The Development Academy season starts on Saturday against FC Westchester at Centre Nutrilait, and the Impact U19 is ending its preparation to start on the right foot.
Each year, the goal is to be at the top of the standings and make the playoffs, but in terms of learning through the year, the players have to get as close as possible to the highest level.
“With the U19 group, we are focusing on the optimization of learning the principles in the little things that will make a difference at the professional level,” said the Academy director and Impact U19 head coach Philippe Eullaffroy. “The objective is to continue preparing them to recognize as quickly as possible a situation and choose the action that will be the most appropriate in that situation. We want them to learn to do everything better and quicker, just like they will have to do with the first team.”
The Impact U19 is the last step at the Academy before reaching the first team. Players have to work twice as hard to progress as much as possible by the end of the season.
Like every year, the Academy teams have to deal with the challenge of renewing the roster, meaning that a majority of older players go to the next level, and 50% of players come from the younger team. You have to create cohesion quickly to help the group continue its progression. The players are still mostly coming from the Academy system, so they are already used to the different principles of play and the integration to the group is easier.
A shorter preseason
Another challenge that Philippe Eullaffroy’s group has to face is that they have had a much shorter preseason this year. Because of last year’s playoffs and part of the group leaving to represent Canada-Québec at the Jeux de la Francophonie, many players had a longer break that ended in the middle of the month of August.
Along with the fact that the Development Academy season starts earlier this year, this means that the team only had a few weeks in August to prepare for its first game of the season.
“Since the preseason is a bit shorter than usual, we will consider the first games of the season as part of the preseason,” added Eullaffroy. “Other than that, the cohesion is already good. We will evaluate the quality of our preseason according to the quality of our performances in the first half of the season.”
Yearly fixtures
Every season brings some games that the coaches and players don’t want to miss. This year, the six meetings with MLS Academy teams are the ones that caught the head coach’s eye. There will be two games against the New England Revolution and New York City FC, and one game against the New York Red Bulls and the Philadelphia Union.
The first MLS meeting will be on September 16, against New England, in the third game of the season, at Centre Nutrilait – at 2:30pm for the U19 group. The first game of the season will be this Saturday, at 12:30pm, at Centre Nutrilait, against FC Westchester.
