U10B 05 Black celebrate the win with Coach Jorge
A big congratulations to our U10B 06 Black team and Coach Jorge for taking home the 2015 U10 NorCal Platinum 3 Cup Championship.
The boys had a great run in this year’s NorCal event beating a very strong Livermore team in a back and forth semi final game. The team followed up that win by beating the highly favored mighty Mustang United team in the final.
Congratulations again boys. Go Placer!
A big congratulations to the Placer United U12B 04 Gold team as they were crowned Champions of NorCal U12 Premier Division last weekend.
The team has already complied an impressive list of championship wins:
The Fall Premier League title will now be the 5th major competition the boys have won this season.
Congratulations to each player, parents and Coach Paul!
Great job, Go Placer!
A huge congratulations to the eleven boys and seven girls from Placer United Soccer Club who were chosen to participate in this weekend’s By-Invitation-Only PDP Camp held at Davis High School. To have a total of eighteen players represent the soccer club is a really high achievement by our coaches in the 2003 and 2004 boys and girls age groups. Great Job! Go Placer!
2003/2004 Girls
2003/2004 Boys
Alumna, Jessica Raybe, Arizona State
October 21, 2015—Pete LaFleur
editor@collegesoccer360.com
Arizona State sophomore forward Jessica Raybe (Lodi, Calif.) – who scored early and then set up the decisive penalty kick in double overtime at Washington – is the top honoree among CS360’s week–9 Primetime Performers Honor Roll for Division I women’s soccer, covering games played from Oct. 12–18, 2015. Raybe is the CS360 National Primetime Player of the Week, while the 15 Primetime Performer honorees for week–9 also include another Pac–12 player in Arizona platoon-starter goalkeeper Lainey Burdett (Las Vegas), the CS360 National Freshman of the Week.
The CS360 Primetime Performers (which began in 2009) highlight players who perform at a high level – both consistently and in timely fashion – during games that carry potential significance to postseason qualification and positioning (i.e. based on quality of opponents and other situational factors, beyond raw stats. The week–9 Primetime Performers include several from teams that were locked in key midseason showdowns against top contenders for their respective 2015 conference regular-season titles (which, in many cases, also carry the bonus of serving as the conference tournament host team).
Raybe and her team headed to Seattle last week desperate for a win, particularly on the road versus one of the nation’s top teams. The sophomore delivered with an early goal and later played a key role in the sequence that produced the winning penalty kick in double overtime, for that 2–1 win over the Huskies (cs360 #15). The result was ASU’s first win over Washington since 2011 (first in Seattle since ’05) and marked only the second time this season that the Huskies have allowed multiple goals. Most importantly, the win at Washington helped ASU’s climb back to .500, which is require as a minimum for receiving an NCAA at-large bid (the Sun Devils now are 5–7-1). ASU also sliced its RPI from triple-digits to 86, with the obvious hope that more quality Pac-12 results could drop that RPI even further into NCAA-bid range (usually at least the 45-50 range). Regardless, a loss (and maybe even a tie) at Washington could have pit an end to ASU’s postseason strategy.
Raybe opened the scoring in the 12th minute, after taking a pass from Madison Kmetko and guiding her shot over the ’keeper into the far-right corner (she also had scored in the previous game, a 1–1 result vs. UCLA). With another 1–1 final looming, Raybe forced the action after splitting two defenders and poking a feed from Whitney Kanavel before being impeded by the onrushing ‘keeper Megan Kufeld (drawing a “last defender” red card and PK). Kanavel then cashed in the penalty try versus backup Sarah Shimer to complete the dramatic road win (105’). BURDETT held back Washington State during a big 1–0 road victory, saving all nine shots on goal (a season-high nine saves) while her busy game also included defensing 25 total shots and six corner kicks. Burdett helped the Wildcats remain in the top half of the highly competitive and talented Pac–12 Conference.
An early enrollee who began her college soccer career at Arizona during the 2015 spring semester, Burdett has split time this season with second-year player (redshirt freshman) Rachel Estopare, going 5–2–1 in her eight starts. The 15 week–9 Primetime Performers include three goalkeepers, three back-line defenders, a pair of holding/defensive midfielders, three other midfielders and four forwards. Burdett is the only freshman among the group, along with nine seniors (one of them a fifth-year player), three juniors and a pair of sophomores.
Two of the week–9 honorees hail from California hometowns and two others are from New York, with the other 11 hailing from 11 different home states: Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin. Two players among the week–9 Primetime Performers – Duke junior defender Christina Gibbons and Western Michigan sophomore forward Emma Kahn – were named to the CS360 Primetime Honor Roll earlier in the 2015 season. Seven on this list have teammates who were Primetime Performer honorees earlier this season: players from Arizona, Arizona State, California, Duke, Hofstra, Mississippi and Wisconsin.
Selection for the CS360 weekly awards is based on any/all of the following “primetime” criteria (i.e. not solely based on raw stats):
October 15, 2015 — If you were unable to attend the Placer United Information Night, following is the slide show presentation.
October 7, 2015 — Placer United Soccer Club will host an Information Night to provide current and prospective competitive soccer players and their families with an opportunity to learn about the new US Soccer Mandated Player Development Changes.
The focus of the meeting will be on the new calendar birth year mandate process and how that will affect the next tryout season. In addition, standards for age groups U6-U12 and U13 and above will be defined by Director of Soccer Operations, Paul O’Brien In order to eliminate confusion and misinformation.
This is an important review and we hope that you will be able to attend with your player.
Thank you
Placer United Soccer Club
Date: Wednesday, October 14th
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: Placer United Soccer Indoor Training Center (Tinker)
Abena Aidoo, midfielder, Placer United U16G 00 Gold
Abena Aidoo of Placer United’s U16 Girls 00 Gold team, was called up to the U17 Women’s Ghanaian National Team Camp as they prepare for the 2016 U17 World Cup qualifying matches in January. Placer United reached out to a Northern California Ghanaian representative so coaches could take a look at Abena and make a decision on bringing her to camp. The camp will take place in Accra, the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an estimated urban population of 2.27 million, from October 11-20.
“I am beyond blessed and grateful for this opportunity to represent my home country.” said Aidoo.
Aidoo is a 4.0 GPA sophomore student-athlete at James C. Enochs High School in Modesto. She drives three times a week to Rocklin for soccer training with Placer United.
Soccer Highlights
“We are very proud of Abena and her latest call up into the Ghanaian National Team camp,” said Ron Benjamin, U16 girls coach at Placer United “She has the work rate, desire and capabilities to play at the next level. This will be a great experience for her and we wish her the best of luck.”
Abena Aidoo prepares to take a shot on goal at the soccerloco Surf Cup tournament in San Diego in 2015
U12B 04 Gold – 2015 Davis Premier Cup Champions
Congratulations to the U12B 04 Gold and U13B 03 Gold teams who both took home first place at the Davis Premier Cup tournament held at the DYSL complex this past weekend. The U12 boys scored a grand total of nineteen goals in four games on the way to securing their second Davis Championship series trophy of the year.
U13B 03 Gold – 2015 Davis Premier Cup Champions
The U13 boys erased their early summer final disappointment at Davis by beating the Ethos Earthquakes in the Premier Cup final on PKs in a very lively and competitive game
Congratulations to both teams! Go Placer!
by John Wykoff
Polish Jew Leon Faingold was a Holocaust survivor. The native of Poland was among the few to survive the infamous Auschwitz network of concentration camps where at least 1.1 million people were killed by the Nazis during World War II. 90 percent of them were Jewish.
Portland State University Goalkeeper, Abbie Faingold
So, redshirt freshman goalkeeper Abbie Faingold‘s recent trip to Berlin to participate in the 2015 European Maccabi Games, had a special meaning. The Maccabi Games bring together Jewish athletes from Europe, the U.S. and Mexico for a wide range of sporting contests, from soccer to horseback riding to chess.
As you’ve probably guessed, Leon Faingold was Abbie Faingold‘s paternal grandfather, who immigrated to the United States after the war.
The 2015 European Maccabi Games soccer matches were held in the 110,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the largest stadium in the world when built by Adolph Hitler to showcase the new Nazi Germany during the 1936 Olympics held in Berlin.
And the Nazis didn’t allow German Jews to participate on their Olympic team even though several were among top world contenders.
“We played in the Olympic Stadium built by Hitler. Having 2,000 Jewish athletes in the stadium Hitler built shows how we’ve grown in 80 years, how tough we are, that we’re not going away,” said Faingold.
She found the experience somber at first, thinking about the discrimination, she said. “However, being there with 2,000 Jewish athletes was very eye opening and made me excited for the games to begin. It gave me chills thinking that here we all are, walking into a stadium which we would’ve been forbidden to be in 80 years ago,” she said.
“Not only did I want to compete for myself and country, but I also wanted to dedicate my wins to my grandfather who had to endure Auschwitz through the duration of the war and was denied his childhood,” Faingold added.
There also were tours of Berlin, which included buildings damaged during the war but still standing…”and there’s still a big difference between East and West Berlin” with West Berlin appearing much more prosperous, she said.
For all that, Faingold’s biggest takeaway from this experience was the friendships she developed. Most of the American women soccer players selected for these Maccabi Games play on Division I or Division II soccer teams. In fact, she’s played against a couple of them in pre-season matches this year.
“We got to know each other and have become close friends. We’ve stayed in touch since we got back and our goal is to play in the Israel Maccabi games in two years (there are European, Pan American and Israeli Maccabi Games). We’ll see. The selection is a little stricter for that one, but that’s our goal,” said Faingold.
In terms of soccer, she said the matches weren’t terribly competitive because it was the American team, with a much larger pool from which to choose, against national teams from Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany.
Still, she thought it helped her soccer.
“We had different coaches so we got comments on our playing from different points of view. I had to learn to be more comfortable in a new environment and be more vocal, more of a leader, in telling girls what I needed from them. You learn to adjust quickly and seeing how other countries play is useful.”
Overall, said Faingold, “I think everyone felt proud to be walking into the Olympic Park and thinking, ‘we are still here’. We all wanted to do our best and bring home a gold for America (which they did with a 2-0 win over Sweden).
And, regardless of whether or not Faingold gets into more Maccabi Games, she’s confident she won’t soon forget these games. “It was an experience that will be with me the rest of my life.”
After the summer ODP Sub-Regional event and Regional Camp at Linfield College in Oregon, five Placer United players were selected for the 2015 US Youth Soccer ODP Thanksgiving Inter-Regionals. The top players from around the country will gather in Boca Raton, Florida on the 21st of November. There will be scouts in attendance from US Soccer and a number of college coaches. The following players will represent Region IV from Placer United:
Congrats girls! Well deserved!
by Steven Wilson, Press Tribune Sports Editor
August, 2015—The host teams were celebrating left and right at Placer United’s Juniors Cup hosted at Del Oro High School Aug. 8-9 as nearly all of their teams brought home hardware.
Out of the eight age groups, ranging from U8-U11 for both boys and girls, Placer United won every bracket except the two U8 competitions. The U9 girls final even included both the Placer United Gold and Black teams — a matchup that the Gold squad won 3-2 in a back-and-forth final.
Among the star teams for Roseville’s closest competitive soccer teams were the U10 Boys Gold, who erupted for five goals in the second half after going into halftime of the final deadlocked in a 1-1 tie with Santa Rosa United Boca. Placer United’s team scored three times in the opening ten minutes of the second stanza and coasted to a 6-1 victory to claim the championship.
The team’s coach, Chris Hall, was complimentary of the progress his team made over the course of a weekend. Hall also noted that tournaments like the Juniors Cup can be the earliest exposures to competitive soccer for his team.
“Tournaments help with player development because (you play) a lot of games close together, so all of the players get a lot of playing time,” said Hall, who walked around and congratulated all of his players individually during the celebration.
In the time leading up to the tournament, which was sponsored by Adidas, Placer United worked to ensure a high quality of play by searching for opposing teams that push their players to improve and adapt.
“This tournament in particular is very competitive,” Hall proclaimed. “With just the top teams in the area, the level of competition is extremely high. “The players love it. All they want is to compete with the best teams.”
Placer United, as a club, must have been very pleased with how the weekend went, as their youth tournament drew teams from some of the best clubs in Sacramento, including Sac United, FC Elk Grove, and San Juan among others.
The stacked level of competitive provided for entertaining results.
“The players bond more when they have to work harder or play more games in a stressful tournament,” Hall explained. “In the long term you see the development of the team as a whole and of the individuals on the side of skills and tactics.”
These are exactly the results that Placer United was looking for before hosting a tournament strictly for their younger age groups, focusing on player development, but of course six first place trophies were a nice reward too.