The vaunted FC Dallas academy punched through to a new level unknown even to them over the weekend. In the span of hours, the North Texas club became the first in the nine-year history of the Development Academy to sweep U16 and U18 national titles in one year. In the same breath, they also became the first in history to win back-to-back U16 titles.

It’s difficult to adequately convey the difficulty in the task. Teams march through a grueling 10-month regular season only to be dumped out into a group-stage playoff format, then knockout matches, and then a final four in Carson, Calif. To win not one, but two national titles at two different age groups on the same day reflects a frankly insane dedication to developing uniformity in quality at the youth level.

FC Dallas did it. If they weren’t the developmental envy of MLS before, they’ve certainly usurped that title now.

Presiding over the accomplishment was Luchi Gonzalez, FC Dallas’s academy director and former academy coach. Gonzalez walks in the shadows of giants, as current head coach Oscar Pareja once stood where he now does. But even Pareja didn’t pull off what FC Dallas just accomplished in the academy's most vaunted competition.

Gonzalez took time with TDS this week to talk about what it takes to climb to the top of the academy, how pay-to-play creates entitled parents, where the academy goes from here and much more.

What was the framework of your dual title run? How would you describe to somebody the foundations of how this came about?

“In regards to the last few years, it’s hard to put your finger on one or two things. I think it’s a lot of things. First of all, we’ve been fortunate to have a great integration with the pro team, with (FC Dallas head coach) Oscar (Pareja) and his staff. In the last two years we’ve really kind of improved that area of just continual training with our young players with our pro team, getting them that experience, getting higher level training.

“We don’t really have turnover in our program. We believe in our coaches, so we’ll just kind of reposition the coaches we have. Chris Hayden became the U18 coach when Oscar had gone. And then we decided to put him with the U14s. I was the U18 coach for two seasons and we felt that the best fit would be to put me with the U16s, and Francisco Molina was the U15s coach and he became the U18 coach. We felt like we kind of got it right with the appropriate coaches with the right age groups.

“We also have a U15 team. U.S. Soccer doesn’t have a U15 group (in the Development Academy), but we believe in single age group. We’ve had very good teams all the way down to the U7s. We have a very big youth club, and we have a foundation. Even though the Development Academy doesn’t start until the U14s, for us the academy starts down at U7s, U8s, U9s. Now the academy is recognizing, next season with the arrival of the U12 age group, but we still have the U15s, because we recognize that’s the foundation of our U16s.

“Our Zone 1, our youngest age groups, are lucky to have a youth club with a pool of thousands of players at the base of our pyramid that create a pathway that are the bottom of that pathway to the pro team.”

How do you feel like having all of these things installed for a while now has helped ingratiate players into the system?

“I feel like just time has helped too. With time we’ve been able to structure ourselves better with our staffing. We have great integration not just with the pro team but between age groups. The 15s training with 16s, or 16s training with 18s. We do that a lot. I think that’s important. We formalized our academy. We didn’t have a director for a few years and I became the director last year. That allowed us to formalize things more in meetings so we’re all in the same path with our rosters and setups and periodization.

“We added a physical coach. I think that’s one of the strengths we added this past year, we added a physical coach strictly to the academy that works with all of our age groups. Our boys are strong this year, and they were soccer specific strong. They were fit, they were confident, they were healthy. Knock on wood, we didn’t have too many injuries this year, and I think that has a lot to do with our strength program.

“I think it’s just holistic improvement. It’s all these little areas where the sums of all their parts are something big. We still feel like we have a long ways to go. We’d like to have a scouting department one day. We do all of our scouting as coaches and we meet and discuss it, but in the future we’d like to have a scouting director. That can help us continue to get better.

“We’ve always had a residency. I think we’ve made that more healthy and safe and organized for our residency players that come in. We have a supervisor now that lives with the boys at residency. He’s fantastic. He’s passionate about the program and he’s like a big brother to all of our players. That’s improved. We have our school program. We have a college director who places all of our kids in position to graduate and get NCAA scholarships, because the majority are going to go to college.”

Why haven’t other MLS clubs done what you guys have done? Why do you think you guys are where you are and so many sort of haven’t followed suit?

“I’m not sure. There’s a lot of academies that do a fantastic job. We envy them in some ways where we’d like to improve that they have fully functioning. But I think our leadership is one where they don’t ask why should we put a player from the academy to the first team. They ask why should we not? I’m talking about (FC Dallas technical director) Fernando (Clavijo) and ownership, the Hunts. Their vision when they started the academy and the club was to play homegrown players. That’s Lamar Hunt’s vision, and then it became Clark’s and Dan Hunt’s. And then Oscar had the personality where he just wants to promote young players to the first team. Of our five pro staff members, three came from the academy.

“I think from the top there’s a determination to play the top players. There’s a mentality there that maybe doesn’t exist in other places, but I think it will soon enough. It will if these clubs want a future in the league long term. I think we have talent too. Dallas has a great melting pot of players of different backgrounds and mentalities. It’s also this very competitive culture in youth sports. Youth soccer here is promotion-relegation. You have these local leagues at U10, 11, 12, 13, and there’s promotion and relegation between divisions.

“It’s pretty volatile. You have teams that turn over because of these types of drama of maybe getting relegated and the top few players go to a team that got promoted or maybe stayed up. Youth soccer here is pretty competitive. I think it’s created this passionate culture. We have talent. There’s a lot of great Hispanic players in Dallas. There’s great structure, great athletes. There are in other cities as well, but I think that combined with the mentalities and the desire to have teams on the first team, it helps.

“We have a great culture at FC Dallas. We train five times a week, have a school program that allows us to train at the same time as the pro team; there’s just a lot. It’s a holistic idea.”

You guys are obviously free as an academy. Seeing kids come into your academy and be game-changers who might not have been able to afford it if you charged, what perspective has that given you on the pay-to-play system in the U.S.?

“I’m lucky. I’m a director at a pro club with ownership that also allowed us to form a youth club that helps us fund things from the bottom up. Because our (non-DA) youth club is pay-to-play, our academy is fully funded. The youth club is fees and registration and tournament fees, and that covers (academy) salaries and gear and field space. And then our academy is just completely free for our elite players.

“And we would not be where we are if it was not fully funded. Because we have some very special talent that could not afford it. We do both, but when it comes to the elite program it has to be fully funded. I have a kid that’s going to join next season, a 2001. We’re putting him in residency and he’s going to get a scholarship. He’s a kid that’s really special, but we would have no chance at him if we weren’t able to provide financial convenience for him.

“For me, for the future, a pro club has to be fully funded. We’ll never compete with the Boca Juniors’ and River Plates in South America, or the Barcelonas or Real Madrids overseas. I’m not saying we’ll get to those levels, but in terms of the resources we have, and the care and support in our academy, why not? Why not compete with those academies? Why not be as good as them, if not better?

“If something is fully funded, the leverage is different. We have to make professional decisions, soccer decisions, and rosters, and where these players are playing in terms of positions. Of course we have to have a good relationship with the parents, because the kid wouldn’t come without the support of their parent. It’s a mutual development between home and here at the club. But the leverage is different. We can’t make decisions based on whether the parent will like it or not, whether that’s playing time or position. We’re a pro club. We have competent and knowledgable and experienced staff that are going to make good decisions by these young men.

“The only way we’re free to make those decisions is making sure parents aren’t charged anything. The second you’re charged, there’s a sense of entitlement and that you can influence decisions. No disrespect to parents, we don’t get where we are without their support. But we have to be free to make decisions on these kids without parent influence. When you have pay-to-play models, you have boards, and with boards you have parents, and the agendas are completely different than what they could be, or what they should be.

“There’s a lot of fantastic clubs with boards and parents that are pay-to-play. But when you’re talking about developing a world class player to play for their national team, to play in their stadium in their local club, or to play overseas or down in Latin America at the highest level, it’s just not ideal to involve a pathway where there’s pay-to-play or parent influence on soccer decisions. Every now and then you have a Pulisic, but for every Pulisic there’s a thousand kids who don’t have the right pathway to get to the top.”

From where you sit, what is the state of the Development Academy right now? Where is it growing and where does it still need to improve?

“It’s in a great place. I think U.S. Soccer and MLS academies are beginning to have a better relationship and understanding. There’s more consultation from U.S. Soccer with MLS clubs and academies on the future of the league and the structure of the league. That’s important. That’s vital. I don’t think players are going to be successful at their club or country if club and country cannot work together. That doesn’t mean they have to see eye-to-eye on everything, but at least we’re communicating, there’s committees, and we’re making decisions together about the league and competition platforms and player selection.

“I think that’s only going to continue to improve with good communication. I see that. I see (U.S. Soccer DA director of scouting) Tony Lepore and other national team coaches more now than ever going out of their way to be in touch with the coaches and directors and players or non-MLS academies. Those are vital, and they are the majority of the league and the main constituents, and they’re super important in the continuing success of youth development. But I also think there has to be a weighted consideration on MLS clubs.

“I feel like that’s improved a lot. And I think it’ll continue to get better. We appreciate our relationship with our federation, and with other federations. We have players that are involved in the Mexican national team. Those are good experiences for them, for our players.

“In terms of the league, we try to find the highest competition level possible. Monday through Fridays, it’s all about finding the highest competition possible. We train up in age, we scrimmage against the pro team, against the college guys in the league in the summer. We’ve got our U15s and U16s always playing against local men’s teams. We play international events to play international clubs where you get punished for mistakes. That’s how you learn and grow.

“The league is in a good place and wants to find ways to improve. They’re talking about some ideas I can’t really talk about yet, but I know they’re going to expand in some ideas and initiatives. Another thing for me is finding ways to get more international competition. I think the more opportunities MLS clubs can play international teams, the richer our experiences are and the more growing you do. That’s what makes players more ready to be professionals.”