The Stars of Tommorrow: Bradenton Class Announced

The Bradenton, Florida IMG Academy U-17 residency program is designed to take the best young players this country has to offer, put them in a constant professionally supervised soccer environment, and hopefully turn them into the USMNT players of tomorrow. While youth soccer development in this country, including the Bradenton program, is often criticized for not spreading the net wide enough or not giving equal opportunity to those talented youths who might not ply their trade for some of the best youth clubs in the country, the program has gotten a lot of things right. These things include Landon Donovan, Oguchi Onyewu, DaMarcus Beasley, Freddy Adu, Michael Bradley, and Jozy Altidore.

While this list of forty players can’t be expected to turn out a full national team one day, it will no doubt have its fair share of stars like the past classes. Here is the full list:

GOALKEEPERS ( 4): Samir Badr (Fairfax, Va.), Earl Edwards (San Diego, Calif.), Jonathan Kempin (K.C. Wizards Juniors), Spencer Richey (Crossfire Premier)

DEFENDERS (13): Michael Ambrose (El Paso, Texas), Julio Arjona (D.C. United Academy), Zachary Herold (Port St. Lucie, Fla.), Perry Kitchen (Chicago Magic), Jordan McCrary (Concorde Fire), Boyd Okwuonu (Edmond, Okla.), Emilio Orozco (Oxnard, Calif.), Shaquille Phillips (D.C. United Academy), Tyler Polak (Lincoln, Neb.), Alberto Rosas (Real So Cal), Alex Shinsky (York, Penn.), Jared Watts (North Meck), Eriq Zavaleta (Westfield, Ind.)

MIDFIELDERS (17): Jonathan Canales (Santa Ana, Calif.), Dustin Corea (Milwaukee, Ore.), Andrew Craven (St. Simons Island, Ga.), Sean Davis (Matchfit Academy), Bryan Duran (Duncanville, Texas), Victor Garza (Edinburg, Texas), Luis Gil (Pateadores), Joseph Gyau (FC DELCO), Donovan Henry (Schulz Academy), George Malki (Scottsdale, Ariz.), Carlos Martinez (Las Vegas, Nev.), Alex Molano (F.C. Dallas Juniors), Joel Nash (Birmingham, Ala.), Victor Pineda (Chicago Fire Academy), Charles Renken (Scott Gallagher), Dominic Sarle (BW Gottschee), Erik Stephenson (Surf)

FORWARDS (6): John Agudelo (N.Y. Red Bulls Academy), Jonathan Brown (Clinton, Miss), Jaime Gutierrez (West Coast FC), Stefan Jerome (Davie, Fla.), Alfred Koroma (Solar Red), Jack McInerney (Alpharetta, Ga.)

While there is no doubt that most of these names are a mystery to just about everyone at this point, there are a select few in here you might have heard of, and might be hearing a lot more about in the near future.

Two jump out the most. One being Charles Renken, the next overly-internet-hyped youth wonder kid to follow the lineage of Freddy Adu and to a lesser extent Jozy Altidore. This kid has been on the radar for about two years now and goes into this residency cycle

The other is Stefan Jerome. A terrific young forward who tore up the Nike Friendlies this past winter in Bradenton, including being the catalyst in a 2-0 victory over Brazil, capping off his performance with a goal from the PK spot.

I always find it interesting to see who has seen which of these kids play and what the future looks like for them. So if any of y’all have been out to take a look at one of these kids in a local club match or something, drop a line.

In the meantime, the big boys are training in Miami preparing for their upcoming World Cup Qualifying match against Cuba. Visual proof: