Throughout recent years, the Real Salt Lake-Arizona Academy has produced players for the U.S. U-20 and U-18 National Teams and the Mexican National Team. The next crop of those players will be on display at Rio Tinto Stadium on Wednesday.
The record-setting Real Salt Lake-Arizona U-18 Academy team will play on Wednesday at 4:15 at Rio Tinto Stadium against Real Monarchs SLC. And a 2 p.m. at America First Field, the U-16s will meet the Utah Youth Soccer Association's 99 Boys that won the ODP National Championship in March. Both matches will be free to the public.
The Academy has already produced the likes of Jordan Allen, Sebastian Saucedo and Justen Glad, as well as Carlos Salcedo, but the 2015 class may be the best yet. In 39 games this season, the U-18s have run a 32-3-4 record. Impressive enough, but what amplifies that dominance even more is the 161 goals they have scored (4.13 goals per game) while allowing just 33 goals (0.85 goals per game). The next-highest scoring team in the country is the New York Red Bulls with 96 goals in 26 games.
Led by Damian German and Brooks Lennon with 32 goals each, RSL-AZ has seven players with double-figure scoring. Riding a 10-game winning streak, Wednesday’s match will be a tough test heading into the national playoffs June 23-26 in Westfield, Indiana. The national championships will be July 16-18 in Carson, California.
The Monarchs feature RSL-AZ Academy products Ricardo Velazco, Coco Navarro, Maikon Orellano and Eti Tavares and have had Glad, Saucedo, Lalo Fernandez, Phanuel Kavita and Fito Ovalle on loan.
