The gap from the youth to the professional ranks is large. There are thousands of youth clubs in the United States and little more than 50 professional clubs. Maziya Chete has seen the gap first hand as a lead coach with the Santos FC youth club in Columbus.
He believes that the the newly launched Columbus FC will help fill that void.
”We created a youth club in 1999,” Chete said referring to the long history of Santos FC in Columbus. “The progression was to establish a soccer club that would eventually develop players who want to move on to the next level.