2012 NGS Overview

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WHAT IS NGS?

Next Generation Series (NGS) is an exciting, new youth soccer initiative undertaken by USL and IMG
Academy, established to provide players, coaches and clubs the opportunity to take part in an eight-
month, elite-level league. NGS is more than just another youth soccer league and features a forward-
looking, innovative, comprehensive, and unique development program designed to develop the complete
elite youth soccer player through a defined regimen of training, competition, testing, and evaluation.

The inspiration for NGS was the repeated and consistent message received from top youth soccer
clubs and coaches that they were seeking a fresh development initiative specifically geared toward
younger teams and players. From this feedback, NGS has been launched to fill the void by providing
a comprehensive platform for clubs to best prepare their young players for the challenges which await
them at the next level. NGS will take a developmental approach which engages the player, coach, and
parent, and enhances player growth across 7-8 important disciplines conducted by world-renowned
experts in their respective disciplines of performance:

• Ignite360 Athletic Assessment
• Physical Conditioning
• Mental Conditioning
• Nutrition & Wellness
• On-Field Communication
• Injury Prevention / Athletic Regeneration
• Leadership & Life Skills
• Vision training for Goalkeepers

While player growth is the primary focus, coaches and parents are fully integrated into the NGS model.
Coaches will be regularly exposed to the most modern coaching education available both in terms of
soccer-specific training and overall sports methods by elite experts in their fields via the USL and IMG
networks. Additionally, NGS is committed to the engagement of parents through the provision of regular
information, resources, and other pertinent insights regarding the important role they play in the child’s
transition to elite player and young adult.

All in all, NGS will usher in an exciting new era in the development of the next generation of complete
elite youth players and provide its member clubs with an advantage in the programming it offers to its
athletes.


LEAGUE STRUCTURE

1. AGE GROUPS:

a. U12 & U14; Boys & Girls
b. Clubs are required to field teams in both age groups within a specific gender

2. CONFERENCE ALIGNMENT

2013/14 NGS Season will feature four conferences:
South Conference
Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina,
South Carolina, Tennessee
Florida Conference
Florida
Midsouth Conference
Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana
Mid-Atlantic Conference
Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania

3. PARTICIPATING TEAMS (BY INVITATION ONLY)

a. U14 Boys – 4 Teams Per Conference x 4 Conference = 16 Total
b. U14 Girls – 4 Teams Per Conference x 4 Conference = 16 Total
c. U12 Boys – 4 Teams Per Conference x 4 Conference = 16 Total
d. U12 Girls – 4 Teams Per Conference x 4 Conference = 16 Total

4. COST
$2,000/team


COMPETITION CALENDAR
PHASE I

Boys Date: August 22-25, 2013 Girls Date: August 29-September 1, 2013
Evaluation of Players / Cross Conferential Games
Venue: IMG Academy

PHASE II
Date: September 2 – December 1, 2013
Season: 6 NGS in-conference league games
Venue: 3 Home & 3 Away

PHASE III
Date: January 4 – April 6, 2014
Season: 6 NGS in-conference league games
Venue: 3 Home & 3 Away

PHASE IV
Date: January 30 - February 2, 2014
NGS ID Training Camp
Venue: IMG Academy

PHASE V
Date: April 10-13, 2014
NGS League Championship / Final Evaluation
Venue: IMG Academy


NGS FORMAT AND CURRICULUM

PHASE I: IGNITE360 ATHLETIC ASSESSMENT & LEAGUE COMPETITION
BOYS DATES: AUGUST 22 - 25, 2013 • GIRLS DATES: AUGUST 29 - SEPTEMBER 1, 2013

This initiatory three-day event is designed by
NGS to:
1)Introduce players, coaches and parents
to IMG Academy performance disciplines
2) Conduct I360 testing to ascertain
baseline sports performance levels
for players
3) Commence league competition

During Phase I, the players and coaches will be
introduced to disciplines of physical conditioning,
mental conditioning, nutrition, communication
training, injury prevention/recovery, life skills and
vision training for the goalkeepers.

Next, the players will be tested by the I360
program on: sport-specific physical ability, mental
aptitude, and communicative skills. All of these
measurements, serving as the players’ baseline,
will be entered into the NGS individual player
data system to begin tracking performance
improvement and serve as a comparison to other
players by age, gender and position.

Throughout Phase I, league competition will
take place with each team playing three cross-
conferential games at IMG Academy.


LEAGUE STRUCTURE

PHASE II & III: CONFERENCE COMPETITION
DATES: PHASE II - SEPTEMBER 2, 2013 - DECEMBER 1, 2013
DATES: PHASE III - JANUARY 4, 2014 - APRIL 6, 2014

The NGS will include top U-12 and U-14 clubs from: Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Tennessee, Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Arkansas.
These highly competitive clubs will play all of their conference games in Phase II and III, with each team
playing a total of 12 games (6 home and 6 away). The top two teams from each conference will qualify
for the quarterfinals and vie for the NGS Championship to be held at IMG Academy in Bradenton,
Florida on April 10-13, 2014.

During phases II and III, monthly teleconferences will take place between the NGS National Technical
Director and the respective club coaches to analyze the games played and to discuss individual player
performance. While the teams compete, the NGS ID Player Tracking Program will select the player
pool for the NGS ID Player Training Camp.

Throughout Phase II and III several coaching webinars will be conducted on tactical game topics for
both field players and goalkeepers. Each coaching webinar will feature a guest coach/speaker from
either the U.S. National Staff, international professional club academy directors, or IMG Academy
coaches/specialists. These innovative webinars will prove to be both informative and stimulating for all
NGS coaches.


LEAGUE STRUCTURE

PHASE IV: NGS ID TRAINING CAMP
DATES: JANUARY 30 - FEBRUARY 2, 2014

The NGS ID Program is designed specifically to scout and track the top elite male and female soccer
players between the ages of 11 and 14, a critically formative time in a young player’s development
as both a soccer player and an athlete.
The NGS ID Player Tracking Program will be a collaborative effort among the NGS National Technical
Director, the NGS coaches and the NGS regional scouts. The selected players will be invited to
attend the NGS ID Training Camp to be held on January 30 - February 2, 2014, at IMG Academy
in Bradenton, Florida. These soccer athletes will be evaluated on and off the field by IMG Academy
performance experts in all the sports performance disciplines. Also invited to attend this event are
the U.S. National team staff coaches, college coaches and directors of international professional club
academies.
This is a unique opportunity for these elite soccer players to showcase their talents and train with
IMG experts and NGS coaches while enjoying the camaraderie of other elite athletes.


LEAGUE STRUCTURE

PHASE V: NGS CHAMPIONSHIP & FINAL I360 ATHLETIC ASSESSMENT
DATES: APRIL 10 - 13, 2014

The highlight of the NGS experience is the Championship, held April 10-13, 2014 at IMG Academy in
Bradenton, Florida. The top two teams from each conference will compete for the NGS Championship.
The other 2 teams from each conference will compete in cross-conferential games in order to
determine which conference will finish with the highest number of points and ultimately determine
the top conference in the NGS.

U.S. National Staff coaches, college coaches and directors of international professional club
academies will be invited to the NGS Championship.

The final I360 testing will also take place during the NGS Championship to demonstrate each player’s
progression during the eight-month season.


IMG ACADEMY
IMG Academy, a division of IMG Worldwide, the global sports, fashion and media company, is the
world’s largest and most advanced multi-sport training and education complex. For 35 years, IMG
Academy has helped countless youth, adult, collegiate and professional athletes reach their full
potential in and out of sport, by providing world-class coaching, tailored programs and professional
facilities within an energetic environment across a 450-acre campus.

Today the Bradenton, Fla.-based campus attracts 30,000 athletes from nearly 100 countries annually.
IMG Academy offers youth camp and academy programs in baseball, basketball, football, golf,
lacrosse, soccer and tennis, in addition to training opportunities for professional athletes, teams and
leagues. IMG also runs a series of events on its campus and throughout the country on an annual
basis.

I360 ATHLETIC ASSESSMENT
I360 is the ultimate measure of an athlete’s ability and potential. I360 sets the global measurement
standard for comprehensive athletic assessment, improved performance, health and fitness. By
measuring and recording sport-specific physical ability, mental aptitude, communicative skill and a
variety of other key athletic traits, I360 provides a platform for comparison to other athletes by age,
sport and position.


IMG ACADEMY’S I360 PERFORMANCE DISCIPLINES:
NGS PLAYERS EXPERIENCE PROFESSIONAL CURRICULUM

PHYSICAL CONDITIONING COMMUNICATION TRAINING
Develops sport-specific strength, power, Improves self-awareness, social interaction and
movement, speed, agility, flexibility, and overall communication through improvisation
conditioning. and role-playing exercise to make an athlete
comfortable in any setting.

MENTAL CONDITIONING
Builds the mental skills - including confidence, ATHLETIC
focus and determination - that help athletes BODY MANAGEMENT
reach their goals and compete at their best on Rejuvenates the body through the use of
any given day. massage and physical therapy while reducing
the potential of injury through corrective
exercises, allowing for optimal training.
NUTRITION
Optimizes personal nutrition to meet high-
level lifestyle and sport demands, with topics
including optimal everyday nutrition, eating
plans to meet sport-specific demands, body
composition, energy balance and body weight
issues, dietary supplements and hydration
strategies.

VISION TRAINING FOR
GOALKEEPERS
Develops an athlete’s eye muscles and visual
system to enhance hand-eye coordination,
peripheral vision, reaction time and depth
perception.

LEADERSHIP & LIFE SKILLS
Teaches athletes the skills and characteristics
that develop high-performance habits in both
sports and life.


NGS GOALKEEPER VISION TRAINING

USL National Technical Director and U.S. Soccer National Goalkeeping Staff lead instructor Peter
Mellor will work with IMG Academy’s instructors to provide goalkeeper vision training as part of the
NGS curriculum. NGS goalkeepers will be led through a variety of disciplines designed to develop a
goalkeeper’s eye muscles and visual system to enhance hand-eye coordination, peripheral vision,
reaction time and depth perception.

“I have seen and experienced the tests and feel that this unique training will give NGS goalkeepers
an opportunity to experience and stay on the cutting edge of goalkeeper development,” Mellor said.

NGS Goalkeeper Vision Training will work to strengthen a number of visual abilities including:

• Visual Acuity – acuteness or clearness of vision
• Convergence – movement of the eyes turning inward
• Divergence – movement of the eyes turning outward
• Visual Accommodation – the ability to change the refractive power of the eyes to allow for clear
focusing at near or far distances
• Focal Vision – What the brain concentrates on in order to process information
• Peripheral Vision – Vision outside focal vision
• Depth Perception – Ability to perceive the world in three dimensions, being able to sense the
distance of objects
• Visual Memory – The ability to store and retrieve previously experienced visual sensations and
perceptions
• Binocular Fixation – Aiming of the two eyes to an object in space
• Focus & Attention – Selectively concentrating on important aspects while ignoring others, and
holding this focus over time
• Eye-Hand Coordination – Coordinated control of eye movement with hand movement

NGS Goalkeeper Vision Training is a program similar to weight training by nature as it adheres
to the stressing and strengthening of muscles. Results are achieved as participants increase the
strength of the eye muscles, improving the endurance of these muscles and enhancing effective
communication between the brain and the images captured by the eyes.

Ultimately, vision training helps goalkeepers to improve their defending of set pieces (identifying
visual cues to predict the direction of penalties and free kicks), their ability to scan teammates and
opponents, their ability to identify a shot and get their hands on it, their ability to track the ball, and
their ability to move their limbs in the way of a ball hit at speed.


NGS ID PLAYER TRACKING PROGRAM

The NGS ID Player Tracking Program serves as a mechanism to identify and track elite youth players,
as well as showcase their talents for ODP and U.S. Soccer National Team programs. The NGS coaches
and regional scouts, under the supervision of the NGS National Technical Director, will identify a pool
of elite players to be invited to attend the NGS ID Training Camp at IMG Academy in Bradenton,
Florida. These players will be identified during the NGS events at IMG Academy, as well as during the
NGS regular season.

The selected players will undergo testing in all performance disciplines for tracking purposes. Lectures
on mental conditioning, nutrition, life skills and athletic management will be presented. To evaluate their
talent, U.S. National staff coaches, American and international academy scouts and college coaches
will be invited to attend their games.


COACHING DEVELOPMENT & I360 CERTIFICATION
Just like players, coaches must continuously
evolve to keep pace with the rapidly changing
landscape of athletics. To help NGS coaches
stay ahead of the game, IMG specialists will
introduce them to advanced strategies and
cutting-edge methodology. Coaches will learn
how to administer the I360 testing and why it is
important, and will have the opportunity to earn
their I360 certification.

To further benefit NGS clubs and coaches, NGS
will also conduct coaching webinars during the
season on various skill and tactical topics for both
field players and goalkeepers. These coaching
webinars include guest coaches/speakers
from international professional club academies,
U.S. Soccer staff coaches and IMG coaches/
specialists.

In addition to the coaching webinars, the NGS
National Technical Director will conduct monthly
teleconferences with NGS club coaches to
review games played and to discuss player
performance.

The NGS technical training curriculum is based
on the U.S. Soccer Federation’s age-appropriate
coaching guidelines for field players and
goalkeepers.


NGS PARENTAL ROLE
NGS strongly recommends parental involvement
in several key aspects of their child’s NGS
experience, all of which are critical to the
development of the complete elite player. Parents
are encouraged to attend every NGS Phase in
order to familiarize themselves with the NGS
Curriculum and IMG’s performance disciplines,
as well as support their child.

Additionally, NGS will conduct parent webinars
and provide educational information via a
newsletter in an effort to keep parents connected
to their child’s NGS experience.


WHAT IS THE NGS INVITATIONAL?
The Next Generation Series Invitational (NGSI) is the signature event of the Next Generation Series
(NGS) cycle and is more than just another youth soccer tournament. The NGSI features a forward-
looking, innovative, comprehensive, and unique development program designed to develop the
complete elite youth soccer player through a defined regimen of competition, testing, and evaluation.
The NGSI encompasses all of the elements of the NGS in an invitational competition format, and will
give a glimpse into what is to come in the inaugural NGS season in the fall of 2013.

INVITATIONAL: I360 ATHLETIC ASSESSMENT & COMPETITION
DATES: MARCH 28TH - MARCH 31ST, 2013

This event is designed to:

1) Introduce players, coaches and parents
to IMG Academy performance disciplines
2) Conduct I360 testing to ascertain
baseline sports performance levels
for players
3) Invitational competition

During the NGS Invitational, the players and
coaches will be introduced to disciplines of
physical conditioning, mental conditioning,
nutrition, communication training, injury
prevention/recovery, life skills and vision training
for goalkeepers.

Next, the players will be tested by the I360
program on: sport-specific physical ability, mental
aptitude, and communicative skills. All of these
measurements, serving as the players’ baseline,
will be entered into the NGS individual player
data system to begin tracking performance
improvement and serve as a comparison to other
players by age, gender and position.

Teams will play matches against each other to gain
maximum competition in the most professional of
environments.


INVITATIONAL STRUCTURE & DATES

1. AGE GROUPS:

a. U12 & U14; Boys & Girls
2. COMPETITORS

The 2013 NGS Invitational will feature elite teams from around the country, allowing for a
variety of competition.
3. PARTICIPATING TEAMS (BY INVITATION ONLY)

a. U14 Boys – 4 Teams Per Division x 2 Divisions = 8 Total
b. U14 Girls – 4 Teams Per Division x 2 Divisions = 8 Total
c. U12 Boys – 4 Teams Per Division x 2 Divisions = 8 Total
d. U12 Girls – 4 Teams Per Division x 2 Divisions = 8 Total
4. DATES

March 28th - March 31st, 2013
5. LOCATION

IMG Academy, Bradenton, FL
6. COST

$750 per team for NGS Invitational


CONTACT NGS

ABE THOMPSON JASON ARNOLD
Director, NGS Senior Director, Youth Leagues
abe.thompson@uslsoccer.com jason.arnold@uslsoccer.com
Direct: 813.444.7647 Direct: 813.269.1353
Fax: 813.963.3807 Fax: 813.963.3807

PETER MELLOR SCOTT DEAN
National Technical Director Director of Soccer, IMG Academy
peter.mellor@uslsoccer.com scott.dean@imgworld.com
Direct: 813.269.1342 Direct: 941.739.7360
Fax: 813.963.3807 Fax: 941 752 2544

UNITED SOCCER LEAGUES
1715 N. Westshore Blvd., Suite 825
Tampa, FL 33607
USA

WWW.NGSSOCCER.COM


2012 NGS Overview

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