Club vision, team adaptability and good old-fashioned soccer talent are serving the Dallas Texans U16 Boys team well as they progress toward defense of their U.S. Youth Soccer National Championship.

Winners last year of the U15 event in Little Rock, Texans added another major accomplishment to their resume by clinching first place in the U.S. Youth Soccer National League with a trio of wins last weekend in Marietta, Georgia. The wins put Texans at 5-0-2 for 17 points, three points ahead of runner-up GSA Phoenix.

With the league title, the squad qualifies for this summer’s nationals in Lancaster, Mass. The league competition was actually completed over just two weekends, with four matches played in Dallas in December and three in Marietta. Nazari said the tight schedule meant focus was vital.

“Getting into it we understand how important the weekend is. We can’t say we’ll have a bad weekend and make it up somewhere else,” he said. “We made it very clear to our boys that we needed their focus and full attention for that weekend. I told them, 'I need your focus to be on that prize, and the prize is going to nationals.’ Yes, it is a challenge to have 15, 16 years old boys to keep focused like that but I’m proud of our boys, and experienced coaches are capable of doing that.”

Nazari added that he would favor the national league going to a format where qualifiers play in a more extensive league schedule and not participate in many other competitions, then be admitted back into the qualifying leagues (such as the Region III Premier League) in the following year if they are relegated from the national league.

Nazari said this 93 team is playing in U.S. Youth Soccer because his 92s are the ones competing in the USSF Development Academy’s U16 age group. He said many from this group will move to the Academy next season.

“Some of these players are developmental players in the Academy so they can have the best of both worlds,” he said. “They get to experience the Academy but they’ve stayed with their team that they’ve been with since U11. Next year this group will go to the Academy. We have a deep pool of players at Texans and even if many go to USSF, we still have a huge pool to compete and continue what the 93s have accomplished. Sometimes bigger is not bad, it’s better. Soccer is changing rapidly and you have to stay on the edge of the competition as a club. You have to have vision.”

Defense was key as Texans surrendered just three goals in seven matches. Defenders Will Sloan, Jake Douglas, Trevor Gonzalez and Robert Deleon helped lead the stifling effort with Nick Petolick and Trevor LeSueur sharing time in goal. Scoring was balanced as Chase Minter, Brandon Perez and Cody Keyes each scored twice to pace a 12-goal effort. Kingsley Bryce scored the winner in the decisive 1-0 victory over GSA on the final weekend.

Following is a team roster and U.S. Youth Soccer’s scoring summary of the team’s matches.

Trevor LeSueur
Nick Petolick
Brandon Perez
Clint Ritter
Ben Brown
Ini Bryce
Jake Douglas
Chase Minter
William Sloan
Edu Aranda
Trevor Gonzales
Duncan Backus
Aaron Simmons
Mitchell Francis
Robbie DeLeon
Aaron Fitzgerald
Cody Keyes
Bryan Zahner


Scores and goalscorers for Dallast Texans: 2008-2009 National League

Texans 0, Chicago Fire Juniors 0
None

Texans 5, Spirit United 1
Brandon Perez, Clint Ritter, Duncan Backus, Chase Minter, Trevor Gonzales

Texans 1, Blast 0
Chase Minter

Texans 1, FC DELCO 1
Bryan Zahner

Texans 2, CASL 1
Cody Keyes, William Elliott

Texans 1, GSA Phoenix 0
Kingsley Bryce

Texans 2, KCFC Rangers 0
Brandon Perez, Cody Keyes