How the Bara Residency Academy in Arizona is quickly having an impact in U.S. youth development

Publish date: 2024-10-12

To many people, Casa Grande, Arizona is simply a few miles worth of signs visible along Interstate 10. Located roughly halfway between Phoenix and Tucson, and with a population of fewer than 60,000 people, the city isn’t particularly well-known, even to Arizona residents.

But Casa Grande now holds significance in the American soccer sphere as the home to one of the nation’s up-and-coming youth academies: the Barça Residency Academy. The result of a partnership between FC Barcelona and Grande Sports World, the training facility in Casa Grande. Barcelona provides the coaching education, tactical methodology, official club kits, and open lines of communication and travel between Casa Grande and Barcelona. Grande Sports World provides and operates the school, the facilities and other day-to-day tasks.

In just its third year of operation, the academy has already legitimized itself with impressive results in the United States Soccer Development Academy, U.S. Soccer’s official youth competition, and has produced some quality, internationally-regarded players. The academy’s website boasts that “every graduate has earned a college scholarship or signed a professional contract.” By their count, they’ve had 44 players sign pro contracts, 169 earn college scholarships and 77 have been called up to their respective national teams.

The Barça Residency Academy has development teams at the U-15, U-17 and U-19 levels, and five “pre-academy” teams with slightly less competitive players who still live on campus and receive the same training, but play in local Arizona club competitions instead of the DA. In their first year of operation — the 2017-18 season — Barça’s U-17s made it farther in the DA playoffs than any non-Major League Soccer club, losing in the semifinals to the eventual champion Seattle Sounders.

Building on the success from 2017-18, their U-19 team began last season with a nine-game unbeaten streak and entered the DA playoffs as the number-two seed in the nation, behind only FC Dallas.

Two of the Barça Residency Academy’s most well-known players featured for those DA teams: LA Galaxy and U.S. youth national team defender Julian Araujo starred for Barça’s U-17s before joining the Galaxy’s academy for the 2018-19 season, and Schalke striker Matthew Hoppe moved up through the U-17s and the U-19s before moving to Germany over the summer. Hoppe, the leading goalscorer in the DA last year, was recently called into a U.S. U-20 national team camp by now former coach Tab Ramos, but was not released by Schalke.

What is it about Casa Grande’s Barça Residency Academy that allows them to perform in the DA and produce quality players for various U.S. youth national teams so quickly?

Part of that question can be answered by looking around the academy’s facilities at Grande Sports World, the former home of Real Salt Lake’s youth teams. It has been awarded “best training facility” by U.S. Soccer three consecutive years. The eight grass fields and the 58,000-square-foot indoor training center are just the start of the Barça Academy’s amenities.

As its name indicates, the Barça Residency Academy is a residency-style operation where kids live on campus throughout the school year. Instead of traveling to and from training multiple times a week, these players are totally immersed in the academy.

“This is soccer heaven to them,” academy and facilities general manager Tim Alai said. “You’ve got the fields, you’ve got the performance center. You eat, sleep, dream, live it every day here.”

Residents are divided by high-school grade level, with dormitories for the underclassmen (freshmen and sophomores) and a resort for the upperclassmen (juniors and seniors). Yes, a resort — living in style is something of a rite of passage for the older residents. In addition to the dorms and the soccer-specific resources, they have access to multiple dining options, with the food prepared in-house, a pool (which is an essential part of any local’s guide to surviving Arizona’s 120-degree summers) and an indoor lounge area with various entertainment platforms.

But it’s not all training and relaxing for the players: Just like other kids their age, they have school work to complete. Arizona State University Preparatory Academy, a charter school with several locations across the state, has a campus on-site at the academy. ASU Prep’s flexible educational model allows students to complete much of their homework online. It’s an ideal setup for high-level youth soccer players who are required to travel around the country for DA games and tournaments. The Barça Residency Academy’s busses are equipped with WiFi so that players can complete their homework on the road.

The list of resources that the academy provides is notable, but on-site living may be the most valuable offering. Despite the benefits of the residency model, there are very few MLS or independent DA academies in the U.S. that utilize it. U.S. Soccer was unable to provide a specific number, but it is believed that there are no more than five or six other full-time residencies in the DA.

Araujo’s agent, Henry Codron, cited residency as one of the Barça Academy’s main draws.

“I think it’s probably 50% the football curriculum that they’re teaching there, but I think it’s also 50% just being in that system and just having to grow up and having to be on your own and take responsibility on your own,” Codron said. “I think a lot of the time we underestimate how important the development of a person is and, to me, I was like, wow, this a place where I’m confident that Julian will develop as a person and as a player.”

“There were some very, very tough moments for Julian at Barça Academy, not from a problem standpoint, but like a ‘Oh my God, I’m here alone, I miss my friends’,” Codron continued. “And that was the most important thing that could have happened. He needs to have gone through that in order to be able to handle the daily tribulations of being a professional.”

Barça Residency Academy’s director of recruiting and soccer operations Miha Kline, whose own professional career was cut short because of a heart problem that required a major surgery, is especially aware of the necessary balance between soccer and personal development.

“Even if your number one goal is to be a professional, you still need to make sure that you think about all possible scenarios,” Kline said. “My story is one of them. You don’t know if there is an injury waiting that can end your career.”

“We firmly believe that (residency) is such a difference maker because players leave their parents for the first time at a young age,” he added. “You have to take care of your room, you have to take out the trash, you have to follow a schedule, you have to learn about time management. There’s accountability and responsibility.”

Why don’t more clubs provide living accommodations for their youth players? Because it’s an extremely expensive setup to maintain. It costs $75,000 per year to attend the Barça Residency Academy in Casa Grande. However, through access to private funding from the facility’s owners, the academy can subsidize fees for many of their players.

“You will never find a player who pays the full tuition on a (development) academy team,” Kline said. “There are a lot of full scholarships, a lot of 90, 80 percent scholarships there. And there’s a good reason for that: if you want to compete with all the other top academies, the MLS academies and some top level non-MLS academies, they are all usually cost-free.”

The residency model isn’t the only unique aspect of the academy, though. As FC Barcelona’s only official residency program in the United States, it has access to resources that few other soccer programs in the world can match.

The Arizona-based setup employs multiple coaches from La Masia, FC Barcelona’s legendary youth academy, and uses FCB’s training curriculum and playing methodology to instruct their players. Staff members also go back-and-forth between Barcelona and Casa Grande to share information on youth development.

All age levels of Barça’s DA teams use a 4-3-3 formation. The coaches emphasize disciplined positioning, building from the back, breaking lines and aggressive pressure to win the ball back in the attacking half.

“It’s a lot of different rondos, different small-sided possession games,” Kline said. “It’s a lot of emphasis on position and possession, and then recovery.”

Each year, players who excel at the academy in Arizona fly across the Atlantic ocean to train at La Masia and be scouted by FC Barcelona’s coaching staff. Before Araujo signed with the Galaxy and Hoppe with Schalke, both took part in those trips. According to Kline, coaches from La Masia took a particular interest in Araujo, and would have signed him “on the spot” if he had been 18 years old and met the FIFA age requirement to complete a move to a European club.

Caden Clark, a U.S. youth international and the current star of the Barça Residency Academy, could be the first player to make a permanent move from Casa Grande, Arizona to Barcelona, Spain. He is the only player in the brief history of the academy to make multiple trips to La Masia, and is generating significant interest from FCB and other American and European clubs.

“He is the top candidate right now to be the first player to go straight to Barcelona from here,” Kline said. “They are very high on him. They had direct communication with him when he was there, and with the family, as well.”

While an opportunity to move to FC Barcelona is exciting for a young player, it’s not without risk. Because the level of competition and demand for immediate results at Barcelona is so high, La Masia players can be buried deep in the academy ranks and never see the light of the first team. Regardless of whether or not Clark decides to sign for Barcelona on his 18th birthday, the fact that he is drawing interest from them is emblematic of the developmental work that the academy in Casa Grande is doing.

Between their residency model, on-field results, USYNT products and access to FC Barcelona’s resources, the Barça Residency Academy is positioned to have a consistent impact on player development in the United States for years to come. Though combining an eager European partner and a flexible fee structures is not a simple task for others to emulate, given its early success, other academies across the country may want to explore following Barça’s model. The academy may be isolated in southern Arizona, but it has put itself on the American soccer youth development map.

Further reading: Inside La Liga’s attempts to find their Christian Pulisic and strengthen ties with the U.S.

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How the Bara Residency Academy in Arizona is quickly having an impact in U.S. youth development