Dersu Abolfathi has done a lot soccer-wise in his 17 years.

His parents speak about his driven personality. He’s gone through school and soccer in an accelerated fashion, both at his home in Southern California and while at the USSF U17 Residency program in Florida for 1 ½ years. Now back in California, he would have been a likely candidate to join the rash of early commitments made by top college soccer recruiting prospects, but for once, Dersu was taking a little longer.

“There were quite a few good choices and that made the process longer,” Abolfathi said. “That was reflected in the amount of time it took to come up with a decision. I did a lot of research and visiting, but at the end of the day Stanford looked like a place where I could achieve a balance between school and soccer. I was impressed with the coaching staff.”

While Bret Simon’s Cardinal squad will be more than enhanced to have a top talent like Abolfathi, his decision is indicative of the dilemma many top American youth players face. Abolfathi, formerly of Southern Californian clubs Irvine Strikers and Pateadores, as well as the U15, U17 and U18 Men’s National teams, is now playing for the U18 Academy team of MLS club Los Angeles Galaxy. So he’s seemingly on the shortest path for an American who wants to start a professional career earlier rather than later, yet the lure of a scholarship to a prestigious university was too hard to pass up.

“I want to play professionally,” said Abolfathi, who chose Stanford over California, Duke and Michigan. “If or when I can is not as easy to say. My family and I have been considering a lot of these decisions and how they best fit my life. It’s definitely something I look forward to doing, but the opportunity of going to Stanford is something I have to make the most of. It would take something pretty special to be better than that.”

Abolfathi’s current club coach, former Newcastle United standout Warren Barton, is a fan of the player’s intellect as well as skill.

“He’s intelligent. His movement and running off the ball have impressed me,” Barton said. “Most American players are physically gifted and can run with the ball and are individuals. Dersu is talented, but he is a smart player too. If he keeps his feet on the ground, which he will because he has a good family, he can be a modern day soccer player.”

Barton added that he sees Abolfathi more as a midfielder while the player sees himself primarily as a striker.

“His energy level is as high it can be, and his commitment is there too,” Barton said. “He’s not going to shirk a tackle or any responsibility. He has all the ingredients to become a top player.”

The family Barton mentions includes Dersu’s parents, Payman and Soosan, who moved to the U.S. from Iran, his younger brother Taras and his older sister Bela. Both parents recall incidents from Dersu’s younger days that indicated he would be a pretty ambitious and driven personality.

“Even when he was in kindergarten I remember how he was at this open house where he was supposed to take me through these stations in the classroom,” Payman Abolfathi remembers. “I went with him and the whole time he was really serious. He dragged me through every station twice before anyone else had gotten through them all once. He’s always been motivated to do things faster and better.”

Soosan Abolfathi tells another school-related story from a few years later, one that illustrates Dersu’s characteristics as a leader.

“At the end of 3rd grade, we were approached by his school and they recommended he go to an accelerated learning program,” she said. “He had to switch schools so he was very resistant. He liked the idea of learning faster, but he was leaving all his friends behind. The first three months of that was such a torture, because in the morning when we would take him he would be in tears. The teacher said we had to give it time, and after 2-3 months they told use that the whole class atmosphere had changed since Dersu had come there. These kids used to stay indoors at recess but they told us now they go outside and play soccer. His personality just attracted the other kids, and he’s always been like that.”

One of Dersu’s on-field attributes is the ability to score goals. He takes a “keep it simple” approach to finishing.

“I always think about it in simple terms,” he said. “A lot of times the game is complicated by your own thinking too much. I always think of a coach from (Liverpool coaching legend) Bill Shankly. He said if you are in the box and don’t know what to do with the ball, just put it in the net, and we’ll talk about your options later. I guess you could consider it an instinctive thing. I’ve seen players like (former Liverpool and current Newcastle pro) Michael Owen. I just watch what they do and try to pick it up and emulate them in my own game.”

Dersu visited and trained at the Liverpool Academy three times before going to the U17 Residency in Florida as a U15 player. He had the option to remain at Bradenton for an additional season but chose to return home for the sake of taking advanced placement courses in preparation for college.

“Residency provides all sorts of resources that other people in the country didn’t have, and in that aspect it was the best place to be,” he said. “The hardest part was to continue progressing after I came home. With all respect that is not always as easy when you are not playing against the highest opposition, but you have to make do with that you have and the clubs around here have been really good to me.”

He adds that the Galaxy training setup he’s been in for six months now is helpful.

“There are a lot of parallels between the stuff at residency and what we have here at the Galaxy,” he said. “They’re on different scales because we’re not training every day, but there are quality coaches we can learn a lot from. There are ex-professional players on the coaching staff and that’s been huge for me to be able to learn little things and sharpen the game. It’s helping me improve as a player and a thinker.”

Abolfathi has also been part of the U.S. Youth Soccer Region IV ODP team in the past, playing on the 1991 birth year squad with such players as Adedoja Akinsanya, Amobi Okugo, Michael Roman and Christopher Ortega.