(TopDrawerSoccer.com Managing Editor Robert Ziegler recently spent part of a week in Bradenton, Florida with the U17 Men’s National Team residency program. Following is one of a series of articles about what he saw and heard there).

 

BRADENTON, FLORIDA – Junior Flores can be a special soccer player.

 

Anyone who watched the U17 Men’s National Team in action late last year during the Nike Friendlies already knows that. He has tremendous technique and combines it with excellent soccer instincts to make for a truly skilled player. Those of us wishing for bigger and better things for American soccer on a professional and international level tend to get excited when we see young players like Junior come along.

 

Having just turned 16 this week, the sky seems to be the limit for the attacking midfielder. An unsourced report in a newspaper from his home area of Northern Virginia talked about agents and shoe contracts and deals with professional clubs overseas being lined up. Junior told our Travis Clark that the story was just “rumors” but there’s likely plenty of fire to go with that smoke (and it’s likely not an accident that the story ran). Whatever the particulars, it’s certain by now that Junior will be pursuing professional soccer, not the college route. He has a tremendous opportunity before him with the U17 MNT and beyond.

 

He needs to understand it could all come crashing down very quickly.

 

I’ve seen too many players identified as the next big thing whose soccer careers amounted to nothing. I’ve been part of anointing some of them, even as I tried to mute expectations and deflect criticism from them.

 

A player like Junior needs to understand his success will have nothing to do with what he’s done so far, but with the things he does from now on, going forward.  He has to maintain the highest work ethic, a tremendous enthusiasm and love for the game itself, and a great humility about himself as a person and a player.

 

I’ve just met him briefly during my trip to Florida and he seems like a nice young man. I have no reason to believe he won’t do any or all of the right things, but I feel compelled to write this word of caution, because I know anyone in his situation will have people lining up to tell him how great he is. Some do this just due to misguided enthusiasm, while others are truly hoping to get a cut of the potential action. Junior needs to drive all of their words out of his head and just keep working under the authority of coaches. Most of all he needs to keep close to the people who care about him as a person, not as a money or fame machine. 

 

So, all of that said, watch the brief interview we did a couple of weeks ago in Bradenton.\

 

Here are the other articles from this series: