A Pathway for More Than Just Players

Youth development is not splashy and it rarely makes the headlines, but it's the first building block from which some of the world’s superstars are born.

Nestled in the upper plains of southern Salt Lake City Valley, bright red, blue and yellow lined roofing sticks out like a monolith in the desert among the lines of houses and well-kept landscaping that make up suburban Utah.

It’s a building that has given way to some of soccer’s brightest young talent, but on the sidelines of the academy an ever more impressive development ladder is being climbed, rung by rung.

The success of the coaches from the Real Salt Lake Academy has been largely understated, the players are the crown jewels of the…