Monday was a special day for over 40 Female Travel Soccer Players as we welcomed former Olympian, World Cup participant, and Mexico women's national team captain Monica Gonzalez to the home of Bellport Soccer.

Monica is the founder of Gonzo Soccer, a unique training experience that offers playing opportunities to under privileged players throughout North and South America, while also teaching life skills and offering an all round empowering message to any female player that loves the game of soccer.

In a nearly two hour clinic, our girls were exposed to a training environment that Monica believes helped her get to the highest level and we are confident that each player left with a smile on their face and an appetite to continue playing the game for years to come.

We would like to express our gratitude to Monica for spending her time with us. Thank you Monica!

For more information on Gonzo Soccer, please visit the website www.gonzosoccer.org or follow them at #gonzosoccer.

We will also be holding a clothes drive in the coming few months to share with Monica's various charities. If anyone has any used soccer equipment that they would like to donate, please email bellportdoc@gmail.com to organize delivery.

Thanks again to Monica and to all of the girls that made the effort to come down.

Tom Williamson
SCYSL Director of Coaching

Rose Bench Dedication - Spring 2018

On June 10, 2018 the annual year end soccer festival stopped for 30 minutes to honor a SCYSL life member, Rose Ventiere. Rose's dedication to our league for over 30 years is the single most important reason that it continues today. Her dedication to volunteerism, her unparalleled community involvement and her fabulous meatballs made her a legend in our community. We thank her husband Jerry, and her sons Eric and Damon for sharing her with us for so long.

A bench was dedicated in her memory at the Bellport Middle School for all visitors to come and relax. It is how Rose offered up her home and her heart to all that knew her.

Please read the attached article that chronicles her life: www.longislandadvance.net/990/just-call-her-the-money-honey

As part of an ongoing effort to highlight the successes of our Travel Soccer Players, we are pleased to introduce the CSG Team of the Week.

On a weekly basis, Our CSG trainers will get together and discuss the effort and attitude of the players in each team that they work with, looking specifically at how that effort and attitude has translated into the most recent weekend of travel soccer games.

From there, individual players will be selected from each team, earning them a place in the CSG team of the week. The players will be selected based on their efforts and behavior in practice, and their attitude and performance in games.

As a reward for being selected, players will be entered in to a prize draw to win an International soccer jersey of their choosing from one of the nation's participating in this years World Cup.

Players can be selected for the team of the week more than once, which we hope will encourage consistency at both practices and games.

To view the teams of the week, please click here: View Teams.

Soccer Families,

As previously announced back in August of 2016, The introduction of Small-Sided Games will be nationally mandated at all youth soccer clubs throughout the United States come August of 2017. This will result in our club seeing specific changes to the field sizes, goals and rules for all players aged 12 and below.

As a club, we are incredibly excited to implement each of the rule changes. There are many benefits of Small-Sided Games, such as the players having more fun, more touches on the ball and being in a environment where they are making tactical decisions independently. The style of play will allow players to learn different positions, learn tactics quicker, increase fitness and allow players to be more emotionally and socially involved; creating a more fun and enjoyable game which is pretty much everything we strive for as a youth soccer program.

More information on Small Sided Games can be found at the links below.

Small-Sided Games FAQ: View FAQ (PDF)
Small-Sides Games USSF Standards Chart: View USSF Standards Chart (PDF)

In addition to player development, The Bellport soccer league strongly supports sportsmanship and fair play. To illustrate this, we would like to recognize 2 of our teams who went above and beyond to finish in 1st PLACE in Sportsmanship in their TRAVEL divisions for the Fall 2017 season! The winners are:


Bellport Bobcats U11 Girls - coach Annmarie

Bellport Warriors U11 Boys - coach Phil

***Honorable mention - 2nd place***

Bellport Impact - U11 Boys
Bellport Strike Force - U12 Boys
FC Bellport - U13 Boys
Bellport Fast & Furious - U10 Girls

We would like to congratulate the Coaches, Parents and Players on an impressive season and for setting an example for all our travel teams to follow.

Strike Force
LIJSL (5E) Fall Division Winners
LIJSL (4E) Spring Undefeated Division Winners
2017 Pocono Cup Champions

Bandits
LIJSL (S4) Spring Runner Up

Breakers
LIJSL (S3) Fall Runner Up

FC Bellport
2017 West Islip Indoor Tournament Champions

Breakaway
LIJSL (5E) Division Winners
2017 East Islip Indoor Tournament Champions

Quicksilver
LIJSL (3E) Fall Undefeated Division Winners

Blitz
LIJSL (6) Fall Undefeated Division Winners
LIJSL (5E) Undefeated Division Winners

Sharks
LIJSL Spring Cup Finalists

United
LIJSL (1) Fall Undefeated Division Winners