As Republic FC continues its 2024 season, the club and El Dorado Hills Soccer Club (EDHSC) are partnering to advance player development at various levels of youth soccer. EDHSC has signed on to become a youth club partner for the next three years, joining Republic FC in growing the game and fostering a love for soccer across Northern California.
As an official Youth Club Partner, EDHSC will receive valuable resources provided by Republic FC’s Youth Programs staff. In addition to programming and coaching opportunities for players at the recreational level, the partnership will focus on strengthening the player pathway for those in EDHSC’s Comp Program, where coaches and players will receive advanced training experiences, as well as exposure to Republic FC’s Youth Academy.
Republic FC will also organize a special Regional Development Program (RDP) in El Dorado Hills each year. RDP is Republic FC’s top youth development program, offering opportunities for players to grow their skills and prepare for more competitive soccer.
We recently sat down with EDHSC President Trevor Holton, Sporting Director Paul Buckle, and Technical Director Glenn Shepherd to talk about the partnership, its goals for players, and growing the game across the Sacramento region.
What makes you excited about partnering with Republic FC?
PB: To have El Dorado Hills Soccer Club affiliated with Republic FC is just so exciting. Republic FC has established itself as such a successful club on and off the field, and to align ourselves with the organization in this way is just fantastic.
GS: It makes sense for us to build a pathway with the top soccer organization in our area, so to formalize this relationship is just the first step in helping us support our players’ development the best we can. That’s what our mission is – as coaches, as directors – to try to graduate our elite players to professional ranks. So partnering with Republic FC will help us begin to make that pathway easier to understand and more accessible than it ever has been for our players and their families.
TH: Our players and families love Republic FC, love going to their games, so this partnership fosters that enjoyment of soccer for people at all levels. We are all excited about this because there are going to be so many opportunities that come up over the next few years, not only for our players and coaches, but for the organization as a whole.
How does the partnership benefit players in El Dorado Hills?
GS: For the players in our Comp Program, this gives them a kind of map, a ladder, to use to identify what they need to do within their own game to reach the next level. And for our coaches, it will help us better identify a clear mission in what our ultimate goal is for our players.
PB: The biggest thing I am looking forward to showing everyone in our organization is what the youth development pathway looks like at the professional level. It brought me so many benefits as a player, and later on as a coach, and now our members, players, and coaches are going to get an opportunity to experience it. We want to show the community how serious we are about our club, and we want to keep raising the bar. And there’s no better club to do this with than Sacramento Republic.
How do you hope to help grow the game in the Sacramento region?
TH: I think that our region is saturated with good clubs and good players, and I think there are so many doors that can open if we collaborate to develop our players and grow the game. Why can’t we work together? Through this partnership with Republic FC, we want to show that we want to collaborate with the best clubs in the area, and that we are willing to team up with other organizations to set our players for success – and that we can do it in a way that still allows us to stay true our identity. So I think this relationship can serve as a model of how clubs can better work together to develop top players.
