EF Academy launches the first season of Soccer in the 2023-2024 school year. This year the team will be trained by Coach Kurfirst and Coach Montgomery. Coach K. who also has the role of University and AcademicCounselor at EF, played soccer for the University of Chicago. Through his experience, the team will be prepared to compete in the soccer season for the first time. While this is Coach K.’s first year coaching in a high school, he knows the tactics for playing in college, and he believes he can improve the team’s organization and time management. During the preparation for the season, the coaches organized the training, working on skills, tactics, and conditioning.
“The coaches are trying to push the team to get better each day to develop skills and act as a team. They believe that this team can become a real ‘family’ and always stay together, even if they lose a match during the season,” says Coach Kyle.
The Captain of the team is Pedro Hamada. The coaches chose him because he demonstrated effort during the training, and he pushed all the players to improve. Pedro also has a lot of experience as he used to be an important player in his own country. The Coaches believe he can be a wonderful resource for this team.
Unfortunately, for this new season of EF Academy, many students who want to play are ineligible because of the rules of the State of California. This issue is more common at EF, which as a boarding school has many students who come from different systems of schools, which is not accounted for by CIF rules.
The roster is composed of only 12 movement players and two goalkeepers, so the Coaches have to manage them as well as possible so the guys do not get injured or tired. This can be a problem for the coaches because in soccer you play with 10 movement players and 1 goalkeeper. In our situation, we have only two substitutions so it is important that the players don’t get injured.
On Tuesday, the 14th, the Soccer Season of EF will play its first game at Pirmilil School in Pasadena.
Unfortunately, this year, the team doesn’t play any of their matches here at EF’s field where the team is training during this season. Playing only away games makes bringing supporters challenging. However, Coach Clapp, EF’s Athletics Director, and Ms. Kaitlyn, EF’s Student Activities Coordinator, are trying to organize buses on Saturday the 18th to bring some students of EF to support their team. While this year will be filled with away games and bus rides, We hope for a successful first season and that EF will be ready to host matches for next year.
