APRIL 2022

CONTENTS

USL 2 Home Opener May 31st!
USL 2, USL A & ECNL Boys
ECNL Girls
ECNL-R Girls
U15 - U19 Boys High Performance
U10 - U12 Boys & Girls High Performance
U13 - U19 Boys & Girls Competitive Tier
U9 Girls Competitive, U9-12 Competitive Boys & Juniors Academy

USL 2 Home Opener

USL 2, May 31st, 2022, is our opening day!

In 2010 the vision was to create a club for passionate and committed soccer players/families with the desire to compete at the regional and national levels. Every year we learned it would take more players/families committed to living our values (CHIRP). Also, we realized we would need a "capstone" to our development pathway to measure our progress. The USL 2 and USL U19 Academy teams are for the Northeast Ohio players with the perseverance (PASSION) to play highly competitive soccer from 15 - 30 years of age.

On May 31st, 2022, we will have reached a long-term goal of creating a pathway club to represent Cleveland Soccer regionally and nationally. The team has the Force brand, but it is for all the players and passionate fans of Northeast Ohio.

The USL 2 team will consist of players from Force and other Northeast Ohio Clubs. We desire to build an environment where the best collection of Cleveland-based players want to compete on a Regional and National level to represent our city, families, and our football! We hope many of you will take the time to come out and support the players by creating a football atmosphere. Without you, the "fans," we cannot genuinely have the best players on the field because the fans are a part of the team.

Being a fan of a particular team means being part of a tribe at a very basic psychological level. Please help us create a tribe of passionate soccer fans, players, budding stars in the stands, and those not yet introduced to the sport. With your help, we can make this a family-friendly experience for our neighbors and the players who desire to perform at a high level for us, the fans.

Tickets are available on the club website. We hope to see many of you at the home opener and other games throughout the summer.

All Cleveland Force SC players receive FREE admission to all home games when they wear their Force game or training jersey. Keep an eye out in your PlayMetrics Dashboard to RSVP for each game to secure your ticket!

Cleveland Force vs Fort Wayne USL 2 - Click Here for tickets

USL 2, USL Academy & ECNL Boys Update

By Bill Lawrence

Boys ECNL

USL 2

USL Academy

BOYS ECNL:

08 ECNL: 28th in the Champions league.

07 ECNL: Last 4 games: 4 wins, 7 goals and 0 goals against. 320 minutes without conceding a goal. 9th in the Champions league.

06 ECNL: 10 in the Champions League

03/04: 1st North American Cup

Click Here to check out the ECNL Boys 2022-23 Deck providing some insight on what membership in the ECNL entails!

USL A: In our first friendly of the year, the USL Academy team played an exciting game of soccer verses Lakeland College. All 18 players played a minimum of 30 minutes and the standard didn't drop. The team's play was great mix of scrappy aggressive defending, quick effective counters, great combination play and long periods of possession. Final score a CFSC 6 Lakeland 1.

USL 2 begins training today, May 3rd. Our first wave of players returning from college will begin training as we look forward to our inaugural season. Two players to be highlighted this week are two veteran players with professional soccer experience. Bryan Wolanski, Rochester Lancers, one of our own coaches and Brent Nanchoff a CSU grad, trained with a first division team in Macedonia before Covid hit. We look forward to seeing these players and their college teammates on the field this summer.

ECNL Girls Update

By Rob Miller

Girls ECNL - High Performance National

The ECNL Club Competition Girls are busy with regular season games and preparing for potential berths in the ECNL Playoffs this June in Seattle, WA. For the U15-U19 teams an early season extended road trip sees our teams playing the balance of their regular season in NE Ohio at home. The U13 and U14 teams have a handful of league games left and are anxious and excited to travel down to Greer, South Carolina for the ECNL South Carolina event. Our U15-U17 teams will be traveling to New Jersey for the PDA Showcase (ECNL New Jersey) over Memorial Day weekend and are looking forward to the top level competition as well as playing in front of massive amounts of NCAA DI-DIII coaches along the way.

Three of our 6 eligible teams have chances at a spot in the ECNL Champions League (09, 07 and 06). Best of luck the rest of the way and let’s finish strong!

Lots of team film review and a continued emphasis on each player watching the games online themselves and continuing to learn. This league season has been a learning experience for all of us and will continue to make us better not only this season but in the seasons to come.

Upcoming Schedule:
ECNL South Carolina - 5/6-5/8(2010, 2009, 2008)

ECNL New Jersey (PDA Showcase) - 5/27-5/29 (2007, 2006, 2005)

ECNL Playoffs (Seattle) - 6/22-6/29

ECNL-R Girls Update

By Matt Safar

Girls ECNL-R - High Performance Regional

As we head into May here's a glimpse at what the ECNL-R and GLA Girls have been up to! Most recently, the 07 ECNL-R continues to climb up in the standings with impressive wins against Louisville City and Pittsburgh Riverhounds.

The 06 ECNL-R team remains undefeated in ECNL-R league play with a 12-0 record and have only given up 5 goals on the year.

The 05 ECNL-R team has won several more league games this month and is hoping to have their players gain valuable collegiate exposure at the Crossroads Showcase.

The 03/04 ECNL-R continues to see players commit collegiately. The latest being Ryley Andamasaris to Tiffin University.

Coming up in May, all ECNL-R teams will begin to wind down their league seasons and some will have a chance to play for a chance to go to the ECNL-R Finals in Seattle, Washington.

The 08 and 09 ECNL-R teams both had successful events at Nike Cup in Columbus. With the 08s finishing in third place at 3 and 1 and the 09s finishing at 2 and 1. They will be gearing up for the Pacesetter Invitational over Memorial Day Weekend.

Both the 05 and 06 GLA teams recently played at the Blue Chip Showcase and saw some success as well as gained valuable college exposure. They will be attending the Crossroads Showcase in Westfield, Indiana to close out the month of April.

In May the GLA teams will be playing in the US Club State Cup, where they'll compete for a chance to play in Colorado in July.

There are a lot of exciting things happening and we hope to have more good news as we close out the year!

U15-U19 Boys High Performance Update

By VIsnu Marahaj

Boys U15 - U19 High Performance - Regional

Congratulations to Dimitrije Guzine (University of Findlay) and Abdullah Mohammad (Baldwin Wallace) on committing to continuing their athletic and academic careers to the collegiate level! We are looking forward to announcing more Cleveland Force College Commitments.

U10 - U12 Boys and Girls Development with a Purpose

By Everett Palache

Boys U10 - U12

Girls U10 - U12

The month of April has been outstanding for learning more about the players, our teaching model, and our culture. We have used the month to evaluate players' positional understanding, technical quality, principle understanding/application, decision-making in the phases of play, training focus (desire), game performance, and attendance.

In the sessions, we have focused on creating 2v1 and 1v1s. These components are taught through the facilitation of training sessions presenting the questions "what do we, Cleveland Force, want to create" and "How do we, Cleveland Force, create 2v1 and 1v1s?". The last topic for the month is what we call "the extra pass (back post goal)."

When the team puts all this together, we see "holistic players with an understanding of the interconnectedness and necessary unity among different aspects of a person or team to reach a more excellent, more accurate, and complete understanding of the game."

Our desire to be a possession-based requires humility, integrity, and respect to do the right thing in the right "game situation/moment." We have mentioned above a tiny part of what we use to evaluate players internally and externally. We have learned those committed to the process benefit. Also, the earlier and longer you are with us, the great the probability of playing beyond college.

As we enter May, we will continue to challenge players and look to increase "training resistance" for next year with the addition of tryout players that "fit" our culture and player/family profile. We feel blessed to have all of you with us and for you sharing your son/daughter with us to learn the game we love!

Thanks for your continued support and commitment to player development both on and off the field. We look forward to hearing your encouragement from the sidelines and creating memories together!

U13 - U19 Competitive Tier Update

By Denzil Antonio

Boys Competitive Tier

Girls Competitive Tier

The contributions of the Comp tier program extends further than just the practice and game environment, the staff are readily involved in all aspects of the club and generate these types of experiences throughout the club:

"Hello Coach Denzil. I wanted to send you a note of appreciation for all that you have done for my daughter, Audrey, and her ‘09 team. I’m so thankful for your dedication and willingness to dive in head first the past 2 weekends of games. I’m also thankful for your coaching approach. Your constant teaching woven with positivity has already begun to help this team incredibly. Thank you for all that you continue to do for Force."

U9 Girls Competitive, U9-12 Competitive Boys & Juniors Academy

By Chris Mueller

Girls Competitive Tier

Boys Competitive Tier

We worked very hard this winter, and were able to see the results of that work in the Spring Challenge tournament. We entered 15 teams of players from the U9 Girls and U9-12 Boys. It was great to play clubs from outside our area, such as Club Ohio (Columbus), TCSC (Youngstown) and Beadling (Pittsburgh), among others. Of the 15 teams, we were able to capture 4 Championships and 3 second places finishes. More than just the results, we were competitive throughout and it was so rewarding to see how the teams have come together in such a short time. Many players were participating in a big event for the first time, with some just graduating from the Juniors Academy into the competitive teams. Some of the team highlights were as follows:

Champions:

2012 Boys Blue West (2012 Boys Blue division)

2013 Girls Blue East (2012/13 girls Green division)

2013 Boys White East (2013 Boys Green division)

2013 Boys Blue East (2013/14 Boys Red)

Finalists:

2012 Boys Blue East (2012 Boys Blue division)

2014 Girls White (2013/14 Girls Blue division)

2014 boys Blue East (2013/14 Boys Blue division)