Coaching Rotation

Teams will rarely have a coach for more than 2 seasons. In the younger age levels we even try to keep coaches with a team only for one season. We think it is helpful to a player’s development to experience multiple coaches during their youth soccer career. Most coaches have certain age groups or genders suited to their experience, coaching education and personality. There are certain genders, age groups and teams needing a specific style or personality from their coach. In order for SCA to excel we think it important for coaches to become experts in certain age groups, through experience and coaches education - much like school teachers. While SCA has coaches who have and do coach both boy's and girl's teams, in various age groups, we are moving towards coaches staying in certain ages. Beginning this year some coaches will stay with their team for a second year however none will remain with their team for a third year. The Coaching Staff will always look at what is best for the player and team. 

Coaching Staff Qualifications

SCA has some of the finest soccer educators in Northern California. Our staff holds 6 USSF National "A",  4USSF National "B", 3 USSF National "C", 3Dutch Trainer II (5 month course in Holland) and one German National "B" license. The staff also has over 20 years of combined coaching experience at the District, State and Regional levels of ODP. The staff has 4 coaches who are with the US Club Soccer ID2 program. In addition our staff has 7 coaches who have coached at the college level at 7 different colleges.

Our staff’s commitment to being open to learning, improving constantly, working together and placing player development as our primary goal benefits our players immensely. These shared qualities and goals insure your child is trained with the most current training ideas and drills by our staff who embraces a positive coaching philosophy. Finally, the cooperation between our staff is unmatched benefiting your child’s soccer development immensely. 

Team Formation

Each season SCA forms new teams. Every player tries out for the next age group. This year’s players are not guaranteed a spot on a next year’s team. They earn their spot based on evaluation in a tryout against their peers and their participation during their previous season. Each season we reach an agreement with our players. This is for one season. This agreement is renewed when a player is selected for a team, after the tryout process. Every player will be given a fair chance to make a SCA team.  

Play-up Policy – What is best for the player?

All play-ups are reviewed on a year-to-year basis. The Coaching Staff believes there are only a handful of reasons for a player to play up in the U11-U19 age groups. Reasons are limited to issues surrounding player development and not based on social concerns. A previous year of playing up experiences will assist us in reaching a decision but it is not a valid reason to remain a play-up. The staff’s decisions will be made using an evaluation of the previous years experience combined with their knowledge of age group demands and the players projected development. We will always ask, “What is best for the player”?

Increasingly many of our competitions are played with US CLUB SOCCER passes and players are allowed to move freely between age groups and teams. Consequently the play-up “landscape” has changed in the past few years. Whereas playing up in CYSA used to be permanent for one year this is no longer the case. The Nor Cal Cup, Nor Cal Spring league and other US Club sanctioned tournaments are events in which players can move up or down depending on their age.  This change helps us immensely.

Requests or staff recommendations will be reviewed by the SCA coaching staff, after watching players in pertinent age groups, during tryouts. Parents who hope for their player to play-up must request so via email to SCA's Director of Coaching prior to the tryout at This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it  

Coaching Additions

This year we added new coaches to our already strong staff. These coaches are Ralph Motes, Josh Nazzal and Tiffany Chappell. We have a few more new Academy coaches we are interviewing as well.

Ralph Montes grew up locally and currently lives in Petaluma. He played his college soccer at SSU and Dominican. He has spent the last 15 years coaching High School and Youth soccer in Marin and Sonoma County. He is currently the Girls Varsity coach at Petaluma HS. Ralph is excited to be coaching within his hometown.

Josh Nazzal is a Petaluma native that has worked in many SCA programs over the years. He has also been a Petaluma United coach for the past few years. He currently works with the boys at St. Vincent High School.

Tiffany Chappell just finished her 4th season at SSU. She played her youth soccer in San Diego. She has spent the past 3 seasons working in different training programs for SCA. She has worked summer camps for SCA and SSU Women’s soccer and will be a great addition to our Academy.

2008-2009 Coaching Staff 

Directors

Director of Coaching and Soccer- Josh Sterling
Assistant Director- Andrew Ziemer
Academy Director-Vinnie Cortezzo
Director of Goalkeeping- Matt Bernard 

Boys

U11B- Matt Bernard
U12B- Ralph Montez
U13B- Ian Mork
U14B- Neil Turnbull
U15B- Matt Bernard
U16B- Eric Parish
U17B- Neil Turnbull
U18B- Andrew Ziemer

Girls

U11G- Trevor White

U12G- Trisha Ziemer
U13G- Vinnie Cortezzo
U14G- Trisha Ziemer
U15G- Vinnie Cortezzo
U16G- Trevor White
U17G- Josh Sterling

SCA North Staff to be announced
 

(NEW)- Player Development Academy- PDA

This year we will combine Petaluma United and SCA U8-U10 programs all under the SCA banner. This academy will be known as the Player Development Academy or PDA. We will have age level training pools instead of set teams.  Teams will be formed for events that the players are attending. There will be a base schedule and additional events that are optional. In addition we will add an internal 4v4 league in the Spring and Fall and will not play in CYSA D5 league 

Staff- U8, U9 and U10

Trevor White, Michael Manno, Chris Daly, Eric Parish, Megan Catton, Josh Nazzal, Tiffany Chappell and more to come……