Officially launched in 2016 prior to its first season in Major League Soccer (MLS), the Atlanta United Academy is one of the best MLS Academies nationally. The Academy consists of teams in age groups U-13, U-14, U-15, U-17 and U-19 that is pretty standard. The Academy trains and plays it’s official home games out of the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground home to comprehensive, modern and fully equipped coaching, athletic, sports science, and medical departments and training ground for the Atlanta United FC B and MLS teams.
The Atlanta United F.C. Academy system provides a very solid pathway for players who demonstrate the required potential and desire to reach the MLS team as a “In-House” Homegrown Player. With top of the line education, the Academy administration also assists athletes in finding opportunities to play soccer at top colleges and universities across the United States and Europe.
The Academy is free for all players that are selected to be a part of the structure.
What Atlanta United F.C. does well is identifying talented national and international players and turning them into USL athletes. In the past seasons, getting a player to go from USL Championship to the MLS has been a test that Atlanta had yet to pass, but this has changed in the past two seasons, with several homegrown players moving in to the first team roster. Now that they have unlocked that secret that other clubs have seem to figured they have now become a youth development treasure chest. Now that they are turning academy players into first team players they have completely changed the player development game and have immediately become a top tier academy.
The most advanced training facility in the MLS today is The Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Training Ground. A 33-acre site featuring a 30,000 square- Administrative building and six full-size fields including three natural grass and three Field Turf surfaces all fields are artificially lit.
Additional highlights of the training ground include:
- First team locker room with 22-foot ceilings and 14 elevated windows
- Six Academy Locker Rooms
- Full service kitchen and dining room with balcony access
- Show pitch featuring a 2,500-seat stand and separate Pavilion for viewing
- Sport science facilities including double height gym and two hydrotherapy plunge pools
The design of the site and club headquarters allows for future expansion of the complex. While other MLS Academies do not interact with the first team, the Children Healthcare of Atlanta Training Facility is designed to give the academy players the opportunity to observe and interact with the first team.
Price tag for all of this? $60,000,000 (Sixty Million Dollars!)
One of the six fields on the ground acts as a showcase pitch with the ability to seat over 2,500 spectators in stands that are colored red and black to represent the club’s five-stripe pattern on the home jerseys and crest. This field is primarily used for first team scrimmages and academy matches in addition to the US National Teams and international clubs, open training sessions, community matches and ID clinics.
The Facility could easily fit in as a top La Liga, Serie A or Premier League club training ground. In fact we personally see it as better than 80% of the training facilities in the top UEFA Leagues and by far the most modern and best equipped soccer training facility in the Americas!
