Birmingham United - Developing Players Into Competitors

Our Mission

Birmingham United's competitive soccer mission is to effectively develop players, technically and tactically, to achieve their personal goals in relation to the game of soccer.

Our Goal is for You to Reach Your Goals

The United staff's objective is to train you to reach your personal goals, whatever they may be. We will strive to give United's players the skill set needed to make the Alabama State Select team, the Regional ODP team, or the high school varsity soccer team; to help them pursue and gain a college scholarship; or to simply pursue the competitive enjoyment of the game. We focus on solid player development, which in turn results in highly competitive teams. All players considering Birmingham United can be confident that their skills will be greatly enhanced through their involvement with our competitive program.

Doing Your Part

Participants in the Birmingham United Competitive Program should possess a strong desire and commitment to pursue competitive soccer. If you have a strong work ethic, have the discipline to work on your individual skills according to our plan for your development, and are ready to make the commitment of your time to fully participate in training sessions and games, we can help you achieve.

We don't require that you enter the program as a highly skilled player, although the more you know at first the more rapidly we can help you progress. We will strive to find a spot on an appropriate team for any player who is committed to competing at a higher level.

How Your Team Is Structured

Birmingham United offers competitive teams at each age level, boys and girls, beginning at Under 11. The highest-level team in the program is known as the United Elite, and will typically compete (age and eligibility permitting) in US Youth Soccer's Region III Premier League, Alabama Youth Soccer Division I State League, and US Club Soccer activities. The next level will be known as the United Select, and will typically compete in Division I State League. The teams at the next level of play are known as United Premier teams and typically compete in the Division II State League. It's not a hard and fast rule that we will offer only one Elite, Select and/or Premier team in any given age group. For example, if we have enough Elite level players to field more than one Elite team, we'll do it, because it's the developmentally correct approach for the players.

Your team, regardless of its level of play, will have a highly qualified professional coach. The United staff hires and assigns all coaches based on their experience, the style of play they coach, and the best fit with the player pool. Your team also has a team manager to handle team logistics regarding game schedules, tournaments and team communications. Your team will be placed in the most appropriate competitive level based on the assessment of the coach and the United staff.

You will participate in selected in-state and out-of-state tournaments that are selected by your coach and the United staff to create the most appropriate development environment for your team. Older players seeking to play at a higher level will participate in specific showcase tournaments in order to be seen by regional, national, and college level coaches. Some tournament selections will be gender specific due to the competitiveness of the tournaments. Although we enjoy winning tournaments, the strength of the field from a developmental standpoint will be the greatest deciding factor in picking where your team will play. We will try to organize 1-2 tournaments per season that we will want most United teams to attend, partially because we like our family, but also because having multiple teams at a tournament allows the United staff to potentially move players around for a few games to enhance their development.

Other Developmental Opportunities

We offer additional training sessions to any players wishing to try out for the Alabama Olympic Development Program (ODP) state select teams and the US Club Soccer id2 program, which lead to opportunities for eventual selection to the US National Team player pools. While this may sound ambitious for Alabama, our approach is working: United currently has three players playing at the national pool level.

Every spring, we survey our high-school age players to identify those who might wish to remain in a more developmentally intensive environment than most high schools are able to offer. Players who choose to train with United year round may be pooled together into teams which travel to additional showcase events and work directly with college and regional / national staff coaches.