Thursday, July 12

Nearly a full USL Premier Development League season under his belt, USLSoccer.com writer and Northern Virginia Royals defender Mike Foss turns his eyes to making his collegiate university squad this fall. A fixture on an ultra-young and future minded Royals back line, his experience is extensive for an 18-year-old playing in a U23 league. A few weeks ago he detailed his first start with the club. Weeks later he provided insight on the Royals road trip to face the Reading Rage. Despite the clubs hard times this season, their futuristic values have laid the foundation for success in years to come.

With every game you play, you either get better or you get worse. It is a choice you make, regardless of the final score. At the end of the game, you are either a better player or you are a worse player. Someone who hasn’t been following the Royals’ season might say we have gotten worse. They would be horribly mistaken. Yes, we have lost often. Yes, we won only won two games. But what people cannot see are the inner workings of the club and the development taking place.

I live in Washington, D.C. which is home to the Redskins, Wizards and Nationals. All three teams are absolutely atrocious. And every season the papers write how we are in “a rebuilding year.” After the fourteenth season of rebuilding, you begin to wonder what exactly they are rebuilding. The Royals are not in a rebuilding year. We are in a development year. This past game, we started three defenders under age 20. Steve Wagoner and I are 18 and Dylan Dempsey is 19. Grady Renfrow played right back. He is a dinosaur at age 22. AJ Sheta, who is 16, came on in the second half. All game long, the backline took massive abuse from our opponent. We are playing against older, far more experienced players and it certainly was showing.

A lot of other clubs opt not to start or even play young players. Instead they recruit the guys coming straight from college or international players. These clubs are experiencing immediate success. The Royals are starting a youth movement with Dylan, Wags, AJ, and I. The goal is to continue developing young talent so when we are 23, there will be another crop of 18 year-olds coming up behind us. The Royals’ coaching staff is taking the Premier Development League’s purpose at its most literal. They are using young players, getting them accustomed to the professional level at a young age, thus readying them ultimately for college, the USL 1, 2 and MLS.

Is it fun? Is losing 6-1 ever fun? I am pretty sure there is no good way to lose 6-1. It is a miserable experience but each loss has made me a better player. It has been a struggle. It was not a very happy June. But in those thirty days, I progressed exponentially. The stuff I have learned from senior players, coaches and just by playing has been priceless. Yes, the results get old and the comments about the results get old but they do not matter in the grand scheme. I am rolling with the punches.

There are two games left in our season and then I will begin my freshman season with George Mason University. Prior to the start of the PDL season, I was not expecting to be thrust into this level. But thankfully I was. The lessons I have learned this summer will be invaluable in the fall.

Mike Foss
Defender, Northern Virginia Royals 

This is Foss’s rookie season in USL’s PDL. In only five months, Foss’s interest in journalism has allowed USLSoccer.com an inside perspective of his jump from the U17 club level to the U23 PDL level – a peek inside the life of an 18-year-old moving up the USL ladder, bottom to top, in an attempt to play at the highest collegiate level, the highest amateur level and eventually the highest professional level in the United States.