Sleeping giant stirs as Chris Leitch overhauls San Jose Earthquakes’ youth academy
At the end of the 2014-2015 U.S. Soccer Development Academy season, the San Jose Earthquakes Under-16s made the playoffs – the only team from Northern California to do so – while the U-18s won the West Conference and ultimately finished third in the nation.
Those results heartened Earthquakes Academy technical director Chris Leitch, but they weren’t enough to save the jobs of coaches Stephen Wondolowski (brother of Earthquakes star forward Chris Wondolowski) and Marquis White.
“We had some pretty good results at the end of that 14-15 wraparound year, but with those good results we made some changes with coaching staff,” Leitch recently told SoccerWire in a wide-ranging interview.
“Some staff went in another direction,” he said, referring to the ouster of Wondolowski and White, neither of whom could be reached for comment for this story. “And [we] brought in what I would like to think is a pretty impressive staff.”
In place of Wondolowski and White are Paul Holocher – a former teammate of Earthquakes general manager John Doyle and a coach experienced at both the youth and collegiate levels – and André Luiz Moreira, a decorated Brazilian international who appeared 16 times for the Earthquakes as a player between 2009 and 2011.
“These guys have been involved with big clubs, high-level soccer organizations, and thus have been able to steal bits and parts of those clubs and those organizations and pick bits and pieces of the experiences that they’ve had, and now mold them into what we’re doing here with the Earthquakes,” Leitch said by way of explanation for the coaching change.
“We’ve also made changes because we’re trying to put development first.”
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In the Academy’s short history, it has only produced one so-called Homegrown Player, Quakes midfielder Tommy Thompson (pictured above), who trained with the academy and first team for one year between 2012 and 2013. This despite operating in one of the most talent-rich regions of the country and operating only miles away from the club teams that produced future MLS players Sebastian Lletget and Christian Dean.
“It’s not a case of working harder or not as hard as other countries … it’s been about the culture of how we identify and develop players.”
But Leitch preaches patience with the process and with the type of program he is trying to build in San Jose. Only now, he says, are fans and observers beginning to see some of the fruits of his and the rest of his staff’s labor.
“You’re now getting the best players playing together and training everyday and they’re now going to other areas of the country playing against the best players from that area,” Leitch said.
And if you continue to do that, then you’re going to continue evaluating the talent younger and younger and you’re going to give them [a] better development system [in] which they compete with each other and against each other on a daily basis.”
Holocher put the club’s goal in simpler terms: “Our objective is to really identify the top talent in northern California and give them a great development platform so they can reach their highest levels.”
But as many other MLS clubs have discovered when opening their own academies, with scouting and recruitment inevitably come resentment and dispute.
Yet according to Leitch, Northern California clubs should be proud to send their best talents on to the Earthquakes Academy because, he says, they’re giving their young players the chance to make it in a professional environment.
“[In Madrid] every club that’s in that area wants to send all their players to Real Madrid,” he said. “They want to see the big club succeed. They want to make sure that they’re constantly sending their players there. That’s not always the case in American youth soccer, so sometimes it is a challenge to ensure that you have all the players in a given area that are on the academy track.”
To accomplish this, Leitch and his staff have established affiliations with clubs in San Francisco, the Peninsula, and the East Bay. The team has even set up a regional development school in El Dorado Hills, just east of Sacramento.
“We’re trying to at least have affiliates in certain geographical areas so we have a broader net and so we have our eyes and ears on potential players coming up through the youth ranks with the idea that if it makes sense and if a player’s ready – if it makes sense for the affiliate – we’ll bring those players in.”
While Leitch describes MLS clubs’ ability to sign homegrown players as a “game-changer,” the Earthquakes have yet to produce a local first-team player from its academy system other than Thompson. Still, that carrot – the prospect of signing with a professional soccer club – is something that the Earthquakes can dangle in front of prospective young players that other Bay Area youth clubs cannot.
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But for all of Leitch’s and Holocher’s optimism, they still feel that there’s a long way to go before the Earthquakes Academy – or any of the other MLS club academies – produces a truly world class player.
“It’s not a case of working harder or not as hard as other countries, because I think we do,” Leitch said. “It’s not a case of bigger, faster, stronger than our players versus other players around Europe, because our players are big, fast, and strong.
“For me, it comes down to: what are we doing towards development that’s wrong or what can we do better? For me, it’s been about the culture of how we identify players and how we develop players. We’re trying to develop smart players instead of just physical players. We’re trying to develop players that have a good temperament or have emotional control.”
With the Earthquakes Academy, Leitch has his own opportunity to try and influence a generation of young players and — he hopes — the chance to one day produce America’s first world-class player.
