Shattuck St. Mary’s midfielder Lucas Stauffer has had quite the summer.

The 17-year-old Kentucky native was the youngest member of the U.S. national futsal team that competed at the CONCACAF Futsal Championship down in Guatemala in July.

He followed that up by traveling over to the Netherlands in August for a series of trials with three Dutch clubs: Vitesse, FC Twente and De Graafschap.

And while neither trip was Stauffer’s first soccer experience outside the United States, the trials in particular continued to reinforce how vastly different the game is outside of his native country.

“Obviously going overseas anywhere the competition is going to be much better than what you’ll find in the United States, just because those kids have been doing it a lot longer,” Stauffer told TopDrawerSoccer.com. “The biggest thing I saw, the difference between American players and those players is that they had bred into a system and they were very, very professional in everything they did.”

It took the futsal talent a bit of time to get adjusted, though overall he was pretty happy with how the ten day experience went in Holland.

“The first time at Vitesse I didn’t do so well, but after those two training sessions that I had at that club I got settled in to the time change and everything else and did very well at FC Twente and De Graafschap,” he said. “So hopefully at some point they’ll ask me to come back soon.”

Along with his unique summer, Stauffer has a soccer background extremely different than many Development Academy players his age. Stauffer’s father Ty founded a futsal program called SportsTutor in Owensboro, Kentucky where Lucas began playing when he was 7 or 8 years old.

The path that he embarked on then eventually led Lucas to a spot on the U.S. national futsal team at the age of 16, something that he didn’t really expect to happen.

“I never thought I would be playing for our country in futsal, I just thought of it as a way to sharpen my outdoor game and sharpen my touch, develop my skills better than the average player,” he said.

Becoming a professional is an ultimate goal for the teenager, and he recognizes how important these early opportunities have been in helping him work towards that goal.

“With the national team it’s been a great experience, whenever you go represent your country it’s obviously a great honor, and doing it at such a young age is so helpful to my development and my road to becoming a professional player, either in futsal or outdoor,” he said.

Futsal, a version of indoor soccer played with a smaller ball, is a sport widely popular in Brazil, and is acknowledged as being very valuable in helping young players improve their technical abilities.

Stauffer is a strong proponent of the game, and thinks that it should be used to an even greater length in the USA.

“I believe that futsal is the missing foundation of our country,” he said. “I feel like if we could incorporate more futsal with our youth training, which the Academy is starting to do, then we’ll start developing players like Messi, Neymar, Xavi and Iniesta.”

The USSF DA intends to incorporate futsal into their expansion of the Academy down to the U13 and U14 age groups next season.

With regards to Stauffer future plans, that remains unclear. While he waits to hear back from the Dutch clubs, Stauffer is heading back to school for his senior year at Shattuck St. Mary’s, the Minnesota boarding school where he’ll also play for the U18 team in the upcoming Development Academy season.

And he’s not sure what lies ahead of him after the season ends up, he’s heavily involved in the college process (he was featured in our Recruiting Insider series earlier this year) and will continue to follow up with that.

“I’m still going through the college process and still have some schools that I’m talking to and I want to visit these schools. I don’t know much about the college game but I’m definitely not ruling it out just yet because I haven’t heard from these pro clubs. So I have to keep my options open and keep all my bases covered.”

Wherever he ends up, there’s no questioning how valuable his summer of 2012 experiences will be as he continues his playing career, either at the professional or collegiate level.