Lucas Stauffer, first futsal-bred U.S. National Team player

By David Knopf

Futsal World Editor

Davidknopf48@gmail.com

Ty Stauffer is cautious about coming off like a proud father, bragging on his kid or trying to influence his coach.

Lucas Stauffer in action for his high school, Shattuck-St. Mary's in Minnesota.

But Stauffer, founder of the SportsTutor futsal program in Owensboro, Ky., doesn’t need to. His son, 17-year-old Lucas Stauffer, lets his feet, competitive drive and balance talk for him.

Luke Stauffer is a trailblazer in the development of futsal in the United States. A regular participant in U.S. Youth Futsal tournaments in Kansas City who began playing futsal at 8, Stauffer is the first locally developed youth player to earn a spot on the U.S. National Futsal Team.

When National team coach Keith Tozer held the first identification camp for players in 2011, it was the then-16-year-old Stauffer – not his father – who spotted the announcement and pulled strings to attend.

“That’s the way Luke’s been,” his father said. “He saw the ad on the U.S. Soccer site. He got on the phone and said, ‘I can do this. I know I’m not the right age.’ He called them and sent an email. That’s the way he’s always been. He’s a good player, but he’s an even better marketer.”

One of 55 players who attended the ID camp, Stauffer caught Tozer’s eye and was impressive enough to get invited back to California for a second camp from which the roster for the 2011 Grand Prix of Futsal in Brazil was chosen.

Stauffer and teammate Danny Waltman before the Belgium game in which Stauffer scored.

Stauffer made that cut, too, and at 16 became the first U.S.-born, futsal-bred player to represent his country on the futsal national team. Easily the youngest player in the selection process, he emerged from a group that included professional outdoor players and two players who played futsal professionally overseas.

In an interview last month with U.S. Soccer, Tozer described Stauffer as a model for the qualities he hopes to see American futsal players possess.

“I think he’s the prototype for what a U.S. Futsal player is like for the future,” Tozer said. “He’s been woven into youth futsal programs. And immediately you see the qualities he has, working well in tight spaces and with defenders up close. He’s just a soccer guy – any form of soccer.”

Stauffer, quick and compact at 5 feet, 7 inches and 145 pounds, plays outdoor soccer for Shattuck-St. Mary’s, a private school and U.S. Soccer-affiliated developmental academy in Minnesota.

He developed as a youth player in Owensboro, where his father brought his love for futsal to bear. Ty Stauffer, a former college soccer and basketball player, discovered the game in 1992 during a visit to Spain.

In Kentucky, he began organizing pick-up games on a tennis court, then graduated to a concrete floor in a rented warehouse. In November of 2011, Ty Stauffer bought the warehouse, a base of operations for his SportsTutor futsal training programs, pick-up games and team development.

The older Stauffer said his son has some valuable athletic traits, but isn’t a great athlete who can blow past people, outrun them, jump higher or outmuscle them.

Lucas Stauffer, right, and Jeremy Ortiz took a photo in Brazil with Futsal great Falcao.

“What we started to do was play futsal,” he said, recalling when his son was around 8. “What I said you needed to do was become better than any of your friends with the ball.”

As a U-8, Luke Stauffer surprised his father by meeting a challenge and learning to juggle 25 times.

With two colleges in town, Luke was exposed to older players, including some Brazilians, who got together for futsal scrimmages his father organized.

“Luke, he’d just try to fill in when they needed a player,” Ty said.

It was around 2007 when Ty Stauffer brought his first SportsTutor team to Kansas City for the then-Super F Champions Cup. Super F has since evolved into U.S. Youth and Adult Futsal, the only such organization in the country affiliated with U.S. Soccer.

The older Stauffer has taken his love for futsal – primarily the ability to play in tight spaces and combine under pressure – and injected it into a system he’s developed for outdoor teams in the Owensboro area, a largely rural city of 60,000 people in Western Kentucky.

Playing against elite teams from larger population areas, Stauffer said his teams needed to incorporate futsal principles to overcome their opponents’ physical advantages.

“I think to compete with those teams from a bigger market, the thing is for our system to be better than their athletes,” he said.

So his emphasis was on foot skills, quick, compact, passing, possession and calmness in his players’ approach to the game.

“I just think that technique can solve some of the problems you encounter when you play some of these more athletic teams,” he said.

And that was the environment that helped shape Luke Stauffer, the first homegrown, youth futsal National Team player in the U.S.

Ty Stauffer said that if his son has an athletic trait that more physically gifted players lack it’s his balance. Luke’s mother, Jennifer, has performed as a professional ballerina, an art that draws on balance, grace and agility, and some of that gift seems to have passed to her son.

“The one physical talent that he has that’s better than anything else is his balance,” Luke’s father said.

His background in futsal has made him quicker with the ball than many opponents within 10-foot spaces, Ty Stauffer said, and he is technically sound.

But he’s also crafty and, for his size, hard-nosed and competitive. When he played with the U.S. at the Futsal Grand Prix in Brazil last year, in addition to scoring a goal against Belgium Luke Stauffer picked up two yellow cards.

“That wasn’t from being dirty, but being a hard player,” said Ty Stauffer, who surprised his son by showing up in Brazil for the tournament. “He’s a competitive player, and once he tastes blood his motor starts and it doesn’t stop.”

It may sound a bit like a father bragging on his son, but Ty Stauffer’s a professional coach who can list a player’s strengths in the same breath as his weaknesses.

U.S. Futsal National Team Coach Keith Tozer (Courtesy U.S. Soccer).

Tozer apparently saw some of the same strengths. He chose Luke Stauffer to be part of the U.S. team that traveled to Guatemala last month and won three out of four games against local professional teams in preparation for the CONCACAF Futsal Championship later this month.

While on the trip, Luke surprised his father with a phone call. Although he had predicted he wouldn’t be chosen for the team that would compete in the CONCACAF tournament, the youngest American player learned during the trip that he was one of 14 American players to survive the final cut.

“It’s a dream come true for me,” Luke Stauffer said in an interview with U.S. Soccer. “Every time I get called into a training camp, I have a chance to take my game to the next level. I’ve been able to face international competition in Brazil – some of the best competition. I get to train with older guys and for Coach Tozer. I get to develop as a futsal player and also take that to my outdoor game. It’s been absolutely terrific.”

 And to think it all started playing futsal as a youth.

Have a story idea or a comment? Feel free to contact the editor at davidknopf48@gmail.com