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Maui camp with Dutch national coaches brings opportunity to train in Netherlands

By Robert Collias 5 min read

KAHULUI -- Vincent Moore knows just how fortunate he is as a 14-year-old soccer player on Maui this weekend.

The Kihei Charter School sophomore and member of the Valley Isle Soccer Academy will be part of a three-day youth soccer camp put on by coaches from the Royal Dutch Football Association (KNVB) at Keopuolani Park, Friday through Sunday.

The purpose of the camp is to identify Hawaii youth soccer players for an opportunity to travel to the Netherlands and train in the Dutch professional youth academy system next March.

"We get to be exposed to the great coaching experience by Dutch coaches that are coming over here and I think it will expose us to how we have to train even harder and work harder to compete with players in Europe," Moore said. "I think that it's a great opportunity."

Moore does not play high school soccer in the Maui Interscholastic League, but he hopes to continue his career through opportunities like he will get this weekend. A limited number of participants in the camp will earn the chance to travel to the Netherlands and train there after being evaluated by the coaches at the camp.

"That would be crazy," Moore said. "It would be, obviously, a new experience -- I have only been to Europe once, but it was only for vacation. It would be a great experience and it'd be crazy."

The camp is for boys in Hawaii born in the years 2007, 2008 and 2009. The event has filled up, with 70 participants.

Moore was born in 2007 and Cannon Vines was born in 2008. Vines, who is a VISA member as well, is set to be a freshman at Seabury Hall in the fall and plans to play for the Spartans, the Division II state runners-up in 2022.

"I'm pretty excited to see what the Netherlands coaches bring and how they coach us," Vines said. "It'll be a different experience."

Vines said he has been aiming for this opportunity for some time.

"Just trying to get in shape and make sure my fitness is up," Vines said. "I want to see how they think and kind of what they do. All over the world, there's all different places -- we're only a couple islands -- so there's an entire world out there to see what their skill level is.

"I want to learn a lot of different things like tactics, defensive strategies, kind of just what they do. It would be amazing to go and visit Holland and see what it's like with all their skill."

The coaching staff includes Paul Tonnis Koster, technical youth coordinator for the Royal Netherlands Football Association; Marvin van der Valk, first team coach and video analysis expert for NAC Breda; and Peter den Otter, first team assistant and goalkeeper specialist for Willem II.

The camp and training with the KNVB in the Netherlands, a first-of-its-kind opportunity for the state, was facilitated by Aleks Filipovic, president and director of coaching for VISA.

Corey Swatek is a 12-year-old born in 2009 -- he is a goalkeeper and a rising eighth grader at Carden Academy. He plans to play at King Kekaulike High School, the Division I state champions in 2022.

"I'm really excited, I'm excited to see all the new coaching levels and all the playing levels, seeing how different they are from the islands," Swatek said. "I've been playing for six, seven years, since I was small. I think I can get a lot out of this weekend because there's, instead of just coaches from other islands, there's coaches from all around Europe and around the world.

"I'm excited to see all the new coaching and the new players coming in."

Filipovic is excited to bring this camp to Maui -- there have been similar events here prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, but they were simply training camps without the chance to go to the Netherlands.

"The purpose is to have them go in March, hopefully, spring break to train, not just play, but train in a professional setting, in the professional Dutch academies," Filipovic said. "We have three clubs right now ... from the premier division, all of them wanting to help us and have the kids come and jump into the (training) sessions with their players, which I think is huge."

The camp came about through contacts Filipovic had in the Netherlands, which currently boasts the 10th-ranked men's team in the world.

"I had a little time in Holland with them and they took me through the process, how do they do things, because Holland is very good about identifying talent and maximizing talent because they're such a small country, relatively to some of the other countries in the world and they can compete always for some of the top spots in soccer," Filipovic said. "So, what are they doing? We want to know. It's one of the reasons why this came about as kind of an idea and now we're trying to put it in motion."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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