GA Cup Preview: Sounders Academy teams head to Florida to compete in "most important event of the year"

The Seattle Sounders’ U-16 and U-18 Academy teams embark on one of the most crucial moments of their youth careers this weekend as they head to Bradenton, Florida to compete in the Generation adidas Cup.

“This is kind of like a pinnacle event for MLS [Academy] players,” said U-16 Head Coach Matt Dorman.

The two teams will be facing off against some of the top clubs in the world, putting their talent and skills to the test. While the hope is to leave the tournament with trophies, the competition itself is a valuable way for the coaching staff to better understand the current level of their players and how they measure against international competition.

“We get a very clear picture of where we stand within a developmental structure and ecosystem within the United States,” said Technical Director Henry Brauner. “But GA Cup offers us the opportunity to benchmark against the world's elite.”

With the chance to compete in a tournament of this caliber, the U-16 and U-18 players will be exposed to different types of tactics, formations, and types of players, enabling them to not only prove themselves on an international stage, but leave the competition better prepared to reach the next level in their careers.

The Academy sides will compete in a guaranteed seven matches over the course of seven days where they will not grow individually as players, but build chemistry on and off the pitch as a collective unit.

“It's a really good experience for us to experiment and see if we can implement our principles of play that we've been training against good opposition,” said Dorman. “[And] we'll hopefully be able to utilize individual meetings, [and] some collected meetings.”

For the U-18’s, the tournament is a big determining factor as to whether they have the potential to make it to the professional level. Brauner described it as an “evaluation tool” to see if their growth and trajectory is consistent with what the coaching staff projects for an up-and-coming Tacoma Defiance or First Team player.

“We go into this kind of having an idea of what players are on the edge of their professional pathway, potential journey, and we will use this event pretty heavily in making those final decisions,” said Brauner.

As for the younger players, the tournament is seen as more of a stepping stone for future endeavors.

“[The U-16’s] definitely have more of a long-term focus,” said Dorman. “Specific goals for this tournament are integrating young players within the 2009 age group, being able to put them in a platform against top level competition and demonstrate what we've worked on in training sessions tactically, but also individual technical approaches against good opponents.”

Brauner summarized the global competition perfectly.

“This is probably the most critical and most important event of the year.”

*Denotes livestream on MLS Youtube channel.

^Denotes guest player (Mikolasy and Koutelieris from Crossfire Premier, Pray from IMG Academy, Makinano from Hawai'i Rush)

*Denotes MLS Next Pro player