Team Chicago Academy-Cruzeiro continued its dominance in the MRL Premier I Division with a comprehensive 5-0 win over NSA Shooting Stars to take its record to a perfect 6-0-0 with 21 goals for and 2 against.

In the 9th minute Alyssa Bombacino found Jordan King who played an inch-perfect diagonal pass to Riley O’Brien who calmly walked around the GK for the eventual game-winner. 2 minutes later Kerry Abello beat the last defender and buried her shot at the foot of the far post after Jamie Goralski and Riley O’Brien had pulled the outside backs wide with their runs. And with 5 minutes left in the half Jamie Goralski beat 3 defenders inside the penalty box before she was tripped for a clear PK. Jordan King stepped up and put the PK away.

In the second half the Cruzeiro dominance was complete, but only two additional chances were taken for the final 5-0 scoreline. Alyssa Bombacino made it 4-0 when she ran onto Kerry Abello’s perfect cross inside the 6-yard box, and Jordan King found Kerry Abello with another inch-perfect diagonal pass for the final goal of the game.

Bailee Witt did not have much work to do in goal. However, she did come up with a great save on NSA’s only shot on goal to preserve her 4th shutout in 6 MRL games this Spring.

Next up for Cruzeiro are 3 IYSA State Cup Round-Robin games against Eclipse (Sunday), FC United (Wednesday), and Rockford Raptors (Saturday 5/24).

Team Chicago Academy-Palmeiras was looking to avenge an MRL loss against Lemont Raiders when the two teams faced off in their second round-robin game in IYSA State Cup last Wednesday.

Firing out of the gates, Palmeiras controlled the majority of the first half, but was very unlucky not to capitalize on any of its chances. Second half would prove to be very interesting as Palmeiras continued dominating and creating multiple scoring opportunities that were thwarted by the Raiders’ goalkeeper.

The breakthrough finally came with 12 minutes left in the game when Michael Vivo’s shot rebounded to Victor Cuevas, who found the back of the net to give Palmeiras a deserved 1-0 lead. Unfortunately, the lead wouldn’t hold as the Raiders found an equalizer off a set-piece. A truly heartbreaking result as Palmeiras dominated the game from start to finish and deserved the win.

Palmeiras will finish out the round-robin play against Galaxy on Sunday at 10am at the Naperville Polo Grounds. A win will advance Palmeiras to the IYSA State Cup Semi-Final.

The inaugural Chicago U.S. Soccer Training Center event went off with just a minor weather delay at PlayUSA last night. And the event brought some exciting visitors as U17 Women’s National Team Head Coach B.J. Snow and U15 Women’s National Team Head Coach April Kater were both here evaluating the players. And B.J. even brought his wife 2-time Olympic Gold-Medalist Lindsay Tarpley to observe the event. Both Lindsay and B.J. are former club, PDL, & ODP players of Team Chicago Elite Academy Director Phil Nielsen’s from their time together in Kalamazoo, MI.

The event brought together some of the top players in Illinois in the 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 birth years. Team Chicago was represented by:

1999:
Kerry Abello, Maggie Roe, Nicole Mondi, and Rachel Erdman.

2000:
Alyssa Bombacino, Jamie Goralski, and Jordan King.

2001:
Alex Salemy, Erin McCarthy, Natalie Massa, Nikki Coryell, Paige Miller, and Sophia Majher.

On Monday, May 12th, Team Chicago will be hosting the inaugural United States Soccer Federation Training Center in Illinois. The U.S.S.F. Training Center is designed to bring together by invitation the top female players from Illinois in the 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 birth years as identified by the U.S. National Team Staff, its scouts, and the Directors of Coaching from the elite clubs. U17 Women’s National Team Coach B.J. Snow will be in attendance to evaluate the players. Players will then either be invited into a National Team camp, asked to return to the next Training Center event, or replaced by new players from the area who have been identified.

The 2001s and 2002s players will be training 5:30-7:00pm while the 1999s and 2000s will be training 7:15-8:45pm

USSF Training Centers are designed to replicate national team training camps, and as part of creating this type of environment only players and coaches are welcome. Parents are not invited to stay and watch the training session.

As the National Governing Body of soccer in the United States, and under the auspices of the United States Olympic Committee, the U.S.S.F. is empowered and charged with developing the teams that represent the United States in all international competitions such as the Olympics and World Cup. The Training Center Program is an integral part of this process.

At this point this U.S.S.F program is only offered on the girls’ side, as the organization is heavily invested in the Development Academy program on the boys’ side.

Team Chicago Academy-Bahia continued their U13 MRL Premier I Division league play this past weekend.

The competition started off on Friday night with Bahia facing the Eclipse Pre-ECNL team at their facility. Bahia trailed 1-0 after giving up a goal off of a corner against the run of play. However, Bahia continued to fight and the efforts resulted in a great goal a few minutes later. The goal was a clinical finish by Zaira Solis who slotted the ball first time with her left foot past the keeper from about eighteen yards out. The play started with Katie Murphy playing a nice through ball for Molly Grant who beat the defender to play a great ball into Zaira’s path.

The second half produced a set-piece goal for each team with Sophia Majher getting credit for Bahia’s goal off a corner. The girls played well enough to deserve the win, and unfortunately gave up two goals off set-pieces to settle the game at 2-2.

In Sunday’s game against JB Marine (MO) Bahia opened the game with domination in all phases of the game, but unfortunately went down 1-0 off another restart. The girls continued to probe and created several scoring chances and finally got one back when a corner taken by Sophia Majher was deflected out to Jeff (Jennifer) Pochyly. Jeff took the ball first time out of the air to place the ball in the back of the net. Bahia came close on several occasions in the last ten minutes, but just couldn’t find the back of the net. The game ended with a draw at 1-1.

Special recognition to the backline for not allowing a goal in the run-of-play all weekend.