By David Knopf
Futsal World Editor
Ty Stauffer
is cautious about coming off like a proud father, bragging on his kid or trying
to influence his coach.
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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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
