What It Means for Our Dallas Surf Community

The USYS National League is the competitive platform many of our Dallas Surf teams participate in each year. It plays an important role in our player development pathway by providing meaningful games, strong opponents, and opportunities on a national stage.

This month, we take a closer look at what the league offers our players and highlight the recent success of our 11G Evans group, who earned a place in the postseason after a strong showing at the Winter Event.

What Makes the USYS National League Stand Out

Regional Play With Real Purpose

Teams compete against strong opponents within the Frontier region, facing clubs from North Texas, Houston, and Austin. Every match has consequence, creating a competitive and engaging experience for players and families.

Pathways to National Competition

Teams can advance out of regional play and earn spots in National League showcases. These events feature top programs from across the country and provide meaningful competition and high visibility.

A Development-Focused Environment

The National League’s structure supports consistent, challenging games that help players progress technically, tactically, and mentally.

A True National Scope

The National League is one of the largest competitive player development platforms in the United States, connecting teams from every region.

Robust Recruiting Opportunities – Girls & Boys Winter Events
The Girls Winter Event in November drew 94 college coaches from across the country, representing NCAA Division I, Division II, Division III, NJCAA, and NAIA programs. This level of attendance highlights the strong recruiting value built into the National League.

The Boys Event welcomed an impressive range of scouts, including professional team scouts from Italian club Como, alongside almost 40 coaches from NCAA Division I through NJCAA and NAIA. These opportunities give our players meaningful visibility at all levels of the game.

Highlighting Recent Success

Our 11G Evans group made the most of their National League opportunity. They performed well at the Winter Event in Arizona, playing tough competition from California, Washington and Texas. Earning two important wins, and securing a place in the postseason. It’s a good example of how meaningful games and real competition support our players’ growth.

For our Dallas Surf members, the USYS National League is more than a schedule of games. It’s a competitive environment that challenges players, exposes them to new demands, and supports long term development. We’re proud to provide this pathway for our families and proud of how our players continue to rise to the challenge.

For more information on the platform, click here.

Questions? Contact our National League Director, Rich Evans – revans@dallassurf.com

Key Themes for Designing Soccer Training Sessions

• Joy Matters

Even as we focused on objective knowledge, we started with an important reminder: Joy fuels a love for the game, and that love fuels development. Joy is also contagious, keeping players more engaged, and drives long-term growth.

• Objective Truths are the Starting Point

Whether it’s professional or amateur, men’s or women’s, 11v11 or 3v3 — the game is always the same: One team tries to score and the other tries to stop them and both transition between those states many times during a game. Using Raymond Verheijen’s approach, Soccer can be broken down into soccer actions such as passing, pressing, dribbling, and finishing. Each action has three inseparable components:

1. Communication (C): Where are my teammates? Where are the opponents? What space is available?

2. Decision (D): What should I do, and how should I do it?

3. Execution (E): Executing the decision (technique).

The important point is that execution never comes first. Soccer is a contextual game, which means the rule for training must reflect that. If we design practices that remove communication and decision-making, we move away from the truths of the game. There is a place for isolated practice, but if we accept soccer is a contextual game, then context is the rule. If you move away from that, then we must argue for (isolated) it and not the other way around.

• Core Games That Cover All Aspects of the Game

We don’t need endless ‘drills’. What we need are repeatable core ‘games’ that players love, where we can scale the challenge up or down to suit the players in front of us. These games should be Simple (more below) & cover all parts of soccer, CDE & game situations (building vs pressing, scoring goals vs defending the goal).

The game itself is the teacher — but this isn’t simply “let them play.” Our job as coaches is to design the environment (exercise) so that learning happens through the exercise, then step in with interventions that connect the activity to the game and accelerate transfer.

• Simplify – Clarity Over Complexity.

Every session should have one clear focus. This gives clarity to players: “This is the focus. This is the problem we are solving. This is why we are working on it.” In other words, we use our core games to help them to solve a soccer problem. Why core games? Consistency helps us perfect, we eliminate games that aren’t helping us improve or the players dont love, we can gradually increase overload because we have a clear reference for player development.

The games should be simple? (Simple does not mean its easy!) Players can think about the problem they are trying to solve and not the complicated rules of the exercise. The game already contains everything you need, remove anything that create distraction from the focus.

On-Field Session Highlights

To put these ideas into action, our staff stepped onto the field together and ran through a 90-minute session. This is what the session looked like…

• Rondo Variations:

• 2v1 Dribbling/Finishing:

• 4v4 + 3 Positional Game:

• 5v5 Small-Sided Game:

• 9v9 Team Game

Every activity included CDE (communication → decision → execution), always in context and under pressure from opposition. We also included all game situations, build vs press, score vs stop goals and transitions were present throughout.

It’s important to remember that the specific exercises themselves aren’t what matter most. There are countless drills we could choose from. What matters is the intention behind the design — what problem we’re solving, and how the activity helps players find solutions.

This session focus: Can we progress beyond at least one line?

This meant every player (coach) had to solve soccer problems, interact with the soccer environment (team/opponent), had many opportunities to make decisions (what and how) and execute that decision using technique.

Key Takeaways

This night wasn’t about just showing coaches exercises and a session — there is no purpose or why behind that? As we have said, clarity is key, for players or coaches. It was about aligning on the universal truths of the games and using those to raise training standards, and therefore player development.

Main takeaways:

• Joy fuels motivation — and motivation drives intensity, which drives development.

• Soccer truths never change — every action is communication → decision → execution.

• The game (context) is the starting point — if you move away from that, what’s the purpose?

• Core games are enough — adapt them to create the right challenge for your players.

• Clarity beats complexity — simple isn’t easy, but clarity is what players and coaches need most.

We’re proud of our staff for stepping on the field, engaging fully, and challenging each other as we continue to build a ‘best of the best’ environment for our players and staff.

🎓 The College Advisory Program: Your Family’s Guide

🙋 Raise your hand if you remember getting somewhere without asking Siri, Google Maps, or any other navigation app. From here to someplace you had never been before required a paper map, research, and hoping there were no dead ends. If you were lucky, you had directions from a trusted guide who had been there before.

I am your guide for the College Advisory Program. I’ve been down this road as a Player, a Coach, and a Parent. Every time I’ve walked the path over my 41 years in the game, I’ve learned something new. Regardless of what twists and turns you encounter, I am here to help!

🎓 Why This Matters

Navigating your child’s college journey can be incredibly confusing. Considering their college experience can be one of the most important springboards for the rest of their lives, you can’t be too careful.

Dallas Surf has shown their commitment to you by hiring me. Working together, we can simplify what probably feels overwhelming.

⏰ When to Start

In my experience, planning ahead for success is far easier than playing catch-up. That’s why I advise families to begin during the fall semester of Freshman year.

If you want to start earlier, kudos to you! and if you’re playing catch-up, no worries — it just means we’ll need to work a little harder together.

🛠️ What You’ll Get

I’ve carefully crafted annual checklists and supporting materials that walk you through the process step by step. With the addition of FieldLevel as a recruiting resource, we now have everything you need to make this journey!

✅ I’ll also make myself available for 1-on-1 meetings with families so you’re never left guessing.

🏆 Proof of Success

Over the years, Surf players have committed to programs across Division I, II, III, NAIA, and JUCO. Every path looks different — but our program is designed to help every family find the right fit.

🚀 Ready to Begin?

I’m hoping that after reading this, you’ll check out the first level of resources on our website:

🔗 dallassurf.com/college

I will be here to answer any and all questions. We have the map, we are packed and ready — so let’s get going!

Best,
Lance Williams
lwilliams@dallassurf.com

• What does culture feel like?
• How do we live it?
• How do we sustain it?

Discussing and Defining Our MVP’s

We introduced our Mission, Vision, Values and Principles (MVPs) to define how we lead as a club.

Mission = Our Purpose – This is our North Star, why we exist. Every decision must be guided by this.

“The mission of Dallas Surf Soccer Club is to follow the Surf tradition of creating a Best of the Best soccer environment for all players, parents and coaches in the Dallas Fort Worth Metroplex.”

Vision = Our Aspiration – Our vision gives us direction. It’s the long-term aspiration of the club we are working to become.

“To be the standard of youth development in Texas. Known for competitive play, player centered coaching, and a relentless commitment to improvement. We aim to develop complete players, outstanding teammates, and future leaders, all while building a strong community rooted in Kaizen and the joy of the game.”

Principles = Our Guiding Behaviors

Principles are the specific actions and habits that bring our values to life. They’re what you see, hear, and feel when someone is truly living the culture — clear, observable behaviors that guide how we show up for our players and each other.

Bringing Culture to Life

Coaches worked in small groups to define our values. Each group created clear examples for what Standards, Unity, Respect, and Fearless look like on the field, in team behavior, and in communication.

We asked coaches to dig even deeper and define what each principle looks like in action. Not just buzzwords — but Visible, Specific, and Repeatable actionable language and behaviors that reflect who we are.

For example:

Value = Standards – We hold high expectations for ourselves and each other, every day.

Principle = Kaizen

• ❌ “Get better every day”
• ❌ “Work hard to improve”

These are motivational but not measurable. Instead, we encourage language like:

• ✅ Coach: Reflects at least 1x weekly on training sessions
• ✅ Player: Watches and reflects on 1 game/month
• ✅ Parent: Will only give feedback when invited by coach