The U9 Academy begins this fall! This is a great new opportunity put on by the Columbus Express Soccer Club in conjunction with Indiana Youth Soccer. The idea behind the Academy is to encourage various levels of training to meet all players' skills and ecourage progression into our travel program.

Open registration and parent meeting will be held on Monday, June 4^th and Wednesday, June 6^th both at 6pm at the Richard Wigh Soccer Complex, north of Parkside School.  Players must be born between 8-1-1998 and 7-31-1999. Click here for the registration form.

All U9 players in the Express program will be play in this “Academy” format for league play in Indiana Youth Soccer.  This is different from the regular travel format that has been offered in the past for this age group.  The impetus for this change is mainly to provide a fun and more positive playing environment as these children transition into their first years of the travel soccer experience.  The Academy approach embraces the idea that young players still have a lot of learning and growing to do in the game and recognizes that putting them in an environment where they would receive more training than matches is more developmentally appropriate.  The four major objectives of the Academy format are to create a better environment for player development, coaching development, parent education and referee development.  The Academy format will be set up as four different “play dates” on Saturdays (no Sundays) per season and consist of two matches that day and practices each week throughout the season.  Each player will play at least half the match, so every player will get a chance to play.