing with right now, and I think that if I keep working hard, I'm gonna be, if not the best, one of the best players in the world. In this tournament, it was, like, indoor, and so we were so good that we played with the man down, that we wanted to play with the man down, and we still beat everybody. It was so funny. Work ethic. Discipline. With Alessandro, you can't tell which one's his weaker foot. You gotta stay close to him, because if you give him space, he's gonna shred you apart. He could already see the game before anybody of his age that I've ever seen before. He would actually tell his players to move to where he wanted them to be, because he was seeing the place develop before anybody else. Hi, my name is Alessandro Cappini. I'm 12 years old, and I play soccer. I first started training, I was about, like, 5 or 6, which is not too long ago for, like, when he first started soccer, but, I don't know, I just got into it. Nice. You ready? I love that one. With Ronaldinho. What separates Alessandro from his teammates and most kids his age in Kansas City is his technical ability. You know, most players, when they shoot or do work on their left foot, you can say, OK, that's the player's weaker foot. With Alessandro, his right and left foot are just so natural. Good. Quick, quick, quick. That's way better. Good job, good job. Keep going. Probably the most technical player. Very, very offensive-minded. Reads the game very well. Fast feet, fast feet. Finish. Let's go. My favorite drill? Shooting drills. I like the technical ones. I mostly like shooting because, I mean, who doesn't love shooting? That's the one. Good shot. We do some individual trainings with Oli quite a bit and then sometimes with teammates. And he'll come in sometimes having three, four sessions before us and just exhausted. And I'm thinking maybe we'll hit his 70, 75% ability and we'll actually hit 100, 120. So he always finds it in him to just strive, you know. Playing 13 years professional soccer, you have to be able to work through adversity, you know. And mentality and work ethic is what makes you successful in this game. Slow. Push. Same speed as your right. Get out of it. Good job, Alessandro. Take it. Good. That was good. Explode. One more, one more. In order to succeed, you need a relentless work ethic. I think you can get away with a lot in school without working hard, you know. On the field, it's who's willing to work the hardest. Don't underestimate what a player can and can't do. Finish. There you go. Good work. Okay, so this is my front yard. Here, I don't really practice out here. I normally go downstairs because we normally do, like, soccer tournaments downstairs. Okay, so this is my soccer room. Very cool. We normally do, like, keeper wars. And we do, like, 2v2s. I normally train every day just because, like, on the weekends, we don't have practice. We normally just kick the ball around or, like, sometimes train. Okay, so this is all my trophies right here. This is a shirt when I was in Roma. So many different things that he's been involved in with soccer, like camps over in Europe that he's done. He got to play on the U.S. national futsal team, went to Barcelona, experienced a whole different world there, and met kids from all around the world. So it's lifelong experiences for him. Some people don't get to see the world and travel the world and experience what other cultures are about, and that's why we try to do with our kids to travel all around the world to let them see other cultures, experience there's other life that is just not here in the United States, and they need to see how the whole world works, and I think that's something that all kids should be able to experience. My family own a restaurant called Cappini's. We serve Italian food. My favorite thing? I like the pizza a lot. I think it's pretty nice. I like the pasta a lot. It's very important to me, but family is probably first. Yeah, this is my family. Say hi, Sophia. Who are they? This is my dad, my grandpa, my mom, and Sophia back there. How are you? You know, pasta is my life. I ate pasta every day of my life, so now a little less because I don't try to put the extra pounds anymore. Soccer is the only sport that we know best because we can afford it, but nothing else than a ball. It's not a weekend game. It's an everyday game. It's part of life now, and I'm his best friend, so there's no doubt about it. Now when you see what he can do... What are you eating, Coach? Spaghetti squash. Very good. First time I've ever seen any kid at his age use both feet naturally. I mean, he can use his right foot, his left foot, I mean, just everything naturally. I told his dad from the get-go. I said, he's special, and he's definitely going to make it big time. From my training sessions to going home and then training some more, his will to win games and take over games, you can see the determination in him. He hates to lose, hates to lose, and I hate to lose as well, so it was definitely a good experience for me coaching him. I never took him out of the games, ever. And I've been coaching a long time. His technical ability is above most kids of his age. His left and right, you can't tell which foot he is. He has the ability to shoot left and right at the same speed. His ability to see the game is very, very good. He'll wake up in the morning, go for a couple-mile run, and then he'll usually work out with me, doing some plyometrics of some sort, body exercises, and then we'll go to the field. If he has training with his team, he'll go train with them. And if not, we usually go back out later at night. Sometimes there's been days in the summer that we've been at fields until 12 o'clock at night because it's nice and cool at that time, and the lights are on, and we'll just hang out and just be a father-and-son moment, you know, and it's magic. Step. Never quit. Keep going. Go after your goals. It's his dream to become a professional soccer player. It's his ultimate goal. You only have one time in your life to do it. You can't go back and do it again. Back up. Keep going. Keep going. Remember how you run up to it? Yeah, like that. Now run. Thanks for checking out how I stay busy. If you want to see more videos like this, subscribe to WhistleSports. My favorite part is scoring, especially when it's the game winner. His strong points, obviously, is shooting. A hell of a left foot, good vision, good composure on the ball. Super high level, a young professional, a model athlete for what other young athletes should be like. As a 10-year-old, Dylan's pretty advanced. That's all the hard work he's put into it. I see these legends, Valet, Frank, Lampard, Pirlo. I want to be just like them. I'm Dylan. I'm 10, and I play soccer. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. I train six days a week. All right. Make that V quicker, though. Good. My name is Mabuseo Wilson. They call me Mookie in Soccer World. I was fortunate enough to meet Dylan and his father, Pepe, at Onyx Elite Training, which is down in Florida and Tampa. Off-season for pro players. Make sure you're breathing. And Dylan was the only child that came to the actual training center. Now the one-twos are starting to get a little quicker as we get comfortable. When we came back to New York, we started working on his game this past winter. Focusing on his touches, getting him more comfortable on the ball, building up his weak foot as well as his strong foot. Try to get in between the toes and pull it out. Good. Working on here is building up our leg muscles with our non-kicking foot. Also working on our balance, right, our core muscles. As we're dribbling, we're usually on one foot. And also working on foot speed. Not only getting comfortable with the ball, but having quicker foot speed. It's our ladder that we work on that helps us. I train Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Good. Before you receive a pass, before you call for the ball, you're checking your shoulder to see what's around you. All right, where the defenders are, where your teammates are, what you want to do with the ball next. Harder. Good. What we're working on is that first touch leading to where we go into next. And you're the person who's changing the lane. Make sure you're on your toes, you're bouncing on your feet, receiving the ball where you want to go to next. Ah, see, that's what we're working on, right? So your touch sometimes has to be soft, sometimes it has to be hard depending on where you're receiving the ball. Yeah. Good. Let's do it again. We're trying to get his right foot better, a little bit more comfortable turning on the ball, receiving the ball with his eyes up, seeing the field. So we have a lot to work on. What we do here is all ball work, all soccer-related techniques and tacticals, not just going through the motions or trying to just make him tired. The discipline he has, the time he puts into the game, the focus he has on the field is something that many 10-year-olds don't have. We can sit here and do all the tricks we want, but once you get the foundation grounded, you can't get it at 16 years old. So we try to make sure that Dylan, who is a very expressive player, who can do many, many, many amazing things on the field, try to make sure his foundation is solely intact, embedded in him, and planted. I try to make sure that 10-year-olds don't get too big-headed and keep on striving, but Dylan is definitely one of the top players coming out of New York City. Good touch. Get it behind it. Ready. Go. I'm Mike Olum, the owner of AP2T, Advanced Physical and Technical Training. Soccer specifics, speed and agility, strength and conditioning. Today we're going to take Dylan on a few different workouts that's going to help his speed, his agility, his balance, his injury prevention, and make him an all-around better athlete. Halfway. Fast. For soccer, what we focus on a lot is changes of direction with ability to stay healthy as well. What I do a lot is focus on balance while fatigued and simultaneously also focusing on that speed and agility aspect. You want the kids to understand that there's a whole level of maintenance that goes into becoming a top-level athlete. And I think the biggest factor is he's doing it with a smile on his face the whole time. It's never forced. You don't want it to come from the parent. You want it to come intrinsically from the kid, and that's what I see here. It's no different than somebody that loves an instrument, and all they do is go home and play guitar and listen to music. Come on. Three more. Spin. Good. To be a young professional, and if you're an aspiring professional, aspiring collegiate player, just aspiring athlete at the highest level, you should enjoy the process of getting there. And I think to engender that in a young person's mind is critical. You're going to land on the same foot on your left foot. Oftentimes you're not playing on a nice turf field like we're blessed with in soccer. You're playing on a grass field. You have different divots, different holes, and you're just teaching the body that on an uneven surface to stabilize. It teaches the athlete to really focus on their technique when they're tired, which is important for injury prevention. My name is Mark. I'm the director of operations here at Recover. Recover is the world's first recovery studio, so we designed the studio to help people restore their bodies, reboot their minds, and reshape their systems. So with Dylan, we're going through a number of our top modalities. First is CVAC. CVAC is an altitude chamber. It fluctuates in barometric pressure to increase VO2 max, endurance, and athletic performance. Many famous athletes like LeBron James and Rossano Ronaldo use it. It's basically putting pressure on every cell in your body and pressure off, so that's helping with metabolic waste removal, lymphatic drainage at the same time, giving more energy to every cell in your body. I also do the Normatec. It's also known as air compression. It takes out the bad acid in you. So NuCom is a restorative sleep system designed to lower stress levels and improve sleep patterns at night. It delivers up to three hours of restorative sleep in a 30-minute cycle, which is pretty impressive. You're trying to fall asleep. You hear two noises. You're trying to pull it together, so it sounds like one. And then lastly, we're going to be doing the infrared sauna. So infrared sauna is a less intense form of heat, but has a lot more health benefits. It's been pretty amazing to see the impact that technology has had on his performance in such a short period of time. I want to play in Europe. For example, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester City, Liverpool. He doesn't mind coming in and putting in any kind of work, willing to fail to get better, which I think is very important. He never gets down on himself. He's a 10-year-old. He has a long journey ahead of him, and I think he's ready for the battle and for the ups and downs. But, you know, he has all the potential in the world. In my opinion, I think I'm better than everyone. She dribbles, she finishes with her right, finishes with her left. She's a fantastic talent. I use her as an example to the high school girls that I coach. I've made my decision. I want to play soccer for the U.S. national team. They think that girls can't do sports, but when I grow up, I want to change that. In the United States, the girls are better than boys. Way better. Easy. A mix of Brazilian creativity with the muscle of the American. My name is Aaron DeSantis. I'm 8 years old, and I play soccer. Good. Good, good. That's a good one. Shot. Good shot. We're in the garage where we started playing soccer. I live in Kansas City. You can practice five months or six months of the year. The other six months, it's freezing cold. You cannot do anything. We put two big heaters that warm up everything in case it's really cold. My dad put grass in there. It just looks like a real soccer facility now. It was literally a dream come true having a garage there that you can actually play soccer all day long and all night long if you want. Today we're going to be doing a little bit of ball control and shooting. Finish. Good. Nice. That was a good one. Since day one, I try to let her know the difference between dad and coach. Finish, finish. Good. I practice my juggling. I practice my left. I try rainbows. I get frustrated for a minute, and then I think about what I did, and then I just go try it again. I usually get it done a third time because I try really hard. Most of the best players are from Brazil, my opinion. I think that they should just be more recognized because they try harder than everyone else does. There's a quote that I really like. Everybody else likes to be a beast, but nobody likes to work like one. Test of the wall. Ronaldo. Finish. Good. I prefer to have the basics done well. Like when I say done well, it's 10 out of 10. You don't get it wrong. We were very clear on this. She's a soccer player, football player, not a freestylist. Good. That's a good one. This is my room. These are a whole bunch of medals. Most of them are champions. This is the champions. This is champions. There's a whole bunch of shirts that I got from different players. This is the one that I wore to the Legends game. Here are all the players that were on my team. That's me. It was kind of scary, but I just played like normal. They were going pretty, not really that easy, but pretty easy on me because, you know, I'm small and they're tall. And there was free ice cream there. That's the best part about it. They grew up watching Ronaldinho, Ronaldo. Those are the gods of soccer for us. He said, Ariana, you're going to be better than me when you grow up because I never seen any girl, any girl do the things that you can do. It was really fun. Most of the people would change Ronaldinho's name and everybody else because they didn't recognize me that much because they're famous people. I'm not that famous, but I will be when I grow up. Today is just basically a scrimmage, so not one specific thing. We're just trying to go ahead and play. She is a prime example of just constantly working outside of practice and the ball comes so naturally to her foot. It's good to get the team against team concept going so you can do notes on the fly. And then it's also good just because you see new faces and it's not practicing against the same team over and over again. Soccer is just finding time and space. And if you have the foot skills to take someone one-on-one and create your own time and space and not have a teammate do it, similar to basketball and a point guard being able to create their own shot, you've got a leg up on everyone else. I'm half Brazilian because my dad's from Brazil and my mom's from U.S., so I'm half-half. The perfect player would be the muscle of the U.S. with the creativity of the Brazilian. On the Brazil side, we are more skillful than anyone. The American side does not really believe in fancy or creativity, but they bully. In some ways, like, push people off. That's where I think she shines because she has the explosiveness of the American type of player with the Brazilian creativity. This shoe is where it all started. When she was about eight months, we keep this, we cherish this. This one is the second one. She was, I would say, a year old. This one scores a lot of goals. She was already playing competitive. This was about three years old. This is one of the best ones that I like. I don't know if Ariana likes this that much. Which one do you like the best? These are my favorite, like, the favorite of all of them. I want to make it stand out more for girls. I want to change everything and not just have boys all the time. I just want to be equal because boys usually get everything, like, it's not equal to girls. I just want to change it from soccer because everything else has changed. I care, so I just try to make it more recognized by doing it in the games. Never stop. Like, if you go and you mess up with something, don't ask to get out. Just keep on trying because if you don't try, you're never going to make it. Nothing's impossible. A tip I'd give to any young girl starting soccer is just to keep your dream inside your head. Never let go of it because dreams can come true. It's not impossible. You just have to work towards it. You have to work really hard. The coaches were asking how long she had played. I'm like, it's her first time. Her playing style is creative. She can beat anybody off the dribble. My name is Bella Youssef. I'm 13, and I play soccer. No days off means that you work every single day just to be the best you can be. There you go. Good. Perfect. That's Bella. Excellent ball. Well done. She's in the backyard. She's putting cones down, and she's working on her game, whether it's with a coach or on her own. Here we go. Control it. My goal by the age of 14, 15, or 16 is just to get into the U.S. Women's National Team player pool. I really want to be on the U.S. Women's National Team, which I know will take lots of hard work, but I'm willing to do it. She has great technical skills. Now it's about developing her game further. Ready, go. Bella's fancy. She has a flair of not just beating one, but she'll beat two. She'll beat three players. With Coach Jacey, I work a lot on my technicality, how to get through players. I use a lot of different skills depending on the situation. Bella's so creative that she doesn't necessarily have one move. Way to improvise, Bella. We always try and focus on really quick feet. Go. A lot of technical skills using all surfaces of both feet. She's left-footed, but she uses her right foot the same amount. Tight spaces don't bother her. I think she actually enjoys the challenge of being in a confined space with two or three players to beat. That's where she shines. She trains so hard. That's why she's so successful and will continue to be. I love to work with Coach Eddie in Orlando. I love how he teaches his cone drills or his passing because they're not just cone drills realistically. It's memorizing the skill so much to the point you feel comfortable when using it in the game. He teaches us everything you need to know about soccer, and it's really amazing. I love going there. When Bella started expressing that she wanted to go really far in soccer, she really wanted to work hard. I feel like she always had the aggression and the passion, and we saw that right away. So we took her to JC, of course. We used to fly to Eddie Johnson and practice with him, and Eddie immediately is like, wow, that's amazing. One of my most valued pictures is here. This is where all my soccer began. This is my first medal I won in the photo. This is my trophy from Super Copa. Definitely my most favorite award, just because it was such a hard tournament playing against the top-level teams. These are my first-ever cleats. They're very little, and it really reminds me to keep going, keep pushing towards my goals. This ball means a lot. Also, my uncle would give it to me from the team he used to play on, LA Galaxy and the Iranian national team. But it signed up all the players on the LA Galaxy team. I'm just very proud to have all this showcased and reminding me of how much work I've put in and to keep going, to work towards my goal and to make the U.S. Women's National Team one day. My drive is just my passion for the game. It's what I love doing. It's what I love playing. I will always be the best that I can be. She has that expectation for herself, and I think that's why she achieves so much. It's definitely been a journey, and it's not stopping. She knows what she wants. She knows that it's not going to be an easy road, and so therefore, she's going to have to put the work into it. I want to be a professional soccer player. It's always been just that's what I want to do, and nothing's going to stop me from reaching that goal. My name is Bella Ballard, and I'm a soccer player. I started playing soccer when I was about four years old. I love everything about it. When I'm on the field, I'm hyper-focused on what I have to do. I'm not just going out there to have fun. I have a goal set, and I need to reach that goal by the end of the game, session, or practice. Now attack. Attack. Yeah. Begin. Boom, boom. Yes. There you go. There we go. I started working with Bella when she was seven, and she's the kid I'm going to tell who's training too much. You know, on Bella's bad days, it's going to be just as good as someone else's good days. Come on. Check that angle. There you go. I think what separates Bella from her peers is the amount of work that she puts in and the quality of work that she puts in. Her work ethic scares me. Do it again. Yes. Back. Where she is now, she's the player that you dump it to when you're under pressure. Where I want her to get is that fearful player as well, like that. She picks the ball, and she's just going to take your soul. Now get across. Rip. I would say I am a technical player. I always look to make the best of every situation, whether that's in a really tight spot with three players on me or I have 10 yards of space. A little bit lighter on that step. Don't smash that foot down. There you go. Can she be a professional player? Absolutely. But it's going to take a lot of work and a lot of discipline. Has she got all the attributes? Absolutely. Yeah, she can go far. I am from Hawaii, but I mainly train in California. And the first time I actually thought about moving out to California for soccer, I was, I think, 8. That was when I saw a whole bunch of high-level players, and I said I wanted to be like them. I want to be even better than them. And I didn't see that happening in Hawaii because I wasn't really getting pushed. I was being told, you're too small. You can't really play. So I asked my parents, and they said, let's try it out. Let's do this. What a lot of people don't understand is Bella's mom, her grandparents, her sister, her bed is 3,000 miles away. And so Bella has sacrificed a lot for what she has gotten. But at the end of the day, she's happy. She loves doing it. We've never seen her being intimidated by anybody else to change who she is. I think that's the biggest thing of why we have given her the opportunity to do this and why she seeks it is because she's the one driving it. My workout begins pretty early in the morning. I try and do some core, planks, push-ups, and sit-ups. And if I have time, I'll either do squats or lift rocks or weights. Go kick rocks is a slogan just my family and I use. It means just I don't care what you say. I'm doing what I'm doing. When she was in second grade, their teacher made them write down what I want to be when I grow up. And she wrote professional soccer player. From that day, she's never wavered. And we started to see traits of waking up early, doing those extra sit-ups. That just doesn't happen. The thing that separates Bella from other players at her age and ability level is she's self-reliant. And she's the kid who's going to get up at 6 a.m. to go and train. I run out here on the canyons every so often because the surfaces are unpredictable. There's rocks everywhere. So I need to be able to adapt to my footing. I need to be able to shift my body in different ways. And I need to be able to move faster. You have to be able to work out when no one's watching, when you don't want to, because that's what's going to separate you from the next player. Nutrition is a big part of my game. It gives me energy. It helps me just be in the right mindset. Eating has definitely helped me on the field. If I eat something like a smoothie in the morning before practice, I feel just more energized. I feel just ready to go. I watch soccer in the morning with my dad just to start the day off right. I know the day's going to be just full of soccer and just full of training. So I always want to start it off on the right foot and just get a feel of the game, watch it a little bit, and just take notes. I go to online school. I've been doing that since I've been in fifth grade. School is very important for me. I want to go to a top college, and I want to play soccer there. So my academics need to be at the highest level they can be. And I have soccer in the afternoon, usually until 10, 11 at night. Yes. Step over scissor. Good. Drag. Finish. Make the chalk, make it stop for a second. Instead of looking to just keep going forward, keep going forward, hit this part, stop it, and then see if you can do an in-out snake. I met Chris in 2014 at a soccer camp. He was my coach, and we just quickly bonded over soccer and the game. I've met so many people through traveling with soccer. I've met coaches, I've met new players, new friends, and it's just been amazing. Right now I'm working with Chris on movement off the ball, playing one and two touch, and beating players one v. one, and getting a shot on goal. She's a phenomenal worker. I know for sure, like, nine out of nine kids that I train would quit with doing the stuff that Bella would do. But Bella is, like, in her own category where she's not going to quit and she's going to keep working. Training with a whole bunch of different coaches and teams definitely make me a well-rounded player. Yeah, ready, go. Yep. Good. Head up, head up. Bella knows what she wants, and so because she knows what she wants, she knows what she has to do to get it, and that is an everyday thing. She knows that when you step on the field, this needs to be your demeanor, this needs to be your work ethic, and you need to get results. Money, money, again, come on, come on, again, again, yes. Okay. Good. Inside. Hold for me. Back. Good. On the field I'm really competitive. That really shines through both on and off. But on the field I don't take anything from anybody, and I'm hyper-focused on winning and doing the best I can. Good stuff. You done? That's four. That's not four. Yeah? Do one more shooting drill. One more shooting drill? Soccer is a big part of my life, but it's not the only thing in it. It's definitely important to be a kid, so I think being able to bond with my family and my sister by doing other things is really important. When they are together, we urge them, of course, to spend time. You want that bond to be there. You know, when she steps on the field, you know, she's definitely like work, work, work, work, work, but then can still, like, she knows when to sprinkle in her humor, so she still knows how to have fun with that. You have to enjoy it. You can't just go through the motions and continue doing what you think you have to do, and that's what I love about soccer is pushing myself and feeling exhausted after but still wanting to go maybe three more reps. Her situation is hard. I think back of when I was 13, 14 years old, and I don't think I could have handled this. You have to be built a certain way, and therefore that surprises me. It surprises and it also builds respect. She's pretty incredible. A lot of people tell me just to slow down, take time off, but this is my passion. This is what I love to do, so I don't really feel like I need to. I just love it too much. He's very creative. He can kind of do things with the ball that a lot of kids can't. You've got option A, B, or C, or you're expecting them to dribble or shoot, and then he'll do an option F. Soccer is like the one thing you can just get away from everything. If you have stress at home or homework or you're worried about a school project, soccer gives you that freedom for those two hours a day to get out and do what you want. My name is Phoenix Watkins. I'm 14 years old, and I play soccer. I started playing soccer when I was about 2. He was in his diapers, and he was kicking a little 2-liter thing of Pepsi around. Super good form. Yeah, and then she showed me. She got the pictures developed, and she showed me the pictures. I was like, dude, that guy's got good form. He had his head down, knee over the ball. He had the little lean. Well, Justin played soccer, so it was kind of natural that Phoenix would play soccer. I played high school soccer, and then after that, I played adult leagues, and Phoenix was always around that. So my previous club was LAFC. I played with them for three years, from my 2016 to this past year, and now I play on a FRAM 014, and I'm playing high school varsity. My name is Ryan McConnell. I'm the head varsity boys' coach here at Alabama High School. I met Phoenix about a month ago in tryouts for the boys' soccer team, and he ended up making my varsity team this year. I wasn't expecting to make varsity as a freshman, but then once I just started training with them, trying out, I just got more and more comfortable. He knows that he's going to benefit from this experience as well. Anytime you play as a 14-year-old against 16-, 17-, and 18-year-olds, you're going to make yourself better. It's harder because a lot of the, you know, obviously they're all bigger than me. A lot of them are pretty much almost grown adults, but it's good for me. Phoenix playing high school soccer and club soccer or actually any other sport, it's just going to make him a more well-rounded athlete, a more well-rounded person. I make up the physical difference just by you have to be smarter with the ball. Like, you can't always try to outrace them or outbody them because they're bigger than you. They'll be faster, stronger, physically just better than you, so you have to move the ball quickly and get rid of it. You know, he said I'd be doing, like, all kinds of scissors and roulettes and stuff. But he will do the important thing where he'll pass the ball to your front foot. I knew right away that his technical level was very, very high. His feet were really good. He could move the ball. He was smart. His soccer IQ was really, really high. My game isn't really, like, the flashy type. It's more just get the ball, get rid of it, and move around and just provide an option for my teammates. That's how he surprises people. He might not surprise you every minute of every game, but you watch enough games and you'd be like, there's something there. He's got quick feet. He's got the quickest feet I've seen in a long time on a kid. And his speed is good, too. He's got good acceleration. He's very good laterally. He can get side to side. And he's got a really, really, really good three first... His first three steps are very fast. And that allows him to get by people. He's one of those kids that's very smart, so he knows when to hang on to the ball, when to get rid of the ball. And he plays simple. That's probably the biggest thing I saw him do was the fact he didn't try to dribble too much. He plays one and two touch. He makes the game very simple. I think it's the IQ with him. Everybody can learn to be athletic. Work hard, get faster. Lift weights, get stronger. But mentally, that's tough to teach. It's constantly about the little things, right? It's not holding on to the ball too long. We don't need to take six touches. We need to take two. And a lot of you guys are starting to figure out the system that we're going to try to play. And like I said, it takes time. It's not going to be done in a week or two. All right, let's go. Good work today. Good session. Just keep working hard. I wanted to play high school soccer because I think it's different from club or academy. I just love the brotherhood of it. You just have a lot of friends and stuff, and you meet people that you wouldn't otherwise meet. My parents are very important to me because they do everything for me. They take me to practice everything, and it's four, five times a week. He's a 3.5 to a 3.8. He has two B's, and the rest are A's. School is a big thing for me because if I don't do good in school, there is no soccer. My coach at my varsity high school really appreciates that because he also wants us to go to college. And if we can't get in through soccer, you have to get in somehow. If you don't do good in school, there's no soccer. His grades are there because... Yeah, I can't do his homework. I'm usually behind on homework, so I get that done first because I'll come home from practice and go straight to sleep. But if I ever am caught up, I play video games like FIFA, Call of Duty, all the normal stuff, Fortnite, like everyone else. The sky's the limit for him. I think he can play college soccer Division I level and possibly play pro. People don't understand how difficult it is. It's not easy. Less than 1% of high school kids get a scholarship out of high school to play any kind of sport. With Phoenix, I'm most proud that he is a lot braver than I am, especially through the whole soccer thing. He's gone into tryouts without any hesitation where I would be terrified and he will just go at it and do what he does. I've been doing this a long time. I can tell whether kids are going to go somewhere with this and he's going to go somewhere with this. For sure. In soccer, my main goal is to make it professional rather than here in America or somewhere abroad. I would like him to help him with college and get an education and go past that. As long as he is happy, if he can play this as far as it will take him, then we'll be there 100%. It's hard to find good kids nowadays and he's a good one. I'm going to hang on to him for a while. What's the Chris Brown song? It's the... Give us a few lines. When it comes to game time, she blacks out. She's a beast. She's a very talented player. The talent only gets you so far. If you don't work hard, she certainly has that. She's out there a lot training. She's the most physical player on the team. She gives it her all. She'll play hurt, she'll play injured. She will hunt you down if she needs to. I think you've got to have a little bit of everything, but without the hard work and the willingness to go out every day and do something, I think that's one of the reasons. Not only the ability that she has, but the work she puts into the game. Those two things usually end up doing well. She's just a playmaker. My name is Gabrielle Parker. I'm 11 years old and I play soccer. Hey guys, good morning. Thank you for coming. This is my room. These are all my medals that I've won and my trophies. And those are my new cleats. And my no-nays option. Underneath, lifting and pushing with the outside. Pull and pushing with the outside. It's very important that we try and help these kids along with their technical, teaching them what we consider is the right way to play the game. But I think you've got to allow players to be themselves as well and not over-coach them. You can make the players too robotic if you try and teach them everything. The way I look at my team especially and what I try and tell some of the other coaches, it's almost like I look at my team like a bit of a jigsaw. You need a bunch of different pieces. We're not trying to make everybody the same. We're going to let her be whatever she's going to be and we're just going to guide her along the way. I've only been with her just over a year right now and just trying to... Obviously she's a very creative player and just trying to help her with her decision-making a little bit but let her to play be very creative, let her do her thing. Just trying to work on her decision-making a little bit and I think she's over the last few months, she's really matured as a player. The moment I realized when I love soccer is when I got that ball and then I scored. I think I was like four or something. I was small and I remember getting the ball and scoring and then seeing my grandpa in the back and I remember him screaming good job and stuff and my whole family was there and I started to love it by then. When I hurt my hamstring I thought that I wasn't going to be able to play again and that I would need surgery on it and I was really scared of that. You know, a lot of times we only see the finish line you know. We don't anticipate things like that especially from somebody who puts out all that effort and all that energy. We knew that we had to work a lot harder to get back to where we wanted to be and that this wasn't going to finish us. The comeback made me stronger because I knew that I wasn't doing something good enough on that field that made me hurt it. I took therapy and it helped me become stronger so when I got on that field I could play better and be stronger on that field to not hurt myself again. You know, she's very technical. She's very good on the ball, very comfortable on the ball. She likes to dribble, she likes to be creative. With young players sometimes you don't often see that because they're a little bit scared to fail. With Gabby you've got to try and find the balance. We've got to try and let her try things and be creative because they're the type of players that we're looking for and just helping along with the decision making along the way. Don't go the wrong way this time. The things that make me different are my skills, my communication and picking my head up when I'm on the ball and my physicalness. I usually tell myself don't mess up, you've got this and then I get nervous a bit sometimes but I tell myself I can do this, I've got this and then I get on the field and I'm serious and I try to make my passes perfect and everything neat on the field. Gab, well I'm mostly with the team. Three times a week, usually see her on the weekends while at games, so it's three, sometimes four. I need to see her a little bit more. I know she likes to train a lot so I can train her whenever she wants. Okay, you two are going to count and then count tomorrow. Gabrielle's pretty mature for her age. She's asked to do a lot of things that most kids don't do. She has a lot of responsibilities. Definitely a little bit more pressure than most kids so she's really adapted to that and it shows on the field, it shows in school, it shows around the house. And I do art. This is some of the art that I like to do. I like to, yeah, sit down and just focus on the art sometimes to slow myself down. Gabrielle's a great leader, natural leader. Her siblings really admire everything that she does. She's a work horse. She likes to clean, she likes to participate in everything. She's pretty amazing. I know that what I'm doing at home can reflect on what I'm doing on the field like being a leader. I think it's more of the leadership and leading by example. The kids really look up to her, want to copy and do exactly everything that she does. And I think she motivates the team when she shows that she gives it her all. The team usually follows that same trend. She understands what a sacrifice is. She understands that we're not privileged enough to stay home and not go to work and not bust our butts out there to make sure she has gear and her tuition's paid for. So she understands that we make sacrifices, she makes sacrifices. And she definitely holds her end of it. To me, BU means to be yourself. You don't have to act like an other person to do something or to play on the field. You don't have to act like someone. You be yourself and work as hard as you can on that field or at home or at school or anywhere. Thanks for checking out how I stay busy. To watch more videos like this, check out WhistleSports.