In less than three weeks, Boca Juniors USA will officially lift off the ground. A new, uniquely multi-cultural academy system is born. 

The famed Argentinian club is bringing its developmental model to the U.S. in the form of a new root-to-twig academy system. The project, which has been five years in the making, will exist initially in Long Island, N.Y., with expansion options to Austin, Texas and possibly Chicago or St. Louis, among others.

Boca is importing its exact developmental model from Argentina, which starts with ages 4-7 at the pre-academy level, then graduates to the youth academy for ages 9-14 before pooling into the professional academy for ages 15-18. The academy won’t compete this spring as it gathers momentum and stocks up its ranks for the first time, but they’ve set this summer as a target date for entering competition. Boca could not yet confirm whether it was entering the Development Academy for 2014-15, but it will be competing in some fashion by the start of the fall season.

Franchising pre-existing clubs within the Development Academy is nothing particularly new. Chelsea, Everton and Paris Saint Germain all have partnerships with U.S. clubs, which adds some benefit from the mothership while keeping some autonomy on the part of the developmental system here. In those cases, the clubs existed in the U.S. before linking up with their new international namesakes.

Boca is going about it differently. The club has franchise agreements within 25 academies spread around the world - including a coveted partnership with Barcelona - but this is Boca’s first ever fully functioning, standalone academy outside Argentina. In terms of brand appeal, there should be few issues; the Buenos Aires club has garnered a hard-won reputation as a producer of some of the world’s best talent. Known as The Boca Factory, the academy has pushed out players like Juan Roman Riquelme, Carlos Tevez and Fernando Gago.

Now, they hope to import that model to the U.S. almost verbatim.

“Basically we were trying to come to the U.S. for the last five years to see what was the approach to do it,” said Boca Juniors USA CEO Mariano Berenstein. “Particularly we’ve been doing a lot of studies and research in-house to see what’s the best approach to this market. We are trying in the future to have a professional team, but we don’t know yet. The idea is to try to build a brand first and to have academies and trying to learn from the market. We know soccer, but we don’t know American soccer. We’re trying to learn from it and see how we can add value to the market.”

The bombshell about a possible professional Boca franchise in the U.S. is big, but it’s nothing particularly novel. In 2011, discussion on the topic kicked up when Boca marketing manager Pablo Fuentes revealed to MLSSoccer.com that MLS and Boca had engaged in productive discussions on adding the club to the league’s growing roster of teams. Berenstein confirmed that continued interest to TopDrawerSoccer.com.

Three years ago, a Boca USA seemed like more of a cursory discussion, but Boca’s academy is a possible game-changer. With an operating development system embedded within the fabric of U.S. soccer, Boca added a massive bargaining chip if it did indeed want to throw its hat in the ring for MLS’s future expansion plans. In that sense, it’s already on a unique track.

“We need to build from the bottom up, so that’s why we’re creating a small academy,” Berenstein said. “We want to engage with the community and tell them that we are here and we’d like to learn from you, so tell us what we need to do and we’ll do it. That’s the way we built our club in 1905.”

As for MLS, that could be down the road, but building a functioning academy is first.

“It’s tough to say that we are trying to buy a franchise for MLS, and building a stadium and spending $500 million for that,” Berenstein said. “We’d like to learn from you, and it’s a long journey. We know as a non-profit organization that we need to add value to the people, to the community and to the families. So that’s our motto.”

So why the U.S.? The answer goes back about five years. Boca received positive feedback from a successful U.S. tour to Los Angeles, Portland and Seattle in 2010, and the U.S.’s large Hispanic population guarantees a healthy level of brand awareness off the bat. The country’s growing presence as a soccer nation also played its part.

Boca’s academy officially gets its start later this month with a week of tryouts from March 21-29. The club has already enlisted the services of A-licensed coaches for its youth and professional academies, and it wants to be as grassroots as possible by building alongside the local Long Island community. Because the academy is launching in the middle of the season, Boca is offering its services as a complement to other academies for now with two training sessions per week.

As for its place in the firmament of U.S. soccer, Boca hopes to lock down a niche sooner rather than later.

“The soccer club is a non-profit organization based in Argentina,” Berenstein said. “So this is the first time we’ve done something outside Argentina on our own. We have 25 soccer academies around the world, but this is the first time we’re doing it ourselves, so it’s our own academy, it’s not a franchise model. In terms of our product, we’re trying to build academies and learn from the people who are coming in.”

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