NCE Soccer founder John Curtis has told Urban Pitch of his dream to create a neutral soccer program focused solely on individual players.

He claims the American youth soccer system is too politicized and feels that lack of purity restricts US soccer growth.

Curtis was fortunate – and talented enough – to be chosen as a young player for a highly focused footballing fast track program with Manchester United and the English Football Association.

England

He went onto captain England at every youth level and remains the most capped England schoolboy of all-time.

Back then, the Lilleshall Centre of Excellence in England took the very best players from around the country and simply worked to make them better.

Curtis believes he can replicate that model through NCE Soccer in America and tells Urban Pitch of his vision for the future.

He said: “My goal was to try and create that development environment that I experienced.

“I think it’s the environment more than anything else that drives youth development.”

“The minute that you are involved with a club like the Red Bulls or the New England Revolution’s RDS program or City Select is the minute you lose your purity and you get embroiled in politics.

“That is detrimental to youth development and at NCE we try and stay above all of that and offer a program that is completely neutral and only focuses on the best interests of the individual player.”

Beautiful Game

Urban Pitch is an online soccer magazine, providing the ‘street voice of the beautiful game’ and covers freestyle, street football, fashion, art and music.

Journalist Robby Fletcher interviewed NCE Soccer Technical Director Curtis and published the article on Monday.

Read the article in full:

Read Robby’s interview with Coach Curtis via this link

* For media, interview requests or to discuss marketing opportunities please contact James Fletcher at Onside PR via this link.